Does Base-Slinging Make A Great Manager?

I don't know whether Lou Pinella is the most over-rated manager in baseball or whether managers are just over-rated period. I suspect it's some of both.

In any case, Pinella quit today, saying his ailing mother needed him. I have no doubt that's true, nor do I doubt that mom Pinella would have scuffed along without her boy had the Cubs been contending. They aren't contending; in fact, they have vastly under-performed expectations, as have several other Pinella teams, including the '88 Yankees, '91 Reds and '98 Mariners. 

With one championship on his resume and a .517 lifetime winning percentage, Pinella is being canonized as he bails on his team and touted as a Hall of Fame field captain. Perhaps I'm missing something.

Did Pinella transform lousy rosters into winners? Hardly. The Devil Rays stunk before trading Randy Winn for Sweet Lou and they stunk under his leadership. Frankly, the notion that any manager could have altered that sorry squad's destiny was a serious case of wishful thinking. Swapping a productive player for a manager, much less the impatient Pinella, is certifiable lunacy.

Pinella led the Cubs to one good season out of four at Wrigley, though they crashed and burned in a first round playoff sweep. Beyond that, his is just another entry in a century of managerial futility in Chicago.

Perhaps he conjured up miracles during the regular season. Several teams he skippered won buckets of regular season games before fanning in the playoffs, the 116-win Mariners of 2001 the most notable. But others squandered boatloads of talent. Seattle from '97-'99 featured Randy Johnson, Ken Griffey, Jr., Alex Rodriguez and Edgar Martinez and yet combined to average 83 wins/year under Lou. 

Pinella is generally respected and loved, despite his sometimes juvenile behavior. He bullied and cajoled players into busting tail for him and often mollified difficult personalities. That's commendable, but not particularly rare. In fact, it's the manager's job.

Did Pinella polish diamonds in the rough, or coax theretofore undiscovered talents, or resuscitate careers on death watch? Did he brilliantly innovate in his pitching moves or hitting strategies? Well then, exactly what makes Lou Pinella's managerial career Fame-worthy?

I have a theory. Lou Pinella is beloved for being Lou Pinella, not for managing the 1990 World Champions. Pinella was a popular player in New York, which never hurts a career. As a manager, he was sometimes profane and hot-headed, but in a fun and impersonal way. His YouTube specials involve excavations of dirt onto umpire shoes, storied base-winging performances and a multitude of entertaining tantrums. He was generally accommodating to the media and when he wasn't, it was usually amusing.

Best of all, Sweet Lou just four years ago served a stint at ESPN, where he charmed the very gentlemen and women who determine the sports agenda. A gifted raconteur, Pinella mesmerized the worldwide leader and thus, all of sportsdom.

Well, I don't have cable, so I'm immune. And I just don't see it. As far as I can tell, any knowledgeable baseball person, any managerial re-tread, any Triple-A skipper-in-waiting could have achieved roughly the same results with Pinella's teams, given the chance. His real genius lay in getting the opportunity to manage 3,500 games with rosters comprising Don Mattingly, Rickey Henderson and Dave Winfield; Eric Davis and Barry Larkin; and ARod, Unit and Junior. Anyone with a modicum of baseball intelligence could have won 1,800 games under those conditions.

And they probably wouldn't have quit in mid-season on two different under-performing teams.

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Congratulations, You're Fired

Jim Tracy and Mike Scioscia were named Managers of the Year yesterday. Which means, of course, that they'll be fired. Nearly every manager is, eventually.

Sportswriters voting for manager of the year is like frequent fliers voting for pilot of the year. They can measure whether landings equals takeoffs, but beyond that, how can they possibly assess the work of the nominees when most of it takes place in private?

The primary job of a team manager is to be a leader, to keep his team productive and on-task over 162 games.(Or as Casey Stengel famously observed, to keep the two guys who hated him from the 23 who weren't sure.) While managers make some strategic decisions, most of them are rote. Over the course of a year, the difference between a good strategist and a bad one is probably two or three games. That means a league's best manager -- whatever "best" means -- could be hiding behind a 60-102 record.

Were Scioscia and Tracy better leaders of men this year than Bobby Cox, Joe Torre, Tony La Russa, Joe Girardi, Jim Leyland and Hugo Chavez? This award suggests that sportswriters know the answer. In fact, what they know is how managers' teams performed compared to expectations, and vote accordingly. But the correlation between managerial skill and performance versus expectation is pretty weak.

In truth, if the award were for great managing, the same guys would win every year. If Tony La Russa is a genius, he's more or less a genius every year and should be Manager of the Year as often as Albert Pujols, the best player, wins the MVP. (Actually, Pujols has 400 competitors, La Russa just 15, so the skipper should pretty much monopolize the trophy.)

There's no question that Jim Tracy made some key moves that transformed the team from rocks to rockets when he inherited the Rockies from Clint Hurdle this summer. He also had to have caught lightning in a bottle, for which he got undue credit and now sports some nifty hardware. Players say they'd run through walls for Scioscia, and he obviously handled the aftermath of Nick Adenhart's death deftly, but it doesn't hurt that Jared Weaver, John Lackey and Joe Saunders can hurl.

Three of the last six Managers of the Year have been fired, so apparently the smartest skippers turned to dolts in two years' time. Either that or sportswriters don't really know what they're voting for.
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Notes To Willie's Successor

Dear New Mets Manager, (if indeed there is one)

You've got your work cut out for you. Your new team is a $150 million mess that has played .500 ball over a full season's worth of games. You'll want to avoid your predecessor's mistakes:

1. Put Moises Alou in the lineup. Willie refused to play his best outfielder, despite the .347 batting average.
2. Stop skipping Pedro's starts. The Hall of Famer is undefeated (1-0), but Willie only gave him three starts.
3. Make Carlos Delgado younger. He got old under Willie and is hitting a paltry .243/.326/.404.
4. Tell Omar to get a catcher who can hit. Brian Schneider's .308 slugging average is below replacement level. I guess Willie didn't understand backstops.
5. While you're at it, force him to get a decent fourth outfielder. That sucking sound you hear is Endy Chavez's .552 OPS, which is roughly half of Lance Berkman's.
6. Quit using the bullpen. Billy Wagner's blowing saves like they're heated glass and the rest of the relief corps is giving up more than five runs per nine. Despite that, Willie kept pulling the starters.
7. Show Oliver Perez how to throw strikes. Six walks a game? Willie couldn't teach him discipline.
8. Quit playing such a tough schedule. Willie took the team to Philly, Atlanta, and an improved Miami team, plus interleague tilts against powerhouses like the Yankees and Angels.
9. Yell and scream a lot. Kick dirt at an umpire. Throw a (non-racial) tantrum before the assembled media. Eventually the team will compile a modest hot streak following one of your meltdowns and the press will attribute the winning to your tirade.

Follow my advice and I guarantee you'll last the season.