Porter started his coaching career with the Class A Greensboro Grasshoppers, a minor league affiliate of the then-Florida Marlins. He was the team's hitting coach. He was promoted to manager of the Class A-Advanced Jamestown Jammers the following season. In 2007, he broke into the majors has a coach, serving as the Marlins third base coach and outfield/baserunning instructor. He did this job for three seasons before accepting the same position for the Arizona Diamondbacks. When manager A.J. Hinch was fired and bench coach Kirk Gibson was promoted, Porter became the bench coach. This was in July of his first season in Arizona. The Diamondbacks fired him after the 2010 season.
He interviewed for the managerial position for the Marlins and Pittsburgh Pirates. He was a finalist for both jobs, but the Marlins decided to go with Edwin Rodriguez, removing his interim tag. Porter removed his candidacy for the Pirates job by accepting the third base coach position for the Washington Nationals. He interviewed to be the manager of the Astros after they fired Brad Mills in mid-August. He became a finalist along with Tony DeFrancesco, the interim manager in Houston; Dave Martinez, Tampa Bay Rays bench coach; and Tim Bogar, Boston Red Sox bench coach. In a press conference this morning, the Astros announced that Porter will be their next manager.
It is an interesting choice for the Astros considering he only has one year of managerial experience, and only seven years coaching overall. He is very young for a manager, just turning 40 over the summer, but he does fit in with the new wave of less experienced hires that we saw this season when the Chicago White Sox hired Robin Ventura and the St. Louis Cardinals hired Mike Matheny, neither of which had any managerial experience. As previously noted, Porter managed for year in Jamestown in 2006. That season the Jammers went 33-39. Notable major league players that were on the team are Logan Morrison, Chris Coghlan, and Scott Cousins. The majority of the players he managed never made it past the lower minor league classes, though. In Houston, he will get to guide young players again, just a bit older this time around.
The Houston Astros will be moving to the American League West next year, part of the agreement in the recent sale of the team. Oddly enough, they hired Porter, who has never been affiliated with an AL team before. Obviously he has been involved in a game with a DH as he played for the A's and Rangers, and there are interleague games in both the majors and minors, but it could be something to watch for as he has been coaching on National League teams. If he had been taking notes from the managers of the teams he has worked for, then all the notes have to go out the window since managing in the AL is quite different than the NL. There will be more interleague games in the future with the Astros move to the AL making the two leagues an even 15 teams, but still the majority of the games he will manage will be with a DH, which is the exact opposite of what he's been involved with so far as a coach.
I applaud the Astros decision to hire Bo Porter because they did not need a manager with a lot of experience to take over what will be a very young team for many years. It gives the manager room to grow with his players in a low-expectation environment. It is the perfect place to bring in a guy at a low cost and see what he can do for a few seasons. Management knows that it won't be able to compete right away with the Rangers, A's, or Los Angeles Angels, and so why spend a lot of money on a guy that's been around the block a few times. I think the move to the AL will help Porter as well because it is easier to manage in the AL than the NL. In the NL, you have to worry about the matchups more and the decision of when to pull the pitcher for a pinch hitter, if necessary. In the AL you still have to play the match ups as well, but it won't come at the expense of a pitcher and position player in the same move. In the end, the Astros found the right man for the job, young and eager to prove himself.
References
http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/8430173/houston-astros-name-washington-nationals-bo-porter-manager-report-says
http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/p/portebo03.shtml
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bo_Porter
http://www.thebaseballcube.com/teams/stats.asp?Y=2006&T=10257
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