If he ever becomes a big-league manager, Mitch Canham almost certainly will quit some of this stuff. But for now, and with the young ballplayers in his charge, even the corny ideas seem to be working.
Like the construction hard hat with the logo of the Clinton (Iowa) Lumberkings, a full-season affiliate of the Seattle Mariners in the Class A Midwest League. Canham, the Clinton manager, had the idea of awarding the hat to the team’s Player of the Day.
“The players choose (the daily winner) and we pass the hat around,” Canham explained. “It brings everyone together.”
Then there is the sheet he posts on the dugout wall before every game. Each player is listed with a box for all nine innings, and players are asked to check the boxes for the innings they were fully engaged, both mentally and physically.
“I challenge them, ‘Can you say you were locked in for all nine innings? Because even if you’re not playing, is there something you can be doing for someone else?’ And the majority of the guys actually fill it out,” he said, speaking by telephone from Clinton.
The 31-year-old Canham, a 2003 graduate of Lake Stevens High School, played nine seasons in professional baseball before retiring in 2015. He returned home in the fall and began looking into other career opportunities. Soon after, he was contacted by Andy McKay, the Mariners’ director of player development, asking if he would consider managing in the team’s minor-league system.
After interviewing with McKay and others in Seattle’s front office, Canham said yes, and in early April he was in Clinton for the start of the Lumberkings’ 140-game schedule.
So how is it going?
“It depends on what day you ask me, I guess,” Canham said with a chuckle. “But this team is a great group of guys. And I don’t even refer to them as guys when I talk to them. I refer to them as men because that’s what I expect them to act like, just as I expect them to go about their business in a professional manner.”
Many of the players were with the Everett AquaSox a year ago, including Braden Bishop, Alex Jackson, Luis Liberato, Logan Taylor, Arturo Nieto, Ryan Uhl, Conner Hale, Kyle Wilcox, Dylan Silva, Joey Strain, Lance Thonvold, Joe Pistorese, Spencer Hermann and Darin Gillies.
“We have a lot of selfless people on this team, which makes it fun to come to work each day,” Canham said. “And we’re playing really well.”
So well, in fact, that over the weekend the Lumberkings clinched one of the two first-half playoff spots in the Western Division. Winning a title, Canham said, “is very important to the organization.”
But being a minor-league manager is not just about winning. Canham’s task is to groom athletes to play at the major-league level, and that means he has more to do than simply fill out lineup cards and flash signals from the third-base coaching box. Each day he sits down with members of the team — sometimes one player, sometimes a few — “and we have lengthy conversations about life, performance, anything,” he said. The idea, he went on, “is to be approachable and to build strong relationships.”
Along the way, he said, “sometimes you give them good news, sometimes you have to give them bad news, and sometimes you have to push them really hard.”
Canham lists four primary objectives for his players: 1) Do the right thing, even though “it’s not always popular and it’s not always easy. But if you know what the right thing is, do it.” 2) Focus on the process because “the results are going to happen if you prepare the proper way.” 3) Be a selfless person because “everything we do, we do for the benefit of the guy next to us.” 4) Try to have fun each and every day.
His messages to the players and all his other approaches to managing are something the Mariners envisioned when he was hired back in December.
“The thing I felt really strongly about Mitch is that it was going to be a culture building (experience) and that he would be a mentor to these players,” said Andy McKay, Seattle’s director of player development. “We wanted to create a clubhouse that would make these kids excited about being a Mariner. That’s what I was banking on and he’s really delivered on all of that.
“In terms of managing a minor-league team, he’s learning every day. He started out with zero experience and right now he’s got about 70 games of experience. But I was also banking on him being a quick learner and he is. … We couldn’t be happier with the job he’s doing there.”
Canham has been joined in Clinton by his wife, Marlis, his son, Mack (3), and daughter, Mya (almost 2). It has been, he said, “a huge blessing to have my family out here with me. Regardless of what goes on on the field, I get to spend time with them and it brings a lot of joy to my heart just knowing they’re here. … I couldn’t do this without my family, and so having them here all the time is great.”
There have been other highlights, too. In spring training Canham was in the Peoria, Arizona, clubhouse one day and in walked Dan Wilson and Jay Buhner, Mariners standouts when Canham was still a boy in Lake Stevens.
“They came in and I was like, ‘Oh, my goodness, somebody grab a camera,’” Canham recalled. Moments like that have been, he added, “kind of a childhood dream come true.”
Though he is enjoying his time as a first-year manager, Canham is undecided about the future.
“I’m still praying on that,” said Canham, a committed Christian. “I’m (barely) halfway through the season, so we’ll see how the second half goes … mentally, physically and spiritually, and also in the (upcoming fall) instructional league. But now that I’m here, I’m locked in and I’m going to give it everything I’ve got.
“When the season is over I’m going to sit back, take a breath and go through it with my family,” he said. “But I do enjoy it. I love coming to the field every day and I love the organization that I’m a part of. I can see myself being involved in this kind of thing (in the future), especially when it’s the Mariners organization. So I’m very grateful for this.”
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