Sunday, November 29, 2009
Nerd: Action Shot!
If anyone's interested, this year SABR began posting online the presentations that take place at the annual convention. Here is my presentation: The Baseball Philosophy of Charles Comiskey. As one might expect, its' based on research from my book. Audio and PowerPoint are both available for download.
Monday, November 23, 2009
Third excerpt up
New excerpt up at THT, this one on Pat Moran, AKA maybe the best manager you never heard of.
Hope you enjoy.
Next pair of excerpt will be up next up.
Hope you enjoy.
Next pair of excerpt will be up next up.
Friday, November 20, 2009
Thoughts on Jim Tracy and Mike Scioscia
Well, as long as I have a website called “Evaluating Baseball’s Managers” and wrote a book by that same name I may as well share my thoughts on this year’s Manager of the Year Awards, which went to Mike Sciosica in the AL and Jim Tracy in the NL.I have no real problem with either award, as both seem like fairly sensible men to give it to.
For Scioscia, it’s his second award, the other coming when he led the surprising 2002 Angels to the promised land. Unlike that year, this time he won it while leading a team that entered the year the favorite to win the division (which is an oddity for a Manager of the Year winner).
One key factor helping Scioscia (aside, obviously, from his team winning 97 games and the division) was rallying the club together after the shocking and sudden death of pitcher Nick Adenhart at the beginning of the season. While Scioscia is to be commended for managing the clubhouse in such a way as to keep the team focus and ready, I have some subtler reasons for appreciating his performance in 2009.
First, 2009 was indicative of a long-standing trend by Sciosica’s Angels: they did as well as anyone could reasonably hope they would. While they were preseason favorites to take the West, 97 games was still a tall order. Though they won 100 in 2008, they did so despite outscoring their opponent by less than 70 runs. I don’t necessarily think that all pythag deviation is solely caused by luck, but that was frickin’ huge difference. At the beginning of 2009, SG’s Preseason Projection Blowout predicted they’d win only 85 games.
Instead, they won 97 – which for once was equal to their pythag projected finish; blowing out SG’s projections by over 11 games. Actually, that’s fairly typical for a Scioscia led team. A few years ago, SG agreed to do Diamondmind Preseason Projections for me for every team going back to 1998. Between that and the published projection SG’s done at the Replacement Level Yankee Weblog, Scioscia’s Angels have exceeded projections in 8 out of 10 years. Overall, they’ve won 54.3 games more than expected, which is easily the most by any manager in that period.
The above information isn’t the most precise gauge of managerial ability. That’s putting it mildly. I asked SG to run the sims with the thought that I’d put the results in my book. However, the signal-to-noise ratio in the results was weaker than I wanted it to be, and opted not to use it. That said, though there is a lot of static in the results, it’s not all static and Scioscia is top dog over the past dozen seasons. Scioscia has the knack of getting his players to perform as well as possible year after year, and that’s one of the reasons why Anaheim has enjoyed its success. This year, for example, saw the rather amazing achievement of every starter in the lineup posting an OPS+ of 100. The front office deserves credit for assembling that talent, and the players deserve the most credit for hitting as they did, but it’s just another example of athletes maxxing out on their potential under Scioscia’s wing.
What I’m especially impressed by is how the Angels won as the 2009 Angels defied the typical construction of a Mike Scioscia team. Scioscia typically relies heavily on his bullpen, but this the relievers were a big disappointment. On offense, he’s prioritized contact hitting and downplayed plate discipline and power hitting. As a result, Anaheim teams usually have an AVG-dominated offense featuring few strikeouts, walks, and relatively little homers.
In 2009, however, the Angels, struck out at an average clip while walking likewise. They still had a high-AVG lineup, but in all other ways it cut against the typical tendencies of a Scioscia-managed teams. I’m aware GMs are in charge of roster construction, but managers have some input. The greater the skipper’s prestige, the more authority. Scioscia, with his decade-long contract and World Series ring, has considerable leverage. Plus it’s worth noting he got along very well with the previous GM who assembled all the classic Scioscia clubs.
Scioscia didn’t have the team he wanted, so he made the most of the team he had. That sounds like faint praise, but for a lot of managers (or anyone in a position of authority, I suppose), it’s the sort of thing many botch up. The more success one had in the past, the more resistant they often are to change. Instead, Scioscia was receptive. If Scioscia remained stuck in his ways, the Angels wouldn’t have spent much of the season with the league’s best record.
As for Jim Tracy, he’s had a bizarre career arc. He was a widely respected manager after his first four seasons in Los Angeles. (Most notably, he decided to take the well-regarded but underachieving prospect starting pitcher Eric Gagne and install him as team closer. That worked out pretty well). Then, in his fifth year, the entire thing cratered in rather spectacular fashion. Not only did the team suffer a 91-loss season, but Tracy’s feuding with team GM Paul DePodesta was so ugly that I read one Dodger fan write that it was the only time he’s ever wondered if the manager was trying to lose.
From there, Tracy landed for a pair of disastrously bad campaigns with Pittsburgh. While the team was bad before and after his arrival, his own performance was so poor he couldn’t even keep the job half as long as Lloyd McClendon, no one’s idea of a baseball savant. Checking the internet (I’m thinking specifically the posters at Baseball Think Factory here), the only bile that even compared with the scorn Pirate fans unleashed on Tracy was what the Cub fans felt toward Dusty Baker.
At the time, I figured Tracy was the modern day equivalent to Chuck Dressen. Back in the 1950s, Dressen gained a reputation as a great baseball manager after having several years’ success with the Dodgers (the same team that later employed Tracy). Then Dressen left after a contract argument and spent the rest of his career drifting from team to team. In his book on managers, Bill James wrote Dressen had one foot in Cooperstown and another on a banana peel, and put his full weight on the banana peel.
I’m not saying Tracy ever had a foot in Cooperstown, but he – like Dressen – did a complete about right after establishing himself. As a result, when I heard the Rockies hired Tracy, I wasn’t too impressed. It sounded like the old Senators hiring Dressen – a nice sounding move that would aid the franchise little and just further diminish whatever lingering luster the manager had.
Obviously, Tracy’s luster wasn’t diminished. Instead, the Rockies played like baseball freaking demigods. Despite playing in the NL’s toughest division, a team that started the year 18-28 under previous skipper Clint Hurdle ended the year on a 74-42 kick with Tracy.
How much credit should Tracy get for that? Well, let me put it to you this way. Prior to 2009, 101 teams began the year with an 18-28 record. NONE ended the year with a .568 winning percentage. None even came close. The best previously was the 2006 Angels (managed by Scioscia, of course), who finished 89-73 (.549). Only nine even had winning records. (aside from the ’06 Angels, the other eight were the 1902 Indians, 1925 Cardinals, 1967 Angels, 1974 Pirates, 1983 Pirates, 1986 Reds, 1990 Rangers, and 1990 Giants).
Flipping it around, only once in baseball history has a team who ended the season with a .568 or better record had a worse record at the 46-decision marker than the 2009 Rockies: the 1914 Braves. History knows them as the Miracle Braves because they won the pennant despite have the league’s worst record on Independence Day. For perspective, over 600 teams have ended the year with a record of at least .568.
Obviously, in order to achieve this distinction, a lot of things have to happen. Simply put, everything has to go wrong early on and everything wrong later on. A lot of that is outside the manager’s control. That said, if everything is going right –well, the manager is one of things. I can’t see a team experiencing such a historic turnaround unless the guy running the club is having a good season. I have no idea what the future holds for Tracy at this point.
I have some other things I could say about those who didn’t win, but that’s all the time I have for right now.
Mike Scioscia
For Scioscia, it’s his second award, the other coming when he led the surprising 2002 Angels to the promised land. Unlike that year, this time he won it while leading a team that entered the year the favorite to win the division (which is an oddity for a Manager of the Year winner).
One key factor helping Scioscia (aside, obviously, from his team winning 97 games and the division) was rallying the club together after the shocking and sudden death of pitcher Nick Adenhart at the beginning of the season. While Scioscia is to be commended for managing the clubhouse in such a way as to keep the team focus and ready, I have some subtler reasons for appreciating his performance in 2009.
First, 2009 was indicative of a long-standing trend by Sciosica’s Angels: they did as well as anyone could reasonably hope they would. While they were preseason favorites to take the West, 97 games was still a tall order. Though they won 100 in 2008, they did so despite outscoring their opponent by less than 70 runs. I don’t necessarily think that all pythag deviation is solely caused by luck, but that was frickin’ huge difference. At the beginning of 2009, SG’s Preseason Projection Blowout predicted they’d win only 85 games.
Instead, they won 97 – which for once was equal to their pythag projected finish; blowing out SG’s projections by over 11 games. Actually, that’s fairly typical for a Scioscia led team. A few years ago, SG agreed to do Diamondmind Preseason Projections for me for every team going back to 1998. Between that and the published projection SG’s done at the Replacement Level Yankee Weblog, Scioscia’s Angels have exceeded projections in 8 out of 10 years. Overall, they’ve won 54.3 games more than expected, which is easily the most by any manager in that period.
The above information isn’t the most precise gauge of managerial ability. That’s putting it mildly. I asked SG to run the sims with the thought that I’d put the results in my book. However, the signal-to-noise ratio in the results was weaker than I wanted it to be, and opted not to use it. That said, though there is a lot of static in the results, it’s not all static and Scioscia is top dog over the past dozen seasons. Scioscia has the knack of getting his players to perform as well as possible year after year, and that’s one of the reasons why Anaheim has enjoyed its success. This year, for example, saw the rather amazing achievement of every starter in the lineup posting an OPS+ of 100. The front office deserves credit for assembling that talent, and the players deserve the most credit for hitting as they did, but it’s just another example of athletes maxxing out on their potential under Scioscia’s wing.
What I’m especially impressed by is how the Angels won as the 2009 Angels defied the typical construction of a Mike Scioscia team. Scioscia typically relies heavily on his bullpen, but this the relievers were a big disappointment. On offense, he’s prioritized contact hitting and downplayed plate discipline and power hitting. As a result, Anaheim teams usually have an AVG-dominated offense featuring few strikeouts, walks, and relatively little homers.
In 2009, however, the Angels, struck out at an average clip while walking likewise. They still had a high-AVG lineup, but in all other ways it cut against the typical tendencies of a Scioscia-managed teams. I’m aware GMs are in charge of roster construction, but managers have some input. The greater the skipper’s prestige, the more authority. Scioscia, with his decade-long contract and World Series ring, has considerable leverage. Plus it’s worth noting he got along very well with the previous GM who assembled all the classic Scioscia clubs.
Scioscia didn’t have the team he wanted, so he made the most of the team he had. That sounds like faint praise, but for a lot of managers (or anyone in a position of authority, I suppose), it’s the sort of thing many botch up. The more success one had in the past, the more resistant they often are to change. Instead, Scioscia was receptive. If Scioscia remained stuck in his ways, the Angels wouldn’t have spent much of the season with the league’s best record.
Jim Tracy
As for Jim Tracy, he’s had a bizarre career arc. He was a widely respected manager after his first four seasons in Los Angeles. (Most notably, he decided to take the well-regarded but underachieving prospect starting pitcher Eric Gagne and install him as team closer. That worked out pretty well). Then, in his fifth year, the entire thing cratered in rather spectacular fashion. Not only did the team suffer a 91-loss season, but Tracy’s feuding with team GM Paul DePodesta was so ugly that I read one Dodger fan write that it was the only time he’s ever wondered if the manager was trying to lose.
From there, Tracy landed for a pair of disastrously bad campaigns with Pittsburgh. While the team was bad before and after his arrival, his own performance was so poor he couldn’t even keep the job half as long as Lloyd McClendon, no one’s idea of a baseball savant. Checking the internet (I’m thinking specifically the posters at Baseball Think Factory here), the only bile that even compared with the scorn Pirate fans unleashed on Tracy was what the Cub fans felt toward Dusty Baker.
At the time, I figured Tracy was the modern day equivalent to Chuck Dressen. Back in the 1950s, Dressen gained a reputation as a great baseball manager after having several years’ success with the Dodgers (the same team that later employed Tracy). Then Dressen left after a contract argument and spent the rest of his career drifting from team to team. In his book on managers, Bill James wrote Dressen had one foot in Cooperstown and another on a banana peel, and put his full weight on the banana peel.
I’m not saying Tracy ever had a foot in Cooperstown, but he – like Dressen – did a complete about right after establishing himself. As a result, when I heard the Rockies hired Tracy, I wasn’t too impressed. It sounded like the old Senators hiring Dressen – a nice sounding move that would aid the franchise little and just further diminish whatever lingering luster the manager had.
Obviously, Tracy’s luster wasn’t diminished. Instead, the Rockies played like baseball freaking demigods. Despite playing in the NL’s toughest division, a team that started the year 18-28 under previous skipper Clint Hurdle ended the year on a 74-42 kick with Tracy.
How much credit should Tracy get for that? Well, let me put it to you this way. Prior to 2009, 101 teams began the year with an 18-28 record. NONE ended the year with a .568 winning percentage. None even came close. The best previously was the 2006 Angels (managed by Scioscia, of course), who finished 89-73 (.549). Only nine even had winning records. (aside from the ’06 Angels, the other eight were the 1902 Indians, 1925 Cardinals, 1967 Angels, 1974 Pirates, 1983 Pirates, 1986 Reds, 1990 Rangers, and 1990 Giants).
Flipping it around, only once in baseball history has a team who ended the season with a .568 or better record had a worse record at the 46-decision marker than the 2009 Rockies: the 1914 Braves. History knows them as the Miracle Braves because they won the pennant despite have the league’s worst record on Independence Day. For perspective, over 600 teams have ended the year with a record of at least .568.
Obviously, in order to achieve this distinction, a lot of things have to happen. Simply put, everything has to go wrong early on and everything wrong later on. A lot of that is outside the manager’s control. That said, if everything is going right –well, the manager is one of things. I can’t see a team experiencing such a historic turnaround unless the guy running the club is having a good season. I have no idea what the future holds for Tracy at this point.
I have some other things I could say about those who didn’t win, but that’s all the time I have for right now.
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Most PA by Infield Starters for All 30 Teams
A few days ago I went over the 1963 Cardinals, a team that had an enormous number of plate appearances from its starting four infielders.
Thinking along the same lines, I found myself wondering what is the team record for all 30 franchises for most PA from the starting four infielders? I've done the research, so it's easy to look up. (Note: for PA, I used AB+BB+HBP+SH+SF for every year from 1876-2008, so it's technically a little off, but close enough. I have actual PA for 2009, though).
Based on that, here are the records, going from most to least recently set team record:
Some fun things - first, there are a lot of recent years becuase: 1) expansion means some teams have less history to draw on, 2) there's more offense nowadays than most of thenadays, and 3) the 162-game schedule comes into play.
When you look at pre-current records, they often pile up in high offensive eras. The best example came in the 1936 AL, where three of the eight pre-expansion AL squads set records that still stand for PA from starting infielders. Not-so-coincidentally, that year also set an AL record that still stands for runs per game, at 5.67. It's still incredible they had 3 teams set records that still stand, though.
Given the preponderous of high-offensive era, perhaps the most amazing team listed is the 1968 Cubs. Sure, the AL had the really low offense that year (with the entire league batting .230 and scoring an all-time AL low 3.41 runs per game, but NL teams scored only 3.43 runs per game, it's lowest mark since 1908.
What's more, the Cubs didn't just set a franchise record in 1968. Their second most PA by starting infielders came in 1969. Third place came in 1970. Fifth place was 1967. (The 2008 Cubs broke it up by coming in fourth). Leo Durocher loved filling out Ernie Banks, Glen Beckert, Don Kessinger, and Ron Santo in the lineup card everyday. In fact, the 1969 Cubs also saw an all-time MLB record when catcher Randy Hundley appeared in 160 games. No other catcher has done that before or since.
The Pirates, with only 2,581 PA in their top season (1982), are lowest of all pre-expansion squad, and the 22nd highest mark of all teams listed. Overall, it's the 62nd highest mark ever, just behind the 1939 Reds.
Thinking along the same lines, I found myself wondering what is the team record for all 30 franchises for most PA from the starting four infielders? I've done the research, so it's easy to look up. (Note: for PA, I used AB+BB+HBP+SH+SF for every year from 1876-2008, so it's technically a little off, but close enough. I have actual PA for 2009, though).
Based on that, here are the records, going from most to least recently set team record:
IF PA Year Team
2740 2009 Phillies
2407 2009 Rays
2343 2008 D-backs
2458 2007 Nationals
2583 2006 Mariners
2579 2006 Marlins
2849 2005 Rangers
2746 2004 Orioles
2448 2004 Padres
2584 2003 Red Sox
2708 1999 Mets
2642 1998 Rockies
2462 1990 Blue Jays
2469 1988 Angels
2417 1988 Royals
2716 1983 Brewers
2581 1982 Pirates
2693 1978 Dodgers
2614 1977 Reds
2587 1969 Astros
2669 1968 Cubs
2777 1963 Cardinals
2605 1963 A's
2641 1962 Twins
2606 1952 Giants
2758 1936 Indians
2743 1936 Yankees
2701 1936 Tigers
2597 1921 White Sox
2616 1899 Braves
Some fun things - first, there are a lot of recent years becuase: 1) expansion means some teams have less history to draw on, 2) there's more offense nowadays than most of thenadays, and 3) the 162-game schedule comes into play.
When you look at pre-current records, they often pile up in high offensive eras. The best example came in the 1936 AL, where three of the eight pre-expansion AL squads set records that still stand for PA from starting infielders. Not-so-coincidentally, that year also set an AL record that still stands for runs per game, at 5.67. It's still incredible they had 3 teams set records that still stand, though.
Given the preponderous of high-offensive era, perhaps the most amazing team listed is the 1968 Cubs. Sure, the AL had the really low offense that year (with the entire league batting .230 and scoring an all-time AL low 3.41 runs per game, but NL teams scored only 3.43 runs per game, it's lowest mark since 1908.
What's more, the Cubs didn't just set a franchise record in 1968. Their second most PA by starting infielders came in 1969. Third place came in 1970. Fifth place was 1967. (The 2008 Cubs broke it up by coming in fourth). Leo Durocher loved filling out Ernie Banks, Glen Beckert, Don Kessinger, and Ron Santo in the lineup card everyday. In fact, the 1969 Cubs also saw an all-time MLB record when catcher Randy Hundley appeared in 160 games. No other catcher has done that before or since.
The Pirates, with only 2,581 PA in their top season (1982), are lowest of all pre-expansion squad, and the 22nd highest mark of all teams listed. Overall, it's the 62nd highest mark ever, just behind the 1939 Reds.
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
First excerpts up
My first pair of book excerpts went up this week at The Hardball Times.
The first excerpt went over the Tendencies Database, the analytical core of the book. I picked this one as the first excerpt largely to help set up future ones.
My thoughts on Billy Martin was the second excerpt to go up.
The first excerpt went over the Tendencies Database, the analytical core of the book. I picked this one as the first excerpt largely to help set up future ones.
My thoughts on Billy Martin was the second excerpt to go up.
Sunday, November 15, 2009
1963 St. Louis Cardinals
When researching/writing my book - first excerpts should go up this week at The Hardball Times! - I came across a bunch of random facts.
For example, the 1963 St. Louis Cardinals received more plate appearances from its starting four infielders than any other team in National League history, with 2,777 PA from their infielders. (Minor note: this number might be a hair off the actual one. When I collected the data neither Baseball-Reference.com nor Retrosheet listed player PA on team pages. I added SF, SH, HBP, BB, and H. It works well enough).
It's nice that the 1963 Cards come in first, but that's not terribly interesting in and of itself. After all, someone has to be in first. Why not them? After all, they had Bill White at first, Julian Javier at second, Dick Groat at short, and Ken Boyer at third. That is an extremely solid quartet. They also played in a 162 game schedule, giving them an advantage over most of baseball history. So why not them?
Here's why not: 1963 wasn't in a very high offensive era. Most teams near the top of this heap played in a high scoring era. The AL champ (and overall MLB leader) was the 2003 Rangers with 2,849 PA. The 1963 NL averaged 3.81 runs per game, quite a bit less than the 2003 AL's 4.86.
Only that Ranger squad tops the 1963 Cards, but right after them are the 1936 Indians, then 2000 Indians, 2004 Orioles, and so on. In fact, the top dozen teams consist of teams from the current Silly Ball Era, the high-scoring 1930s AL - and the 1963 Cardinals. No other NL starting infield quartet was within 300 PA of the Cards, and they rest of the league averaged barely over 2,000 PA from their foursomes.
(In fact, the 1964 Cards had the 21st most PA by any starting four infielders in MLB history. The 1963-64 Cards rank second most in a two-year period, behind the 2004-2005 Rangers).
First baseman White started every game. Javier appeared in every game but one, Boyer missed three, and Groat had the most days off, with four. St. Louis led the league in scoring, giving them more trips to the plate. What's more, Groat-White generally batted two-three-four in the order and Javier led off for a third of the season.
Still, there's a potentially seemy underbelly to this. I mentioned the 1963 Cards PA in a post at THT Live last month, and a reader pointed out an interesting fact: the team collapsed down the stretch.
After sweeping the Milwaukee Braves in a doubleheader on September 15, the Cards were 91-61, just one game behind the Los Angeles Dodgers. In the homestretch, St. Louis dropped 10 of their last 12 to finish six games back. It was actually a little worse than that, as they won their last game after dropping 10 of 11 when they most needed to win.
The problem was offense. A team that averaged 4.78 runs per game through the first 152 contests suddenly floundered, crossing the plate a grand total of 20 times in those disastrous dozen affairs. Ten of those runs came in two games, while they were thrice shutout completely and twice held to one run.
Looks bad, doesn't it? A team relies heavily on their infielders and then the offense wears out down the stretch. Let's look at how the fearsome foursome did in that period.
Julian Javier was never much of an offensive threat, but he went an anemic 4-for-36 during St. Louis death spiral. His AVG/OBP/SLG line was .111/.111/.139. An average of .250 would be acceptable from a middle infielder in 1963, but an OPS? Yoikes.
The hard-hitting Ken Boyer would win an MVP the next year and was an All-Star in 1963. But in the final days of 1964, he was scarcely better than Javier at the plate, going .150/.209/.275 for an OPS of 484.
Dick Groat was a former MVP, who was one of the best hitting shortstops of his day, but his bat also vanished at the end, with a .195/.233/.317 mark in the collapse.
Bill White was the infield's big offensive threat in this period, as he was the only one to clear the Mendoza Line - but only barely. He hit .211/.286/.211 in the final days.
Overall, the infielders hit .168/.213/.239 in 164 PA. That's futile by any standard. No wonder St. Louis couldn't score runs.
While it's easy to say that cost them the title, the reality is a bit more complex. The Dodgers were in first place when this all began, after all - and LA went 8-4 down the strech (including a three-game sweep of the punchless Redbirds).
More interestingly, it would be better to say this offensive shutdown didn't cause a flop as much as it prevented one of the greatest comebacks in MLB history. Immediately before this period, the Cards won a staggering 19 out of 20 games, in which they scored 120 runs in all.
They scored six or more runs in eight straight games - and the stretch ended when they plated "only" five runs on September 6. I don't have the time/inclination to look it up, but I'll tell ya right now teams almost never score six or more runs in eight straight games.
Before the stretch began, the Cards were 7 games behind the Dodgers with a month to play. LA actually won two-thirds of its remaining games - yet here I am talking about a possible St. Louis collapse?
Actually, let me finish by noting that St. Louis' death spiral began with LA's sweep of them. Imagine that series from the point of view of the Dodgers. They'd been playing well, but constantly losing ground to the hottest team since forever.
The Dodgers had to leave their comfy pitchers park to face the Baseball Freakin' Demi-Gods playing before the home crowd in the best hitters' park in the league. St. Louis has the most fearsomely effective offense in the league and it's been impaling pitchers with linedrives day-in, day-out for three week straight.
And the Dodgers came in the first pair of games held the Cards to one run on seven hits. (They won the last game 6-5). That friends is some mighty clutch pitching.
For example, the 1963 St. Louis Cardinals received more plate appearances from its starting four infielders than any other team in National League history, with 2,777 PA from their infielders. (Minor note: this number might be a hair off the actual one. When I collected the data neither Baseball-Reference.com nor Retrosheet listed player PA on team pages. I added SF, SH, HBP, BB, and H. It works well enough).
It's nice that the 1963 Cards come in first, but that's not terribly interesting in and of itself. After all, someone has to be in first. Why not them? After all, they had Bill White at first, Julian Javier at second, Dick Groat at short, and Ken Boyer at third. That is an extremely solid quartet. They also played in a 162 game schedule, giving them an advantage over most of baseball history. So why not them?
Here's why not: 1963 wasn't in a very high offensive era. Most teams near the top of this heap played in a high scoring era. The AL champ (and overall MLB leader) was the 2003 Rangers with 2,849 PA. The 1963 NL averaged 3.81 runs per game, quite a bit less than the 2003 AL's 4.86.
Only that Ranger squad tops the 1963 Cards, but right after them are the 1936 Indians, then 2000 Indians, 2004 Orioles, and so on. In fact, the top dozen teams consist of teams from the current Silly Ball Era, the high-scoring 1930s AL - and the 1963 Cardinals. No other NL starting infield quartet was within 300 PA of the Cards, and they rest of the league averaged barely over 2,000 PA from their foursomes.
(In fact, the 1964 Cards had the 21st most PA by any starting four infielders in MLB history. The 1963-64 Cards rank second most in a two-year period, behind the 2004-2005 Rangers).
First baseman White started every game. Javier appeared in every game but one, Boyer missed three, and Groat had the most days off, with four. St. Louis led the league in scoring, giving them more trips to the plate. What's more, Groat-White generally batted two-three-four in the order and Javier led off for a third of the season.
The downside
Still, there's a potentially seemy underbelly to this. I mentioned the 1963 Cards PA in a post at THT Live last month, and a reader pointed out an interesting fact: the team collapsed down the stretch.
After sweeping the Milwaukee Braves in a doubleheader on September 15, the Cards were 91-61, just one game behind the Los Angeles Dodgers. In the homestretch, St. Louis dropped 10 of their last 12 to finish six games back. It was actually a little worse than that, as they won their last game after dropping 10 of 11 when they most needed to win.
The problem was offense. A team that averaged 4.78 runs per game through the first 152 contests suddenly floundered, crossing the plate a grand total of 20 times in those disastrous dozen affairs. Ten of those runs came in two games, while they were thrice shutout completely and twice held to one run.
Looks bad, doesn't it? A team relies heavily on their infielders and then the offense wears out down the stretch. Let's look at how the fearsome foursome did in that period.
Julian Javier was never much of an offensive threat, but he went an anemic 4-for-36 during St. Louis death spiral. His AVG/OBP/SLG line was .111/.111/.139. An average of .250 would be acceptable from a middle infielder in 1963, but an OPS? Yoikes.
The hard-hitting Ken Boyer would win an MVP the next year and was an All-Star in 1963. But in the final days of 1964, he was scarcely better than Javier at the plate, going .150/.209/.275 for an OPS of 484.
Dick Groat was a former MVP, who was one of the best hitting shortstops of his day, but his bat also vanished at the end, with a .195/.233/.317 mark in the collapse.
Bill White was the infield's big offensive threat in this period, as he was the only one to clear the Mendoza Line - but only barely. He hit .211/.286/.211 in the final days.
Overall, the infielders hit .168/.213/.239 in 164 PA. That's futile by any standard. No wonder St. Louis couldn't score runs.
Postscript
While it's easy to say that cost them the title, the reality is a bit more complex. The Dodgers were in first place when this all began, after all - and LA went 8-4 down the strech (including a three-game sweep of the punchless Redbirds).
More interestingly, it would be better to say this offensive shutdown didn't cause a flop as much as it prevented one of the greatest comebacks in MLB history. Immediately before this period, the Cards won a staggering 19 out of 20 games, in which they scored 120 runs in all.
They scored six or more runs in eight straight games - and the stretch ended when they plated "only" five runs on September 6. I don't have the time/inclination to look it up, but I'll tell ya right now teams almost never score six or more runs in eight straight games.
Before the stretch began, the Cards were 7 games behind the Dodgers with a month to play. LA actually won two-thirds of its remaining games - yet here I am talking about a possible St. Louis collapse?
Actually, let me finish by noting that St. Louis' death spiral began with LA's sweep of them. Imagine that series from the point of view of the Dodgers. They'd been playing well, but constantly losing ground to the hottest team since forever.
The Dodgers had to leave their comfy pitchers park to face the Baseball Freakin' Demi-Gods playing before the home crowd in the best hitters' park in the league. St. Louis has the most fearsomely effective offense in the league and it's been impaling pitchers with linedrives day-in, day-out for three week straight.
And the Dodgers came in the first pair of games held the Cards to one run on seven hits. (They won the last game 6-5). That friends is some mighty clutch pitching.
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Local heroes as managers
In yesterday's Daily Herald, columnist Mike Imrem made a good point while arguing it was a good thing the Bears didn't hire Mike Singletary as their head coach:
Without looking, this opinion sure passes the smell test to me. If nothing else, firing such a former local hero turned head coach/manager would be messier than dumping a forgettable failed leader. That said, I couldn't help but notice one oddity: the best counter example to this also comes from Chicago. The current White Sox manager is former All-Star shortstop and fan favorite Ozzie Guillen. That hiring worked out pretty well.
More than that, the column got me wondering what examples are there of a high-profile player managing his former team in MLB. Is it true they're harder to fire?
Here are the most recent examples I found:
Here they are from most recent hire on backwards:
2008: Yanks hire Joe Girardi: Ah, he really doesn't count. Sure he played for some pennant winners in New York, but he's just Joe Girardi. He was a role player, not a star. I only include him here just to give an idea where the cut-off is --- somewhere damn well higher than Girardi.
2004: White Sox hire Ozzie Guillen: When I was a kid growing up in the Chicago area in the 1980s, he was one of the most popular Sox in town. He's now survived six seasons, despite his, eh, shall we say "colorful" public statements. I think his reputation as a player has helped him survive his controversies, as he had his backers from Day One.
That said, the Sox have never been put in any position where they'd have to even consider firing him. Winning the club's first pennant in nearly a half-century and first world title since the heyday of Woodrow Wilson helps job security regardless of who he used to play for.
2004: Astros hire Phil Garner: Well, I think of him as an Astro because I started collecting cars in the early 1980s, by which time he played in Houston. Then again, his best years were in Pittsburgh. I don't remember much made of his former Houston connection when the team hired him as skipper, but then again I don't follow the Houston press at all. His record doesn't show he got any extra love from the club just because he used to play there. Despite taking them to their first pennant, the team dumped him when things went south.
2003: Giants hired Felipe Alou: This one counts, sort of. Alou was a prominent Giant outfielder for a half-dozen years who made an All-Star game with the squad. He wasn't as good as Ryne Sandberg, but he sure as hell was better than Joe Girardi.
That said, he stopped playing for the Giants 40 years before returning as their manager. By 2003, most fans had no memory of him with the squad, and the stories about the 1960s Giants they knew were focused on Mays, Marichal, and McCovey, not Alou. He didn't get much slack from the team, but that's due to the time difference between his departure and return.
Tigers hire Alan Trammell: I'm sure it helps a manager if he used to be all-star player for the team he runs. That said, when you lose 119 games in your rookie season as skipper, that good will dries up mighty quick. Maybe Trammell's former shortstop days explain why he lasted all of three years.
2001: Philly hires Larry Bowa: The redass was a long time fan favorite, which allowed him to get hired here even though he failed miserably in his only previous managerial stint with the Padres in the late 1980s.
His experience belies Imrem's idea. Bowa helped the Phillies rise up in 2001, but the franchise dumped him after four years despite a 337-308 winning record. The team got sick of spinning its wheels instead of moving forward. That's a common reason to fire a manager, but it doesn't look like Bowa got much slack here.
1996: Reds hire Ray Knight: Whatever good will Knight had was largely ruined by the odd way he was hired. Team owner Marge Schott had promised him a job, and she was going to fulfill that promise even though Davey Johnson had just led them to back-to-back first place finishes. Knight was shown the door in short order after things went south.
1993: Reds hire Tony Perez: I really don't know what happened here. Perez began the year as manager, but left after 44 games. Whatever can be said, his association with the Big Red Machine surely didn't buy him any extra time on the job.
1991: Indians hire Mike Hargrove: I really don't know how big a star Hargrove was with the Indians, but he was a good hitter for them for a stretch when they weren't very good. You really can't say his playing days helped him on this job given that the team fired him right after winning his fifth consecutive division title in 1999.
1991: Royals hire Hal McRae: He was there for about four campaigns (a little less, as he was a mid-season hire), but left after back-to-back winning seasons. They've only had 1 winning season since then.
1990: Mets hire Bud Harrelson: Wait - Bud Harrelson makes this list? Well, he did make two All-Star games for the team and is still second all-time in games played for the Mets. That said, he lasted less than 280 games as manager.
Actually, hiring Harrelson goes against the main Met tradition - hiring guys well known for their work with other New York franchises as their managers. They had former Yankee players Willie Randolph and Yogi Berra, legendary Yankee skipper Casey Stengel, and former Brooklyn Dodger Gil Hodges. I don't think any of those guys got much extra slack though. Hodges died a few years after winning their first pennant and Berra was canned not too long after leading them to their second October. Randolph lost his job shortly after blowing a seemingly easy post-season opportunity, and Stengel retired after injuring himself.
1990: St. Louis hires Joe Torre: It's hard to think of him as anything but a Yankee these days, but he played for the Cardinals for five years, winning the 1971 MVP Award in that stretch. The team was willing to keep him after a bad season, but as soon as they had back-to-back rotten campaigns his days were numbered.
1988: Baltimore hires Frank Robinson: Robinson won the Triple Crown for the 1966 club that won the franchise's first world title. In six seasons playing in Baltimore, he made five All-Star games while the O's won four pennants.
It doesn't look like that helped him much as a player. He took over an Orioles team in the midst of an AL-record losing streak in 1987. Theywon lost 107 games that year (101 on his watch), but came in second place in 1988. He lost his job early in 1990 anyway.
1986: Yanks hire Lou Piniella: Steinbrenner's hired a bunch of former Yankees as manager - most notably five stints with Billy Martin. The volatile Martin really wasn't a good enough player to qualify for this list, but Piniella was a hard-hitting platoon player for them for a dozen years.
Piniella managed them for two seasons - both of which were successful for New York - but the team fired him anyway. He actually came back for half a season after that, but it was only half a season. His days as a player didn't buy him any lead time. Then again, owner George Steinbrenner was widely known for his willingness to fire his managers.
1984: Yanks hire Yogi Berra: He's one of the most revered of all Yankees. He led the team to an 87-75 record, but was fired 16 games into the following season. Sure, they were 6-10, but that's sudden. Clearly, being a former Yankee great didn't help with George Steinbrenner.
There was an epilogue to this, as Berra held a grudge for a while against his boss. Normally no one would care, but because it was Yogi Berra and the Yanks, it got some attention. That's the danger of hiring then firing a former great - but so far that seems to be the extent of the danger.
1984: Reds hire Pete Rose: They never had a chance to fire him as the commissioner got him first. That said, please note this is the third manager hired by Marge Schott on this list.
1978: St. Louis hires Ken Boyer: He lasted barely over two seasons despite being a former MVP third baseman for the squad. Admittedly, the team got off to a terrible start in 1980, but sometimes managers survive such lousy openings. His fame as a Cardinal player didn't help him keep his job.
1965: St. Louis hires Red Schoendienst: Did they fire him or just give him another job in the organization? He's been with the Cardinals seemingly forever in one role or another, including two interim stints (which I didn't list above because they were obviously just interim stints). Being a famous Cardinal player was the first step in his becoming the team's de facto mascot.
1964: Yanks hire Yogi Berra: This was a weird one. The team won the pennant with him, and then fired him anyway. His playing days didn't help him.
1961: Washington hires Mickey Vernon: Technically, this shouldn't count as Vernon never played for this club. Instead, he played for the original AL Senators, who moved to Minnesota in 1961. Still, his hiring was clearly an attempt by the expansion team to get some attention. He only lasted two and a quarter dismal seasons.
1951: A's hire Jimmy Dykes: He's the guy that replaced Connie Mack. They had a winning record under him in 1952, but fired him after 1953 anyway - that made him the first fired manager in franchise history.
1942: Giants hire Mel Ott: He was a player-manager, so it wasn't former prestige but existing prestige. Also, the team may have had to trade him to get rid of him. At any rate, being Mel Ott the player must have helped him remain as Mel Ott the manager, because he survived two different last place finishes. For context, the club had only two other last place finishes in their previous 40 seasons.
1942: Cleveland hires Lou Boudreau: He was another player-manager. Like Ott, his playing helped him keep his job. Bill Veeck, in Veeck as in Wreck, said he wanted to dump Boudreau at one point, but couldn't do to fan support for the star shortstop.
Around here, the concept starts breaking down as player-managers add an extra element to the equation that doesn't apply to the modern day game.
Still, what surprises me is how little these managers are helped by being former star players for their teams. They get fired no matter what. If anything, I'd say more of them are fired unusually quickly rather than held on a bit too long.
Perhaps there's a selection bias at work: you're not going to hire someone like this unless you really think well of him, or if you're someone like George Steinbrenner who really doesn't care about criticism you might get for firing.
Another possibility is most of these guys aren't really good comps for Hall of Famers like Ryne Sandberg or (switching sports for a second) Mike Singletary. I highly doubt Mickey Vernon's reputation was quite as strong in Washington as Sandberg's is in Chicago.
There's another angle at this, though. I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of these guys only got the job in the first place because of who they were rather than what they were capable of. In that case, critics would exist from the time of their initial hiring, and would quickly multiple in numbers when things went wrong. Thus a lot of these guys could be fired rather easily.
My hunch is that the last point is the main factor explaining this. In other words, my thought at the top of the article might not be right. Being a popular player doesn't mean you'll be more difficult to fire because if you don't produce people won't want you around anyway. When you put it that way, the results here shouldn't be as surprising to me as they are.
Two rules apply to being a boss: One is never hire someone who wants your job; two is never hire someone who would be difficult to fire.
Singletary would fit that second category here. So for that matter would Ryne Sandberg.
Tom Ricketts and Jim Hendry aren't saying what they really think of Sandberg as a future Cub manager, but he seems on a course back toward Wrigley Field.
Nobody can be certain how good a major-league manager Sandberg would be. But if he stunk, well, how difficult would it be to dispose of someone as popular around Wrigley Field as he is?
My goodness, the guy's retired number hangs from a foul pole in Wrigley Field.
Without looking, this opinion sure passes the smell test to me. If nothing else, firing such a former local hero turned head coach/manager would be messier than dumping a forgettable failed leader. That said, I couldn't help but notice one oddity: the best counter example to this also comes from Chicago. The current White Sox manager is former All-Star shortstop and fan favorite Ozzie Guillen. That hiring worked out pretty well.
More than that, the column got me wondering what examples are there of a high-profile player managing his former team in MLB. Is it true they're harder to fire?
Here are the most recent examples I found:
Local Heroes Turned Managers
Here they are from most recent hire on backwards:
2008: Yanks hire Joe Girardi: Ah, he really doesn't count. Sure he played for some pennant winners in New York, but he's just Joe Girardi. He was a role player, not a star. I only include him here just to give an idea where the cut-off is --- somewhere damn well higher than Girardi.
2004: White Sox hire Ozzie Guillen: When I was a kid growing up in the Chicago area in the 1980s, he was one of the most popular Sox in town. He's now survived six seasons, despite his, eh, shall we say "colorful" public statements. I think his reputation as a player has helped him survive his controversies, as he had his backers from Day One.
That said, the Sox have never been put in any position where they'd have to even consider firing him. Winning the club's first pennant in nearly a half-century and first world title since the heyday of Woodrow Wilson helps job security regardless of who he used to play for.
2004: Astros hire Phil Garner: Well, I think of him as an Astro because I started collecting cars in the early 1980s, by which time he played in Houston. Then again, his best years were in Pittsburgh. I don't remember much made of his former Houston connection when the team hired him as skipper, but then again I don't follow the Houston press at all. His record doesn't show he got any extra love from the club just because he used to play there. Despite taking them to their first pennant, the team dumped him when things went south.
2003: Giants hired Felipe Alou: This one counts, sort of. Alou was a prominent Giant outfielder for a half-dozen years who made an All-Star game with the squad. He wasn't as good as Ryne Sandberg, but he sure as hell was better than Joe Girardi.
That said, he stopped playing for the Giants 40 years before returning as their manager. By 2003, most fans had no memory of him with the squad, and the stories about the 1960s Giants they knew were focused on Mays, Marichal, and McCovey, not Alou. He didn't get much slack from the team, but that's due to the time difference between his departure and return.
Tigers hire Alan Trammell: I'm sure it helps a manager if he used to be all-star player for the team he runs. That said, when you lose 119 games in your rookie season as skipper, that good will dries up mighty quick. Maybe Trammell's former shortstop days explain why he lasted all of three years.
2001: Philly hires Larry Bowa: The redass was a long time fan favorite, which allowed him to get hired here even though he failed miserably in his only previous managerial stint with the Padres in the late 1980s.
His experience belies Imrem's idea. Bowa helped the Phillies rise up in 2001, but the franchise dumped him after four years despite a 337-308 winning record. The team got sick of spinning its wheels instead of moving forward. That's a common reason to fire a manager, but it doesn't look like Bowa got much slack here.
1996: Reds hire Ray Knight: Whatever good will Knight had was largely ruined by the odd way he was hired. Team owner Marge Schott had promised him a job, and she was going to fulfill that promise even though Davey Johnson had just led them to back-to-back first place finishes. Knight was shown the door in short order after things went south.
1993: Reds hire Tony Perez: I really don't know what happened here. Perez began the year as manager, but left after 44 games. Whatever can be said, his association with the Big Red Machine surely didn't buy him any extra time on the job.
1991: Indians hire Mike Hargrove: I really don't know how big a star Hargrove was with the Indians, but he was a good hitter for them for a stretch when they weren't very good. You really can't say his playing days helped him on this job given that the team fired him right after winning his fifth consecutive division title in 1999.
1991: Royals hire Hal McRae: He was there for about four campaigns (a little less, as he was a mid-season hire), but left after back-to-back winning seasons. They've only had 1 winning season since then.
1990: Mets hire Bud Harrelson: Wait - Bud Harrelson makes this list? Well, he did make two All-Star games for the team and is still second all-time in games played for the Mets. That said, he lasted less than 280 games as manager.
Actually, hiring Harrelson goes against the main Met tradition - hiring guys well known for their work with other New York franchises as their managers. They had former Yankee players Willie Randolph and Yogi Berra, legendary Yankee skipper Casey Stengel, and former Brooklyn Dodger Gil Hodges. I don't think any of those guys got much extra slack though. Hodges died a few years after winning their first pennant and Berra was canned not too long after leading them to their second October. Randolph lost his job shortly after blowing a seemingly easy post-season opportunity, and Stengel retired after injuring himself.
1990: St. Louis hires Joe Torre: It's hard to think of him as anything but a Yankee these days, but he played for the Cardinals for five years, winning the 1971 MVP Award in that stretch. The team was willing to keep him after a bad season, but as soon as they had back-to-back rotten campaigns his days were numbered.
1988: Baltimore hires Frank Robinson: Robinson won the Triple Crown for the 1966 club that won the franchise's first world title. In six seasons playing in Baltimore, he made five All-Star games while the O's won four pennants.
It doesn't look like that helped him much as a player. He took over an Orioles team in the midst of an AL-record losing streak in 1987. They
1986: Yanks hire Lou Piniella: Steinbrenner's hired a bunch of former Yankees as manager - most notably five stints with Billy Martin. The volatile Martin really wasn't a good enough player to qualify for this list, but Piniella was a hard-hitting platoon player for them for a dozen years.
Piniella managed them for two seasons - both of which were successful for New York - but the team fired him anyway. He actually came back for half a season after that, but it was only half a season. His days as a player didn't buy him any lead time. Then again, owner George Steinbrenner was widely known for his willingness to fire his managers.
1984: Yanks hire Yogi Berra: He's one of the most revered of all Yankees. He led the team to an 87-75 record, but was fired 16 games into the following season. Sure, they were 6-10, but that's sudden. Clearly, being a former Yankee great didn't help with George Steinbrenner.
There was an epilogue to this, as Berra held a grudge for a while against his boss. Normally no one would care, but because it was Yogi Berra and the Yanks, it got some attention. That's the danger of hiring then firing a former great - but so far that seems to be the extent of the danger.
1984: Reds hire Pete Rose: They never had a chance to fire him as the commissioner got him first. That said, please note this is the third manager hired by Marge Schott on this list.
1978: St. Louis hires Ken Boyer: He lasted barely over two seasons despite being a former MVP third baseman for the squad. Admittedly, the team got off to a terrible start in 1980, but sometimes managers survive such lousy openings. His fame as a Cardinal player didn't help him keep his job.
1965: St. Louis hires Red Schoendienst: Did they fire him or just give him another job in the organization? He's been with the Cardinals seemingly forever in one role or another, including two interim stints (which I didn't list above because they were obviously just interim stints). Being a famous Cardinal player was the first step in his becoming the team's de facto mascot.
1964: Yanks hire Yogi Berra: This was a weird one. The team won the pennant with him, and then fired him anyway. His playing days didn't help him.
1961: Washington hires Mickey Vernon: Technically, this shouldn't count as Vernon never played for this club. Instead, he played for the original AL Senators, who moved to Minnesota in 1961. Still, his hiring was clearly an attempt by the expansion team to get some attention. He only lasted two and a quarter dismal seasons.
1951: A's hire Jimmy Dykes: He's the guy that replaced Connie Mack. They had a winning record under him in 1952, but fired him after 1953 anyway - that made him the first fired manager in franchise history.
1942: Giants hire Mel Ott: He was a player-manager, so it wasn't former prestige but existing prestige. Also, the team may have had to trade him to get rid of him. At any rate, being Mel Ott the player must have helped him remain as Mel Ott the manager, because he survived two different last place finishes. For context, the club had only two other last place finishes in their previous 40 seasons.
1942: Cleveland hires Lou Boudreau: He was another player-manager. Like Ott, his playing helped him keep his job. Bill Veeck, in Veeck as in Wreck, said he wanted to dump Boudreau at one point, but couldn't do to fan support for the star shortstop.
Summing up
Around here, the concept starts breaking down as player-managers add an extra element to the equation that doesn't apply to the modern day game.
Still, what surprises me is how little these managers are helped by being former star players for their teams. They get fired no matter what. If anything, I'd say more of them are fired unusually quickly rather than held on a bit too long.
Perhaps there's a selection bias at work: you're not going to hire someone like this unless you really think well of him, or if you're someone like George Steinbrenner who really doesn't care about criticism you might get for firing.
Another possibility is most of these guys aren't really good comps for Hall of Famers like Ryne Sandberg or (switching sports for a second) Mike Singletary. I highly doubt Mickey Vernon's reputation was quite as strong in Washington as Sandberg's is in Chicago.
There's another angle at this, though. I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of these guys only got the job in the first place because of who they were rather than what they were capable of. In that case, critics would exist from the time of their initial hiring, and would quickly multiple in numbers when things went wrong. Thus a lot of these guys could be fired rather easily.
My hunch is that the last point is the main factor explaining this. In other words, my thought at the top of the article might not be right. Being a popular player doesn't mean you'll be more difficult to fire because if you don't produce people won't want you around anyway. When you put it that way, the results here shouldn't be as surprising to me as they are.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
"Hello, is this thing on?" Welcome to wherever I am
So where to begin?
Let's start with the basics: my name is Chris Jaffe and I just wrote a book I'm immensely proud of (to be fair, as author I'm a bit biased, now aren't I?) titled: "Evaluating Baseball's Managers, 1876-2008" which you can order if you want.
It's because I wrote the book that I decided to start this blog. While I'd love to say the main motivation for this site is for the betterment of humanity or to foster greater understanding among the post-prehensile tail set, my concerns are a bit more self-centered.
After writing my book, I learned that it was important for me to try to promote the sucker actively. (DAMMIT!) Otherwise, it could easily come and go, unnoticed and unread. From what I know, having a blog is apparently one of the best ways to promote a book and build awareness for it. In theory anyway.
That sounds mighty self-interested, and to some extent it is, but only to some extent. I wouldn't bother going through the motions of starting up a site like this unless I truly did feel this was something well worth reading. To paraphrase the late Samuel Goldwyn, I don't care if my book makes a nickel - I just want every man, woman, and child in the country to read it. For what it's worth, based on the feedback I've gotten from people who read the manuscript, I'm right to think it's worth half a fart.
The book has a basic starting point: managers are primarily managers of men and not of the game. Thus much commentary of the profession is off-the-mark because it focuses on in-game strategy instead. This is especially true of virtually all sabermetric commentary on the profession, as it is far easier to quantify things like bunts that ability to get the most out of players.
Among other goals, this book tries to fill that gap. The idea for this book first popped in my head when I saw Phil Birnbaum give a presentation at the annual SABR convention in 2006. He created a database to determine how much teams under/overachieved in a given season. He termed the disparity luck. However, while luck is certainly one factor that explains why a team would do better or worse than one might expect, it's not the only reason. For example, looking at the results it was amazing how "lucky" teams managed by Earl Weaver always were, or how "unlucky" Don Baylor's squads were.
Two elements of Birnbaum's database really caught my attention. He created two algorithms - one for hitters and the other for pitchers - to determine if a player did better or worse in a given season based on how he performed in the two previous and two succeeding seasons. These algorithms (based on Runs Created and Component ERA respectively) appeared to be a real breakthrough to me. They promised to be the first things produced that could really measure the impact a manager could have on his players.
However, I didn't want to claim these things measured coaching just because I thought so. I sought some further evidence. To that end, I divided all teams in MLB history into one of four categories: those helmed by managers who lasted at least 2,000 games, 1,000-1999 game managers, 500-999 game managers, and 499 or fewer.
My rationale was simple - assuming there is any correlation between length of managerial career and skill (and that's an assumption I feel incredibly safe in making), the longer a group of managers lasted, the better they should do. If it were luck, that would not be the case - the longer a group lasted the more luck should even out. It's awful tough to be the luckiest group when each individual has a sample size of 13+ seasons on the job.
Furthermore, I theorized that if the algorithms represented skill, the gap between the two middle groups (the 1,000 to 1,999 guys and the 500 to 999 guys) would be the smallest overall. They were the two most mediocre groups while the 2000+ and 499- groups should have an undue proportion of the best and worst managers pulling them away from an average score. However, if Birnbaum's work (henceforth referred to as the Birnbaum Database) measured only luck, the gap between the 1000s and 2000s would be smallest, because of the large sample sizes involved.
Much to my delight, the test confirmed my belief that the Birnbaum Database indicated what impact a manager had on his team. Please note this falls short of 100% indisputable evidence, but the evidence is strong enough for me.
I should note the Birnbaum Database actually covered five different areas. Aside from the two algorithms, he also looked at : 1) deviation from expected win-loss records based on pythagenpat projections, 2) actual team runs scored versus expected run scoring based on overall offensive production (again using Runs Created), and 3) team runs allowed versus expected runs allowed (based on Component ERA).
I wasn't sure what to expect from these final three components, but the results from the 2000s/1000s/500s/499s test also indicated some managerial impact. The results aren't as strong as they were for the two algorithms, but they were far more in line with what one would expect from managerial skill than from pure luck. I theorized that the runs allowed/scored components focus on in-game tactical ability of managers (just because a stolen base is worth X-runs on the whole doesn't mean each stolen base is worth that), and pythagenpat deviation might say something about how he structures the roster. I'm willing to believe that all five components indicate managerial ability, but the two algorithms are the two I'm unquestionably sold on.
While the above inspired me to investigate managers, it wasn't until I created a database of my own that I felt I could write a book on managers. I call it the Tendencies Database. It's inspired by a brief segment in the Bill James's Guide to Managers in which James notes how often different managers led the league in certain statistics, ranging from bunts to homers. I took it a step further. With Excel, I incorporated how well all a manager's teams ranked in a given category rather than just the times they led the league.
The notion was simple: figure out where all a manager's teams ranked in a given category, adjust for league size (which is actually a bit more difficult than it sounds), and compare the managers across era. In the results, 1.000 is always an average score. The lower score usually means the manager fared better in that stat. (It might sound odd that lower means better, but it makes sense because the Tendencies Database is based on how teams rank in a given category. Ranking first is a good thing usually as well as the lowest possible rank).
I ran several dozen queries with the Tendencies Database, including obvious ones like which manager liked to sacrifice bunt or use the most relievers. I also ran trickier to research ones, such as who relied the most on their starting lineup and who used their bench the most often. To answer that question, I determined what percentage of a team's plate appearance went to their starting eight position players (or nine in a DH league) for every team in history. I've never seen it studied, but it certainly is important.
In fact, even with the simple queries such as who sacrifice bunts the most I adjusted to find a more accurate result. The sacrifice comes only when there is someone on base, so rather than look at simply SH, I take SH divided by opportunity, to see which managers bunted the most when they had the chance.
I limit the Tendencies Database to skippers who lasted at least ten seasons as a team's primary manager. As an added bonus, since an average score is always 1, you can combine results to determine items such as who was the biggest small ball manager of all time (add together the sacrifice hit and stolen base results) or any similar idea. The Tendencies Database is explained in greater depth on pages 110-113 of The Hardball Times 2008 Annual
Neither the Birnbaum Database nor the Tendencies Database are perfect analytical tools for evaluating managers, but then again imperfection is not a synonym for useless. For lack of a better way of putting it, I kept my BS Detector on when looking at the data to figure out when they illuminate our knowledge of managers and when it's distort it. By and large, they provide a lot of helpful information on the peculiarities and distinctions of baseball managers.
There is a third avenue of exploration used to evaluate managers, but this one works only with managers from the mid-1960s or earlier. It used to be that a manager would decide who his starting pitcher would be based on the identity of the opposing squad rather than have them pitch in the modern ABCDE rotating order. I call this practice pitcher leveraging, because the goal was to leverage your best arms for the most important games in order to make those contest count as much as they could in the team's favor.
I created a few stats to evaluate the degree of pitcher leveraging. First is AOWP+, (the acroynym stands for Average Opponent Winning Percentage) which I debuted in a column over at The Hardball Times. AOWP+ determines if an individual pitcher was leveraged in a season. A score of 100 means he wasn't at all, a higher score means he faced quality teams a disproportionate number of times, and a lower score means the opposite.
Based on AOWP+, I created a stats called LPA (Leverage Points Added) and LPA+ (which adjusts LPA for era, as pitcher leveraging ebbed and flowed over time). Both LPA and LPA+ apply to managers. The more extreme the AOWP+s were under a manager, the higher his LPA and LPA+ wil be. (Like AOWP+, an early version of LPA and LPA+ were used in a Hardball Times column).
I only look use AOWP+ and LPA+ for managers from 1876-1965 because leveraging clearly came to an end in the mid-1960s. And when I say it clearly came to an end, I looked up over 90% of all starts from 1876-1969 and a chunk of starts from 1970-onward, and there is no evidence of leveraging existing as a meaningful strategy. Ultimately, LPA+ and its ilk are a side note in my book, but it's still an important sidenote, especially given that as far as I know, no one has studied how managers leveraged their pitchers in any meaningful way.
The heart of the book, however, isn't on math, but on managers. The first part of the book consists of three chapters explaining the above areas in much more detail (and providing key results as to the best/worst/most extreme managers of all time), but that merely sets up the second part of the book. In the six chapters in part two, I apply the above to 89 of the most important managers in baseball history. Those 89 include the 77 managers who lasted at least 10 seasons as a team's primary manager from 1876-2008, and a dozen of the most important others. (Two of those dozen others - Mike Scioscia and Terry Francona - managed their tenth season in 2009).
I can honestly say that I'm proud of my entries on each of the 89 managers. They're not all of equal value - sorry all you Jimmy McAleer fanboys, but your guy isn't the highlight of the book - but I found something to say about all of them.
Anyhow, since I'm proud of my book I'm willing to promote it, and rumor has it that starting a blog is a good way to promote a book. There must be something to the notion of blogging for promotion -- Joe Posnanski's first blog was The Soul of Baseball Blog, named after his Buck O'Neil book. Howard Megdal created a site for his book "Baseball Talmud". Perhaps most successfully of all, Tangotiger and MGL's The Book Blog has become a must-read site for those into advanced sabermetric thinking.
I'm not nearly as ambitious with this blog as some of the writers above are with their sites. My main writing focus will still be my weekly gig at The Hardball Times, where my columns regularly appear every Monday. This primarily exists for me to add in whatever thoughts on baseball I have that aren't in and of themselves enough to fit into a full-length column. That's not intended as a slam on what I'm doing here, either -- my typical column there is a bit over 2,000 words). A lot of what I'll write might be simple/basic bits such as my Random Facts of the Day pieces I've done at THT Live.
Obviously, manager-related information will be prioritized (this is, after all a blog spawned by a book on baseball managers), but that won't be the only item. Heck, I don't even feel the need to write only about baseball. I have a general plan of what I want to do, but I don't see any need to get too fixed in my plans in advance: after all being a bit free form is half the fun of having a blog. I just want to see how it plays out and see what the future holds.
If I like blogging, I'll keep blogging after it's stopped making sense for me to do so for purely book-related reasons. If it's too much a chore, I'll stop. That's another advantage of blogging. Either way, I doubt this place will get updated either day, but if you're interested I've established an rss feed (scroll to the bottom of the site) and it's possible it even works.
If nothing else, could ya show some support for someone with enough chutzpah to start a baseball blog in November? (And by "chutzpah" I mean "stupidity" - but you already figured that one out on your own, I bet).
Have any more questions? Send me an e-mail.
Let's start with the basics: my name is Chris Jaffe and I just wrote a book I'm immensely proud of (to be fair, as author I'm a bit biased, now aren't I?) titled: "Evaluating Baseball's Managers, 1876-2008" which you can order if you want.
It's because I wrote the book that I decided to start this blog. While I'd love to say the main motivation for this site is for the betterment of humanity or to foster greater understanding among the post-prehensile tail set, my concerns are a bit more self-centered.
After writing my book, I learned that it was important for me to try to promote the sucker actively. (DAMMIT!) Otherwise, it could easily come and go, unnoticed and unread. From what I know, having a blog is apparently one of the best ways to promote a book and build awareness for it. In theory anyway.
That sounds mighty self-interested, and to some extent it is, but only to some extent. I wouldn't bother going through the motions of starting up a site like this unless I truly did feel this was something well worth reading. To paraphrase the late Samuel Goldwyn, I don't care if my book makes a nickel - I just want every man, woman, and child in the country to read it. For what it's worth, based on the feedback I've gotten from people who read the manuscript, I'm right to think it's worth half a fart.
About the book
The book has a basic starting point: managers are primarily managers of men and not of the game. Thus much commentary of the profession is off-the-mark because it focuses on in-game strategy instead. This is especially true of virtually all sabermetric commentary on the profession, as it is far easier to quantify things like bunts that ability to get the most out of players.
Among other goals, this book tries to fill that gap. The idea for this book first popped in my head when I saw Phil Birnbaum give a presentation at the annual SABR convention in 2006. He created a database to determine how much teams under/overachieved in a given season. He termed the disparity luck. However, while luck is certainly one factor that explains why a team would do better or worse than one might expect, it's not the only reason. For example, looking at the results it was amazing how "lucky" teams managed by Earl Weaver always were, or how "unlucky" Don Baylor's squads were.
Two elements of Birnbaum's database really caught my attention. He created two algorithms - one for hitters and the other for pitchers - to determine if a player did better or worse in a given season based on how he performed in the two previous and two succeeding seasons. These algorithms (based on Runs Created and Component ERA respectively) appeared to be a real breakthrough to me. They promised to be the first things produced that could really measure the impact a manager could have on his players.
However, I didn't want to claim these things measured coaching just because I thought so. I sought some further evidence. To that end, I divided all teams in MLB history into one of four categories: those helmed by managers who lasted at least 2,000 games, 1,000-1999 game managers, 500-999 game managers, and 499 or fewer.
My rationale was simple - assuming there is any correlation between length of managerial career and skill (and that's an assumption I feel incredibly safe in making), the longer a group of managers lasted, the better they should do. If it were luck, that would not be the case - the longer a group lasted the more luck should even out. It's awful tough to be the luckiest group when each individual has a sample size of 13+ seasons on the job.
Furthermore, I theorized that if the algorithms represented skill, the gap between the two middle groups (the 1,000 to 1,999 guys and the 500 to 999 guys) would be the smallest overall. They were the two most mediocre groups while the 2000+ and 499- groups should have an undue proportion of the best and worst managers pulling them away from an average score. However, if Birnbaum's work (henceforth referred to as the Birnbaum Database) measured only luck, the gap between the 1000s and 2000s would be smallest, because of the large sample sizes involved.
Much to my delight, the test confirmed my belief that the Birnbaum Database indicated what impact a manager had on his team. Please note this falls short of 100% indisputable evidence, but the evidence is strong enough for me.
I should note the Birnbaum Database actually covered five different areas. Aside from the two algorithms, he also looked at : 1) deviation from expected win-loss records based on pythagenpat projections, 2) actual team runs scored versus expected run scoring based on overall offensive production (again using Runs Created), and 3) team runs allowed versus expected runs allowed (based on Component ERA).
I wasn't sure what to expect from these final three components, but the results from the 2000s/1000s/500s/499s test also indicated some managerial impact. The results aren't as strong as they were for the two algorithms, but they were far more in line with what one would expect from managerial skill than from pure luck. I theorized that the runs allowed/scored components focus on in-game tactical ability of managers (just because a stolen base is worth X-runs on the whole doesn't mean each stolen base is worth that), and pythagenpat deviation might say something about how he structures the roster. I'm willing to believe that all five components indicate managerial ability, but the two algorithms are the two I'm unquestionably sold on.
While the above inspired me to investigate managers, it wasn't until I created a database of my own that I felt I could write a book on managers. I call it the Tendencies Database. It's inspired by a brief segment in the Bill James's Guide to Managers in which James notes how often different managers led the league in certain statistics, ranging from bunts to homers. I took it a step further. With Excel, I incorporated how well all a manager's teams ranked in a given category rather than just the times they led the league.
The notion was simple: figure out where all a manager's teams ranked in a given category, adjust for league size (which is actually a bit more difficult than it sounds), and compare the managers across era. In the results, 1.000 is always an average score. The lower score usually means the manager fared better in that stat. (It might sound odd that lower means better, but it makes sense because the Tendencies Database is based on how teams rank in a given category. Ranking first is a good thing usually as well as the lowest possible rank).
I ran several dozen queries with the Tendencies Database, including obvious ones like which manager liked to sacrifice bunt or use the most relievers. I also ran trickier to research ones, such as who relied the most on their starting lineup and who used their bench the most often. To answer that question, I determined what percentage of a team's plate appearance went to their starting eight position players (or nine in a DH league) for every team in history. I've never seen it studied, but it certainly is important.
In fact, even with the simple queries such as who sacrifice bunts the most I adjusted to find a more accurate result. The sacrifice comes only when there is someone on base, so rather than look at simply SH, I take SH divided by opportunity, to see which managers bunted the most when they had the chance.
I limit the Tendencies Database to skippers who lasted at least ten seasons as a team's primary manager. As an added bonus, since an average score is always 1, you can combine results to determine items such as who was the biggest small ball manager of all time (add together the sacrifice hit and stolen base results) or any similar idea. The Tendencies Database is explained in greater depth on pages 110-113 of The Hardball Times 2008 Annual
Neither the Birnbaum Database nor the Tendencies Database are perfect analytical tools for evaluating managers, but then again imperfection is not a synonym for useless. For lack of a better way of putting it, I kept my BS Detector on when looking at the data to figure out when they illuminate our knowledge of managers and when it's distort it. By and large, they provide a lot of helpful information on the peculiarities and distinctions of baseball managers.
There is a third avenue of exploration used to evaluate managers, but this one works only with managers from the mid-1960s or earlier. It used to be that a manager would decide who his starting pitcher would be based on the identity of the opposing squad rather than have them pitch in the modern ABCDE rotating order. I call this practice pitcher leveraging, because the goal was to leverage your best arms for the most important games in order to make those contest count as much as they could in the team's favor.
I created a few stats to evaluate the degree of pitcher leveraging. First is AOWP+, (the acroynym stands for Average Opponent Winning Percentage) which I debuted in a column over at The Hardball Times. AOWP+ determines if an individual pitcher was leveraged in a season. A score of 100 means he wasn't at all, a higher score means he faced quality teams a disproportionate number of times, and a lower score means the opposite.
Based on AOWP+, I created a stats called LPA (Leverage Points Added) and LPA+ (which adjusts LPA for era, as pitcher leveraging ebbed and flowed over time). Both LPA and LPA+ apply to managers. The more extreme the AOWP+s were under a manager, the higher his LPA and LPA+ wil be. (Like AOWP+, an early version of LPA and LPA+ were used in a Hardball Times column).
I only look use AOWP+ and LPA+ for managers from 1876-1965 because leveraging clearly came to an end in the mid-1960s. And when I say it clearly came to an end, I looked up over 90% of all starts from 1876-1969 and a chunk of starts from 1970-onward, and there is no evidence of leveraging existing as a meaningful strategy. Ultimately, LPA+ and its ilk are a side note in my book, but it's still an important sidenote, especially given that as far as I know, no one has studied how managers leveraged their pitchers in any meaningful way.
The heart of the book, however, isn't on math, but on managers. The first part of the book consists of three chapters explaining the above areas in much more detail (and providing key results as to the best/worst/most extreme managers of all time), but that merely sets up the second part of the book. In the six chapters in part two, I apply the above to 89 of the most important managers in baseball history. Those 89 include the 77 managers who lasted at least 10 seasons as a team's primary manager from 1876-2008, and a dozen of the most important others. (Two of those dozen others - Mike Scioscia and Terry Francona - managed their tenth season in 2009).
I can honestly say that I'm proud of my entries on each of the 89 managers. They're not all of equal value - sorry all you Jimmy McAleer fanboys, but your guy isn't the highlight of the book - but I found something to say about all of them.
About the blog
Anyhow, since I'm proud of my book I'm willing to promote it, and rumor has it that starting a blog is a good way to promote a book. There must be something to the notion of blogging for promotion -- Joe Posnanski's first blog was The Soul of Baseball Blog, named after his Buck O'Neil book. Howard Megdal created a site for his book "Baseball Talmud". Perhaps most successfully of all, Tangotiger and MGL's The Book Blog has become a must-read site for those into advanced sabermetric thinking.
I'm not nearly as ambitious with this blog as some of the writers above are with their sites. My main writing focus will still be my weekly gig at The Hardball Times, where my columns regularly appear every Monday. This primarily exists for me to add in whatever thoughts on baseball I have that aren't in and of themselves enough to fit into a full-length column. That's not intended as a slam on what I'm doing here, either -- my typical column there is a bit over 2,000 words). A lot of what I'll write might be simple/basic bits such as my Random Facts of the Day pieces I've done at THT Live.
Obviously, manager-related information will be prioritized (this is, after all a blog spawned by a book on baseball managers), but that won't be the only item. Heck, I don't even feel the need to write only about baseball. I have a general plan of what I want to do, but I don't see any need to get too fixed in my plans in advance: after all being a bit free form is half the fun of having a blog. I just want to see how it plays out and see what the future holds.
If I like blogging, I'll keep blogging after it's stopped making sense for me to do so for purely book-related reasons. If it's too much a chore, I'll stop. That's another advantage of blogging. Either way, I doubt this place will get updated either day, but if you're interested I've established an rss feed (scroll to the bottom of the site) and it's possible it even works.
If nothing else, could ya show some support for someone with enough chutzpah to start a baseball blog in November? (And by "chutzpah" I mean "stupidity" - but you already figured that one out on your own, I bet).
Have any more questions? Send me an e-mail.
About the Author
History instructor by day, baseball statnerd by night, I live the most exciting of double lives, with the exception of any other double life one could possibly imagine. Lack of comic-book-worthiness aside, I keep myself occupied and satisfied farting around with this stuff. If you have any questions, feel free to shoot me an e-mail.
Interviews
Ordered from most recent to most distant:
Mark Carig of the Star-Ledger contacted me with regard to his article on catchers who become managers.
Bill Baer of Phillies' blog Crashburn Alley also interviewed me. The results went up in two parts at Baseball Daily Digest.
I was interviewed by Russell Adams of the Wall Street Journal early on my research on managers.
Mark Carig of the Star-Ledger contacted me with regard to his article on catchers who become managers.
Bill Baer of Phillies' blog Crashburn Alley also interviewed me. The results went up in two parts at Baseball Daily Digest.
I was interviewed by Russell Adams of the Wall Street Journal early on my research on managers.
Excerpts
Excerpt up at Rich Lederer's Baseball Analysts. It's the intro essay to Chapter 5, "Rise of the Fundamentalists, 1893-1919."
Excerpt up on Dick Williams at Ducksnorts. It went up January 21, 2010. It is NOT the full Dick Williams commentary from the book; it focuses on the Padres stuff for this except. Makes sense, as Ducksnorts is a Padres blog.
Excerpt up on Tom Kelly at Aaron Gleeman.com. It went up January 13, 2010.
Excerpt up on Casey Stengel at the Was Watching site. It went up December 17, 2009.
Excerpt up on Tony LaRussa at Viva El Bordos on December 15, 2009.
Excerpt on Joe McCarthy went up at the Replacement Level Yankee Weblog on December 7, 2009.
Excerpt up on Gene Mauch over at Crashburn Alley. This went up December 4, 2009.
Dusty Baker excerpt went up December 1, 2009 at The Hardball Times.
Charles Comiskey excerpt went up on November 30, 2009 at The Hardball Times.
My writing on Pat Moran (great manager from around 1920). This comes from Chapter 5 in the book. This excerpt went up November 23, 2009 at The Hardball Times.
My thoughts on Billy Martin was the second excerpt up. This comes from Chapter 8 in the book, which focuses on managers from 1977-97. This went up at The Hardball Times on November 17, 2009.
A piece outlining the Tendencies Database, the analytical core of the book, was the first excerpt up. I had it go up first largely to set up future excerpts. This went up at The Hardball Times on November 16, 2009.
Have any questions, or interested in having an excerpt from Evaluating Baseball's Managers added to your blog? Send me an e-mail.
Excerpt up on Dick Williams at Ducksnorts. It went up January 21, 2010. It is NOT the full Dick Williams commentary from the book; it focuses on the Padres stuff for this except. Makes sense, as Ducksnorts is a Padres blog.
Excerpt up on Tom Kelly at Aaron Gleeman.com. It went up January 13, 2010.
Excerpt up on Casey Stengel at the Was Watching site. It went up December 17, 2009.
Excerpt up on Tony LaRussa at Viva El Bordos on December 15, 2009.
Excerpt on Joe McCarthy went up at the Replacement Level Yankee Weblog on December 7, 2009.
Excerpt up on Gene Mauch over at Crashburn Alley. This went up December 4, 2009.
Dusty Baker excerpt went up December 1, 2009 at The Hardball Times.
Charles Comiskey excerpt went up on November 30, 2009 at The Hardball Times.
My writing on Pat Moran (great manager from around 1920). This comes from Chapter 5 in the book. This excerpt went up November 23, 2009 at The Hardball Times.
My thoughts on Billy Martin was the second excerpt up. This comes from Chapter 8 in the book, which focuses on managers from 1977-97. This went up at The Hardball Times on November 17, 2009.
A piece outlining the Tendencies Database, the analytical core of the book, was the first excerpt up. I had it go up first largely to set up future excerpts. This went up at The Hardball Times on November 16, 2009.
Have any questions, or interested in having an excerpt from Evaluating Baseball's Managers added to your blog? Send me an e-mail.
How to Purchase It
There are a couple ways to get a hold of Evaluating Baseball's Managers, 1876-2008.
First, you can order it directly from the publisher, McFarland. On a purely mercenary note, this is the best way because that way I make the most money (I get a cut of what McFarland makes, and if there's no middle man, with get a greater profit).
However, as reader, there's no need for you to necessarily care about that. So here are some other options.
Second, you can get it from amazon.com. Want to get it that way? Go for it the price at amazon is $35.95, a bit cheaper than at McFarland.
Oh, and on December 9, I learned that the book will be available with Amazon's kindle program.
Third, you can buy it at Barnes & Noble.com. For the most part it's the same price - UNLESS you're a B&N Member, in which case you can get it slightly cheaper.
What you generally can not do to purchase the book is buy it from your local bookstore, including Barnes & Noble or Borders. McFarland is a niche publisher and they rarely get their books in the major stores. (If you're curious, go to your local bookstore's baseball section and try to find a copy of any McFarland book. Be sure to pack a lunch - it'll take you a while). McFarland is generally a niche publisher that sells via catalogs, at conventions (such as SABR), online, and to libraries.
Speaking of libraries, that is the final way I know of where you can get a copy of the book. Lots of libraries (hopefully: *crosses fingers*) will purchase a copy of it.
If your library doesn't, you can request your library get a copy. From what (little) I know about this, patron request is a key factor in determining what they buy.
As author, maybe I shouldn't mention that last part. However, I'm not just the author - I'm also a cheapskate. If you want to get it that way, I really can't begrudge you. From a purely self-interested point of view, I'd rather you bought a copy from McFarland - and then another, and another, and then take hostages and make them buy copies. That said, I must acknowledge that it's your money.
Ultimately, my goal is to write a book that people want to refer to time and time again when they want to know about managers. (Yeah, that's pretentious, but why have small goals?) If you think this would be such a book for you, I'd ask that you consider buying one, even if you first read it at your public library.
Any questions? Send me an e-mail.
First, you can order it directly from the publisher, McFarland. On a purely mercenary note, this is the best way because that way I make the most money (I get a cut of what McFarland makes, and if there's no middle man, with get a greater profit).
However, as reader, there's no need for you to necessarily care about that. So here are some other options.
Second, you can get it from amazon.com. Want to get it that way? Go for it the price at amazon is $35.95, a bit cheaper than at McFarland.
Oh, and on December 9, I learned that the book will be available with Amazon's kindle program.
Third, you can buy it at Barnes & Noble.com. For the most part it's the same price - UNLESS you're a B&N Member, in which case you can get it slightly cheaper.
What you generally can not do to purchase the book is buy it from your local bookstore, including Barnes & Noble or Borders. McFarland is a niche publisher and they rarely get their books in the major stores. (If you're curious, go to your local bookstore's baseball section and try to find a copy of any McFarland book. Be sure to pack a lunch - it'll take you a while). McFarland is generally a niche publisher that sells via catalogs, at conventions (such as SABR), online, and to libraries.
Speaking of libraries, that is the final way I know of where you can get a copy of the book. Lots of libraries (hopefully: *crosses fingers*) will purchase a copy of it.
If your library doesn't, you can request your library get a copy. From what (little) I know about this, patron request is a key factor in determining what they buy.
As author, maybe I shouldn't mention that last part. However, I'm not just the author - I'm also a cheapskate. If you want to get it that way, I really can't begrudge you. From a purely self-interested point of view, I'd rather you bought a copy from McFarland - and then another, and another, and then take hostages and make them buy copies. That said, I must acknowledge that it's your money.
Ultimately, my goal is to write a book that people want to refer to time and time again when they want to know about managers. (Yeah, that's pretentious, but why have small goals?) If you think this would be such a book for you, I'd ask that you consider buying one, even if you first read it at your public library.
Any questions? Send me an e-mail.
Reviews of "Evaluating Baseball's Managers, 1876-2008"
Well, there are full reviews, and mini-reviews. Full reviews look at the entire book. Mini-reviews are sections. (I sent all Cub manager info to various interested Cub bloggers, Twins to Twin bloggers, and so forth to all team bloggers who were interested).
Alex Remington, Yahoo's baseball blog, Big League Stew:
James Bailey, at Baseball America:
Howard Megdal, author of The Baseball Talmud, writes at the New York Baseball Digest:
Mets blog Amazin' Avenue declares:
Washington blog The Nationals Review:
Braves Buzz blog:
SoDo MoJo, a Mariners blog, really likes my book. Money quote:
Cards blog C70 at the bat:
Inside Dodger Baseball:
Mets blog Ed Kranepool Society (two quotes from this one):
Orioles blogger Dempsey's Army:
Giants blog Triples Alley:
Toronto blog Out of Left Field gives me multiple quotes to pick from. Here are two:
And the other one:
Crawfish Boxes, an Astros blog:
Pirates blog Hyzdu Headquarters declares:
Ghost Runner on First, a Blue Jay blog, says:
Jon Weisman at Dodger Thoughts says:
White Sox Examiner:
Braves blog Capital Avenue Club:
Giants blog Give 'em Some Stank Eye:
From Friar Forecast, a Padres blog:
Goat Riders of the Apocalypse raved about it, stating at the outset that:
The first went up December 4 at Viva El Birdos. Dan at V.E.B. says the book is: "the first satisfying answer I've yet seen to one of the most frustrating questions left in our understanding of baseball" (namely the study of managers).
Know of one I haven't put up here? Feel free to send me an e-mail to tell me about it.
Full reviews
Alex Remington, Yahoo's baseball blog, Big League Stew:
This is one of the best baseball books I've read in a long time, a serious effort by a good writer with a love of history and stats and a fascinating subject that hasn't been studied much.
James Bailey, at Baseball America:
"Evaluating Baseball's Managers" can be enjoyed whole or in smaller increments. It deserves a spot alongside [Bill] James' book in the small "managers" section of your baseball library.
Howard Megdal, author of The Baseball Talmud, writes at the New York Baseball Digest:
The book serves a dual purpose- it provides fascinating content and insight into MLB’s managers, but also serves as a definitive reference for them.
You can’t open this book without learning new information about a group that has, to an extent far beyond that of pitchers and hitters, been subject to mere speculation in the realm of evaluation. A must-read- it definitely helped me get through the winter of no-baseball discontent.
Mini-reviews
Mets blog Amazin' Avenue declares:
If the Mets chapters are any indication of what we can expect from the rest of the book, Evaluating Baseball's Managers figures to be treasure. I certainly recommend it to any baseball fan with a fondness for history or any affinity for thinking about the game in new ways. Other than Bill James's book on managers—difficult to find these days—there's really nothing else like it out there.
Washington blog The Nationals Review:
There are insights like this throughout the book. What I like about it most is that it is more than just a layout of the stats and then an explanation of said stats. Jaffe gives a clear evaluation of each manager, and then lays out a case for his conclusion. And while he makes his case, he gives the readers stories about the subject, without being overly poetic or getting too sappy. I find the book very interesting
Braves Buzz blog:
The book is a must-read. From just reading the excerpts [a group of 12 Braves managers I sent him] I can tell you will come away with a greater understanding of the managers of the past as well as discovering newer ways to look at and evaluate managers. I'm looking forward to reading it entirely.
SoDo MoJo, a Mariners blog, really likes my book. Money quote:
The thing that impressed me most while reading this, was the research. The author, Chris Jaffe, clearly put in an extreme amount of work and time into finding so many obscure facts for this book. The section I read was only 9 pages long, but I was still amazed by the sheer amount of info that I was able to find. It’s also extremely well written, and is very insightful as to how successful managers have found success.
Cards blog C70 at the bat:
There's not been a lot of work on managers and how they affect the game, but Jaffe's work goes a long way in that regard.
Inside Dodger Baseball:
It’s good stuff. . . . It’s a very detailed view about what makes managers successful (or unsuccessful for that matter). If you like baseball history, order this book.
Mets blog Ed Kranepool Society (two quotes from this one):
In his book “Evaluating Baseball’s Managers” (MacFarland) Chris Jaffe writes the ultimate book on the effect of baseball managers on their team’s success and failure
After reading the excerpt on the Mets managers, I look forward to picking up a copy of Evaluating Baseball Mangers
Orioles blogger Dempsey's Army:
I would consider this book an essential reference for the amateur (or professional) baseball historian.
Giants blog Triples Alley:
Jaffe’s coverage of managers is an ideal blend of statistics and history. You don’t need to be a numbers cruncher to understand or to enjoy the relevance of the statistics Jaffe provides in the book. He provides a thorough depiction of each manager—not only giving a description of their character, but the reputations that they gained throughout the course of their career. And he does a fantastic job at providing statistical evidence to back his claims.
Toronto blog Out of Left Field gives me multiple quotes to pick from. Here are two:
Thanks to Chris Jaffe, you might never look at the men in the dugout the same way.
And the other one:
Good sportswriting should increase understanding or stimulate thought. Evaluating Baseball's Managers hits it out of the park on each count.
Crawfish Boxes, an Astros blog:
What Jaffe does with all these guys is highlight why they were good or why they weren't successful. He does an excellent job of it, providing stats to back it up in each manager's capsule, but also backing it up with solid analysis. Bullpen usage, hitting for power, walks, and more are shown as trends for each manager as Jaffe does a good job of describing what kind of team each guy oversaw. It's exactly what history buffs would want and provides the kind of source material that analysts will be using for years.
Pirates blog Hyzdu Headquarters declares:
[T]his book will appease the history folks, the stat heads, and anyone looking for arguments on the history of baseball.
Ghost Runner on First, a Blue Jay blog, says:
[I]t is simply a must-read for any self respecting baseball nerd.
Jon Weisman at Dodger Thoughts says:
The big test for me these days on anything related to the Dodgers is whether I learn something and whether I'm entertained in the process, and Jaffe succeeds in both.
White Sox Examiner:
Jaffe's Evaluating Baseball Managers is well-researched and well-written.
Braves blog Capital Avenue Club:
I would strongly encourage everyone to purchase a copy. I’ve pre-ordered mine and from what I’ve read among the excerpts, I can’t wait to read the whole thing.
Giants blog Give 'em Some Stank Eye:
The work going on at THT is some of the most interesting (and lucid) modern baseball analysis you'll see, and Jaffe's book appears to be a solid extension of that work. It's already on my Christmas list
From Friar Forecast, a Padres blog:
I was highly impressed with the quality of analysis conducted by Jaffe. His writing is clear, and to the point. Although the book is based on stats, I never felt the writing was dense. Jaffe does not just plop statistics onto the reader. Instead he uses the stats to tell a story about each manager he profiles.
Goat Riders of the Apocalypse raved about it, stating at the outset that:
Chris Jaffe’s "Evaluating Baseball's Managers, 1876-2008" will do for big league managers what “Bill James’ Baseball Handbook” has done for big league players.
The first went up December 4 at Viva El Birdos. Dan at V.E.B. says the book is: "the first satisfying answer I've yet seen to one of the most frustrating questions left in our understanding of baseball" (namely the study of managers).
Know of one I haven't put up here? Feel free to send me an e-mail to tell me about it.
Reader Feedback
Below are some testimonials from folks who read Evaluating Baseball's Managers:
- Rob Neyer, ESPN.com
- Craig Wright, author of The Diamond Appraised
- Sean Forman, Baseball-Reference.com
- Alex Remington, Yahoo's baseball blog, Big League Stew
- James Bailey, Baseball America
- Jeff Angus, author of Management by Baseball
- Aaron Gleeman, NBCsports.com
- Russell Adams, Wall Street Journal
- Dave Studenmund, The Hardball Times
- Howard Megdal, author of Baseball Talmud
- Brock Hanke, editor and contributor to The Big Bad Baseball Annuals. (Post #10 here).
- Steve Treder, columnist for The Hardball Times
Want some feedback of your own published? Send it to me via e-mail.
Way back in the 20th century, Bill James wrote the first essential book about baseball managers. Chris Jaffe has just written the second.
- Rob Neyer, ESPN.com
Evaluating Baseball's Managers is a wonderful work of analytical and historical research, and an incredibly worthy addition to any library dedicated to the understanding of professional baseball.
- Craig Wright, author of The Diamond Appraised
Jaffe's work on managers combines his historian's attention to detail and nuance with a powerful analytical toolbox. I can think of no work on managers that as effectively and completely evaluates the men in the dugout. It is a leap forward in our understanding of these hardball leaders.
From now on, whenever I have a question about a manager, Jaffe's book will be the first and last one I reach for.
- Sean Forman, Baseball-Reference.com
This is one of the best baseball books I've read in a long time, a serious effort by a good writer with a love of history and stats and a fascinating subject that hasn't been studied much.
- Alex Remington, Yahoo's baseball blog, Big League Stew
"Evaluating Baseball's Managers" can be enjoyed whole or in smaller increments. It deserves a spot alongside [Bill] James' book in the small "managers" section of your baseball library.
- James Bailey, Baseball America
Baseball professionals, fans and students of the game alike have been needing Chris Jaffe's incisive research on baseball managers, since Casey Stengel roamed the earth. Synthesizing the best observation of soft management skills with the sophisticated quantitative analysis required to make sense of management practice across so many eras of the game, Jaffe's relentless inquisitiveness reveals more about long-serving baseball managers' on-field practices than any book yet written.
Evaluating Baseball's Managers will be an indispensable part of the collection of every serious student of the game's collection, and will, I suspect, open up a critical, ongoing, and howlingly entertaining, dialogue about the game's managers and their roles in the evolution of the National pastime. I love reading Chris Jaffe.
- Jeff Angus, author of Management by Baseball
These days it's tough to find an important aspect of baseball that hasn't been studied and analyzed a hundred different ways, but Chris Jaffe has done just that with a unique, compelling look at the men who run things on the field. Managers are often praised or vilified, with nothing in between, but Jaffe's book is everything in between. He examines not only who was successful and who wasn't, but what types of strategy and management styles got them there and, perhaps most intriguingly, what personality traits made them tick. This book is for you, whether you like hardcore numbers crunching and objective analysis or biographical sketches and interesting anecdotes. One-stop shopping for everything managers.
- Aaron Gleeman, NBCsports.com
In a baseball era in which virtually every action can be expressed in a number, there remains one elusive task for amateur statisticians everywhere: quantifying the contributions of the manager. Chris Jaffe recognizes tactical proficiency is secondary to what he calls the “softer people skills” of managing. When it came to handling rookies, for example, perhaps nobody was better than former Yankees skipper Joe McCarthy. By approaching this book with a healthy appreciation of the limits of the cold-blooded calculus favored by many sabermetricians, Mr. Jaffe does the most complete job yet of measuring the immeasurable qualities of baseball’s all-time skippers.
- Russell Adams, Wall Street Journal
Managers are the best untold story in baseball. Lots of books have been written by and about managers, but few have taken the broad view. In this fine survey of baseball's field generals, Chris Jaffe fills that gap. A natural sequel to Bill James' Guide to Baseball Managers, Evaluating Baseball's Managers touches on the evolution of managers, details their impact and individual tendencies, and discusses individual managers from the game's rich history. It's a terrific subject and a fun read.
- Dave Studenmund, The Hardball Times
The book serves a dual purpose- it provides fascinating content and insight into MLB’s managers, but also serves as a definitive reference for them.
You can’t open this book without learning new information about a group that has, to an extent far beyond that of pitchers and hitters, been subject to mere speculation in the realm of evaluation. A must-read- it definitely helped me get through the winter of no-baseball discontent.
- Howard Megdal, author of Baseball Talmud
Compared to Koppett, I'd say that Chris does a book in the Koppett "style", meaning that he gives you a good verbal picture of the manager, and he also gives you this statistical stuff that Koppett didn't have the resources to do. So it's kind of like getting two books in one. As good a writer as Koppett is, and he is very very good, if you have to read only one of the two books, read Chris'. It's like two, Two, TWO books in ONE!
- Brock Hanke, editor and contributor to The Big Bad Baseball Annuals. (Post #10 here).
It is phenomenal, by far the hugest step forward in our objective understanding of MLB managers and their impact undertaken since -- well, almost certainly since forever.
- Steve Treder, columnist for The Hardball Times
Want some feedback of your own published? Send it to me via e-mail.
Frequently Asked Questions
What inspired the research on baseball managers?
I'll be honest - the best way to answer this is to cut'n'paste what I say in this site's launch article:
The idea for this book first popped in my head when I saw Phil Birnbaum give a presentation at the annual SABR convention in 2006. He created a database to determine how much teams under/overachieved in a given season. He termed the disparity luck. However, while luck is certainly one factor that explains why a team would do better or worse than one might expect, it's not the only reason. For example, looking at the results it was amazing how "lucky" teams managed by Earl Weaver always were, or how "unlucky" Don Baylor's squads were.
Two elements of Birnbaum's database really caught my attention. He created two algorithms - one for hitters and the other for pitchers - to determine if a player did better or worse in a given season based on how he performed in the two previous and two succeeding seasons. These algorithms (based on Runs Created and Component ERA respectively) appeared to be a real breakthrough to me. They promised to be the first things produced that could really measure the impact a manager could have on his players.
However, I didn't want to claim these things measured coaching just because I thought so. I sought some further evidence. To that end, I divided all teams in MLB history into one of four categories: those helmed by managers who lasted at least 2,000 games, 1,000-1999 game managers, 500-999 game managers, and 499 or fewer.
My rationale was simple - assuming there is any correlation between length of managerial career and skill (and that's an assumption I feel incredibly safe in making), the longer a group of managers lasted, the better they should do. If it were luck, that would not be the case - the longer a group lasted the more luck should even out. It's awful tough to be the luckiest group when each individual has a sample size of 13+ seasons on the job.
Furthermore, I theorized that if the algorithms represented skill, the gap between the two middle groups (the 1,000 to 1,999 guys and the 500 to 999 guys) would be the smallest overall. They were the two most mediocre groups while the 2000+ and 499- groups should have an undue proportion of the best and worst managers pulling them away from an average score. However, if Birnbaum's work (henceforth referred to as the Birnbaum Database) measured only luck, the gap between the 1000s and 2000s would be smallest, because of the large sample sizes involved.
Much to my delight, the test confirmed my belief that the Birnbaum Database indicated what impact a manager had on his team. Please note this falls short of 100% indisputable evidence, but the evidence is strong enough for me.
I should note the Birnbaum Database actually covered five different areas. Aside from the two algorithms, he also looked at : 1) deviation from expected win-loss records based on pythagenpat projections, 2) actual team runs scored versus expected run scoring based on overall offensive production (again using Runs Created), and 3) team runs allowed versus expected runs allowed (based on Component ERA).
I wasn't sure what to expect from these final three components, but the results from the 2000s/1000s/500s/499s test also indicated some managerial impact. The results aren't as strong as they were for the two algorithms, but they were far more in line with what one would expect from managerial skill than from pure luck. I theorized that the runs allowed/scored components focus on in-game tactical ability of managers (just because a stolen base is worth X-runs on the whole doesn't mean each stolen base is worth that), and pythagenpat deviation might say something about how he structures the roster. I'm willing to believe that all five components indicate managerial ability, but the two algorithms are the two I'm unquestionably sold on.
While the above inspired me to investigate managers, it wasn't until I created a database of my own that I felt I could write a book on managers. I call it the Tendencies Database. It's inspired by a brief segment in the Bill James's Guide to Managers in which James notes how often different managers led the league in certain statistics, ranging from bunts to homers. I took it a step further. With Excel, I incorporated how well all a manager's teams ranked in a given category rather than just the times they led the league.
The notion was simple: figure out where all a manager's teams ranked in a given category, adjust for league size (which is actually a bit more difficult than it sounds), and compare the managers across era. In the results, 1.000 is always an average score. The lower score usually means the manager fared better in that stat. (It might sound odd that lower means better, but it makes sense because the Tendencies Database is based on how teams rank in a given category. Ranking first is a good thing usually as well as the lowest possible rank).
I ran several dozen queries with the Tendencies Database, including obvious ones like which manager liked to sacrifice bunt or use the most relievers. I also ran trickier to research ones, such as who relied the most on their starting lineup and who used their bench the most often. To answer that question, I determined what percentage of a team's plate appearance went to their starting eight position players (or nine in a DH league) for every team in history. I've never seen it studied, but it certainly is important.
In fact, even with the simple queries such as who sacrifice bunts the most I adjusted to find a more accurate result. The sacrifice comes only when there is someone on base, so rather than look at simply SH, I take SH divided by opportunity, to see which managers bunted the most when they had the chance.
I limit the Tendencies Database to skippers who lasted at least ten seasons as a team's primary manager. As an added bonus, since an average score is always 1, you can combine results to determine items such as who was the biggest small ball manager of all time (add together the sacrifice hit and stolen base results) or any similar idea. The Tendencies Database is explained in greater depth on pages 110-113 of The Hardball Times 2008 Annual
Neither the Birnbaum Database nor the Tendencies Database are perfect analytical tools for evaluating managers, but then again imperfection is not a synonym for useless. For lack of a better way of putting it, I kept my BS Detector on when looking at the data to figure out when they illuminate our knowledge of managers and when it's distort it. By and large, they provide a lot of helpful information on the peculiarities and distinctions of baseball managers.
There is a third avenue of exploration used to evaluate managers, but this one works only with managers from the mid-1960s or earlier. It used to be that a manager would decide who his starting pitcher would be based on the identity of the opposing squad rather than have them pitch in the modern ABCDE rotating order. I call this practice pitcher leveraging, because the goal was to leverage your best arms for the most important games in order to make those contest count as much as they could in the team's favor.
I created a few stats to evaluate the degree of pitcher leveraging. First is AOWP+, (the acroynym stands for Average Opponent Winning Percentage) which I debuted in a column over at The Hardball Times. AOWP+ determines if an individual pitcher was leveraged in a season. A score of 100 means he wasn't at all, a higher score means he faced quality teams a disproportionate number of times, and a lower score means the opposite.
Based on AOWP+, I created a stats called LPA (Leverage Points Added) and LPA+ (which adjusts LPA for era, as pitcher leveraging ebbed and flowed over time). Both LPA and LPA+ apply to managers. The more extreme the AOWP+s were under a manager, the higher his LPA and LPA+ wil be. (Like AOWP+, an early version of LPA and LPA+ were used in a Hardball Times column).
I only look use AOWP+ and LPA+ for managers from 1876-1965 because leveraging clearly came to an end in the mid-1960s. And when I say it clearly came to an end, I looked up over 90% of all starts from 1876-1969 and a chunk of starts from 1970-onward, and there is no evidence of leveraging existing as a meaningful strategy. Ultimately, LPA+ and its ilk are a side note in my book, but it's still an important sidenote, especially given that as far as I know, no one has studied how managers leveraged their pitchers in any meaningful way.
The heart of the book, however, isn't on math, but on managers. The first part of the book consists of three chapters explaining the above areas in much more detail (and providing key results as to the best/worst/most extreme managers of all time), but that merely sets up the second part of the book. In the six chapters in part two, I apply the above to 89 of the most important managers in baseball history. Those 89 include the 77 managers who lasted at least 10 seasons as a team's primary manager from 1876-2008, and a dozen of the most important others. (Two of those dozen others - Mike Scioscia and Terry Francona - managed their tenth season in 2009).
I can honestly say that I'm proud of my entries on each of the 89 managers. They're not all of equal value - sorry all you Jimmy McAleer fanboys, but your guy isn't the highlight of the book - but I found something to say about all of them.
What is the most important part of a manager's job?
They are first and foremost managers of men. Managing the game is only a secondary job function.
Along those lines, in a column for ESPN.com years ago, baseball writer Rob Neyer asked a GM what he talks to men about when they interview to be managers. They don't talk bunts or pitch counts. They discuss communication - how the manager can help players get the right frame of mind to play to their utmost abilities. Similarly, in a SABR convention in 2008, Cleveland GM Mark Shapiro was asked what the most important elements for a manager to have. He said communication, self-awareness, and prioritization. The first point was the same as the Neyer interview. The second point allows the manager the have the affect he desires with his players Prioritization ensures he's handling the right problems.
Both the Neyer column and the Shapiro comment share the same underlying principle: handling players is the key concern, not tactical genius.
As a result, the single highest compliment you can pay a manager is not that he knows when to bunt or that he writes up a good lineup card - but that you consistently can't imagine his team doing any better than they did year after year. That's a manager getting the most out of his players.
How important is in-game decisions in the manager's overall job?
It matters, no doubt about it. Things like batting order, fielder positioning, instructions to pitchers, determining who plays, and perhaps most importantly of all handling the pitching staff all help the team win (or lose) games.
That said, the importance of these tactical decisions are frequently overrated by the public. It's the only part of the manager's job we can really rate, so it often becomes the only thing we judge managers by.
Ultimately, managers are like icebergs: most of what they do goes on beneath the surface, invisible to the casual observer. If you ask many fans one-on-one, they'll agree that the most important parts of the job are the ones we can't see, but then listen to sports radio or read the baseball blogosphere - and most thoughts on managers center on things like who batted seventh in last night's game.
Who is the greatest manager in baseball history?
Easy one: Joe McCarthy. He may not be as closely associated with the job as John McGraw, but there was none finer than McCarthy. In over 20 seasons of managing, he never had a losing season - not even in his partial seasons. That's almost impossible. In comparison, among the dozens of guys with more than five seasons managed, only one other guy always had a winning season. McCarthy was over 20 years.
He had a plan to win, implemented it as effectively as possible, and kept doing it year after year, with more than one franchise.
Who is the worst manager in baseball history?
Well, I suppose the real worst manager is someone who never lasted a full season. Looking for the worst manager is like looking for the worst player - the real bottom of the barrel guys don't last long enough to rate in the discuss.
The worst managerial career (meaning the longest and largest negative impact) would probably belong to either Jimmie Wilson or Don Baylor. Wilson was a 1930s and 1940s manager who failed badly with the Phillies and Cubs. In his defense, the Phillies were utterly terrible for three decades, and he happened to work in the worst of that stretch. Then again, they had a winning record shortly before he arrived. Also, the Cubs got much better right after he left. He ended his career 242 games under .500, easily the worst mark ever.
Don Baylor was the worst modern manager. As a Cubs fan, I had the misfortune of watching him work when managed the team. He was terrible. He was lax with veterans, didn't like kids, and the pitchers nearly revolted on him (as well they should have - he was dreadful at handling a pitching staff). His only redeeming feature was his willingness to talk to the media - especially to give quotes slagging off on his own players.
Who is the best manager currently out there?
Tony LaRussa is the best manager since World War II. He's been consistently among the best managers in the game for almost three decades now, continually getting the most out of his players year after year, team after team. At this point he's managed more games than John McGraw: did anyone ever think they'd see a manager do that?
Who is the most underrated manager in baseball history?
Charles Comiskey. No one ever thinks of him as a manager, but he was one, and he was absolutely brilliant. He won four pennants in a row with St. Louis in the 1880s. The only other managers to do that are current and future Hall of Fame managers (Harry Wright, John McGraw, Joe McCarthy, Casey Stengel, and Joe Torre). Please note that Comiskey had considerable authority in determining his club's roster when he managed them.
The important thing about Comiskey is that he pioneered an entire approach to winning that has been picked up by numerous other managers and clubs over the years. He prioritized position players who could field their position and pitchers who had superior control. This created a symbiotic relationship between hurler and fielder than led to run prevention units that were greater than the sum of their parts. It's how his St. Louis teams won, and also how his Chicago White Sox teams won when he owned them.
More than that, numerous others have adopted this approach, perhaps no one more zealously than Earl Weaver. Many people have walked this path to victory, but Comiskey was the one who first blazed the trail.
Who is the most overrated manager in baseball history?
Wilbert Robinson. He's easily the least deserving Hall of Fame skipper. He made it in to Cooperstown because of his personality. He was a lovable old guy people would tell stories about. It also didn't hurt that he was once a teammate of John McGraw - that helped him stay in the popular memory. Looking at his record, though, he was better than Chuck Tanner but not as good as Dusty Baker. He may have been a great guy, but he certainly wasn't a great manager.
Have any more questions? Send me an e-mail.
I'll be honest - the best way to answer this is to cut'n'paste what I say in this site's launch article:
The idea for this book first popped in my head when I saw Phil Birnbaum give a presentation at the annual SABR convention in 2006. He created a database to determine how much teams under/overachieved in a given season. He termed the disparity luck. However, while luck is certainly one factor that explains why a team would do better or worse than one might expect, it's not the only reason. For example, looking at the results it was amazing how "lucky" teams managed by Earl Weaver always were, or how "unlucky" Don Baylor's squads were.
Two elements of Birnbaum's database really caught my attention. He created two algorithms - one for hitters and the other for pitchers - to determine if a player did better or worse in a given season based on how he performed in the two previous and two succeeding seasons. These algorithms (based on Runs Created and Component ERA respectively) appeared to be a real breakthrough to me. They promised to be the first things produced that could really measure the impact a manager could have on his players.
However, I didn't want to claim these things measured coaching just because I thought so. I sought some further evidence. To that end, I divided all teams in MLB history into one of four categories: those helmed by managers who lasted at least 2,000 games, 1,000-1999 game managers, 500-999 game managers, and 499 or fewer.
My rationale was simple - assuming there is any correlation between length of managerial career and skill (and that's an assumption I feel incredibly safe in making), the longer a group of managers lasted, the better they should do. If it were luck, that would not be the case - the longer a group lasted the more luck should even out. It's awful tough to be the luckiest group when each individual has a sample size of 13+ seasons on the job.
Furthermore, I theorized that if the algorithms represented skill, the gap between the two middle groups (the 1,000 to 1,999 guys and the 500 to 999 guys) would be the smallest overall. They were the two most mediocre groups while the 2000+ and 499- groups should have an undue proportion of the best and worst managers pulling them away from an average score. However, if Birnbaum's work (henceforth referred to as the Birnbaum Database) measured only luck, the gap between the 1000s and 2000s would be smallest, because of the large sample sizes involved.
Much to my delight, the test confirmed my belief that the Birnbaum Database indicated what impact a manager had on his team. Please note this falls short of 100% indisputable evidence, but the evidence is strong enough for me.
I should note the Birnbaum Database actually covered five different areas. Aside from the two algorithms, he also looked at : 1) deviation from expected win-loss records based on pythagenpat projections, 2) actual team runs scored versus expected run scoring based on overall offensive production (again using Runs Created), and 3) team runs allowed versus expected runs allowed (based on Component ERA).
I wasn't sure what to expect from these final three components, but the results from the 2000s/1000s/500s/499s test also indicated some managerial impact. The results aren't as strong as they were for the two algorithms, but they were far more in line with what one would expect from managerial skill than from pure luck. I theorized that the runs allowed/scored components focus on in-game tactical ability of managers (just because a stolen base is worth X-runs on the whole doesn't mean each stolen base is worth that), and pythagenpat deviation might say something about how he structures the roster. I'm willing to believe that all five components indicate managerial ability, but the two algorithms are the two I'm unquestionably sold on.
While the above inspired me to investigate managers, it wasn't until I created a database of my own that I felt I could write a book on managers. I call it the Tendencies Database. It's inspired by a brief segment in the Bill James's Guide to Managers in which James notes how often different managers led the league in certain statistics, ranging from bunts to homers. I took it a step further. With Excel, I incorporated how well all a manager's teams ranked in a given category rather than just the times they led the league.
The notion was simple: figure out where all a manager's teams ranked in a given category, adjust for league size (which is actually a bit more difficult than it sounds), and compare the managers across era. In the results, 1.000 is always an average score. The lower score usually means the manager fared better in that stat. (It might sound odd that lower means better, but it makes sense because the Tendencies Database is based on how teams rank in a given category. Ranking first is a good thing usually as well as the lowest possible rank).
I ran several dozen queries with the Tendencies Database, including obvious ones like which manager liked to sacrifice bunt or use the most relievers. I also ran trickier to research ones, such as who relied the most on their starting lineup and who used their bench the most often. To answer that question, I determined what percentage of a team's plate appearance went to their starting eight position players (or nine in a DH league) for every team in history. I've never seen it studied, but it certainly is important.
In fact, even with the simple queries such as who sacrifice bunts the most I adjusted to find a more accurate result. The sacrifice comes only when there is someone on base, so rather than look at simply SH, I take SH divided by opportunity, to see which managers bunted the most when they had the chance.
I limit the Tendencies Database to skippers who lasted at least ten seasons as a team's primary manager. As an added bonus, since an average score is always 1, you can combine results to determine items such as who was the biggest small ball manager of all time (add together the sacrifice hit and stolen base results) or any similar idea. The Tendencies Database is explained in greater depth on pages 110-113 of The Hardball Times 2008 Annual
Neither the Birnbaum Database nor the Tendencies Database are perfect analytical tools for evaluating managers, but then again imperfection is not a synonym for useless. For lack of a better way of putting it, I kept my BS Detector on when looking at the data to figure out when they illuminate our knowledge of managers and when it's distort it. By and large, they provide a lot of helpful information on the peculiarities and distinctions of baseball managers.
There is a third avenue of exploration used to evaluate managers, but this one works only with managers from the mid-1960s or earlier. It used to be that a manager would decide who his starting pitcher would be based on the identity of the opposing squad rather than have them pitch in the modern ABCDE rotating order. I call this practice pitcher leveraging, because the goal was to leverage your best arms for the most important games in order to make those contest count as much as they could in the team's favor.
I created a few stats to evaluate the degree of pitcher leveraging. First is AOWP+, (the acroynym stands for Average Opponent Winning Percentage) which I debuted in a column over at The Hardball Times. AOWP+ determines if an individual pitcher was leveraged in a season. A score of 100 means he wasn't at all, a higher score means he faced quality teams a disproportionate number of times, and a lower score means the opposite.
Based on AOWP+, I created a stats called LPA (Leverage Points Added) and LPA+ (which adjusts LPA for era, as pitcher leveraging ebbed and flowed over time). Both LPA and LPA+ apply to managers. The more extreme the AOWP+s were under a manager, the higher his LPA and LPA+ wil be. (Like AOWP+, an early version of LPA and LPA+ were used in a Hardball Times column).
I only look use AOWP+ and LPA+ for managers from 1876-1965 because leveraging clearly came to an end in the mid-1960s. And when I say it clearly came to an end, I looked up over 90% of all starts from 1876-1969 and a chunk of starts from 1970-onward, and there is no evidence of leveraging existing as a meaningful strategy. Ultimately, LPA+ and its ilk are a side note in my book, but it's still an important sidenote, especially given that as far as I know, no one has studied how managers leveraged their pitchers in any meaningful way.
The heart of the book, however, isn't on math, but on managers. The first part of the book consists of three chapters explaining the above areas in much more detail (and providing key results as to the best/worst/most extreme managers of all time), but that merely sets up the second part of the book. In the six chapters in part two, I apply the above to 89 of the most important managers in baseball history. Those 89 include the 77 managers who lasted at least 10 seasons as a team's primary manager from 1876-2008, and a dozen of the most important others. (Two of those dozen others - Mike Scioscia and Terry Francona - managed their tenth season in 2009).
I can honestly say that I'm proud of my entries on each of the 89 managers. They're not all of equal value - sorry all you Jimmy McAleer fanboys, but your guy isn't the highlight of the book - but I found something to say about all of them.
What is the most important part of a manager's job?
They are first and foremost managers of men. Managing the game is only a secondary job function.
Along those lines, in a column for ESPN.com years ago, baseball writer Rob Neyer asked a GM what he talks to men about when they interview to be managers. They don't talk bunts or pitch counts. They discuss communication - how the manager can help players get the right frame of mind to play to their utmost abilities. Similarly, in a SABR convention in 2008, Cleveland GM Mark Shapiro was asked what the most important elements for a manager to have. He said communication, self-awareness, and prioritization. The first point was the same as the Neyer interview. The second point allows the manager the have the affect he desires with his players Prioritization ensures he's handling the right problems.
Both the Neyer column and the Shapiro comment share the same underlying principle: handling players is the key concern, not tactical genius.
As a result, the single highest compliment you can pay a manager is not that he knows when to bunt or that he writes up a good lineup card - but that you consistently can't imagine his team doing any better than they did year after year. That's a manager getting the most out of his players.
How important is in-game decisions in the manager's overall job?
It matters, no doubt about it. Things like batting order, fielder positioning, instructions to pitchers, determining who plays, and perhaps most importantly of all handling the pitching staff all help the team win (or lose) games.
That said, the importance of these tactical decisions are frequently overrated by the public. It's the only part of the manager's job we can really rate, so it often becomes the only thing we judge managers by.
Ultimately, managers are like icebergs: most of what they do goes on beneath the surface, invisible to the casual observer. If you ask many fans one-on-one, they'll agree that the most important parts of the job are the ones we can't see, but then listen to sports radio or read the baseball blogosphere - and most thoughts on managers center on things like who batted seventh in last night's game.
Who is the greatest manager in baseball history?
Easy one: Joe McCarthy. He may not be as closely associated with the job as John McGraw, but there was none finer than McCarthy. In over 20 seasons of managing, he never had a losing season - not even in his partial seasons. That's almost impossible. In comparison, among the dozens of guys with more than five seasons managed, only one other guy always had a winning season. McCarthy was over 20 years.
He had a plan to win, implemented it as effectively as possible, and kept doing it year after year, with more than one franchise.
Who is the worst manager in baseball history?
Well, I suppose the real worst manager is someone who never lasted a full season. Looking for the worst manager is like looking for the worst player - the real bottom of the barrel guys don't last long enough to rate in the discuss.
The worst managerial career (meaning the longest and largest negative impact) would probably belong to either Jimmie Wilson or Don Baylor. Wilson was a 1930s and 1940s manager who failed badly with the Phillies and Cubs. In his defense, the Phillies were utterly terrible for three decades, and he happened to work in the worst of that stretch. Then again, they had a winning record shortly before he arrived. Also, the Cubs got much better right after he left. He ended his career 242 games under .500, easily the worst mark ever.
Don Baylor was the worst modern manager. As a Cubs fan, I had the misfortune of watching him work when managed the team. He was terrible. He was lax with veterans, didn't like kids, and the pitchers nearly revolted on him (as well they should have - he was dreadful at handling a pitching staff). His only redeeming feature was his willingness to talk to the media - especially to give quotes slagging off on his own players.
Who is the best manager currently out there?
Tony LaRussa is the best manager since World War II. He's been consistently among the best managers in the game for almost three decades now, continually getting the most out of his players year after year, team after team. At this point he's managed more games than John McGraw: did anyone ever think they'd see a manager do that?
Who is the most underrated manager in baseball history?
Charles Comiskey. No one ever thinks of him as a manager, but he was one, and he was absolutely brilliant. He won four pennants in a row with St. Louis in the 1880s. The only other managers to do that are current and future Hall of Fame managers (Harry Wright, John McGraw, Joe McCarthy, Casey Stengel, and Joe Torre). Please note that Comiskey had considerable authority in determining his club's roster when he managed them.
The important thing about Comiskey is that he pioneered an entire approach to winning that has been picked up by numerous other managers and clubs over the years. He prioritized position players who could field their position and pitchers who had superior control. This created a symbiotic relationship between hurler and fielder than led to run prevention units that were greater than the sum of their parts. It's how his St. Louis teams won, and also how his Chicago White Sox teams won when he owned them.
More than that, numerous others have adopted this approach, perhaps no one more zealously than Earl Weaver. Many people have walked this path to victory, but Comiskey was the one who first blazed the trail.
Who is the most overrated manager in baseball history?
Wilbert Robinson. He's easily the least deserving Hall of Fame skipper. He made it in to Cooperstown because of his personality. He was a lovable old guy people would tell stories about. It also didn't hurt that he was once a teammate of John McGraw - that helped him stay in the popular memory. Looking at his record, though, he was better than Chuck Tanner but not as good as Dusty Baker. He may have been a great guy, but he certainly wasn't a great manager.
Have any more questions? Send me an e-mail.
My online work on managers
Aside from my book - Evaluating Baseball's Managers, 1876-2008 - I've written other pieces on managers - primarily at my regular gig at The Hardball Times. Below is a list of my main non-book work on managers.
Unlikely managerial returns. Inspired by the Mets hiring of Terry Collins, this looks at managers who returned to the big league dugout after a prolonged absence.
10 things I didn't know about managers in the postseason. Most notable for a career won-lost record for all managers in the postseason. Went up at THT: October 25, 2010.
10 greatest managerial finales ever. Good column, but I forgot Burt Shotton somehow. Up at THT: September 27, 2010.
The biggest error in my book. A full-length column that turns out to correct a mistake that wasn't really a mistake. Still worthy of note for the Jimy Williams info. Up at THT on August 16, 2010. To understand why the mistake wasn't really a mistake, read item #9 in my 2010 year-end review column
The Buck stops . . . in Baltimore. A look at the newly hired Baltimore skipper. It's better than what my book says about him. Up at THT: August 2, 2010.
Scioscia and Gardenhire . . so far. Updating the Birnbaum Database for one year for these guys. Up at THT: April 12, 2010.
Evaluating Mike Scioscia and Terry Francona. They finally qualified for the Tendencies Database. Up at THT: April 5, 2010.
Upcoming managerial milestones. Up at THT: March 29, 2010.
Changing horses midstream. A look at the history of mid-season managerial firings. Up at THT on December 21, 2009.
Local Heroes as Managers. This examines the question: if a team hires a former beloved player as their manager, do they have much more difficulty in firing him. Appeared on this site on November 12, 2009. (I don't normally intend to post this site's stuff here, but this was a full length column).
Managerial remarriages. This explores when teams have given a second chance to a manager they previously let go, and tries to figure out what circumstances cause this odd turnarounds. Written for THT November 2, 2009.
Managerial Golden and Dark Ages. This deals with the time periods in history with the most/least Hall of Fame managers. I realize (as some commentary note in the article) that Hall of Famers aren't always the best, but with the exception of Wilbert Robinson and arguably Tommy Lasorda, the Hall of Fame managers are the best skippers. Written for THT October 19, 2009.
Eric Wedge's firing in historic perspective. This isn't Wedge himself as much as how often a manager lasts as long as he did without winning a pennant. Written for THT on October 5, 2009.
The Cooper conundrum. This article explores how the Astros were able to consistently overachieve despite their manager's rather poor reputation. Written for THT on September 28, 2009.
Managerial differentials. When I wrote this column, I thought it was too late to put this info in my book. I'm happy to say I found out I was wrong - and some of this info should in fact be in the book when it comes out. Written for THT August 17, 2009.
The Clint Hurdle era, which (as the name clearly implies) looks at the Rockies under Clint Hurdle. Written for THT June 8, 2009.
The corpse on the dissecting table which is actually about the 2008 Cubs, but the heart of the column deals with their manager, Lou Piniella. I actually take a much more positive take on Piniella in my book than I do in this article That's not hypocritical - his entire career has been very good even if I have problems with the way he managed them Cubs in the postseason. Written for THT October 13, 2008.
Cooperstown calling contemporary managers? - this looks at which current managers had strong or at least arguable cases for eventual induction. Written for THT September 29, 2008.
The Yost-ings of yesteryear, which looks at times when managers were fired late in the season for winning teams. Written for THT on September 22, 2008.
Franchise managerial hiring tendencies was an article that looked at what themes existed in the managers hired by the Cardinals, White Sox, Twins, Yankees, Red Sox, and Cubs over the decades. This is a personal favorite of mine Written for THT on April 28, 2008.
Willie Survive? which uses Willie Randolph and the 2007 Mets as a jumping off point to look at what happens to managers who presided over historic collapses. This is one of my personal favorite THT columns. Written for that site on October 8, 2007.
The Dance of Buddy Bell which looks at Buddy Bell's attempt to avoid becoming the first manager in over a half-century to fall over 200 games under .500. Written for Ballhype on August 14, 2007.
Managing and the back of the bus, which looks at race and managing. Written for THT on August 14, 2007.
Managers and leveraging, which looks at which managers most liked to math up starters against particular opposing teams. Written for THT on May 29, 2007.
Managerial aging patterns, whose name describes its point. It's based on the Birnbaum Database heavily utilized in my book. Written for THT on March 14, 2007.
Various online articles
Unlikely managerial returns. Inspired by the Mets hiring of Terry Collins, this looks at managers who returned to the big league dugout after a prolonged absence.
10 things I didn't know about managers in the postseason. Most notable for a career won-lost record for all managers in the postseason. Went up at THT: October 25, 2010.
10 greatest managerial finales ever. Good column, but I forgot Burt Shotton somehow. Up at THT: September 27, 2010.
The biggest error in my book. A full-length column that turns out to correct a mistake that wasn't really a mistake. Still worthy of note for the Jimy Williams info. Up at THT on August 16, 2010. To understand why the mistake wasn't really a mistake, read item #9 in my 2010 year-end review column
The Buck stops . . . in Baltimore. A look at the newly hired Baltimore skipper. It's better than what my book says about him. Up at THT: August 2, 2010.
Scioscia and Gardenhire . . so far. Updating the Birnbaum Database for one year for these guys. Up at THT: April 12, 2010.
Evaluating Mike Scioscia and Terry Francona. They finally qualified for the Tendencies Database. Up at THT: April 5, 2010.
Upcoming managerial milestones. Up at THT: March 29, 2010.
Changing horses midstream. A look at the history of mid-season managerial firings. Up at THT on December 21, 2009.
Local Heroes as Managers. This examines the question: if a team hires a former beloved player as their manager, do they have much more difficulty in firing him. Appeared on this site on November 12, 2009. (I don't normally intend to post this site's stuff here, but this was a full length column).
Managerial remarriages. This explores when teams have given a second chance to a manager they previously let go, and tries to figure out what circumstances cause this odd turnarounds. Written for THT November 2, 2009.
Managerial Golden and Dark Ages. This deals with the time periods in history with the most/least Hall of Fame managers. I realize (as some commentary note in the article) that Hall of Famers aren't always the best, but with the exception of Wilbert Robinson and arguably Tommy Lasorda, the Hall of Fame managers are the best skippers. Written for THT October 19, 2009.
Eric Wedge's firing in historic perspective. This isn't Wedge himself as much as how often a manager lasts as long as he did without winning a pennant. Written for THT on October 5, 2009.
The Cooper conundrum. This article explores how the Astros were able to consistently overachieve despite their manager's rather poor reputation. Written for THT on September 28, 2009.
Managerial differentials. When I wrote this column, I thought it was too late to put this info in my book. I'm happy to say I found out I was wrong - and some of this info should in fact be in the book when it comes out. Written for THT August 17, 2009.
The Clint Hurdle era, which (as the name clearly implies) looks at the Rockies under Clint Hurdle. Written for THT June 8, 2009.
The corpse on the dissecting table which is actually about the 2008 Cubs, but the heart of the column deals with their manager, Lou Piniella. I actually take a much more positive take on Piniella in my book than I do in this article That's not hypocritical - his entire career has been very good even if I have problems with the way he managed them Cubs in the postseason. Written for THT October 13, 2008.
Cooperstown calling contemporary managers? - this looks at which current managers had strong or at least arguable cases for eventual induction. Written for THT September 29, 2008.
The Yost-ings of yesteryear, which looks at times when managers were fired late in the season for winning teams. Written for THT on September 22, 2008.
Franchise managerial hiring tendencies was an article that looked at what themes existed in the managers hired by the Cardinals, White Sox, Twins, Yankees, Red Sox, and Cubs over the decades. This is a personal favorite of mine Written for THT on April 28, 2008.
Willie Survive? which uses Willie Randolph and the 2007 Mets as a jumping off point to look at what happens to managers who presided over historic collapses. This is one of my personal favorite THT columns. Written for that site on October 8, 2007.
The Dance of Buddy Bell which looks at Buddy Bell's attempt to avoid becoming the first manager in over a half-century to fall over 200 games under .500. Written for Ballhype on August 14, 2007.
Managing and the back of the bus, which looks at race and managing. Written for THT on August 14, 2007.
Managers and leveraging, which looks at which managers most liked to math up starters against particular opposing teams. Written for THT on May 29, 2007.
Managerial aging patterns, whose name describes its point. It's based on the Birnbaum Database heavily utilized in my book. Written for THT on March 14, 2007.
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