An 8 a.m. phone call awoke Randy Knorr on the morning of Sept. 1, 1991. Knorr, a 22-year-old minor league catcher for the Syracuse Chiefs, picked up and listened to his “smartass” manager, Bob Bailor, convey what Knorr considered to be just as much of a prank as it was a wake-up call.

“Randy, they’re going to send you to the big leagues after the game today,” Bailor told Knorr.

Those are words Knorr dreamed of hearing, but when that he finally did, they didn’t make sense. He had to wait a day. He was still in the Chiefs’ lineup, even though call-ups usually sit to avoid injury. He was sure this was a prank drawn out too long.

But the next day, Knorr stopped questioning the reality he’d chased for so long, played nine innings in Syracuse and got on a plane to join the Toronto Blue Jays at Yankee Stadium. He stepped on the field for batting practice, his mind racing to Yankee legends who had graced that same diamond years before. He was happy. He wanted to scream.

“Playing in the big leagues was unbelievable,” Knorr said. “It was the greatest moment of my life when I was up there.”

Knorr played parts of 11 major league seasons with five different clubs. He surpassed 100 plate appearances in just four of them. His big league career was ordinary.

As Knorr returns for a second stint as Chiefs manager during the team’s final season before the Mets’ affiliate moves into NBT Bank Stadium, that’s exactly why players love him. In Knorr, they see a reflection of themselves. They see a baseball guy who does everything he can to climb the system and fulfill an MLB dream. Because, even now at 49, Knorr still fits that description. Triple-A manager is not, and never was, an end goal.

“Everybody wants to be in the big leagues,” Knorr said. “It’s an exciting game up there. I’m the kind of guy that would like to have a shot at managing one day…I would like to find out if I can do it or not.”

Joe Bloss | Senior Staff Writer

It isn’t a secret that Knorr seeks a big league managing gig. He played his last four seasons with the Expos/Nationals organization, went straight into managing their low-A team in 2005 and ascended through the ranks to manage Triple-A Syracuse in 2011. The next year, he became Nationals bench coach under Davey Johnson.

Under Johnson, Knorr absorbed from a World Series-winning manager how to balance bullpen workloads and why hollering at umpires was a waste of time. But playoff failure tainted a 98-win campaign. Postseason absence soiled 2013. The Nats fired Johnson and needed a new manager.

Knorr, two years smarter and familiar with the roster, interviewed and was considered a top in-house candidate. Friends gathered for the Nats’ final 2013 series in Arizona just in case a promotional celebration became necessary. It never did. Weeks later, word leaked that the Nationals planned to go outside the organization and hire Diamondbacks third base coach Matt Williams.

Before general manager Mike Rizzo could call Knorr to reveal they went with the other guy, Knorr and some friends drank at a golf course to get the disappointment out. He was so close to that big league job. Being close in baseball doesn’t count.

“I don’t know what to improve on,” Knorr said. “I wish somebody would have told me, ‘Well, if you had said this, or if you would have done this,’ maybe I could make those changes. But I’ll never know.”

Knorr stayed on as bench coach under Williams’ two seasons in charge as the Nationals underachieved again. After two years in an adviser role working with the organization’s minor league staffs, Knorr itched to get back in the game. After the Nats fired Dusty Baker, they hired another new manager in Dave Martinez. Knorr interviewed to be rookie manager Gabe Kapler’s bench coach in Philadelphia, a job that went to longtime Yankees bench coach Rob Thomson.

Recently, some teams have opted for analytically-driven minds over dugout experience and conventional baseball wisdom. Five of the six MLB managers hired this past offseason lacked true managerial experience. The Yankees’ Aaron Boone came straight from a TV job. Boston’s Alex Cora was one year removed from the same. Kapler technically had one season as a manager, but it was a brief stint in low-A ball in the middle of his playing career.

Knorr differs from that mold. Self-described as “old school,” he isn’t changing. He trusts his gut more than he relies on a spreadsheet of launch angles or spin rates. He doesn’t deny analytics — he uses them every day — but he believes there’s no replacement for what he knows about his players. There must be a balance, he said, between the information he gets from the numbers and from his eyes.

“I know when a player’s not feeling good,” Knorr said. “Now, his stats might say he’s 6-for-10 off the guy and he should be playing that day, but I know he’s having trouble at home or he’s not feeling good or his swing’s not there.”

That’s the style Knorr developed as a baseball lifer. He hasn’t held a job outside of the game since the 1989 offseason, when he helped out a friend by working the holidays at McAn’s Shoes in Los Angeles. It was a convenient placement for both parties: Knorr met his late wife who worked across the street, and his buddy had an employee he didn’t have to worry about firing when the holidays were up — Knorr inevitably quit to get back to baseball.

Joe Bloss | Senior Staff Writer

It’s a style that’s earned him the designation of the ultimate player’s manager. Jack Spradlin, a former reliever in the Nationals organization, said Knorr often offered advice about which pitch to throw in a certain situation; such is the job of a manager and former catcher. But Spradlin also recalled Knorr’s tendency to leave the dugout to receive warmup pitches if the catcher was still putting on equipment. Adam Carr, another former Nationals pitcher, entered spring training in 2010 knowing a poor few weeks could get him released. Knorr pushed to have Carr on his roster at Double-A Harrisburg, and Carr went on to have one of his better professional seasons, posting a 2.75 ERA over 72 innings.

Both Carr and Knorr moved up to Syracuse in 2011. One April evening, Carr entered with a one-run lead in the eighth. Minutes later, Knorr and the infielders gathered on the mound to discuss Carr’s five-run blown save. The pitcher apologized for “getting lit up like a Christmas tree.” All second baseman Seth Bynum remembers was Knorr’s laughter. The manager was relaxed. He had been in huddles like that before. He sent Carr back out a few days later. Carr didn’t allow another earned run for nearly three weeks.

“He understands the game and understands that things like that happen and the importance of firing his players back out in those situations to rebuild their confidence,” Carr said. “…You weren’t upset at the fact that you blew the game. You were more upset at the fact that you failed Randy because he’s put so much time and effort into making you as a person and a player great.”

Bynum called Knorr “one of the dudes.” Zech Zinicola, another pitcher in the organization, didn’t overlook the casual conversations that showed Knorr cared on a personal level. Sometimes that meant a passing “How’s your day, Z?” Other times, it was a dugout chat about Knorr’s affinity for “cat” players over “dog” players because the “cats” require less attention and guidance.

“He’s not just a manager that you’re trying to put up numbers for so he can put in a good word for you to move up,” Zinicola said. “You’re trying to do well for him because you respect him.”

Most of the players from Knorr’s 2011 season in Syracuse are out of baseball, but Knorr has returned to help a new batch of minor leaguers trying to make The Show. For now, with the Mets’ impending move into NBT Bank Stadium clouding his future, that is the joy of the job. Because until Knorr can experience the call again himself, it’s as close as he’ll get.

“Every time I send one of these players up to the big leagues,” Knorr said, “it’s the best thing I could do that day.”

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Published on May 10, 2018 at 6:20 pm

Contact: jtbloss@syr.edu | @jtbloss