While manager of the Pittsburgh Pirates, Jim Leyland watched an infielder taking ground balls before a game.
“You know what?” he said to Alfredo “Al” Pedrique, “You can be a good manager.”
Stunned, Pedrique replied, “C’mon Jim, I want to play (a long time) in the big leagues.”
From watching Pedrique at practices and in the dugout, Leyland discovered that Pedrique “has a calm demeanor, and is a student of the game. He was always asking questions and was very knowledgeable. Those are the ingredients for a good manager.”
Starting in 1995, the Valencia, Venezuela native has been managing and coaching in the minors and majors, with stops in between as a scout and minor league field coordinator. In all, he’s managed 2,003 games over 16 seasons in affiliated minor league baseball, going 1,050-953, and spent a winter at home in Venezuela managing the Caribes de Anzoategui in 2012, as well as part of a season as the interim manager of the Arizona Diamondbacks.
While Pedrique played three seasons in the big leagues, he was always around good players and said he noticed how those men “went about their business,” which is one of the things he’s tried to impart to the hundreds of young men and teenagers he’s overseen in towns and cities across America.
For the past two seasons, he’s helmed the Reading Fightin’ Phils, Philadelphia’s Double-A affiliate in the Eastern League in Reading, Penn.
The won-loss record in the minors isn’t always impressive, but skippers below the big leagues are also tasked with teaching youngsters a myriad of lessons, from how to comport themselves on and off the field, how to face a slump and even how to shop for the right foods.
His first assignment was to helm the Spokane Indians in the Northwest League, a short-season Class-A affiliate of the Kansas City Royals.
He had retired as a player after the 1994 season, and asked teams for a position in the minors. The Royals Kansas City Royals farm director told him he could manage the Spokane Indians.
Twenty-three youngsters played for Pedrique that year. One of them, Mark Quinn, made it to the major leagues. Nearly 30 years later, Quinn remembers how Pedrique set the standard for his future managers.
Pedrique, he said, “was my very first professional manager. And I don’t know if he knew it, but he kinda set the bar high for every manager after that. We looked him up, and I told my dad who he was and my dad remembered him as a big league infielder.”
“He was a true professional. We could tell because I had some managers after him who hadn’t played in the big leagues and you could definitely tell the difference between a manager who had played in the big leagues and or a coach who had played in the big leagues versus the one that didn’t. “He treated us all with respect. He. treated us like professionals, and I thought he was great for all of us guys getting our first summer of pro ball,” said Quinn, who played four seasons with the Royals and now runs a baseball school in Texas.
Pedrique had been managing in the New York Yankees’ minor league system when Preston Mattingly, the Phillies one-time director of player development and now assistant general manager, hired him to helm the Reading club. Mattingly had known Pedrique when he worked with his father, Don Mattingly, then-manager of the Miami Marlins.
Why did Mattingly choose Pedrique?
“Number one, he has a tremendous amount of experience. He’s done a lot of things in the game. Big league manager, third base coach in field coach, like he’s done a lot of things. So I think he comes with a tremendous amount of experience. Al has a terrific work ethic. He has an energy to him that is unmatched. and I think he has a very good temperament with players and able to help them improve and move their career forward,” said Mattingly.
In 2017, then Oakland A’s General Manager Billy Beane, who knew Pedrique when they were in the Mets’ minor league system, hired Pedrique to be the team’s third base coach.
“I’ve always wanted to get him over here, the timing was just never right before,” Beane said in a San Francisco Chronicle story. “Al was always the hardest worker in the room since he was 18 years old. He was quiet, and in a minor-league system that was filled with big personalities, everyone absolutely loved him. He’s one of those guys who listens before he speaks.”
Now 64, Pedrique began playing baseball in his native country when he was five. At 18, he signed with the New York Mets, who sent him to a minor league team in Little Falls, N.Y. The New York-Penn league town had about 6,000 residents then (it’s down to 4,500 now). Pedrique knew a little English – he had studied it in high school. But it wasn’t the only the language barrier that affected him so much as it was a condition teenagers think they’re immune to: homesickness.
A week after he arrived, he went to see the team’s general manager.
“I asked him for my release. ‘I want to go home,’” he told the general manager, “and he said I gotta call the Mets, that’s not my decision, but I was homesick,” he said.
The general manager told him to call his parents. He talked to his father, and then his mother got on the line.
“She said, ‘if you want to come back, you’re going right to school, you’re going to college, you’re not going to hang around the street, or working a job,’ so, thank God I listened to them, and I listened to the general manager that time in Little Falls, New York,” he said.
It took nine years before Pedrique made it to the Major Leagues with the Mets in 1987. In May of the following year he was traded to the Pirates. He was named to the Topps All-Rookie team that season.
“They gave me a unique trophy. It’s one of my favorite things I have in my office back home (in Tucson, AZ),” he said.
He finished his career with the Detroit Tigers, which meant he played for Davey Johnson, Jim Leyland and Sparky Anderson.
“So I’m a lucky man, I played for some good managers and I learned a lot from all three at the major league level,” he noted.
That first season as a manager, his 1995 Spokane roster included Latin players from the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Venezuela and Mexico. “A lot of the kids, you know, were homesick …they didn’t want to eat American food, they didn’t like pizza, didn’t like the burgers, so that’s where I remember how I felt in 1978, and then shared my experience with them, having that experience I helped them out.”
“Jose Tartabull Sr., he was my first hitting coach, so we both made sure that we took the kids to the grocery story once or twice a week, we took them to a nice restaurant so they can eat a decent meal, so that’s how I’ve been trying to help the Latin players from my coaching career.”
Mark Quinn wasn’t homesick during his season in Spokane. He was 21 “and living my dream, playing pro baseball, so that was the last thing on my mind, what was going on at home, or missing my family. I just remember Al being one of those guys who was just happy to be at the ballpark everyday, and that kind of like that mentality kind of spreads throughout the team.”
“ And we had some pretty grueling bus rides in the Northwest League, I mean, eight, nine, 10 hours overnight, guys trying to sleep on the bus. He was always in tune with the players and knew when to give us a day off of BP, let us show up to the ballpark a little bit later. … Later in my career there were a lot of managers that had never played (major league) baseball and they didn’t understand that kind of mentality. … He treated us like young men, and he knew we were kind of all out on our own for the first time and just kind of wanted us to have a healthy balance on and off the field,” said Quinn, who’s kept in touch with Pedrique.
For a time, Pedrique thought about getting a “9-to-5” job in the offseason. One year, he worked at UPS to be with his family.
“I did that Christmas and I went no, no, no, somehow I gotta stick with the game that I love. I wanted to stay home with the family, and didn’t want to travel internationally that year. My kids were young, and that’s why I gave it a try working for UPS. It was different from this type of job, and I said, nah, I love the game too much. I’d rather stay in the game,” he said.
These days, he’s managing players who could be his grandchildren. So how does this “old-timer” from the old school of baseball reach this generation who thinks it knows everything?
“For me, number one is to know them. Everybody’s different, different personalities come from different places, countries, you have to find the time to know these kids, what they like, what they don’t like, and some of the guys will tell you I know, and I always say, if you know why are you making the mistake over and over again, so you have to find how to connect with the new generation; you have to find the spot where they can listen to you. I try to send a message that I’m trying to help you, I’m trying to find a way to help you when you get to the big leagues,” he said. “I don’t want them to waste the talent, and waste the opportunity.”
Orion Kerkering, who pitched for Reading last season, said one of Pedrique’s best traits was “just being there every single day for every guy, whether if you are a prospect coming up, or the guy who’s been in the system for a couple of years, and on guys or coaches coming from other teams. He was always super helpful and tried to teach the young players.”
Kerkering started 2023 at Low-A, was promoted to Reading, then was promoted to the Phillies Triple-A affiliate in Lehigh Valley, and finally to Philadelphia.
When he was promoted to Lehigh Valley, Kerkering said Pedrique told him, “I think you’re ready for the next level, to keep pushing yourself at every level you get to.” This season, Kerkering has established himself as an integral part of the team’s excellent bullpen.
One young player Pedrique didn’t need to reach was Jose Altuve. The future MVP was only 16 when wanted to try out for the Astros when Pedrique was a special assistant to Houston’s general manager.
“I saw the desire, he wanted a chance to play baseball and back then, Altuve had only two tools, his bat speed and he could run. Defensively, he was way below average. We even tried him at shortstop, but the arm strength, I said no, we have to make him a second baseman, that would be the only chance for him if he wants to sign,” Pedrique recalled. “He pushed real hard to get the opportunity and once I met him he said, let me go to the field and (show) you I can play the game, and he was only 16, so that’s what got my attention, and that’s what brought me back to when I was 15, 16 – I just wanted the opportunity.”
This past season, Pedrique celebrated his 1,000th win as a minor league manager. He’s been a coach for Houston, Oakland and Miami. But his one opportunity at managing in the majors came at a tough time.
In 2004, Pedrique began the season as manager of the Tucson Sidewinders, the Diamondbacks Triple-A affiliate, but was promoted to be the interim manager of the Diamondbacks after Bob Brenly was fired in July. Pedrique compiled a 22–61 record.
The team was only three years removed from winning the World Series, and had good players, but was hurt by injuries and many players were saddened when Brenly was let go. Has the memory of that season sent a message to general managers about his ability to manage at the big league level?
“It’s hard to tell, probably,” he said.
After managing the New York Yankees Triple-A affiliate to a championship season in 2016, he thought he might be interviewed not only for the Yankees managing position but for a base coach spot. He was never contacted.
Leyland said he’s never seen Pedrique manage a game, but repeated the qualities he thought would make Pedrique a good manager, adding “he’s bilingual.”
As for the Diamondbacks record in 2004, Leyland said he hoped baseball executives hadn’t held that against him .
“I would certainly hope not,” he said. “He took over a no-win situation.”
Leyland believes Pedrique would come across well in an interview with baseball executives, and added, “I was a minor-league nobody” when the Hall of Famer became a manager after 13 years of toiling in the minors.
What Pedrique took away from the experience in Arizona was the support he had from the players.
“They knew how I got there,” Pedrique said, referring to his years in the minors. “Everybody there was disappointed because Bob Brenly was let go because it wasn’t his fault, but the players, once I took over, said, don’t worry, we’ll take care of the clubhouse, we’re going to do the best we can to start playing better,” he said.
With a big league manager’s job out of his reach, and a first- or third-base coaching position never promised to anyone, he hopes to be back in Reading next year.
“I guess it’s the love I have for the game. I still have the passion of teaching, helping the kids to get better, and I still (am) having a lot of fun,” he said. “I started playing baseball when I was five years old and still I have the energy, the desire to go out there and help the players to get better. I really enjoy managing, the challenge (of) being able to run the game, and make sure the players play the game the right way.”
