Manuel labor of love

LAST YEAR, two 70-something, lifelong baseball men needed a respite from the unforgiving Florida summer sun. Former Phillies manager Charlie Manuel and longtime Phillies minor league coach Mike Compton took in a Gulf Coast League game in Tampa.

They watched. They waited. They sweated.

"It was 12 o'clock, it was about 100 degrees and the humidity was 98 [percent], with no shade," Manuel said. "Compton and I are sitting over there and it seemed like the first five, six innings, it was never going to get over. The score was 14-6. They had a 10-run rule and I was kind of pulling for the other team to score a couple more runs.

"I told Compton, 'Watch us tie it up and go 16 innings.' We tied it up. We went 14 innings. I was sweating the whole time. That was a rough day. But everything about it was good.''

Manuel is eager to begin his 53rd year in professional baseball this spring.

For fans of the 2008 World Series-winning manager, the Phillies' 2015 season will be special: After spending most of last summer under the radar, Manuel is back in red pinstripes this year. For the first time since being fired as the club's manager 17 months ago, No. 41 will be patrolling the fields along the Carpenter Complex in spring training, peeking his head into batting cages and hollering last-second tips to prospects and veterans alike.

"It's going to be good," Manuel said Friday, before being honored at the 111th Annual Philadelphia Sports Writers Association Awards Dinner. "I miss being in the clubhouse. I miss being on the field. I definitely miss being around the guys."

Manuel, the franchise's all-time leader in managerial wins, was rehired as a senior adviser to the general manager last January. Last month, general manager Ruben Amaro Jr. said Manuel would be utilized more this spring in an effort to improve the organization's hitting woes.

"He'll be more involved," Amaro said. "We'd be dumb not to utilize him."

The Phillies' offensive inefficiencies have been well-documented in their fall from perennial playoff team to National League East cellar-dweller.

A brief recap: Only two big-league teams, the Reds and Padres, had a lower OPS than the Phillies' .665 last season. The Phillies scored 619 runs last year; only six teams scored fewer.

The runs scored was actually a step up from 2013, when the Phillies scored 610 runs (fourth worst in baseball) while sporting a .690 OPS (seventh worst).

"We're going to do several things differently as far as the hitting is concerned; we're still working on that," Amaro said last month at the winter meetings. "We're going to work on things a little differently than in the past as far as offense is concerned. One of the major things that came out of our organizational meetings [after last season] is we're going to have to start doing some things differently throughout the organization offensively. It's a little tougher to do with veteran guys, but I hope to have a much younger team we can influence better. We're going to do things differently. Significantly differently, actually."

Amaro was asked to elaborate on what that meant.

"I can't," he said.

On Friday, Manuel was asked what those changes entailed. Does a hitting mindset need to be changed throughout the organization?

"To a certain extent, yeah," Manuel said. "But at the same time almost all of the hitters are completely different. We have to teach our hitters how to make adjustments. We have to teach them to improve their approach, their swing - things that we don't like. At both levels [the major and minor leagues]. They need to understand that it gets back to who they are, what kind of player they are and it's where the 'know thyself' comes into play. And what they have to accomplish as a player to become a big-league player or to stay in the major leagues.

"Like little guys overswinging and striking out a lot . . . We don't talk about walks, we talk about getting good balls to hit. And if you don't get good balls to hit, then you will have walks . . . I think the problem in the major leagues right now is the pitching is ahead of the hitting. They have so many pitches and command them. They do their homework better as far as video and reports, all the information that is out there. They know who will walk and who won't. They know who they can strike out, and who they can't."

Working with hitters both young and old isn't anything new to Manuel. Although he has a reputation as a manager who meshes well with veterans, Manuel thinks people often forget he made his bones in baseball at the development level, including work as a minor league manager for nine seasons with the Minnesota Twins and Cleveland Indians.

"To see someone really become good, like a Jim Thome or a Kirby Puckett, Manny Ramirez, guys like that, there's nothing more rewarding than that," Manuel said.

But Manuel didn't limit his success stories to future Hall of Famers. He also brought up outfielder Wayne Kirby, who didn't get a long look with Cleveland in the big leagues until 1993, when he was 29. Kirby spent parts of eight seasons in the major leagues.

"When somebody has to really work to improve, improve their game - that might be just as rewarding," said Manuel, who turned 71 earlier this month.

You can place a pretty safe bet that Manuel will get to work this spring with Domonic Brown, the 27-year-old former top prospect and All-Star who hit .235 with a .634 OPS last season. But Manuel will coach developing prospects, too.

Last season, Manuel worked with Maikel Franco early in the summer. The tutelage helped awaken Franco from a 2-month slump.

"I'm definitely looking forward to getting involved, talking hitting and getting around our coaches in the system," said Manuel, who was inducted into the Phillies Wall of Fame last summer. "I look for us to improve in our system . . . We definitely need to develop our hitters. I haven't seen all of the talent we have, but we have some young guys, like [Roman] Quinn, [J.P.] Crawford, guys like [Aaron] Altherr, Franco. We've got 10, 12 of those guys. Some of those guys are going to be big-league players in the future for us. I think the more they learn, the more they get from the minor leagues, you'll see their performances getting better."

Manuel didn't have to swallow his pride to put the Phillies uniform back on - it's where he felt most comfortable. He was offered the Baltimore Orioles' hitting-coach job this winter and had interest from "four or five other teams," but said the talks didn't last all that long.

Like Larry Bowa, who returned to the organization twice during his coaching career, including after he was fired as manager, Manuel sees himself as a Phillie.

"I get along real good with Ryno," Manuel said of current manager Ryne Sandberg. "I'm not here to cause any problems, I'm here to help. I want to be a part of something. I want to see us compete and get back to where we were."

Blog: ph.ly/HighCheese