Comments on: Evaluating Managers

By: The Ancient Mariner

The Ancient Mariner — Mon, 18 Oct 2004 20:17:32 +0000

On my best judgement, they’re worth more than 3-4 games a year, but I doubt anyone short of Earl Weaver, Joe McGraw and Joe McCarthy would be worth more than 10 wins a year most of the time. I suspect that there are a fair number of managers who have been able to give their teams that sort of boost for a season or two, but not to sustain it–Billy Martin comes to mind–and that the thing which marks truly great managers is their ability to consistently improve their teams. That is, however, just my intuitive sense–I couldn’t prove it if you paid me.

By: eponymous coward

eponymous coward — Mon, 18 Oct 2004 06:02:00 +0000

Well, that’s fair…except the argument was that managers are worth MORE than 3-4 games a year, if you go back to 29. I would think if it were so, we could figure this out easier. 3-4 games a year is a pretty large component, equal to the difference between a very good ballplayer and an average one at a position, no?

By: The Ancient Mariner

The Ancient Mariner — Mon, 18 Oct 2004 05:18:25 +0000

Re #30: The key word here is “component.” Managers affect the success of their teams by managing the talent they’ve been given (and, for some, by managing to convince their bosses to get them the talent they want). No manager in the world can win consistently with an untalented team. That’s possible to an extent in basketball and football (just look at the Patriots–middle of the NFL pack in talent, but great coaching, smarts and execution have made them a juggernaut), but not in baseball. However, that bad team in the hands of an Earl Weaver has better odds, and likely a brighter future, than it would in the hands of someone like Don Baylor.

By: Chris W.

Chris W. — Mon, 18 Oct 2004 03:46:56 +0000

Maybe the answer isn’t to find a manager. Maybe a smart organization would create a manager… find a smart guy with good people skills and tell him you’ll hire him if he’ll adhere to certain principles, passed down from above. Most of the things that bug us the most about Melvin, for example, are not unalterable.

I guess what I’m saying is this: players are limited by their genetic makeup, but managers aren’t. If a team hires a manager with a known predilection for doing stupid things and an unwillingness to change, that team deserves to fail.

By: Michael

Michael — Mon, 18 Oct 2004 03:19:43 +0000

There is an article in today’s NY Times looking at this and the relationship between Pythag and games over or below for different managers. It doesn’t add much to the discussion here, except ot effectively back up Bill James’ stuff and then to use other stats to look into post season mangerial effectiveness.

By: eponymous coward

eponymous coward — Sun, 17 Oct 2004 21:11:05 +0000

Bad management of players, and the failure to develop home-grown talent, also costs the team down the road.

Isn’t that more a function of the front office? Just for an example- outside of Raul and a half-season of Scott Podsednik, who in the Mariner farm system has gone to do anything of note that Piniella “gave up on”? The Mariner farm system’s been crappy because of mismanagement in the front office, not the dugout.

My problem is that nobody thought Casey Stengel and Joe Torre were geniuses before they showed up in pinstripes, and there are other examples of managers who were given talent and shined (Charlie Dressen)- and suddenly became unable to do much when taken away from that talent. Why didn’t their success follow them everywhere they went, if managers are so critical a component of team success?

By: Mark

Mark — Sun, 17 Oct 2004 19:17:15 +0000

I’m a little suspicious of the idea that the manager’s effect is negligible (3-4 games worth). Consider a couple of the things we know a manager does: he determines when his pitchers get the hook, and he decides what the lineup should be. Simply on the basis of developing young players, these two things have a HUGE effect on a team, not just this season but in future years. That is, bad management of pitchers, and the consequent destruction of young arms, costs future victories. Bad management of players, and the failure to develop home-grown talent, also costs the team down the road. Logically it would follow that doing a good job in these two departments would manifest a net gain in wins, both this eyar and in years to come.

Bottom line: I’m one more voice in the chorus. Just because it’s hard to measure managerial success doesn’t mean that managers have negligible effects on a team. And in those cases where we do know what makes for a bad idea, managers who embrace those ideas (like Don Baylor) should be avoided at all costs. They’ll cost us now, and they’ll keep on costing us even after they’ve been fired.

By: John

John — Sun, 17 Oct 2004 17:43:37 +0000

Somewhere in here, you have to talk about the arrangement.
In some arrangements–Oakland’s, for instance–the manager has almost no control. [BILLY BEANE lamented the fact that middle management had been making the big decisions, so he quickly changed that.]
In others the manager tells the GM what to do. [Supposedly, LOU PINIELLA would tell WOODY WOODWARD what to get him, and Woodward would do so.]
Which type of manager are we talking about?

By: Ignatius

Ignatius — Sun, 17 Oct 2004 14:30:32 +0000

All managers suck all the time. I am absolutely convinced that teams would win more games if the players managed themselves against teams that didn’t. Joe Torre tried to give the series away against the Twins but Ron Gardenhire made sure he couldn’t. Ken Macha threw roses on the walkway of a 3-9 finish to blow the division. The great Mike Scioscia forgot how and why the Angels win ballgames. Bobby Cox once again managed not to lose in the playoffs. Phil Garner was a joke in games 1 and 2 of this Cards series and he tried to give the division playoff to the Braves…several times. I won’t even comment on the Red Sox but check out who he bats 2nd.
And these are the best of the best!

By: The Ancient Mariner

The Ancient Mariner — Sun, 17 Oct 2004 07:07:10 +0000

Derek, just caught your comment in #8, and no, we aren’t making the same point. We’re making a number of the same detail points, but from that you’re concluding that “the fact that managers are so hard to statistically evaluate should help us to realize that theyâ€™re really not that important,” which is a non sequitur and, I think, a wrongheaded conclusion. The fact that managers are so hard to statistically evaluate should only help us to realize that they don’t have a direct effect on statistics, apart from playing time (significant enough; you don’t think replacing Lefebvre in 1988 with a manager who would have benched Presley for Edgar might not have made a noticeable difference?). That doesn’t mean their effect is “subtle” or “not that important,” merely that it’s second-order.

Nor does the likely fact that managers, in terms of their overall quality and effect on particular teams, likely fall along a bell curve mean that they are “really not that important.” Much the same, after all, could be said of third basemen: “There are a few clearly good ones, there are a few clearly bad ones, but for the most part, the guys in the middle of the curve donâ€™t hurt or help a team much at all.” Does this therefore mean that evaluating one’s third baseman is unimportant?