# Why do baseball teams get so enamoured with hiring retreads as managers? (BoSox) **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [December 1, 2011, 5:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-baseball-teams-get-so-enamoured-with-hiring-retreads-as-managers-bosox/604675 "2011-12-01T05:17:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![zamboniracer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e9a140/32.png) [@zamboniracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zamboniracer)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2012, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-baseball-teams-get-so-enamoured-with-hiring-retreads-as-managers-bosox/604675/41 "2012-08-15T14:56:59Z")
> [@R.P.McMurphy](#): > > Baseball, and the way you could handle players was very different then. Stengle had the famous quote that went something like, “You have 24 guys on a team. 1/3 of them will like you, 1/3 of them will hate you and the other 1/3rd don’t care. The job of a manager is to keep the 1/3 that hate you away from the 1/3 that don’t care.” > {snip} True enough. In the not so distant past however, Joe Torre was a quite successful retread manager for the Yankees, after being pretty much a managerial failure with the Braves, Mets and Cardinals. I guess the key to being a successful retread manager is to get hired by the Yankees. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2012, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-baseball-teams-get-so-enamoured-with-hiring-retreads-as-managers-bosox/604675/42 "2012-08-15T15:14:10Z")
> [@R.P.McMurphy](#): > > The players know all about who is producing, who isn’t producing, who is injured, etc. Even the fans know that. You think the manager doesn’t? > [@](#): > > Bobby Valentine got off to a terrible start and it didn’t get much better. To the contrary. The players continued their shit from the end of last season for a while (some, like A-Gon later clicked), while Bobby got the bullpen together and patched lineups together from among the guys who weren’t hurt. The team still has scored the 3rd-most runs in the AL, the bullpen has been decent, and the younger starters have, too. It’s been Beckett and Lester, and mainly Beckett lately, who haven’t produced and have personally killed enough games to drop the team out of contention. > [@](#): > > It’s apparent, BV is the cancer in the locker room, not the under-talented and injured team. Really? Was Tito a cancer for the previous 8 years, or did he become one in September when the same shit was happening? > [@](#): > > Athletes know when they are being taught, motivated and inspired. They also know when they are being denigrated and blamed. They’re also not children. They know they have to keep in shape, they have to bear down, and they have to produce. They know they owe their best efforts to themselves and their teammates. If they don’t know that, then they can’t be taught, either. Fuck 'em; it’s on _them_. Too many of them couldn’t and can’t even fucking bother to keep in fucking _shape_. That, btw, was probably the biggest problem late last year - too many players were too damn tired and too damn injury-prone because they were too damn fat. > [@](#): > > BoSox management, get a clue. And there you have the problem - multiple competing power centers in the front office, with differing approaches and agendas. They couldn’t agree on extending Tito, so they let him go into the last year of his contract instead, undercutting his authority in the clubhouse. Then, after Theo finally said “Fuck it, I’m outta here”, that left Lucchino and Cherington with similar power and at cross-purposes. Lucchino got his guy, Valentine, but Cherington wouldn’t accept that and get behind the man. Instead, he forced some of his own coaches on Bobby instead of letting him pick guys he’s comfortable with and who will all pull together (did you know there are two pitching coaches, one of them Cherington’s guy and one Valentine’s? The pitching has sucked, and not by coincidence). Instead, he’s let whiners like Lackey (why is he even with the team?), Beckett, Youkilis (yes) and those they’ve poisoned with their childishness come to him with their whines instead of backing the manager. So how can he run a team with his authority so completely undercut? The cancer is Henry, for not enforcing that it’s Lucchino in charge of the front office, and for not firing Cherington for refusing to get with the program. As it is, NO manager can succeed with this franchise. None can have the real authority he needs. ---
**Author:** ![Cowboy8467](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b5e925/32.png) [@Cowboy8467](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cowboy8467)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2012, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-baseball-teams-get-so-enamoured-with-hiring-retreads-as-managers-bosox/604675/43 "2012-08-15T15:41:49Z")
Davey Johnson is a retread and his team currently has the best record in baseball and are serious contenders for the World Series despite never having a winning record in their brief franchise history. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2012, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-baseball-teams-get-so-enamoured-with-hiring-retreads-as-managers-bosox/604675/44 "2012-08-15T16:43:33Z")
[Here’s a fuller illustration](http://www.boston.com/sports/baseball/redsox/articles/2012/08/15/soul_searching_sessions_for_red_sox/) of how the Red Sox front office has cut its manager’s balls off. Why even give these lazy whiners the time of day? ---
**Author:** ![Jas09](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d07c76/32.png) [@Jas09](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jas09)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2012, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-baseball-teams-get-so-enamoured-with-hiring-retreads-as-managers-bosox/604675/45 "2012-08-15T17:00:16Z")
> [@Invisible\_Chimp](#): > > The most objective way I can think of to measure a manager’s success or failure against their team’s talent is to measure their team’s actual record against their Pythagorean projection. All three of these teams are underperforming by that standard, so we can’t say anything definitive whether it’s better to hire a newbie versus a retread using these three guys as yardsticks. Maybe these aren’t the best guys for their jobs though. Yeah, measuring managerial impact is extremely difficult - so many variable to attempt to account for. There little doubt, as someone who watches the Cardinals almost every day, that Matheny has cost the team a few wins with his inexperience at in-game decision making. Whether that is at all compensated for by his personal management skills is the part that is really hard to figure out - my gut feeling is probably not. As was said up-thread, the best way to succeed as a manager (re-tread or not) is to get hired by a really good team. ---
**Author:** ![colonial](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/34f0e0/32.png) [@colonial](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/colonial)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2012, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-baseball-teams-get-so-enamoured-with-hiring-retreads-as-managers-bosox/604675/46 "2012-08-15T18:11:21Z")
> [@R.P.McMurphy](#): > > Baseball, and the way you could handle players was very different then. Stengle had the famous quote that went something like, “You have 24 guys on a team. 1/3 of them will like you, 1/3 of them will hate you and the other 1/3rd don’t care. The job of a manager is to keep the 1/3 that hate you away from the 1/3 that don’t care.” Your comic citation does nothing to to explain any difference in how players are handled, or why retreads are bad hiring bets. > [@R.P.McMurphy](#): > > As for Mayo Smith, I could have taken that team to the World Series. They were loaded and that total asshole, Denny McLain, couldn’t be beaten. Plus, he had Bill Freehan to make sure that he was throwing the right pitches. Maybe the magic of Mayo Smith that year was that he let McLain do whatever the fuck he wanted. He played favorites with the stars. > > Mayo Smith couldn’t replicate that year and eventually got fired because he was such a spineless manager that let the stars control the team. He wasn’t the boss. Not sure Smith can be blamed for not trying to control the uncontrollable McLain. Would the front office have backed him up? The Tigers went 2-1-2 in their 1st three years under Smith. In year 4 team ERA imploded, led by the now crashing McLain, and Mayo did not get a chance to recoup. Could Smith have done as well as the subsequent 2-1 finishes under the Billy Martin? Impossible to say. BTW Smith’s decision to start Mickey Stanley at SS in the 1968 WS so as to make room for Al Kaline in the OF is generally considerd to be one of the most daring successes in MLB history. I thought it was pretty cool myself. ---
**Author:** ![R.P.McMurphy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/7993a0/32.png) [@R.P.McMurphy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/R.P.McMurphy)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2012, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-baseball-teams-get-so-enamoured-with-hiring-retreads-as-managers-bosox/604675/47 "2012-08-16T01:00:46Z")
> [@colonial](#): > > Your comic citation does nothing to to explain any difference in how players are handled, or why retreads are bad hiring bets. > > Not sure Smith can be blamed for not trying to control the uncontrollable McLain. Would the front office have backed him up? > > The Tigers went 2-1-2 in their 1st three years under Smith. In year 4 team ERA imploded, led by the now crashing McLain, and Mayo did not get a chance to recoup. Could Smith have done as well as the subsequent 2-1 finishes under the Billy Martin? Impossible to say. > > BTW Smith’s decision to start Mickey Stanley at SS in the 1968 WS so as to make room for Al Kaline in the OF is generally considerd to be one of the most daring successes in MLB history. I thought it was pretty cool myself. That era was prior to Curt Flood and free agency. Management had all the power and the players had none. I thought that fact would be obvious to you. It sure changes the nature of the manager’s job. At the time there was all kinds of criticism of Mayo Smith for having two sets of standards, one for the stars and another for the rest of the team. Mickey Lolich was the salvation in 1968. He was a great pitcher and was well rested going into the Series. After all, he was the winning pitcher in 3 of the 4 wins. At the end of the regular season it was apparent that he was the best pitcher on the staff going into the Series despite McLain’s 31 wins. ---
**Author:** ![Mister\_Rik](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mister_rik/32/491_2.png) [@Mister\_Rik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mister_Rik)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2012, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-baseball-teams-get-so-enamoured-with-hiring-retreads-as-managers-bosox/604675/48 "2012-08-16T01:30:50Z")
> [@R.P.McMurphy](#): > > Shit like this doesn’t happen when the team that is struggling knows that the manager is working his ass off to make them look good and bring them along instead of blaming them for making him look bad. I’ve played enough team sports to know that. Cite: Eric Wedge and the Seattle Mariners. Despite their general lack of success, this is a tight, unified team. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2012, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-baseball-teams-get-so-enamoured-with-hiring-retreads-as-managers-bosox/604675/49 "2012-08-16T02:36:28Z")
> [@Cowboy8467](#): > > Davey Johnson is a retread and his team currently has the best record in baseball and are serious contenders for the World Series despite never having a winning record in their brief franchise history. I think we need a better definition of ‘retread,’ so that it means something a wee bit less broad than ‘an MLB manager who’s not in his first ML managing job.’ Here’s my attempt at it: someone who’s had at least two previous stints at managing a MLB ballclub, without his teams’ noticeably surpassing expectations in any of his last three stints. IOW, someone whose recent (and quite possibly his entire) history as a ML manager is a track record of apparent mediocrity. He may have been a winner several jobs ago, but hasn’t visibly improved the fortunes of the club at any of his recent stops. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2012, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-baseball-teams-get-so-enamoured-with-hiring-retreads-as-managers-bosox/604675/50 "2012-08-16T02:56:59Z")
> [@Invisible\_Chimp](#): > > The most objective way I can think of to measure a manager’s success or failure against their team’s talent is to measure their team’s actual record against their Pythagorean projection. It’s objective, but the question is, does it measure what you want to measure? As **RickJay** pointed out on p.2 of the August MLB thread, there’s a lot of different needs a ballclub might have, and what counts as ‘success’ depends on what those needs are. For instance, the Nats are running 1-2 games ahead of their Pythagorean projection. That’s nice, but so what, really? What Dave Johnson has succeeded at in D.C. is bringing along a young team to realize its full potential, and more quickly than even most of his fans would have expected. That, and not anything having to do with the Pythagorean, is the true measure of his success over the past two seasons. As a complete aside, what makes Johnson interesting is that he’s not _just_ the guy you’d want to help a young team come to fruition. In Baltimore in 1996-97, for instance, he succeeded by getting the most out of a bunch of big-name veterans that hadn’t always performed up to their reps. Not too many managers can succeed in such diverse situations. ---
**Author:** ![R.P.McMurphy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/7993a0/32.png) [@R.P.McMurphy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/R.P.McMurphy)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2012, 3:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-baseball-teams-get-so-enamoured-with-hiring-retreads-as-managers-bosox/604675/51 "2012-08-16T03:37:14Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > I think we need a better definition of ‘retread,’ so that it means something a wee bit less broad than ‘an MLB manager who’s not in his first ML managing job.’ > > Here’s my attempt at it: someone who’s had at least two previous stints at managing a MLB ballclub, without his teams’ noticeably surpassing expectations in any of his last three stints. > > IOW, someone whose recent (and quite possibly his entire) history as a ML manager is a track record of apparent mediocrity. He may have been a winner several jobs ago, but hasn’t visibly improved the fortunes of the club at any of his recent stops. I would add, especially in the case of Valentine and this circumstance, that the guy has had an extended period of not being a major league manager or executive. Therefore, I would not consider a guy like Tony LaRussa to be a retread. The fact that someone like Lenny Dykstra can even be given serious consideration just baffles me. ---
**Author:** ![colonial](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/34f0e0/32.png) [@colonial](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/colonial)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2012, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-baseball-teams-get-so-enamoured-with-hiring-retreads-as-managers-bosox/604675/52 "2012-08-16T15:24:35Z")
> [@R.P.McMurphy](#): > > That era was prior to Curt Flood and free agency. Management had all the power and the players had none. I thought that fact would be obvious to you. It sure changes the nature of the manager’s job. This does nothing determine who is to blame for permitting McLain’s indiscipline. > [@R.P.McMurphy](#): > > At the time there was all kinds of criticism of Mayo Smith for having two sets of standards, one for the stars and another for the rest of the team. Precedent for indiscipline was set by GM Jim Campbell: [SI Cover Article on McLain 6/25/68](http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1081432/3/index.htm) (from link, p3): > [@](#): > > One night in July (1966) Denny reportedly called the Tigers a “country-club team where everybody does what they want.” This remark was printed the next day in the Detroit News. When Jim Campbell, the Tigers’ general manager, read the quote attributed to McLain he immediately fined Denny and ordered him to say he was misquoted. > > Hardly had the (1968) season begun before he remarked to a visiting writer, “The Detroit fans are the worst I’ve ever seen anyplace.” > > Denny later amended that, saying, “Some of the Detroit fans are the worst I’ve ever seen.” The “some” came too late, however, and McLain had said the wrong thing again… > > After hearing McLain criticize the Detroit fans, Jim Campbell simply decided he would never listen to him again. “From now on,” he said, “what Denny says goes in one ear and out the other.” Mighty Mouth himself laughed at this. “We have a mutual irritation society, anyway, Campbell and me,” Denny said. “It looks like he did not think too much before he said that. Yes, we’ve talked several times the last month or so. He wants me to be a diplomat. Hey, who knows? I might even make it to the U.N. Are you kidding?” So having assumed personal reponsibility for McLain’s behavior in 1966 and then dropping the subject in 1968 GM Campbell, who was after all Mayo Smith’s boss as well, can hardly claim to seen in a more favorable light than any of his underlings. > [@R.P.McMurphy](#): > > Mickey Lolich was the salvation in 1968. He was a great pitcher and was well rested going into the Series. After all, he was the winning pitcher in 3 of the 4 wins. At the end of the regular season it was apparent that he was the best pitcher on the staff going into the Series despite McLain’s 31 wins. I have been a Tiger fan since the 1962 season so naturally Lolich is tied for 1st with a very few others as my all-time favorite. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2012, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-baseball-teams-get-so-enamoured-with-hiring-retreads-as-managers-bosox/604675/53 "2012-08-16T16:23:49Z")
> [@Invisible\_Chimp](#): > > The most objective way I can think of to measure a manager’s success or failure against their team’s talent is to measure their team’s actual record against their Pythagorean projection. While this is undoubtedly objective, it is meaningless. No manager who has ever worked in MLB has shown a statistically meaningful propensity for under- or out-performing the Pythagorean projection. It’s also indisputably the case that a manager’s major impact on a team will not be on the difference between runs scored and allowed versus winning percentage, but on how many runs are scored and allowed in the first place. When Cito Gaston (to keep using an example I’ve used before) was still running hapless, over-the-hill veterans like Joe Carter and Ruben Sierra out there when Shawn Green was sitting on the bench, he was directly affecting the team’s ability to score and prevent runs. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-baseball-teams-get-so-enamoured-with-hiring-retreads-as-managers-bosox/604675.md?page=2)