Former catcher Mike Napoli played 12 years in the majors for the Los Angeles Angels, Texas Rangers, Boston Red Sox, and Cleveland Guardians. He started his career as a catcher but later moved to first base and designated hitter as his career moved along.
There have been a lot of great managers who went to the dugout from behind the dish and Napoli could be well on his way to joining them. He’s in his third season as the Chicago Cubs first base coach after being hired as a quality assurance coach prior to the 2020 season.
Napoli explained what he’s learned from working as a coach and gave his thoughts on potentially managing someday while appearing on the Audacy Sports Podcast “Baseball Isn’t Boring” this week.
“There’s so many things that you learn from [Craig Counsell],” Napoli said. “I think the number one thing is he’s really prepared. He’s a baseball rat. He loves this game. It always seems like he’s thinking 10 steps ahead of everything. He puts a lot of responsibility on me and all his coaches to be able to do their job and make the players better.”
Napoli explained that the Cubs focused on individual work with players and coaches in spring training, and it’s paid off thus far.
That kind of detail-oriented work also makes its way to the dugout.
“Just watching him go through the game and really managing the game and being on top of things has been really impressive to watch and learn from.”
Prior to Counsell joining the Cubs, Napoli coached under former teammate David Ross. Ross and Napoli won the 2013 World Series together in Boston before reuniting in Chicago.
“Me and Rossy have such a good relationship. Rossy is a little more relaxed and joking around with the players a lot more,” Napoli said. “Me and Rossy definitely had some good times, especially in 2013, it was such a special year. That whole team. The way we hung out with each other off the field. We didn’t just come to the field and hang out there, we’re on the road we hung out with each other and did stuff off the field.”
Napoli’s personability gives him the abilities that teams look for in a good manager.
“You got to be able to mesh with all kinds of different personalities. That’s just part of managing people, managing a team,” he said. “That’s kind of how I was as a player in the clubhouse. I genuinely care about everybody. If you’re in my circle, in my group, it doesn’t matter who you are; I try to bring everyone together and be together and, for me, work to win.
“I think that’s what it’s about. You got to be able to bring people together no matter who they are to be able to perform together as one. I think that’s the number one important thing to be able to do to be a manager.”
The former catcher spent 12 years in the majors with four different teams. Coaching and managing had never really been on his radar, but people saw it in him.
“It’s all I ever really heard when I was playing and stuff, people were like ‘Do you want to manage?’” he recalled. “And I’m like ‘Yeah, I do,’ and they’re like “I think you’d be really good at it.’”
It wasn’t until the final years of his career that Napoli thought about finding a way to stay around the game.
“Not right away, but when I started getting to the backend of my career you start thinking about what’s going to be next or how much longer am I going to play and then what do I do?” he said. “I’m still young. I feel like this game has given me so much and I’ve learned from so many people and people have given to me, I want to give back to this game. I really enjoy having these guys, trying to get them better…
“I really feel this satisfaction of when you try to get somebody to get better or try something and they really buy into it and they do it and then they have success, they look at you like ‘Oh,’ they’re grateful. That gives me satisfaction and makes me feel really good. To help us win, contribute. I’m not playing but I’m still trying to contribute to help us win. That feeling is why I think I do it.”
Napoli is slowly but surely learning the analytics side of the game as he goes deeper into his coaching career. He didn’t always lean on the numbers but acknowledged that it’s an essential aspect of today’s game.
“You got to evolve to what’s going on. If not then you’re just going to get passed by. You can’t just be that old-school guy,” he said. “found that out pretty quick. I was really into ‘I’m an old-school guy, old-school player, there are certain ways to be done,’ but you got to adapt to what’s going on now. So I have to be able to get into the analytics part of the game… I probably wouldn’t be coaching if I didn’t accept that.”
Still, Napoli’s not going to go all-in on analytics.
“I think I find that happy medium. I still believe you still have to have some of that old-school mentality but also the new-school way, too,” he continued. “Looking at the game and the numbers and all this stuff you can read. We got a program I can look at and there are so many numbers and sometimes it’s overwhelming, but there’s really good information.”
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