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Chris Jaffe On Evaluating Managers

Chris Jaffe at BTF has a two-part series about evaluating managers. Before he even crosses the line to table 1, we read this startling caveat:

I have a central problem I need to address before looking at the results. I take it on faith that managers have an impact on their players. I can't actually prove it, and it would be nice if I could provide some actual evidence to back up this assertion.

Okay, so we know we're treading on the thinnest of ice here. That said, some choice comments about a few managers:

Charlie Dressen. He went +355.03 with the Boys of Summer, and –339.77 the rest of his career.

Leo Durocher. A few years ago I read his autobiography back-to-back with another book, Jocks, by Jim Bouton's Ball Four co-author. Not a great book, but it had a brilliant section on the Big League Manger, a biting composite of several managers. The BLM was a man who had been fired twice, and told everyone he was in it for the love of the game, but in reality it was the only way he could afford his snappy clothing, multiple mistresses, and pleasant lifestyle. He didn't think much of the kids these days because they didn't have the heart he did. Despite that he didn't bother pressing his players too hard. I couldn't help but think of Leo Durocher the entire time I read it. As a New York manager Durocher pulls off a fantastic +631.56. After his decade-long stint away from coaching, he came back with the Cubs and went for –213.74 for a team that got better under his tutelage. Even if you take out 1966, when the Cubs tied a franchise record with 103 losses, he's still –61.55. He did badly with individual pitchers, hitters, and pythag in those years. The Cubs have made it a habit to hire past- their-prime managers for the last several decades, and I always thought Durocher was an example of that.

Dave Johnson. He comes out over +100 runs with Baltimore, Cincinnati, and over +300 with the Mets, but worse than –100 with the Dodgers.

Tommy Lasorda. Every time his name gets mentioned on this site, 15 people post that he's just an overrated loudmouth famewhore. Given that this system pegs him as a bad manager, I guess I could declare victory for confirming people's suspicions. Alas I disagree with both conventional primer wisdom and my own numbers. The two components I feel the manager has the strongest influence over are individual pitchers and hitters, and Lasorda posts a total +375 runs in these categories. That's the tenth best of any manager. Every other manager in the top 36 when combining individual hitters and pitchers scores positively for their career.

Also, what I find especially impressive about his career is the quality of teams he won World Series with. Every World Series winner from 1903-80 has at least one Hall of Famer. The '81 Dodgers don't and aren't likely to. Their best candidates are Steve Garvey and Fernando Valenzuela. Talk about weak VC picks all you want, but almost every one of those teams had at least one no-brainer Immortal. The teams with the weakest Hall of Famers include the 1914 Braves (Evers and Maranville), 1919 Reds (Roush), 1925 Pirates (Traynor, Carey, and Cuyler), and 1940 Reds (Lombardi). That's one miracle, a team that won because the opposition threw the Series, and two Bill McKechnie teams. These four teams have a common denominator – great managers. Also, with the possible exception of the 1940 Reds, they all have at least one person playing a key role with a better claim to Cooperstown than any members of the 1981 Dodgers. A few other late twentieth century teams have also won it all without any currently inductees nor any obvious first balloters, but again these squads almost all have more star power than the 1981 Dodgers. The '84 Tigers had Trammell, Whitaker, Evans, and Morris. The 1990 Reds had a weaker team, but even they had Barry Larkin. The 1997 Marlins had Kevin Brown and Gary Sheffield.

Lasorda's other championship team makes that Dodger club look like the '27 Yanks. The '88 Dodgers would have one of the weakest line-ups ever for a World Series team even if Gibson and Marshall were healthy for all of it. Their best player was Orel Hershiser and I don't like his odds to get into Cooperstown. In all baseball history only Bill McKechnie and Tommy Lasorda managed to win two rings without any first-tier stars. I can't believe that anyone who could do that was a bad manager.

Gene Mauch. His Phillies lost a little over half their games, but he pulled in a +78.41. The expansion Expos lost 128 more games than they won while he was there, but he only hit for –18 runs. The Twins went 16 games under .500, but he went +93.91. He finally caught on with a winner in California and went +282.87 for a team that finished 52 games over .500. He was constantly better than the teams he ran. This system pegs him as the 24th best manager ever, but he was better than that.

An Open Question To Bill Plaschke

If the Angels clubhouse could go from "steam room" to "family room" inside of two weeks with no trades, who gets credit for the "heart-and-soul" transplant that clearly turned the team around? After all, the Angels didn't trade for Paul LoDuca...

Roster Notes

• Cesar Izturis might move from third to second with the absence of Jeff Kent.
• Adam Kennedy is now officially platooning with Howie Kendrick against left-handers.