Bill James Guide to Baseball Managers, The (31 page)

Year of Birth:
1911

Years Managed:
1954–1976

Record As a Manager:
2,040–1,613, .558

Managers for Whom He Played:
Alston had only one major league at bat, for the 1936 Cardinals (Frankie Frisch), and had played only a few years in the minor leagues before he became a minor league manager.

Others by Whom He Was Influenced:
Alston was a Branch Rickey protégé.

Characteristics As a Player:
Alston was a good minor league power hitter. He had bad knees, which prevented him from playing third base and probably prevented him from having a major league career.

WHAT HE BROUGHT TO A BALL CLUB

Was He an Intense Manager or More of an Easy-to-Get-Along-With Type?
Easy to get along with.

Was He More of an Emotional Leader or a Decision Maker?
A decision maker.

Was He More of an Optimist or More of a Problem Solver?
An optimist. Alston waited for six and a half years for Sandy Koufax to find home plate. I doubt that any other manager in baseball history would have, except perhaps Connie Mack.

HOW HE USED HIS PERSONNEL

Did He Favor a Set Lineup or a Rotation System?
He preferred to use a regular lineup.

Did He Like to Platoon?
He often platooned at one outfield position, occasionally at one infield spot as well. The Dodgers in much of Alston’s era fairly waded in switch hitters. If you’ve got three or four switch hitters in the lineup, you don’t need to platoon.

Did He Try to Solve His Problems with Proven Players or with Youngsters Who Still May Have Had Something to Learn?
The Dodgers had a wonderful farm system in Alston’s era. It was always the first option to use a kid from the farm system. The second option was to trade two or three kids from the farm system to get a proven player.

How Many Players Did He Make Regulars Who Had Not Been Regulars Before, and Who Were They?
Almost all of the Dodgers’ key players from 1960 to 1980 broke in under Alston. The key names include Drysdale, Koufax, Wills, Roseboro, Perranoski, Garvey, Lopes, Russell, Cey, Tommy and Willie Davis, and Frank Howard.

Did He Prefer to Go with Good Offensive Players or Did He Like the Glove Men?
Glove men.

Did He Like an Offense Based on Power, Speed, or High Averages?
Speed. Ten of Alston’s twenty-three teams led the league in stolen bases, as opposed to three in home runs, and only one in batting average.

Did He Use the Entire Roster or Did He Keep People Sitting on the Bench?
He found work for everybody.

Alston pulled every lever frequently. His teams regularly led the league in stolen bases. They also led in sacrifice bunts; he bunted more often than Gene Mauch. He used an above-average number of pinch hitters. He made frequent defensive changes in the late innings. He went to his bullpen early, often leading the league in saves and being comparatively low in complete games, even with Koufax and Drysdale on the team. For most of his career, he made liberal use of the intentional walk (although he changed suddenly in this regard in 1969). He used the hit and run often, probably as often as anyone in the league at that time. He loved switch hitters, giving him the platoon advantage at least in theory a huge percentage of the time.

Some of this strategy may have been useless, excessive or even counterproductive—but it accomplished two things:

1) It got the entire roster involved in the game, and

2) It gave the Dodgers, and particularly Alston, control of the flow of the action.

Did He Build His Bench Around Young Players Who Could Step into the Breach If Need Be, or Around Veteran Role-Players Who Had Their Own Functions Within a Game?
Fifty/fifty. He had old, one-time regulars to pinch-hit, young kids with good legs to pinch-run and play defense. In fact, you can pick almost any year of Alston’s career, and that’s exactly what you’ll find on his bench—two old pinch hitters, two to four young guys to run and play defense. It was a Dodger formula.

GAME MANAGING AND USE OF STRATEGIES

Did He Go for the Big-Inning Offense, or Did He Like to Use the One-Run Strategies?
He used one-run strategies a great deal, even when he had a good offense. He used one-run strategies as much or more than any other manager in baseball history.

Did He Pinch-Hit Much, and If So, When?
Pinch-hitting data is spotty, but Alston’s teams were normally above average in pinch hitters used, and led the league at least once (1968).

Alston almost always had at least one weak hitter in his everyday lineup, sometimes as many as three. He used a lot of good field/no hit players like John Roseboro and Nate Oliver, so he had more opportunities than a typical manager would to pinch-hit for everyday starters.

Was There Anything Unusual About His Lineup Selection?
A Dodger fan once pointed out to me that Alston, whether by chance or choice, had extremely good defensive first basemen, but was tolerant of less than outstanding defensive players in the middle of the infield. Alston’s first basemen were Gil Hodges, who was outstanding defensively as well as at bat, Ron Fairly, who was more notably successful with his glove than his bat, Wes Parker, who was mostly a glove man, and Steve Garvey, who was a good defensive player although his arm was pathetic.

By contrast, his shortstops included Pee Wee Reese, Maury Wills, and Bill Russell. Reese had been a good shortstop, but he continued to play the position until he was pushing forty. Wills did win two Gold Gloves (1961–1962), but that was an odd situation, where there were only three or four regular shortstops in the league, and you couldn’t give a Gold Glove to Dick Groat. Wills certainly was regarded as more of an offensive shortstop than a glove man. And Bill Russell was put at shortstop in desperation, when Bobby Valentine got hurt and other people failed. Russell, a minor league outfielder, learned to play the position at the major league level and was competent enough, but not Ozzie Smith.

Did He Use the Sac Bunt Often?
A lot. The Dodgers led the National League in sacrifice bunts in 1959 (100), 1960 (102), 1962 (83), 1964 (120), and 1965 (103). No National League team has bunted 120 times in a season since the Dodgers did in 1964.

Did He Like to Use the Running Game?
Loved it.

In What Circumstances Would He Issue an Intentional Walk?
As I mentioned, Alston made liberal use of the intentional walk until 1969. He used intentional walks

1) To avoid a good hitter,

2) To get a platoon edge, and

3) To set up a double play.

The most notable of those three points is the first one: He used the IBB to avoid a good hitter.

I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but a high percentage of intentional walks are not given to good hitters, but to number eight hitters. Eighth-place hitters are often walked to force the pitcher to the plate in a key situation, thus (perhaps) forcing the other team to change pitchers. In 1967, for example, Adolfo Phillips was intentionally walked 29 times, leading the National League (in fact, it was the second-highest total in the major leagues during the 1960s), and that same year a light-hitting catcher named Jerry May was intentionally walked 19 times in 365 plate appearances. In 1960 Hal Smith, a catcher who hit .228 for St. Louis, was third in the National League in intentional walks, with 13 (in 369 plate appearances).

Alston, to his credit, apparently did not use this stupid strategy. Look at the seven intentional walks that he issued during the 1956 and 1959 World Series:

In 1969, Alston suddenly turned against the intentional walk, and decided to stop using it. His 1967 team led the National League in Intentional Walks with 101, which is the eighth-highest total of all time. In 1968 he issued 79 IBB, third-highest in the National League.

But in 1969 his total dropped to 41,
lowest
in the National League. In 1971 his team issued only 25 intentional walks, fewest in the National League by far, and the lowest total in the National League since 1964. In 1972 he was near the bottom of the National League in IBB, and in 1973 he was last.

His 1974 Dodger team issued only 9 intentional walks
. This is an eye-popping statistic. Every other National League team in 1974 issued at least 52 intentional walks. Alston’s team was about one-sixth of the next-lowest total. The 9 intentional walks issued by the Dodgers that season is six fewer than the next-lowest total since IBB were first counted in 1955, whether in the National League or the American, even including the strike-shortened seasons of 1981 and 1993.

In 1975 the Dodgers issued only 20 intentional walks, which is the third-lowest total ever issued by a National League team in a full season.

Did He Hit and Run Very Often?
Yes.

How Did He Change the Game?
I mentioned this somewhere else, but Alston made a point of treating his players with respect, at least in public. Players came to expect this.

Alston played a key role in the integration drama, having been selected by Branch Rickey to manage the Nashua team to which Roy Campanella and Don Newcombe were assigned.

In the 1970s, Alston and the Dodgers led the movement away from the four-man and toward the five-man starting rotation.

HANDLING THE PITCHING STAFF

Did He Like Power Pitchers, or Did He Prefer to Go with the People Who Put the Ball in Play?
Power pitchers, more so than any other manager in history. Alston’s teams led the league in strikeouts twelve times, including every year between 1954 and 1963.

Did He Stay with His Starters, or Go to the Bullpen Quickly?
Early in his career, Alston’s teams normally led the league in saves (1954, ’55, ’56, ’57, ’59, ’62). As happened to many other managers, Alston stayed the same (in the way he used the bullpen), and the league passed him by. By the end of his career, he went with his starters longer than most other managers.

Did He Use a Four-Man Rotation?
Most of his career he did, yes. The Dodgers switched to a five-man rotation in midseason, 1971, and used a five-man rotation all year in 1972, making them among the first teams to make the switch. They then returned to the four-man rotation from 1973 through 1975, but went back to a five-man rotation in 1976, his last year.

Did He Use the Entire Staff, or Did He Try to Get Five or Six People to Do Most of the Work?
He used the entire staff.

How Long Would He Stay with A Starting Pitcher Who Was Struggling?
If it was Koufax or Drysdale, he’d let them go. Otherwise, he tended to go to the bullpen.

Was There Anything Unique About His Handling of His Pitchers?
Alston managed Mike Marshall when Marshall pitched 106 games, 208 innings in 1974. That was pretty unique.

What Was His Strongest Point As a Manager?
His balance, and the sense of strength that it imparted. It was impossible to throw Alston off his game plan.

If There Was No Professional Baseball, What Would He Have Done with His Life?
He would have been a schoolteacher.

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