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Three
Old Men and an Award The Manager of the Year award (MOY) is always the most difficult one to evaluate, in my opinion. I believe there are several reasons for this. Firstly, there is a lack of statistical analysis available, or at least there is not the depth of statistics available that there are for positional players and pitchers, so it is difficult to engage in an objective outlook of managers. Secondly, a large portion of a manager's job deals with motivating and coaching players, which is something that is quite difficult for an outsider to evaluate. While a player's leadership abilities and attitude play some factor in his evaluation, it is a minute degree compared to his actual baseball skills. However, a significant factor of a manager's job deals with managing the personalities in his dressing room; ensuring that everyone is satisfied with, or at least, understands their roles; motivating his players and teaching them, while adapting his teaching style as the case may dictate. It is tough enough for baseball writers to evaluate an award when dealing with these criteria; let alone a baseball fan. You can cut down the MOY contenders to about 6 managers by taking a look at a few factors, which I will basically base my final judgement upon. Those factors are basically the team's actual won-loss record compared to their expected won-loss record; a team's general success, especially when compared to their on-paper talent; a manager's use of their roster in terms of lineups, substitutions and use of the pitching staff, and other factors, which vary by team. The six managers who have any legitimate claim to the award are Felipe Alou (San Francisco), Dusty Baker (Chicago), Bobby Cox (Atlanta), Jack McKeon (Florida), Frank Robinson (Montreal) and Jim Tracy (Los Angeles). The following table details each team's win-loss record, while compared to their Pythagorean won-loss record, and it gives the positive or negative difference of their actual record.
Jim Tracy had an abysmal offensive team. In fact, the Los Angeles Dodgers scored less runs than the Detroit Tigers. Yes, American League teams had the DH, but we're talking about the 2003 Detroit Tigers here. You know that kid who used to play baseball on your house-league baseball team and had no athletic ability whatsoever? He was a nice guy and wanted to play, so you let him play and put him on a team. However, every time the ball came near him, or he came up to the plate, you couldn't help but look away and cringe, even if you were a below-average player yourself. The 2003 Detroit Tigers were that kid on the day when he broke his glasses and was worse than usual. However, they still outscored the Los Angeles Dodgers by 17 runs. The Dodgers ended up with a winning record thanks to some great pitching from, among others, Kevin Brown, Eric Gagne, Hideo Nomo, Guillermo Mota, Paul Quantrill and Paul Shuey. They even got good pitching from Wilson Alvarez, who staggered from baseball's graveyard into Chavez Ravine and threw 95 innings with a 2.37 ERA after missing the 2000 and 2001 seasons with injury and having a pretty miserable season last year with Tampa. As far as I can tell, Jim Tracy used his bullpen as effectively as any manager in baseball last year, but I don't think he has the case any of the other five managers do as his team did not accomplish that much, and he appeared to make a limited difference compared to what you would have expected the Dodgers to accomplish. Dusty Baker is a very interesting manager; one of the most interesting in baseball, I think. Now, from all reports I've read he has this uncanny ability to motivate players, and is worshipped basically everywhere he goes. I've never heard a player speak about Dusty in anything but positive terms, and it wasn't very long before "In Dusty We Trusty" t-shirts started popping up all over Chicago. Most people believed Chicago was going to have a much better season this year, but I didn't think they'd make it all the way to the playoffs this year. They only had 67 wins last year, although their expected record was 75-87. Also, the Cubs were 10 games over .500 in one-run games, a feat that speaks highly of Dusty's (see, he seems like such a nice guy he's 'Dusty' to me, but everyone else is 'Tracy' or 'Robinson') managerial capabilities. The accomplishments of Barry Bonds, Jason Schmidt, Mark Prior and Kerry Wood notwithstanding, it speaks highly of any manager who was an Alex Gonzalez error away from making it to the World Series in consecutive years with different teams. However, with Dusty Baker you not only get a great people-person, but unfortunately you also get a man who loves decrepit old men more than Anna Nicole Smith. Now, it's tough to say how much of this is Dusty's doing and how much was the doing of Brian Sabean or Jim Hendry. However, it has to be more than a coincidence that wherever Dusty shows up, aging ballplayers with limited skills soon follow. From Shawon Dunston to Tom Goodwin and Tony Womack, they're everywhere Dusty is. Tony Womack: .235/.250/.315 It's quite surprising that these players are employed on a team that made it to the NLCS until you realised that they are managed by Dusty. Regardless, even if you give him more credit for his motivational skills than you do for his bizarre fetish for veterans, the Cubs still finished only two games above their expected record, and Dusty can't really get that much credit for the performances of Wood, Prior and Carlos Zambrano. So he's out of the running. Bobby Cox is baseball's Marv Levy; always the bridesmaid and never the bride. On the positive side he did win the NL East, which I didn't think the Braves would do after the ingenious decision to trade Kevin Millwood to the Phillies, and he did finish four games ahead of his expected record. As impressive as the latter achievement is, I don't believe it tops the feats of McKeon, Robinson or Alou, and I think some percentage of the NL East was lost by Larry Bowa and the Phillies, as opposed to won by Cox. Don't get me wrong, I think Bobby Cox is a great manager surrounded by a very good coaching staff. He managed to coax great years out of Gary Sheffield, Marcus Giles and Javy Lopez, he effectively used his pitching staff and he and Leo Mazzone have resurrected the career of Mike Hampton. However, Javy Lopez was likely, in part at least, motivated by the "contract year syndrome"; especially when he is a 33-year old catcher who will probably face an inevitable offensive drop-off soon. Marcus Giles went from a barely adequate second baseman to an outstanding one, Russ Ortiz turned in a reasonable year that got overrated because of his win total and Gary Sheffield kept doing his thing. There were some very good individual seasons on Atlanta, but none of them scream out that Cox had a large influence, except for maybe Giles, which also looks like it might be a player finally adjusting to the big leagues. By the way, I wonder how many people realise Sheffield hit over 300, had an OBP over .400 and had a SLG of over .600 last year? Cox was only able to guide Atlanta to a 17-25 record in one-run games, which also is a mark against him. Cox is a very good manager, but I think he falls short when you consider the other three, whose cases I will lay out, before announcing my conclusion. Felipe Alou took over the team that represented the NL in the World Series and took them back to the playoffs. That's all voters knew, as this awards was voted on before the playoffs began. Big freakin' deal. I don't think even Larry Bowa would have failed to take that team back to the playoffs. So why is Alou even a candidate? There are several reasons. His team finished 6 games better than their expected record, which if you can't attribute at least partly to the manager, then I'm not sure what criteria you can really base the award on. San Francisco was also 28-12 in one-run games. They won 28 out of 40 games they played that were decided by one run. This year, at least, Alou appears to have been skilled in managing his team to victories in close ballgames. The statistics are certainly in Alou's favour. Alou also has to deal with one of the most temperamental players in baseball; Barry Bonds. Now, I believe Bonds gets a bum rap from the media, and I don't think he is really the completely selfish, aloof, me-first player that he is made out to be by members of the media. However, I also think he is likely a difficult player to get along with and one who must be managed carefully considering his unequalled offensive skill at this point in time. I'm not sure how big of a factor the departure of Jeff Kent was to Bonds, but in any case, I heard nary a word out of San Francisco this year about Bonds' attitude. Whatever role Alou played as peacemaker between Bonds and the rest of the Giants, as well as the media, he did it well. Additionally, there was a large degree of roster turnover for a World Series finalist and Alou appears to have integrated the new players flawlessly. In came Ray Durham, Jose Cruz, Edgardo Alfonzo (okay, maybe he didn't work out so well), Marquis Grissom Damian Moss and Sidney Ponson, as well as rookie Jerome Williams during the year; as David Bell, Jeff Kent, Russ Ortiz, Reggie Sanders, Kenny Lofton and then Damian Moss left San Fran. Yet, San Francisco ended up in the playoffs exactly like they did last year, and Alou looks to have a serious case in my books. Frank Robinson is another candidate. Now, the Expos finished 83-79, which isn't anything special. What is special is that Robinson managed to finish three games ahead of his expected record, whilst playing 22 "home" games in San Juan, and having no September call-ups. When you consider the fact that this team played, in essence 59 home games and 103 road games, finishing with that record is quite a feat. I don't think the impact this has on the players can be underestimated. These guys had road trips of roughly 22 games or so, living out of a suitcase the entire time. Yet Robinson managed to keep his players motivated, focused and in the playoff race, legitimately, until about mid-September. Adding to Robinson's tough hand was the fact that he received zero September call-ups. After playing one of the most exhausting schedules in baseball history, these players received no extra bench help in September. Couldn't you just kiss Jeffrey Loria and Bud Selig? The biggest negative I can see to Robinson's case is that Montreal did just finished 4 games above .500, and was only 22-24 in one-run games. The last final candidate is Jack McKeon, the winner of the award. Trader Jack took over a last-place team, which was 6 games under .500 approximately a quarter of the way into the season. He then led them to a 75-49 record over that time, the best in the major leagues, and led them to the playoffs for the second time in franchise history. Florida was 30-23 in one-run games, and the team finished 3 games better than their expected record, but unfortunately I haven't been able to breakdown either stat to isolate what Jeff Torborg did and what McKeon did. McKeon managed to do this despite having AJ Burnett lost to injury, losing Mike Lowell to a broken hand and having Josh Beckett out for a couple of months with injury. He integrated rookies Dontrelle Willis and Miguel Cabrera into the team flawlessly. However, the crux of his case comes from the fact he took over a team in last place and guided them to the playoffs with the best record in baseball during that time. I know the results of the playoffs, and the voters didn't before they voted on the award. However, I've tried to not take those into account, and look at the award as I would have looked at it at the end of September. After examining it in detail, as I've described above, I'm still having a hard time deciding who I think should win the MOY. It is the most subjective of the four major awards, in my opinion. That being said, I'd cast my third-place vote for Frank Robinson, however I think a lot of people have failed to grasp what a great job he did in such a difficult situation. I'd give my second place vote to Felipe Alou, who took a Giants team that changed half of their positional starters and several members of their pitching staff, and guided them to 100 wins. Alou also had a staggering number of wins in one-run games and a very good record versus the team's Pythagorean record. However, this is Trader Jack's year and he deserves the award. Who would have even though the Fish would be in the playoffs this year, let alone win the World Series? And who would have thought that on May 11th the team would have made the playoffs? I doubt anyone would have thought a 72-year old man could take a last-place team to the playoffs. I certainly didn't, but it made a great story.
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©Copyright 2003
Phil Orr
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