We almost had an Uncle Bobby

According to the Chronicle's David Barron, Bobby Valentine was almost an owner of the Astros:

“I was part of a group of people who were thinking about buying (the team). I don’t know if they were for sale last winter, but there was a group that was entertaining that act.”

First: It seems odd that you would be part of a consortium to buy a team without knowing if they were for sale.

Anyhow, elaborate, Bobby:
“They needed to be revitalized. It was on the shelf too long. It was the same people making the same decisions, having the same players that they held stock in. They needed a facelift. They needed to make wholesale changes, and with Oswalt and Berkman gone now, they are free to do that...

...If you’re one of them, you can do no wrong. They love their winners, and these guys helped them win and brought them great memories, and they just kept clinging to them.

What about the current Astros?
“They may have scored as many runs in the last month as anybody in baseball. They’re creating a new kind of dimension with that ballpark. They seem to be very active offensively. Some of their young pitchers will have to earn their stripes, and it’s a tough thing. You have to earn your way.”

Que interesante!

Valentine may return to Japan

Smiley Rosenthal said today that the Yokohama Bay Stars are making a hard push at bringing Bobby Valentine on board as their manager.

How does this affect the Astros? Not so much, says Rosenthal:

Valentine, currently working for ESPN, is not aggressively pursuing the Nationals' opening and is not believed to be a serious candidate for the Astros, sources say.

Has Drayton called Bagwell and Biggio?

Jon Heyman heard that he did.

Astros owner Drayton McLane called to gauge interest on the part of Astros icons Jeff Bagwell and Craig Biggio in Houston's managerial job. But for now...they remain just two names on a very long list of possibilities. A person familiar with their thinking said to add Don Baylor and Scott Servais to a managerial list that's reported to include interim Dave Clark plus Al Pedrique, Tim Bogar, Brad Ausmus, Manny Acta and Jim Fregosi.

I hadn't heard Baylor and Servais' names before. But further on we see that Barry Axelrod, agent for both Bagwell & Biggio, "could have interest" in the job, but both are considering the timing of the opportunity.

Later we see this, about Bobby Valentine:
He is leaving his $4 million-a-year job managing the Chiba Lotte Marines for an analyst position at ESPN but would expect to earn a lot closer to the $4 million mark to manage. And the Marlins paid only two of their players -- Hanley Ramirez and Dan Uggla -- as much as $4 million last year.

With the Astros already paying Cooper around $800K to not manage the team next year, and with a payroll that will be considerably lower than 2009's $107 million, I bet Valentine is out of the Astros' pay scale.

Olney doesn't list Astros as a fit for Valentine

Buster Olney's blog post this morning lists some possible destinations for Bobby Valentine. Houston isn't one of them.

The possibilities?
Cleveland (who want to have their manager hired by the end of the World Series): The hiring of Valentine would be something very different, given his history of success and his personality and energy level, and in many respects, he and general manager Mark Shapiro would be a perfect fit: They are both problem-solvers at heart, which is what you need to be to engender success in a small market.


Washington: Valentine would be a suitable caretaker for a team that is easily the worst in the major leagues, at the ground floor of general manager Mike Rizzo's reconstruction -- and Rizzo is building a foundation that must, out of necessity, be built on pitching.

Florida: And if you just assume Loria is a status-quo type of guy, don't forget he fired Joe Girardi after one season in which Girardi was named manager of the year.

Toronto: If, in fact, Beeston agrees with the players that Gaston has become an untenable managerial option for the Jays, Valentine might emerge as a candidate for a franchise that will be seeking ways to reinvent itself and sell itself, while sharing a division with two big-money monsters, the Yankees and Red Sox.

Get your erasers ready to scratch Valentine's name off the list

An ESPN report claims Bobby Valentine is in talks with the Florida Marlins.

At a time when Bobby Valentine has begun the process of talking with teams about a possible return as a manager in Major League Baseball, sources said he is in communication with the Florida Marlins about a possible position with that team -- less than eight months after Marlins manager Fredi Gonzalez received a two-year extension.

Personally, I hope this happens. Because if the Marlins drop Fredi Gonzalez eight months after a two-year extension, it makes Drayton & Ed look like Father Time.

Valentine: Just look at my interview notes from 13 years ago

David Barron's TV-Radio Notebook this morning addresses Bobby Valentine's interest in being Manager 16:

"They've heard my spiel (when he applied for the job in the 1990s) without the sushi connotations added to it. So if, in fact, I was something that would strike their fancy, they know what I'm all about."

Hm. That's...abrupt.

Valentine "committed" to ESPN

Dave Sheinin of the Washington Post participated in a conference call with newest ESPN employee Bobby Valentine.

Since it's in the Post, it focuses mainly on the Nationals' managerial opening, though Sheinin graciously notes that Houston needs a manager, too. On that ESPN out clause though, Norby Williamson, ESPN's Executive VP of Production, says:

"Teams, at some point, would be crazy not to approach Bobby to manage their teams... I'm OK with that. People's aspirations change."

This "Norby" also says that he expects Valentine to be employed by ESPN through 2010.

An excerpt:
Asked whether he would be willing to step into a rebuilding situation, such as that of the Nationals, who have lost 100-plus games in back-to-back seasons, Valentine said he was more interested in a team's future direction than its past mistakes.

"I don't know about 100-loss seasons," said Valentine, "But I do know about a No. 1 draft choice [pitcher Stephen Strasburg] that was signed. I don't necessaily know about the baseball culture of many cities, other than the ones I've worked in. But I can tell you what would draw me to any job would be the people I would be working with day in and day out, who would have to be on same page, pulling in the same direction."

That could, or could not, be Houston.

Bobby Valentine returning to ESPN

Bobby Valentine, who has spent the last six seasons managing Chiba Lotte in Japan, is returning to Baseball Tonight as an analyst.

Why is this important? He's a trendy name for Manager 16. However:

Valentine, who previously worked for ESPN in 2003, will take on expanded duties in 2010. He will appear on "Baseball Tonight" and 1050 ESPN Radio in New York, and contribute to ESPNNewYork.com, the local ESPN sports site that launches next year.

Does this disqualify him? Not necessarily, as Yahoo's Gordon Edes explains Valentine could have an out clause in his contract should he be offered a managerial position.