'You second guess everything': Stephen Vogt learning how to deal with losses in first year

CLEVELAND — The manager wears losses more than anyone else.

It's something many around the game of baseball will echo. Players collectively are focused on their day-to-day play. Coaches have their respective groups for which they're responsible. Front office members are always re-evaluating how to best construct the roster.

But managers weather the highest highs and lowest lows on a daily basis to a much greater degree. The buck stops with them before and after every game. Their decisions are second-guessed the most. They have the longest to-do lists every day.

It's something first-year Guardians manager Stephen Vogt has learned on the fly.

Vogt learned the ins-and-outs of the job for several years , both at the end of his playing days and just after he retired. But now at the helm, moving past decisions after losses can be easier said than done when you're in the manager's office.

"You second guess everything when it doesn't work," Vogt said Tuesday. "What I really learned this first time going through it, not every decision you make is going to work. You could always go back and say, 'Well, what if?'"

Just about every close game of baseball will feature numerous decisions for the manager, from pitching chances to pinch-hitting or pinch-running, on and on. It'd be almost impossible to take a loss and not have anything to second guess, whether it's valid or not.

"You wonder if you did something wrong, and I wouldn't be doing my job correctly if I didn't assess every single little thing that we do," Vogt said. "[After Monday night's loss], it was a very long night for me … Whether you want to call it making mistakes or wishing I could change things, every time I do it, it's for the first time and I'm trying to learn a much as I can from every one of these experiences."

Stephen Vogt has Guardians in first place in first year

There haven't been as many "learning experiences" as most expected for the 2024 Guardians , who have been arguably baseball's biggest surprise team. Even with a recent five-game losing streak , they're still in the mix for baseball's best record.

Vogt noted earlier this season that one of the learning lessons for his new gig was that "sleep comes at a premium." Much of that lack of rest comes from re-playing every decision from that day's game, and figuring out when enough is enough.

"Human beings are emotional, so we all feel emotions and I'm not different, and you have to go through that cycle," Vogt said. "So it's be upset, be angry, be sad, be this, be happy, process it, find a solution and what can I learn from it? And then you get to a point where it's like, 'All right, I'm beating a dead horse, let's go to bed.'"

It used to be a bit easier as a player, thought it was during that time that Vogt learned how to "wash off the day in the shower and then go home," thus leaving baseball at the ballpark as much as possible.

"Way easier as a player because you're only worried about you," Vogt said. "Now it's 26 players, 20 coaches, staff members, somebody's always on your mind that you want to help. So it's busy nights."

Dealing with the mental toll of each day was part of the reason why Vogt's predecessor, Terry Francona , decided that his health had become too much of a deterrent to keep managing for the time being. Francona noted how the manager "takes home each loss" more so than anyone else in the clubhouse.

It's a lesson Vogt is now learning in year one.

When asked if he had gotten much sleep after a recent loss, Vogt joked, "You can't see the bags under my eyes?"

Ryan Lewis can be reached at rlewis1@gannett.com. Read more about the Guardians at www.beaconjournal.com/sports/cleveland-guardians. Follow him on Threads at @ByRyanLewis .

This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: 'You second guess everything': Stephen Vogt learning how to deal with losses in first year