The Top 50 Head Coaches Continued: Major League Baseball Managers
August 6, 2009 by dwil
It is time to move one step closer to finishing the revised list of the Sporting News Top 50 head coaches. Today we look at MLB managers. Tomorrow I’ll deal with NHL coaches and Monday I will reveal the revised list.
Here is TSN’s list:
1. John Wooden, college basketball
2. Vince Lombardi, NFL
3. Bear Bryant, college football
4. Phil Jackson, NBA
5. Don Shula, NFL
6. Red Auerbach, NBA
7. Scotty Bowman, NHL
8. Dean Smith, college basketball
9. Casey Stengel, MLB
10. Knute Rockne, college football
11. Pat Summitt, women’s college basketball
12. Paul Brown, NFL
13. Joe Paterno, college football
14. George Halas, NFL
15. Chuck Noll, NFL
16. Bob Knight, college basketball
17. Joe Gibbs, NFL
18. Tom Landry, NFL
19. Mike Krzyzewski, college basketball
20. Bill Belichick, NFL
21. Adolph Rupp, college basketball
22. Joe McCarthy, MLB
23. Eddie Robinson, college football
24. Bobby Bowden, college football
25. John McGraw, MLB
26. Bill Walsh, NFL
27. Woody Hayes, college football
28. Connie Mack, MLB
29. Bud Wilkinson, college football
30. Pat Riley, NBA
31. Pete Newell, college basketball
32. Joe Torre, MLB
33. Bill Parcells, NFL
34. Tom Osborne, college football
35. Walter Alston, MLB
36. Bo Schembechler, college football
37. Toe Blake, NHL
38. Sparky Anderson, MLB
39. Al Arbour, NHL
40. Amos Alonzo Stagg, college football
41. Tony La Russa, MLB
42. Geno Auriemma, women’s college basketball
43. Dick Irvin, NHL
44. Ara Parseghian, college football
45. Chuck Daly, NBA
46. Bobby Cox, MLB
47. Hank Iba, college basketball
48. Tommy Lasorda, MLB
49. Gregg Popovich, NBA
50. Herb Brooks, NHL
Sporting News MLB managers – and rank: 22. Joe McCarthy. 25. John McGraw. 28. Connie Mack. 32. Joe Torre. 35. Walter Alston. 38 Sparky Anderson. 46. Bobby Cox. 48.Tommy Lasorda.
Here we have three managers from segregation-era Major League Baseball, one who straddled eras (Walter Alston) and four who managed exclusively after segregation. My inclination is to rank Joe McCarthy, John McGraw, Connie Mack after the rest of the managers since they did not manage or face the best talent baseball had to offer. These men only dealt with the talent MLB wanted to offer.
Joe McCarthy presided over the famed Babe Ruth-led “Bronx Bombers” version of the New York Yankees and was called a “push-button manager” by peers such as Chicago White Sox manager, Jimmy Dykes.
John McGraw managed during the dead ball era and was a known for having his players trip, push, and impede the progress of baserunners due to the fact that for some time there was only one umpire on the field. But because of McGraw’s tactics additional umpires were added to oversee play on the baseball diamond.
Connie Mack managed the Philadelphia Athletics for the franchise’s first 50 years of its existence. He amassed a record of 3,731 wins and 3,948 losses, both of which are records He managed 7,755 games, also an MLB record. I would elevate Mack to the number one spot but he lost more games than he won, so, no go.
My number one is a manager who did not, for some reason, make the list. He is Earl Weaver. The Earl of Baltimore managed the Orioles from 1968–1982 and 1985–1986. Weaver’s Orioles won six Eastern Division titles, four American League pennants, and a World Series championship. The Earl’s managerial record is 1,480–1,060 (.583), which included five 100+ win seasons – 1969 (109), 1970 (108), 1971 (101), 1979 (102), and 1980 (100). He only had one losing season in his managerial career, his final one with the 1986 Orioles.
What separated Weaver is that he built a strategy for playing the game of baseball that was used throughout the Baltimore Orioles system from Class A ball to the big league team. From this strategy came the book, Weaver on Strategy:
Weaver eschewed the use of so-called “inside baseball” tactics such as the stolen base, the hit and run, or the sacrifice bunt, preferring a patient approach (“waiting for the home run”), saying “If you play for one run, that’s all you’ll get” and “On offense, your most precious possessions are your 27 outs”. Weaver claims to have never had a sign for the hit and run, citing that the play makes both the baserunner and the hitter vulnerable, as the baserunner is susceptible to being caught stealing and the hitter is required to swing at any pitch thrown.
Weaver was also one of the first managers to utilize statistics to get favorable matchups for his batters and pitchers and was one of the first managers to use a radar gun to judge pitch speed.
Earl Weaver won enough during the regular and post season in a sport where a team with a worse record but hot pitching can defeat a juggernaut with very good pitching, but whose batters are shut down by the pitchers who happen to be on for four games. Weaver developed a strategy that, because the designate hitter gives them one extra batter, most American League teams use today.
He was a winner and a thinker and he is my top MLB manager of all time.
A close second for me is Walter Alston, like Weaver, developed a “way” to play the game that could be replicated throughout the Los Angeles Dodgers system called “The Dodger Way.” Alston was as a cerebral manager as the two men above him on the list. His Dodgers teams won seven NL pennants in his 23 years as manager. In 1955 he led Brooklyn to the pennant and its only World Series chip; the team repeated as NL champions in 1956.
After the Dodgers moved to LA, Alston won five more NL championships (1959, 1963, 1965, 1966 and 1974) and three more World Series wins (1959, 1963, 1965). He was also the first Dodger manager to win a World Series.
Alston was named manager of the year six times and won a record seven All-Star games. He retired after the 1976 season with 2,063 wins.
Bobby Cox is just behind Weaver and Alston. Cox managed the Atlanta Braves form 1978 to 1981, then the Toronto Blue Jays from 1982 to 1985, then he went back to Atlanta in 1985 as the team’s general manager and kept that position until 1990. He then moved back to the bench and has been the manager for the Braves since. From 1991 to 2005 Cox led the Braves to 14 playoff appearances in a row. In five of those years the Braves went to the World Series, winning in 1995. Cox’s Braves were the NL West champs for the first three of those 14 years and NL East division champions in the next 11 seasons. On June 8 of this year Cox won his 2,000th game with the Braves becoming one of only four managers in MLB history to win at least 2,000 games with one team.
Joe Torre – New York Mets, Atlanta Braves, New York Yankees, and Los Angeles Dodgers manager – ranks fifth in all-time managerial wins with 2195 (as of 6.18.09) and with the Yankees was is as good a big-game manager as there has ever been in baseball. But then again, he had the benefit of managing superb Yankees teams with veteran leadership and the game’s best closer in Mariano Rivers.
Torre’s record with the Yankees was 1173–767 and he led the team to the playoffs in each of his 12 seasons there. With Torre as the skipper, New York won six AL pennants and four World Series championships.
Sparky Anderson presided over the Big Red Machine and won back-to-back World Series crowns (1975, 1976) with teams regarded as, perhaps the best in MLB history. Later, in 1984 he won another championship with the Detroit Tigers.
In his 20 year career as the LA Dodgers manager and successor to Walter Alston, Tommy Lasorda compiled a 1,599-1,439 record as Dodgers manager, won two World Series chips in 1981 and 1988, four NL pennants, and eight division crowns. Lasorda also came out of retirement and led an underdog U.S. Olympic baseball team to a gold medal in the 2000 Olympics in Sydney.
My MLB manager list looks like this: 1. Earl Weaver. 2. Walter Alston. 3. Bobby Cox. 4. Joe Torre. 5. Sparky Anderson. 6. Tommy Lasorda. 7.Joe McCarthy. 8. Connie Mack. 9. John McGraw.
I think you missed Teflon Tony La Russa.
and Casey Stengel.
One other quick thing — the Braves used to play in the West. I don’t recall the year of the re-alignment, but the move to the East is of recent vintage.
“My inclination is to rank Joe McCarthy, John McGraw, Connie Mack after the rest of the managers since they did not manage or face the best talent baseball had to offer. These men only dealt with the talent MLB wanted to offer.”
I’m cool with discounting the accomplishments of players from the segregation era since they didn’t face the best players. But why should managers be punished? Not only did they not face the best players, they also didn’t have the best players at their disposal.
Good stuff Dwil. One other important “innovation” from Weaver: he used young pitchers in long relief roles before moving them into the rotation. This allowed them to build up to eventual 250 inning seasons instead of just throwing them into the rotation at a young age and hoping they didn’t break.
Quick quibble about McCarthy, he became NY manager in 1931 and is probably more associated with the DiMag-Gehrig-Dickey 1936-39 teams than with the Ruth-Gehrig “Murderer’s Row” teams from the late 20′s.
PB-
You’re right about that… when I associated him w/ the phrase “Bronx Bombers” which I thought was from about 1927 -56, I think Ruth and crew, but since he began managing the Yanks in 1931, as you said, he was the “push-button manager for the DGD crew….
Marc R-
I understand your point totally. And its my fault for failing to state that, beyond the inclination to rank them lower, there are concrete reasons for doing so, which I laid out in the brief paragraphs associated with each manager.
T3-
The first three years Of Cox’s 14-year run were in the West, the other 11 are NL East crowns and I blew the mention of those three years.
Casey S. deserved some thought – and received some. But if I already ranked one Yankees mgr. lower because he basically rolled out the baseballs, what then of Stengel? There was only one year I know that Stengel was forced to do some serious managing. It was the year when DiMag’s declining skills hit the fan and Mantle was in not-quite ready for prime time status. That year, 1951, the NYY had the best pitching in baseball. So, he relied on great arms to get him through. Other than ’51, he was sitting in the catbird seat chilling with really, really good overall teams.
I know there are some people who like to demean those teams in order to elevate Stengel to great status, but I feel his 1949-60 teams were as good as any team. They were constantly in the top three in the AL in key pitching, hitting stats, and – particularly – fielding stats. And if you have good, consistent pitching and upper echelon fielding you will win often, More importantly, the higher the stakes, the more those two components win games as everything is compressed in the context of a World Series. And the Stengel NYY had those two components.
And —— I do not consider LaRussa in the same class as those managers; a rung below, but not in the “greatest” category.
Cool.
I was just talking about in this section. –>
I’m not big on Stengel and I’m definitely not big on LaRussa.
Dwil-
Good point. Plus, I neglected the fact that the managers from the segregated era also didn’t face the best managers available, like Felipe Alou and Cito Gaston.