The wild highs and lows that prepared Stephen Vogt to manage the Guardians
Zack Meisel
Feb 14, 2024
OLYMPIA, Washington — As the world slept, Stephen Vogt spent the winter after the 2012 season scrolling through his Twitter timeline night after night, searching for breaking news that the Rays had severed ties with him.
Every night it would be the same: Nothing there. The backup catcher still clutched his roster spot.
But it felt like a matter of time, and with that dread came the fear that the 25 hitless at-bats he had taken in the majors would ultimately be the sum total of his major league career.
The Rays plucked him out of Azusa Pacific University because he could hit. He staved off an early exit from pro ball and clawed his way to the majors because he could hit. Now he feared his 0-for-25 line proclaimed otherwise, and the anxiety about being cut, having that be the end, forced him awake every night.
His first big-league at-bat, a pinch-hit opportunity on Opening Day in 2012 against the Yankees with the game on the line, had resulted in what he describes as the “best strikeout” of his life, with the stakes, the adrenaline rush and the sense of accomplishment he had long craved.
But that 0-for-1 grew into 0-for-13, then swelled to 0-for-25 as winter approached. That zero haunted him more than any harmless oval should.
If he never played another game, was he a failure? Could he visit his Baseball-Reference page or peek at the back of his baseball card without humiliation swallowing him whole? Was trying and falling short, time and time again, truly better than never getting the chance to try?
The Rays ultimately did cut him, at the end of spring training in 2013. But that low moment paved the way for a playing career defined by demotions and doubts, by All-Star nods and adoration. It fueled him to keep pushing until he reached this point, manager of the Cleveland Guardians only 16 months after retiring from a 10-year catching career.
He was programmed to coach, after all. What he couldn’t comprehend when the big leagues seemed unreachable was that he needed those failures, those sleepless nights and those painfully candid self-evaluations to foster an eventual managerial career.
Vogt at his introductory press conference as Guardians manager this winter. (Ken Blaze / USA TODAY)
Vogt now begins a journey where every decision will be scrutinized, every word dissected and every player’s insecurities his chief concern. But he is armed with the certainty that he can stand before his players and know the thoughts suffocating their minds, the fluttering in their stomachs, the tingling in their bones.
He’s been there. He’s celebrated the call-ups and mourned the send-downs. He’s weathered the slumps, the surgeries, the mental strife. He’s grieved. He’s lost faith. He’s flourished.
“I look back at all the things that went wrong,” Vogt says, “and I wouldn’t change one of them.”
The Vogts live off the shores of Puget Sound in the lush, evergreen woodlands of the Pacific Northwest, on a three-acre property that sits 2,444 miles from Stephen’s desk at Progressive Field in downtown Cleveland.
He cherishes the privacy and the simplicity Olympia offers. He chats with the meat market worker at the local Haggen grocery store. He coaches first base for his daughter’s softball team. The servers at El Sarape know he and his wife, Alyssa, will split the steak and shrimp fajitas, so they no longer bother asking before they bring the sizzling plate to their table.
A rainbow-colored “Welcome Home” banner hangs in the upstairs hallway to greet Vogt when he enters the front door. It originally signified his arrival after another grueling season, but winters are more involved for a manager, with frequent trips to Cleveland and to the team’s complex in Arizona. So, his kids opted to keep the sign in place all offseason.
Vogt rises at 4:15 a.m. during the winter so his schedule can mirror the one his colleagues follow on Eastern Standard Time. He opens the white French doors to his home office, a space littered with boxes and files that need shelter until the family’s slow-developing rec room renovations are complete.
The bookcase, though, is orderly, a meticulous arrangement of novels, memorabilia and a replica of the 2021 World Series trophy Vogt’s Braves captured. It creates a captivating Zoom background for those work calls, with no evidence of the clutter just out of frame.
Vogt has always been one to pay attention to the details, to know how effective the right message at the right moment can be.
In 2009, when Vogt was 25 and toiling away in A ball, the Rays had vacant slots for their annual spring talent show and Vogt’s teammates urged him to enter. He did a spot-on Matt Foley, the disheveled, breathless, tactless motivational speaker Chris Farley played on Saturday Night Live in the ‘90s. He had an NBA ref bit, with a zebra-striped shirt, a headband and a whistle that shrieked at anyone he brushed.
Vogt in his NBA getup with Dave Feldman and Ahmed Fareed for an episode of “Carpool Confessions.” (Courtesy of Ahmed Fareed)
That would get its usual laughs, but there was another way for Vogt to make a more lasting impression — though it was not without risk. Deep in his arsenal, he had impersonations of his minor-league manager, Matt Quatraro, and the Rays’ farm director, Mitch Lukevics. He could even mimic some of the higher-ups in the front office, plus Rays manager Joe Maddon. Before he roasted the most powerful figures in the room, he needed immunity, assurance that this performance, typically limited to an intimate group of teammates, wouldn’t jeopardize his career.
It proved to be a winning act, with approval from the organization’s top authorities. Quatraro was in tears and, now a fellow AL Central manager, he still laughs about it when they connect.
“I won a couple thousand dollars,” Vogt says, “which was like gold.”
It also landed him on the Rays’ radar. He was minor-league roster filler, an extra body at a position where players crouch in harm’s way. But the way he gripped the entire clubhouse showcased leadership and communication. At minimum, the team’s evaluators would remember his name, his face and, above all, his voices.
A few days later, the Rays invited him to play in a Grapefruit League game, where he recorded a sacrifice fly in his lone plate appearance. The impersonations had supplied him with his first break.
At a manager’s breakfast at the Winter Meetings in Nashville in December, a few weeks after the Guardians hired him, a team staffer asked Vogt when he planned to unveil his acclaimed parodies for his new contingent. Vogt offered a polite half-chuckle and shied away from delivering a direct answer.
He may summon those characters when necessary, when the Guardians limp to their lockers after a walk-off loss or embark on a redeye flight after a three-city trip.
But he’s no longer trying to attract attention. He’s no longer imitating a manager.
He is one.
Randy Vogt set his alarm for 3 a.m. during baseball season. The earlier he started his workday, the sooner he could hustle home to coach Stephen and his older brother, Danny. He stuck with that routine for 15 years. The morning commute along Highway 99 was bearable, as he listened to news radio or Spanish language tapes.
But the last 20 miles of the mid-afternoon drive home, when he could almost hear the baseballs smacking the webbing of Stephen’s catcher’s mitt, were torture.
Vogt figured, like his dad, he would be a CPA. He never expected scouts to discover him at Azusa Pacific, but an Accounting II course had made him rethink his number-crunching future.
Maybe coaching was the most viable plan.
When he tore his shoulder and was relegated to a pseudo-instructor role as a 24-year-old in A ball, that seemed evident. When he pointed to his sterling stats and asked his High-A manager how he could move up from third-string catcher and the response was, “You can’t,” it seemed indisputable.
In 2008, Vogt carried a .609 OPS to the season’s midpoint with Class A Columbus. He daydreamed about ditching baseball and pursuing his Master’s degree. After a couple weeks of wallowing, Alyssa challenged him: “Do you realize you’re the only person who believes you can’t do this?”
The rest of the season, Vogt hit .370. She has a knack for, as Vogt describes it, punching him in the teeth with the truth.
After the Rays severed ties with him in 2013, Vogt caught on with the A’s. He notched his first hit on June 28, in his 33rd career at-bat, which he termed an “out-of-body experience.” He was confident Carlos Beltrán would snag the fly ball, another dose of his rotten big-league fortune. Instead, the baseball disappeared beyond the right-field wall and Vogt blacked out. He isn’t sure how he circled the bases, with his mind a whirl and his world a blur. He stepped on home plate, he’s certain of that.
The weight sagging onto his shoulders vanished. The clients who hired him for hitting lessons and hounded him about the 0-for-25 nightmare finally had new material. That tormenting zero was permanently replaced.
With the A’s, Vogt eventually blossomed into a two-time All-Star and a cult hero, a fixture on a roster full of big-league nomads. Once when Alyssa coached a basketball game in Washington, students chanted: I believe that we will win. Vogt’s daughter, Payton, alerted him that they had the words wrong. She was accustomed to the famous Oakland rallying cry with the same cadence: I believe in Stephen Vogt.
But as Vogt reached what should have been his peak years in Oakland, family tragedy struck. In July 2016, a couple weeks after his second All-Star Game appearance, Vogt took a three-day leave to be in Visalia, California, with his mom, Toni, who had been hospitalized for a week with organ failure. He rejoined the club in Cleveland, but late the next night, with Vogt three time zones away on the other end of a mostly silent phone call with his dad and brother, Toni passed.
“I don’t even know how he was able to get through the rest of the season,” Randy says.
Vogt blossomed into something of a folk hero with the A’s. (AP Photo / Godofredo A. Vásquez, File)
Everything was meant to click in 2017. Vogt had cemented himself as Oakland’s starting catcher. He had reached the arbitration stage of his career, which earned him six times his previous salary. But he sputtered into the summer months, and the A’s parted ways with him.
“I was buying lies,” Vogt says. “‘I’m making more money — I have to play better. I’m letting people down. I’m not good enough to do this. I’m a failure. I went from a two-time All-Star to I’m gonna get DFAed out of the game.’ You start buying all of those lies. I was still dealing with my mom’s passing. You’re in the big leagues, making money, having a successful career, right in the middle of your prime. That was the lowest point.”
Vogt bounced to four other teams before returning to Oakland in 2022. He studied under Bruce Bochy, Brian Snitker, Torey Lovullo and Mark Kotsay, and when he needed another shoulder surgery in 2018, he shadowed Milwaukee manager Craig Counsell and bench coach Pat Murphy.
“All of that,” he says, “has prepared me to get to this point.”
As Vogt sipped a Manhattan at a downtown Chicago speakeasy in late July 2022, Alyssa asked about retirement. She had stuck by his side for a decade in the majors and inspired him when he was idling in the minors. She always told him it would take courage to admit when his career was stumbling toward the finish line.
“I think this is it,” she said.
“So do I,” he replied.
He was ready for the next stage, the one he had been plotting all along.
Vogt exited the on-deck circle on Oct. 5, 2022, for a rendezvous with Shohei Ohtani in his final major-league game.
Two familiar voices emanated from the ballpark speakers. Vogt’s eyes welled up as he approached the batter’s box.
Now batting, our dad, No. 21, Stephen Vogt!
Payton and Clark, his two oldest children, shouted into a microphone as Bennett, the youngest, mouthed the words beside them.
“All the emotions as you’re going up for what could be your final at-bat and for sure your last game,” Vogt recalls from his dining room, before Payton interjects.
“Did you know we were going to do it?” the 12-year-old asks.
“I heard you guys were going to do it,” her father replies, “but then in the moment, I forgot, because I was locked into the game. So it was the best of both worlds. I never would have made it through (if it had been a surprise), facing Shohei Ohtani with tears in my eyes. I barely made it through as it was.
“It just meant everything.”
Vogt’s journey had resonated with teammates and coaches. He became your favorite player’s favorite player.
Randy first noticed the leadership qualities when his son was a sophomore catcher in high school. Stephen would lift his mask and raise his hand and tell his hot-headed coach — Randy — to quit berating the umpire. He had it handled.
A couple years ago, Stephen assured his dad he could manage, that he could connect with any player who walked into his office, thanks to a résumé lined with as many failures as feats. He’ll have to deliver heartbreaking and heart-rate-spiking messages to players. He sat in on such conferences last season as the Mariners’ bullpen coach. He’s never personally informed a player of a demotion or a trade or a loss of playing time, but he has been the player in each scenario.
“When you’re part of a team, you have to love each other,” he says. “When you love somebody, you’re willing to tell them the truth. Sometimes that’s not fun to hear, but when you truly care about somebody, you’re willing to have those tough conversations to help them get better.”
That messaging convinced Cleveland’s brass he was the right choice to succeed future Hall of Famer Terry Francona.
Stephen and Alyssa were headed to the family’s horse stables, about 25 minutes from home, the morning of Nov. 3. They pulled over to the side of the road so Stephen could join an impromptu Zoom call with the Guardians’ front office. He accepted their offer to become their new manager. And then he proceeded to the stables to shovel piles of horse manure.
“When I look back, I laugh,” Vogt says. “It’s crazy. I never could have drawn it up.”
