by Bruce Markusen |
April 23, 2010 9:41 am |
2 Comments
Among the finer baseball books to be published this spring is Chris Jaffe’s Evaluating Baseball’s Managers. Full of anecdotes and analysis, it’s an in-depth study of many of the most significant managers in the game’s history. Earlier in the week, Chris answered a number of questions about the book, including his thoughts on some of the most important managers to wear the pinstripes.
Markusen: Chris, in putting this book together, it’s obvious that you’ve put in an exhaustive amount of research and time. How much, if at all, were you influenced by the previous books on managers done by Bill James and Leonard Koppett?
Jaffe: Both were very helpful. Neither was the main inspiration, but both helped. Koppett gave me a sense of how the position evolved over time. Early in his book, he talks of New York’s 1876 National League manager Bill Cammeyer. He owned the team and invented the baseball stadium. Nowadays, he’d never be manager, but then the position was different.
The James book probably helped a bit more. (Actually, Bill James gets mentioned more times than any non-manager in the book. I suppose that’s not too surprising given that it’s a Sabermetric work).
The big inspiration from the James book was a little 2-3 page section at the end where he noted how often particular managers’ teams led the league (or came in last) in various categories. It let you know whose teams relied the most on power, or complete game pitching, or whatever. James said the list came in handy when discussing various managers.
I liked the idea and thought it could be taken further. I thought rather than just look at how often someone ranked first or last, note how often they came in first, second, third … .all the way down to last, average it out, adjust for league size (because coming 6th in an 8 team league is different from sixth in a 16-team league), and get a better sense of where managers stand in various ways.
That became the Tendencies Database, which is the main tool I used to look at individual managers.
Markusen: Based on the research you did for the book, who emerges as the greatest manager in the history of the Yankees? Did this differ from any preconceived opinions you might have had?
Jaffe: Joe McCarthy kicked so much butt he had to wear special shoes. I knew going in he was terrific so it didn’t go against any preconceived opinions, but there you go.
Stengel is more remembered because he was better with the media, came in the early TV era (when the Baby Boomers can remember him), and last, but certainly not least, won five straight titles. That said, McCarthy’s post season accomplishments were in their own way even more impressive than Stengel’s. In his nine World Series, McCarthy’s teams not only won eight world titles, but they won 29 out of 38 games. A 29-9 record is remarkable if it’s a midseason run, but it’s almost impossible to do that good when facing pennant winning teams in rival leagues. Stengel’s Yanks won a bunch of closely fought World Series, but McCarthy went 28-5 in his eight triumphant Octobers. They never even saw a Game Seven. Heck, they only had one Game Six. Stonewall Jackson once said an army conditioned to victory will become invincible. That’s what happened to those Yankees.
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