So Pena Won, Big Whoop. You Wanna Fight About It?
Tony Pena won by a large margin, and I'm not going to argue with it.
11/15/03
Phil Orr

          Allow me to preface this by saying this article will be very short for a good reason. There's no need to write it. It was bad enough doing an article on the NL manager of the year, as in my opinion, there aren't enough statistics that show as evidence what connection a manager had to a team's performance, but at least it had no clear-cut winner. Although I like the premise of comparing pythagorean records with actual records, there's always a factor of luck involved. We have no idea how much a manager effects record over pythagorean record. One run games? Another decent idea as the most strategy is involved there, but it's such a limited sample size that it doesn't say much. One manager can have a winning record in one run games one year and a losing the next, without changing his style much.

The point is that there is not sufficient evidence to make a case for or against Pena. Sure, I think he deserved it, but ideally we keep subjective opinion out of our articles and stay true to our mission. Thus, how can I write an article on Pena when any stats I throw out there describe the team as a whole rather than simply his managing?

So we come to an interesting situation. There has to be SOME way to statistically find out what manager was the best. Some sort of statistic that correlates with managerial success. So this, instead, is what we'll be looking into. Thomas and myself are each going to be working on some studies soon. His is going to be how pythagorean record and other stats correlate with manager success, and mine is going to be looking into a theory of mine that says that there is absolutely NO ability for a pitcher to control BABIP. It's been theorized that there is a slight, although not great ability, but my goal is to see if that ability corresponds with higher homerun totals. Both of these seem more useful than looking into these stats which may say nothing about the manager. Besides, I glanced over them, and the pythagorean difference, one-run game record, etc. for all contending managers... well, they weren't anything special.

Ultimately I just find that if I were to chime in on this with an article stating which manager was the best, it would be misleading to the reader. I'd have no idea what I was talking about and would be pretending I do. I'm not going to do that. Instead, we intend on finding exactly how well we can judge a manager, and if no sufficient way is found, I can assure you that an analysis of this award will not be repeated in the future.

Although I cannot accurately explain who deserves the award, check back soon when the MVP's are voted on. Then it's back to familiar ground.