there is a joke that a coach said “I give the same pregame speech before every game. the speech works better when I have better players”
The worst manager in MLB might his team five games in tactical ineptitude.
The difference in talent between Boston and Baltimore is, by MLB standards, enormous. There are five thousand men in organized baseball who could manage Boston to first place. There isn’t anyone who has ever been involved in organized baseball, ever, who could have saved Baltimore, who are one of the worst teams in major league history.
WHY Boston has more talent, be it drafting or money or both, isn’t relevant. The point is they do. They have many players better than anyone Baltimore has.
It is worth noting that Boston had a different manager last year, John Farrell, and they finished in first place last year, too.
So you think JD Martinez was a bigger addition than Alex Cora? That’s a rhetorical question because, duh, yes JD Martinez is more important than Alex Cora.
And what I was getting at earlier, I think a really, historically bad manager could possibly find a way to lead this Red Sox team to like 95 wins and a wild card berth. At worst. Cora has led the team to 107 wins to date. I don’t know if he’s great, but even a decent manager would win the division with this team.
I suspect that a “good” manager has less effect on a baseball team’s ability to win contrasted with a bad/toxic manager’s ability to generate losses (example: Bobby Valentine and the Red Sox).
The importance of good/talented managers seems to have been greatly degraded in recent years by obsession with statistical analysis, to the point that common sense and intuition have been declared by some to have no place in managing.
As long as who’s manager is no big deal nowadays, we should at least strive for entertainment. To that end, I propose that some enterprising team follow the example of Connie Mack and the old Philadelphia Athletics, and require the manager and coaching staff to dress in formal wear, instead of the silly practice of being costumed in players’ uniforms.
It might be a bit like kickers and punters in the NFL: having a great one, versus having a good one, doesn’t necessarily get you a lot. But, a bad one will absolutely cost you.
Little was fired because he was told, in no uncertain terms, don’t let Martinez throw more than 100 pitches. You don’t keep any job when you refuse to follow your boss’s instructions.
A manager is probably worth 5-10 games one way or another, but an important factor involves things that don’t show up in the box score: motivation. Again, it’s like any job: a good manager gets you to do your best; a bad one makes you slack off. A good manager can keep the team motivated even when its losing.
Martinez was certainly not on a 100-pitch count that year; he exceeded 100 pitches fifteen times that year, including Game 1 of the ALDS. Obviously, leaving Pedro in and losing Game 7 is why he was fired, but they could not have had a hard count or else he’d have been fired in May.
Also, Little didn’t have much of a bullpen to work with, which is why they went out and got Foulke in the offseason. If Embree and/or Timlin had given up the tying runs, Boston fans would have been raging against Little, claiming that Pedro was one of the best in the game and that he would have dug deep and closed the door. And hey, let’s be honest, Posada’s hit was just bad luck.