A thread for the “Modern Baseball” Hall of Fame Ballot:
https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=884930
There’s an extensive analysis by Bill Fleming on billjamesonline looking at the track records of great/excellent baseball players who became managers. His conclusion was that overall, great players might not have made great managers, but were pretty good ones.
One thing he points out is that some Hall of Fame players were saddled with managing lousy teams (Frank Robinson for instance) but actually did a good job with what they had. Ted Williams (who is panned by some for expecting too much of his hitters) had a major part in improving the Senators from 65-96 to 86-76 and received a manager-of-the-year award. Rogers Hornsby was disliked by many of his players (and owners) and had an overall losing record in the majors, but his track record includes a 1926 championship with the Cardinals and multiple other successful seasons in the major and minor leagues.
Frank Robinson must have had the patience of a saint. He took over the Cleveland Indians in the period when they were a total afterthought, and they played okay for him. He took over a lost-at-sea Giants team and got a shocking numbers of wins out of them. He took over a completely threadbare Orioles team, and after a dreadful 1988 dcamn near wonthe division in 1989. Then he got a couple of winning records out of a bankrupt Expos team. If only he’d had a job with a good club.
AL
I am going with Aaron Boone. Won over 100 games while shuffling so many injured and healthy players. Incredible.
NL
Not so easy decision. In fact, not a clue. Can you help me on this one?
I don’t think the Nationals were picked by a lot of folks to make the playoffs, and the Cardinals were a surprise too.
I think it’s probably a bit more complicated than that.
If you assume that on average great players and non-great player are about equal in managerial skills, I would expect that great players would perform worse as managers. That’s because given two people with otherwise-identical indications of managerial talent, a great player is more likely to be given a shot as manager, as compared to someone who was not a great player.
IOW, great players with shaky managerial skills are more likely to be given a shot as manager compared to others, so there are likely to be more unqualified great players who have managed. But it’s not as if having been a great player is itself a negative attribute.
Martinez isn’t a finalist for Manager of the Year, although Shildt of the Cardinals is.
I’m going to be disloyal and back Kevin Cash for manager of the year in the AL. Coaxing 96 wins out of that Tampa roster is pretty impressive.
I’m not saying you need to hire Buck Showalter. Minor league manager experience is experience. Cora coached in the majors and managed winter ball. Boone does seem to be doing okay without any experience other than announcing so it can work. It would seem better when hiring a manager to ensure they have done something similar before and were good at it.
These seems like things we can’t know as an outsider. Being a boss is different than being a teammate. Maybe he will be and maybe he won’t.
This I agree with. Calloway was both not a great manager and not the cause of the Mets problems.
The theory is that great players have a harder time relating/teaching non-great players who don’t have as much natural talent. I’m not sure what evidence there is to support this.
You can know a subject very well. But teaching it is another art.
More front-office drama in the Astros organization as Reid Ryan has been “reassigned” to a less senior role to make room for owner Jim Crane’s large adult son, and Nolan Ryan is out completely.
RickJay - per your point on the Blue Jays elsewhere, if the Jays signed one of the big-name third basemen, could they move Vlad G. to the outfield?
CC is gone. German probably won’t come back. If the Yankees’ goal is to do more than just make the playoffs, they need starting pitching.
My Yankee priorities:
Get two solid starting pitchers. They don’t have to be superstars, just guys who can give 6 quality innings.
Trade Andujar. Urshela is superior to him. Torres and DJ can handle the middle infield.
Trade Bird or release him. He had great potential, but he can’t play for a month without getting hurt.
Too late, but they should have let Chapman go.
Sign Judge. Keep Gardner another year, sign Maybin. As much as I hate to do so, trade Frazier.
I do not believe Vlad Jr. has the mobility or athleticism to be a major league outfielder. He’s fine as a third baseman for now, because he’s young and so more quick than his size would suggest, but eventually he will become a first baseman. As the team is weak there too (forget Rowdy Tellez; he will never be all that good) that’s fine. Vladdy is basically Miguel Cabrera 2.0.
I am hearing that Boras is having trouble getting a lot of interest in Rendon because Donaldson is available for a short contract and Moustakas is probably a lot cheaper. So that traffic jam might need to clear up before the real bidding starts on Rendon. Also noone thinks their bids will be anything more than leverage on the next bidder as in zero chance of a reasonable offer being considered until next Spring.
Rendon is sitting on a 7 year 215 million dollar contract offer from the Nationals. So any suitor would have to top that.
He might be able to get more interest if he will take a 5 year contract.
Im fairly certain that Rendon wants to stay in Washington. He is from Houston but the Astros really dont need him and cant afford him. And why would he want to go to a shithole like Philly? Take the 200 mil from Washington and go down as a Nationals legend.
My understanding is that Washington’s offer has a lot of the dough as deferred money, so it’s entirely possible Rendon could be lured away by an equal or even slightly cheaper off if the money is actually all paid during the term of the contract.
A huge $30m/year contract to Rendon will probably be a disaster. He’s a terrific player, but 2019 was the best year he has ever had, and he’s 30 next year, so the odds are very heavy that he will have no other years as great as 2019. The majority of huge contracts to position players are disasters. It blows up in your face far more often than not.
The current offer by the Nats is reported to be ~210 over 7 years. There is reported to be some deferral but not like with the Harper deal. If they are paying it out over 14 year then the deferral is worth 3.5 million/year off of true, which brings down the AAV to about 26.5 million. So maybe a shorter payout at the same price could entice him but who would pay that?
I don’t think anyone thinks Rendon is anywhere close to being as good as Machado or Arenado so the ceiling on his AAV on a longer term contract is probably around 30 million. As long as Josh Donaldson and Moustakas are still on the free agent market, I don’t know who will be bidding aggressively for him.
I think the following teams need someone at 3B and are in “win now” mode.
Braves will probably try to get Josh Donaldson back, I don’t see them paying 200+ million for Rendon over 7 years.
Brewers will probably try to resign Moustakas and if they can’t afford him, they certainly can’t afford Rendon.
Rangers are not really a “win now” team but they might think they have some sort of home town advantage but they will not pay 200+ million.
And the only REAL contender for Rendon IMHO:
Phillies are kinda sorta in “win now” mode and have shown the willingness to sign big long term contracts that might outbid the current contract on the table with the Nationals.
BUT the Phillies starting rotation is very mediocre with 58 quality starts. The Nats and Astros had 87 and 89 respectively. I figure they need to pick up at least one of the star pitchers in free agency this season probably two. Pitching is way more important to them than Rendon right now.
Phillies ALSO have a pretty mediocre bullpen with 36 saves compared to the much maligned Nationals bullpen which recorded 40 saves (and the Astros with 47). Phillies probably need to beef up here as well.
Phillies also need someone at 1B, and they have to shuffle around their outfield.
I don’t know how they can make Rendon a priority.
I missed this clause in the Ryan Zimmerman contract.
“After he retires, he will earn $10 million more over the course of 5 years while working for the club.”
It wouldn’t hurt, but the importance of improving the starting rotation is like a million times more important. Bullpens are pretty random, and the Phillies had a pretty decent 'pen in 2018. It’d be easy to add a few cheap arms and see what happens out there, but if they want to improve that rotation right away I think they need to bring in someone expensive.