Bill James Guide to Baseball Managers, The (33 page)
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Authors: Bill James
Tags: #SPORTS &, #RECREATION/Baseball/History
A newspaper criticized Alston, saying he should not have berated his coach in front of the players. “You’re pretty sensitive about Durocher’s feeling,” Alston told the reporter, “but you don’t seem to care much about mine. What about the times he has shown
me
up in front of the players?”
The Dodgers were 4 games ahead with 7 to play, but 1962 was the revenge of 1959; by 1962 the Dodgers had a great team, but everything broke wrong at the end. The loss was devastating to the organization. The players locked themselves in the dressing room; Alston said that he doubted that any team in history was ever so shaken by a defeat. O’Malley and general manager Buzzy Bavasi were nowhere to be found. Alston walked calmly to the San Francisco clubhouse to congratulate Alvin Dark and then answered questions politely for an hour.
Durocher criticized Alston in the newspapers, blaming him for the collapse of the team. Charlie Dressen was hired back as a special assistant to the general manager; he let it be known that he wasn’t too old, at sixty-four, to manage. The only thing certain was that Alston and Durocher couldn’t
both
return—and yet, they did.
Alston had never been allowed to pick his own coaches. “We don’t want bridge partners or cronies for assistants,” explained O’Malley. “It is our job to get the most knowledgeable men, and it is the manager’s place to solicit their advice and accept it or reject it. I admit that, in Durocher’s case, he sometimes gives advice that isn’t solicited, but that’s Leo. We knew the nature of the man when we hired him.”
In June 1963, with the team in Chicago, a newspaper reported that several players had complained to the front office about Alston’s management. Buzzy Bavasi flew to Chicago to speak privately to the players. “If the Dodgers lose today,” said Cub head coach Bob Kennedy, “Durocher will be manager tommorrow.”
And the Dodgers won the World Championship once again.
Three times in his career, in 1955, 1959, and 1963, Walt Alston’s managerial tenure had been put in extreme jeopardy—and three times, his team had responded with a World Championship. Alston had survived an incredible year of speculation and second-guessing.
After the third championship, O’Malley was committed to Alston, one year at a time forever if Walter chose. He signed a blank contract every fall, and O’Malley would fill in the figure. Baseball in 1963 entered a pitcher’s era, and that was perfect for Alston. In a big-hitting era, with a slugging team, Alston’s strategy tended to get in the way of his team; he would wind up ordering Duke Snider to bunt. In a pitching-dominated game, Walter’s bunting, base stealing, and hitting and running helped the Dodgers scratch out a run or two. Koufax came into his own; he was half a pennant by himself. The Dodgers won the World Championship again in 1965, making Alston the first NL manager since John McGraw to win four World Championships. They won the National League in 1966.
Koufax retired after the 1966 season. Maury Wills was traded to Pittsburgh. There was a long coda to Alston’s career; he managed another ten years after that, years during which little of any interest occured. He won one more National League championship, in 1974. On September 29, 1976, forty years to the day after his one major league at bat, Alston announced his resignation. He had won 2,040 major league games, more than any major league manager except Connie Mack, John McGraw, Sparky Anderson, Bucky Harris, or Joe McCarthy.
Alston returned to Darrtown. In theory he remained with the Dodgers as an advisor, went to the winter meetings with the group at least. He pursued all of his hobbies and added a new one, riding trail bikes. He built a lot of furniture. In April 1983 he suffered a heart attack, and on October 1, 1984, died at the age of seventy-two.
(Note: this an edited version of an article first printed in the 1989 edition of
The Baseball Book
. The original article was twice as long, but does contain much of the same material.)
Most Successful Managers:
1. Sparky Anderson
2. Earl Weaver
3. Billy Martin
Most Controversial Manager:
Billy Martin
Others of Note:
Danny Murtaugh
Danny Ozark
Chuck Tanner
Bill Virdon
Dick Williams
Tommy Lasorda
Stunts:
1977, Ted Turner took over as manager of the Atlanta Braves for one game.
In 1973, Billy Martin’s Detroit Tigers team fell into a team batting slump. Martin, feeling that his players were trying too hard, decided to shake everybody up. He put the names of his starting players in a hat and wrote down the lineup in the order they came out. Norm Cash, a thirty-eight-year-old first baseman, became the leadoff man, and Eddie Brinkman, a career .224 hitter with no power, got the cleanup spot.
Sure enough, Norm Cash drew a leadoff walk late in the game, went to second on a ground ball, and came home on a two-out single by Eddie Brinkman. The Tigers won the game, 2–1.
In late 1973, Dick Williams (Oakland) was in a pennant race with a collection of weak-hitting second basemen. Since it was September and he had lots of players around, he started pinch-hitting for his second baseman, whoever it was, every time he came up, then putting another second baseman in the field. He did this the last three weeks of the season, using four second basemen every game. The A’s held on to win the pennant.
Typical Manager Was:
A pepperpot. Barney Fife staged a rebellion and took over the courthouse.
Whereas the top managers of the 1960s were the strong, silent types, the top managers of the 1970s (Anderson, Weaver, and Martin) were all little noisy guys in the Leo Durocher tradition. There was an article in
Sport
magazine in the mid-1950s on “Baseball’s Best Bench Jockeys.” Almost all of the people cited by the magazine as the most annoying bench players in baseball, including Chuck Tanner, Dick Williams, Billy Martin, Don Zimmer, and Gene Mauch, went on to become 1970s managers.
The top two managers of the 1970s, Sparky Anderson and Earl Weaver, were both minor league players (Sparky had one year in the majors) who quit playing early, managed in the minors, and made the majors (as managers) before they were forty. Joe McCarthy had done that, and Gene Mauch, but until 1970 it was uncommon.
Percentage of Playing Managers:
2%
Most Second-Guessed Manager’s Moves:
1. Don Zimmer’s decision to keep using Butch Hobson at third base in late 1978. Hobson’s sore elbow impaired his throwing, and he became the first major league regular in sixty years to field below .900. The Red Sox, 14½ games ahead of the Yankees on July 18, eventually lost to the Yankees on Bucky Dent’s home run.
2. 1977, Whitey Herzog of Kansas City ran through five pitchers in the eighth and ninth innings of the deciding game of the American League playoffs. The Royals, leading 3–1 after seven innings, lost 5–3.
3. 1977, Danny Ozark of Philadelphia failed to put in a defensive replacement for Greg Luzinski in the fourth game of the National League Championship Series, leading 5–3 going into the ninth. With two out in the ninth inning, Manny Mota hit a drive that bounced off of Luzinski’s glove as he slammed into the wall, setting up a Dodger rally.
Clever Moves:
In August 1978, Tommy Lasorda rescued the forty-year-old Vic Davalillo from the Mexican League. With two out in the fourth game of the NLCS, the Dodgers trailing 5–3 with nobody on, Lasorda sent Davalillo up to pinch-hit for his catcher. Davalillo beat out a drag bunt, sparking a three-run rally.
Player Rebellions:
St. Louis, 1977, vs. Vern Rapp; Washington, 1971, vs. Ted Williams
A group of Ted Williams’s players, led by Bernie Allen, formed what they called the Underminer’s Club, dedicated to bringing about the firing of Williams.
After winning the World Series in 1972 and 1973, Dick Williams resigned as manager of the Oakland A’s due to conflicts with the team owner. The veteran ball club did not at first accept the leadership of his replacement, Alvin Dark, and sometimes ignored directions from the bench. Team captain Sal Bando, going up the tunnel after a frustrating loss, shouted that Alvin Dark couldn’t manage to a bleeping meat market.
To the credit of both Dark and the ball club, they pulled themselves together and won their third consecutive World Championship.
Evolutions in Strategy:
The designated hitter rule took about 40% of the bunts and nearly 50% of the pinch-hitting opportunities out of the American League game, and elicited howls from purists which can still be heard echoing in the canyons of the West.
Evolution in the Role of the Manager:
I don’t have any data on the subject, but the number of coaches used increased dramatically throughout the 1960s and 1970s, while the specific roles assigned to the coaches became much better defined. In 1960, many major league teams did not employ a batting coach. The specific roles assigned to coaches—first base coach, third base coach, hitting coach, pitching coach, strength and conditioning coach, bench coach—certainly did not exist in 1960, and certainly did in 1980.
In 1970, many managers were in a precarious positon vis-à-vis the issue of the player’s union. The “manager,” by definition, is a member of management, yet unlike management he wears a uniform, and is on the field with the players. Some of the older managers of 1970, like Leo Durocher, got themselves into trouble with their teams by aligning themselves with management positions in the ongoing labor/management dispute. By 1975 they had mostly learned to stay out of it.
PARKY
A
NDERSON
Year of Birth:
1934
Years Managed:
1970–1995
Record As a Manager:
2,194–1,834, .545
Managers for Whom He Played:
The only manager Sparky played for in the major leagues was Eddie Sawyer, the Phillies manager in 1959. Those for whom he played in the minor leagues include George Scherger, Tommy Holmes, Greg Mulleavy, Clay Bryant, and Mel McGaha. His first act as a Reds manager was to name Scherger, his first minor league manager, as a coach.
Others by Whom He Was Influenced:
Sparky was close to Lefty Phillips, California manager from 1969–1971, and regarded Lefty as a mentor. Lefty was fifteen years older than Anderson and signed Sparky to his first minor-league contract.
As a youth, Sparky was a batboy for Rod Dedeaux, legendary coach at USC, who sent dozens of players to the major leagues. Also, since he was in the Dodger system from 1954 to 1958, he was essentially in the hands of Walt Alston, although he never got to play for the Dodgers in the regular season.
Characteristics As a Player:
Anderson was a good minor league second baseman. His glovework was terrific, he was durable, and he was a decent singles hitter. He was a good bunter, and he wasn’t slow. He played hard. He was second in the MVP voting in the International League in 1958.
He played only one year in the majors and then disappeared, but it has never been clear to me that the Phillies made a good decision to dump him after the 1959 season. He hit .218, but given another year, he might have hit .250 or .260. With his defense and peripheral skills, that would have been enough to make him a useful player. Anderson in 1959 was about the same as Glenn Beckert in 1965.
WHAT HE BROUGHT TO A BALL CLUB
Was He an Intense Manager or More of an Easy-to-Get-Along-With Type?
Early in his career, very intense. When he managed in the minors, in fact, his intensity bordered on self-destructiveness. With the Reds from 1970–1975, he was still an intense manager. As time passed, he grew more detached.
Was He More of an Emotional Leader or a Decision Maker?
I would say more of an emotional leader.
Was He More of an Optimist or More of a Problem Solver?
He was an optimist. He always believed that a player would get straightened out as long as it was reasonable to believe that.
In 1969–1970, Bobby Tolan was a great player. He missed 1971 due to a ruptured Achilles tendon suffered in an off-season basketball game, and was just pretty good in 1972. In 1973 everyone expected him to be back at full strength, but he hit .206. Anderson kept playing him all year, expecting him to get his bat going eventually.
In 1995 Mike Moore had an ERA of 7.53 and was giving up an opposition batting average .323, but Anderson just kept running him out there every fifth day, expecting him to turn it around.
HOW HE USED HIS PERSONNEL
Did He Favor a Set Lineup or a Rotation System?
Basically, a set lineup.
Did He Like to Platoon?
He platooned some. In 1970–1971, he platooned Bernie Carbo and Hal McRae in left field. In 1973 he platooned Denis Menke and Dan Driessen at third base. In 1980 he platooned Richie Hebner and John Wockenfuss at first base. At the end of his career, he made a platoon player out of Lou Whitaker. He never platooned a lot.
In 1995, his last year as a manager, Sparky started 97% right-handed hitters against left-handed pitchers, but also used 70% right-handed hitters against right-handed pitchers.
Did He Try to Solve His Problems with Proven Players or with Youngsters Who Still May Have Had Something to Learn?
In the first decade of his career, Anderson was always eager to find young players of ability and get them into the lineup.
But late in his career, Anderson became almost entirely dependent on established players, even when they weren’t any good. From 1991 to 1994, with his team in a steep decline, he used hardly any everyday players who were under the age of thirty.
How Many Players Did He Make Regulars Who Had Not Been Regulars Before, and Who Were They?
The list from the first ten years would include Ken Griffey, George Foster, Dave Concepcion, Dan Driessen, Cesar Geronimo, Kirk Gibson, and others. The list of players he brought along since 1990 is basically just Travis Fryman. In between, he had Cecil Fielder, Matt Nokes, Milt Cuyler, and a few others.
The turning point, in this regard, was Howard Johnson. Although Johnson was a player who had ability and who always gave a good effort, Sparky for some reason decided that he just didn’t want him. From then on, he never seemed eager to make room for a young player. One could attribute this to the talent available to him, but I don’t see that. In 1995 he had Franklin Stubbs, a thirty-four-year-old first baseman with a career average of .232, and he had Tony Clark, a twenty-four-year-old prospect of similar skills. He decided to use Franklin Stubbs.
Did He Prefer to Go with Good Offensive Players or Did He Like the Glove Men?
Early in his career, he showed some fondness for glove men. He made a regular out of Cesar Geronimo, a strong defensive player with a short bat, and used Darrel Chaney in a support role for six years, although Chaney struggled to break the Mendoza Line. Tony Perez was a great hitter but a poor third baseman. Anderson moved him across the infield to first base, reducing his exposure in the field.
But late in his career, he moved strongly in the other direction. His early ’90s Detroit Tigers teams were good hitting teams but were composed largely of designated hitters.
Did He Like an Offense Based on Power, Speed, or High Averages?
Power, if you have to choose—power and walks. The 1975–1976 Reds were probably the most diverse, broad-based offense in the history of baseball. The 1976 Reds led the league in batting average (.280), in home runs (141), in doubles (271), triples (63), stolen bases (210), walks (681), and fewest grounded into double play (103). In most of these areas, they led the league by wide margins. Only one team in the league was within 145 of them in runs scored, and that team was still more than 75 runs behind.
This is historically unique. The 1961 Yankees were below average in almost everything, as a team, except home runs and runs scored. The 1927 Yankees led in home runs and in batting average, but not in doubles, and certainly not in stolen bases. Even Joe McCarthy’s great teams didn’t lead the league in
everything.
The World Champion Tigers of 1984 were similar, although less extreme: They had a good, broad-based offense.
The Tigers of 1993–1994 also had outstanding offenses, but all they did was draw walks and hit homers. In sum, nine of Anderson’s teams led the league in home runs, four in stolen bases, two in batting average. Ten of his teams led the league in walks drawn, more than in any other category.
Did He Use the Entire Roster or Did He Keep People Sitting on the Bench?
He had well-defined roles for the players on the bench.
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?
A good mix.
GAME MANAGING AND USE OF STRATEGIES
Did He Go for the Big-Inning Offense, or Did He Like to Use the One-Run Strategies?
The big inning. His teams were below average in sacrifice bunts almost all of his career. His early Reds teams were high in stolen bases but ran at comparatively little cost, since their stolen base percentages were unusually good.
Did He Pinch-Hit Much, and If So, When?
Almost all of his teams were near the league average in the number of pinch hitters used.
In his early years in Cincinnati, before Dave Concepcion took control of the shortstop job, he often pinch-hit for his shortstops (Woodward, Chaney, and Concepcion). Otherwise, in Cincinnati, 95% of his pinch hitting was for pitchers.
When he first came to the American League he seemed a little lost as to how to use his bench, but within a few years he developed a practice of rotating three or four players through one position where he didn’t have a star, so as to get some playing time for his bench players. He also used the DH rule the same way. The 1984 Tigers, for example, used seventeen players in the designated hitter slot.
Was There Anything Unusual About His Lineup Selection?
It was standard. This reflects available talent, rather than choice, but of the 29 catchers in baseball history who had hit 30 home runs by the time Sparky retired in 1995, ten had done so for Sparky. He had gotten 30-homer seasons from Bench, Parrish, Nokes, and Tettleton.
Did He Use the Sac Bunt Often?
No.
Did He Like to Use the Running Game?
His Reds teams led the league in stolen bases in 1972, ’73, ’75 and ’76. In Detroit, Ron LeFlore left after Sparky’s first partial season there, and he never had a base-stealing team with the Tigers.
As I suspect most of you know, stolen base percentages are markedly higher on artificial turf than they are on grass—thus, Anderson adapted to the parks he was given in moving away from the running offense.
In What Circumstances Would He Issue an Intentional Walk?
Like most of the Dodger-system managers from the 1950s, Anderson was very loose with the intentional walk. The 1993 Detroit Tigers issued 92 intentional walks, almost an American League record (the 1980 Mariners had issued 94). The 1989 Tigers also issued 91 IBB, the 1973 Reds issued 90, the 1991 and 1992 Tigers issued 88, the 1990 Tigers issued 86 … the list of American League teams issuing the most intentional walks since the DH rule was adopted is almost entirely composed of Sparky’s teams.
In the first game of the 1975 World Series, Sparky intentionally walked Rick Burleson to pitch to Cecil Cooper. It worked, too; Cooper hit a fly to center, and the runner from third was thrown out trying to score.
These intentional walks never made any sense to me, but that’s the way the Dodgers were taught to play the game in the mid-1950s, and that’s the way all of those guys managed.
Did He Hit and Run Very Often?
In the years since we have good data on the number of hit-and-run attempts, since STATS Inc. began keeping records in the late 1980s, Sparky’s teams used the hit and run about as little as any team in baseball. Of course, they were low-average, power offenses, so that could be misleading. I think Anderson certainly used the hit and run more often with the Reds, when he had more speed, but
1) even there, he did not have a “bat control” offense. The Reds had power hitters who struck out a lot. Are you going to hit and run with George Foster? I don’t think so.
2) I remember that Joe Morgan never liked to have the runner in motion when he was hitting. He thought it was distracting.
3) Nine of Sparky Anderson’s teams led the league in strikeouts by hitters. You wouldn’t think that would suggest a hit-and-run manager.
How Did He Change the Game?
I don’t know. I suspect that he did, but I can’t say how.
HANDLING THE PITCHING STAFF
Did He Like Power Pitchers, or Did He Prefer to Go with the People Who Put the Ball in Play?
No Sparky Anderson team ever led the league in (pitcher’s) strikeouts. He did have some good power pitchers (Don Gullett, Tom Seaver briefly, Jack Morris), but he always rounded out the staff with guys who threw strikes and relied on the defense.
Did He Stay with His Starters, or Go to the Bullpen Quickly?
In Cincinnati Sparky got the nickname “Captain Hook” because he would go to his bullpen so quickly. His teams led the league in saves in 1970, ’72, ’74, ’75, and ’76.
As happened to Alston and Durocher, however, he stayed about where he was, and the league passed him by in this respect. By the late 1980s, he was one of the
slowest
hooks in the majors. As the younger managers came into the game, they went to the bullpen earlier and earlier.
Did He Use a Four-Man Rotation?
He tried to in 1970–1971, but he had so many injuries in his pitching staff that he was never able to establish the rotation that he wanted. The 1972 Reds won 95 games although they didn’t have any pitcher with more than 15 wins, and the 1975–1976 Reds won 108 and 102 games although they, too, didn’t have anyone with more than 15 wins.
In those years he switched back and forth between a four-man and five-man rotation, never getting either one entirely established. In this area—and perhaps
only
in this area—he was more successful with the Tigers than he was with the Reds, keeping Jack Morris in essentially a four-and-a-half man rotation for many years.
Did He Use the Entire Staff, or Did He Try to Get Five or Six People to Do Most of the Work?
He used everybody.
How Long Would He Stay with a Starting Pitcher Who Was Struggling?
Early in his career, not long. Late in his career, a long time.
Was There Anything Unique About His Handling of His Pitchers?
I said somewhere in this book that the Herman Franks strategy of using his relief ace
only
in save situations was universally adopted within a few years of its inception in 1978. Well, actually, this is not true. Sparky was the exception. Anderson never did adopt the practice of using his closer only in save situations, for which reason Mike Henneman, his closer from mid-1987 to late 1995, never had more than 24 saves.
Sparky did not have success with his pitching staffs equal to what he had with his everyday lineups. Seven of his teams led the league in runs scored; only two led in fewest runs allowed.
In the 1970s, when his pitching coach was Larry Shephard, Anderson’s pitching staff had constant injuries, for which reason he had no stars. Very rarely, in those years, did he have a pitcher make it through two seasons without a major injury—yet his pitching was never bad. The Reds’ team ERAs in those years were good. As soon as one pitcher went down, another would step in, they threw strikes, they played great defense, and they got the job done one way or the other.
