Ken Macha is doing it again.The manager who has never had a losing season -- not as a minor league manager, major league coach or major league manager -- has the Brewers playing some of the best baseball in the big leagues.
As they head into this weekend's series with the Cardinals, who are tied with the Brewers for first in the NL Central, the Brewers have won 18 of their last 24.
While Macha would be the first to tell you that the players are more responsible for winning than the manager, this team has Macha's fingerprints all over it.
Last year the Brewers were below the league averages in walks and on-base percentage. This year they rank fourth in on-base percentage and second in walks. Add that to their league-leading 47 homers and...
"It's a Moneyball kind of thing," Macha told FanHouse on Friday. "We've been showing some plate discipline and getting on base and hitting a few homers. That's pretty good combination."
Before you flip out at the notion of Macha taking a page from a book about Billy Beane, the man who fired him, realize that Macha had issues with Beane and his management style (more on that later), not necessarily his philosophies.
Macha has brought more of the A's practices to Milwaukee. Third base coach Brad Fischer, who was the bullpen coach in Oakland, has helped the Brewers pitchers have more intense preparation and knowledge of the statistical tendencies of the opposition.
"That's something that Fisch was into with (A's pitching coach Curt Young)," Macha said. "We've got our computerized stats program that we look at. The pitchers aren't overpowering, but they have the ability to make pitches. We give them a plan and Jason Kendall (also from Oakland) listens to the plan and helps them carry it out."
Pitching was supposed to the Brewers problem after they lost CC Sabathia and Ben Sheets. It looked like they would be in trouble when they started the season with a 5.46 ERA in the first 11 games. Since then, Brewers pitchers have a 3.43 ERA. They went from walking 5.0 batters per nine innings in the first 11 games to 3.0 since then.
"Mach has things that he did in Oakland that he knows works that he's trying to apply here," Fischer said. "You can tell he's got confidence in what he's doing."
He ought to have confidence, considering his record. In 12 previous years as a coach or manager, Macha has never been part of a losing team: four years as a minor league manager in the Boston system, four years as the A's bench coach, four years the A's manager.
In his final year with the A's, Macha led the team to the American League Championship Series, but then he was fired. Beane cited a "disconnect" and several players had harsh words about Macha's interpersonal skills.
For the next two years, Macha sat on his streak of 12 consecutive winning seasons, unable to find another suitable job in baseball. He's not sure how much his reputation was hurt by the circumstances surrounding his exit from Oakland, but it certainly didn't help.
Kendall, who was on Macha's final A's team, said the public criticisms after he was fired were "blown out of proportion, 99.9 percent of it... Him and Billy didn't get along. That's all it was."
Macha went to work selling himself. During spring training in 2008, he traveled to Arizona and met with "five or six GMs" to let them know he was interested in getting back into baseball.
Milwaukee GM Doug Melvin finally was convinced last fall to give Macha another chance, and so far it's working out for both parties. Melvin and Macha have a winning team, and Macha also has a chance to see what it's like to manage without Beane looking over his shoulder.
"We went on a road trip here and I didn't hear from Doug one time," Macha said.
He told a story about a day this spring when he and Melvin were discussing the rotation, and Melvin said: "That's your call."
"That's your call," Macha repeated, as if they were some sort of magic words.
Fischer, a first-hand witness to the relationship between Beane, Macha and Art Howe before that, said he sees a revitalized Macha with the Brewers.
"He seems to be able to relax," Fischer said. "I don't know he could always do that when he was there. Doug is an extremely calm, comfortable person to be around. It's comfortable around here, as opposed to always being on edge, like he was in Oakland."
The similarity is the winning, which is what matters most. Ask Macha how he's doing, and he'll give his signature answer, the same one he gave in Oakland.
"I'm at the top of my game, you know that," he said. "But sometimes I stretched what the top of my game was."
