There was an interesting thread begun the other day about measuring the "quality" of managers. I find such attempts very interesting, and frustrating. Certainly one of the factors that is most commonly used as a yardstick is how successful one's team turns out to be (as was pointed out by several Belfryites). I think that any Belfry reader understands the basic fallacy in this, yet, it's a difficult perception to overcome. I recall reading Norm Cash, the old first baseman for the Detroit Tigers, grousing about his manager in Jim Bouton's Ball Four. I don't recall the situation, but something happened in a game, and Cash was heard to mutter as the opposition stood at first base, "Mayo Smith is the dumbest manager in baseball." I was dumbfounded reading this at the age of 20 or so. After all, the Tigers had won the Series in 1968, just a couple of seasons prior to Cash's disdainful comment. How could Mayo Smith be stupid?
Well, now I know better. "Dumb" managers win pennants, and "smart" ones get fired from their cellar-dwelling position...all the time.
I guess if you really want to take a look at managers, one might start with a basic notion...what exactly makes a manager "good"? In the business world, the definition I've always taken a liking to is "a good manager is one who gives his/her people the tools they need to be successful, and then places them in an environment in which they have the best chance to provide successes."
When it comes to baseball, I suppose that a definition would be "a good manager is one who gets his team to either score or prevent more runs than one could reasonably expect, given the sum total of the players' individual performances." Whew. That's a tall order. Is there a way to measure such an achievement?
Assuming there are five ways to affect these outcomes (offense, defense, pitching, chemistry and instruction, and team makeup), let's take a look at these game factors one article at a time.
Game factors that involve the offense controlled by a manager...hmm. Heck, when it comes to offense, many moves a manager makes ends up costing a team runs (stealing, hit-and-run, bunting) more often than creating them. So what does a manager do that would enable a team to be better off than if he had done nothing?
Today, not as much as he used to, that's for sure. The way runs are scored in the current game, giving up outs has become a quite precarious means to attempt to win ballgames. More runs are scored in clusters, especially via the home run, than ever before. The average ML player slugs about 60 points higher than just thirty years ago, so any strategy that puts baserunners at high risk or leads to automatic outs is a dubious proposition, at best.
If that's the case, then is the best thing a manager can do on an ongoing basis - nothing? Of course not. One major problem in evaluating a manager is that a fan is not all that often aware of decisions a manager is making that may be helping (or hurting) the ballclub.
When it's third and two, and Brian Billick has Elvis throw a successful long bomb over the drawn-in defense, everyone watching knows that Billick is directly or tacitly responsible for that decision.
When Mike Hargrove puts on a "take" sign with Brian Roberts at the plate, a 3-1 count, and two outs, and he walks, only to have Jeff Conine step to the plate and hit a home run, then the manager may have "manufactured" a couple of runs for which he will be unlikely to be credited. If a manager does not choose to call for a hit-and-run with runners on first and second and nobody out, and those runners eventually score on a homer, did the previous decision effect the outcome of the inning? Quite possibly, but the fan will usually never know.
In the "olden days," managers were often judged at how they platooned players or used their benches. The game today, especially in the AL (with the DH taking up another roster spot most of the time), just doesn't offer those opportunities as often. The coming of the 12 and ever 13-man pitching staffs have reduced benches to backup catchers, a utility guy, and one spare part, who is required to be the top pinch hitter, runner, and outfield replacement (no wonder we don't see many platoons any more...there's no room on the roster for them. If you're carrying a Rule 5 draftee, there's another slot gone. And don't forget that one-batter lefty in the bullpen.)
Your best pinch hitters today, especially in the AL, are usually platoon partners. But that means they usually have a pretty drastic split, right? Or else they wouldn't be platooned. So to neutralize him, all the opposing manager has to do is burn two of his 12 or 13 pitchers most of the time. So much for pinch hitting in the modern game. (That's one reason why crappy-hitting "defensive" catchers have become even more of a liability than they used to be. Teams just don't have room for a player like that. Since it's hard for a team to find two decent hitting catchers, though, most teams are still saddled with a hitless wonder (see: Lunar, Fernando) as a backup.)
So, we're running out of offensive weapons that fans can actually be aware of that make good sense to use. Pinch running, after all, can be pretty risky, too. You're burning a player (and in the AL, this is really a hard thing to do), and maybe you'll need yet another guy to play defense once the half inning is over. And what did you accomplish? Did you get an extra base, or an extra run? Nope. You got a faster baserunner, which may lead to you deciding to take yet another chance by having him steal, or hit-and-run. Hey, there are times you've gotta take the chance...down a run in the ninth with a lousy hitter at the plate, and so on. But most of the time, it's not worth the potential for failure and the loss of the bench.
Bunting? Earl Weaver was really a man ahead of his time. What he once intuited has now been demonstrated again and again...giving up outs is not the way to score runs. "Scoring position" is first base these days as often as it is second. And too often, the darn thing doesn't even work (about 25% of the time), and you still have a runner on first, but with an additional out. If a pitcher is up in the NL, fine, bunt away. You've got runners at first and second in a tie game in the ninth? Go for it. But most of the time, this is a gun that should stay firmly in the manager's holster.
What about hit-and-runs? Only work about 1/3 of the time. That's pretty darn low for a batter who has given up a chance to drive the ball or get a walk. As Earl said, if the hitter doesn't connect, the runner is out at second about 90% of the time, because he's usually not running at full speed. As it turns out, a hitter's BA drops about 75% when he's swinging at a hit-and-run pitch. Even a lousy hitter swinging away or trying to milk a walk can usually provide better results than that.
Stealing? We all know that if you can't do it successfully 70-80% of the time (depending on the characteristics of your team,) you shouldn't be doing it. That leaves an awful lot of guys out.
So a lot of the tactics that made sense in earlier eras simply don't make good sense for the game as its played today. Managers in the past may not have been more clever, but they were better able to demonstrate obvious and accessible strategy to fans. These days, when it comes to offense, often the best strategies a manager can deploy are the ones we never see, except in a flurry of fingers against the nose and hands wiped across the letters, all for the edification of the batter, as the manager works to get him in a position where he can best use his tools to be successful.
NEXT TIME IN THE SERIES: Managing the Defense