Gibby the Best? The Worst? Doesn't Matter?

So the big news this week is that AA came out and said that while no one involved with this team is without fault, AA feels that Gibby had done a pretty good job this year and would be back for 2014.

Cue the hysteria!  How dare he stand behind his hand-picked manager after nearly a WHOLE SEASON!!

I mean clearly Gibby is the one who has been serving up all those HR's. 

It was Gibby who got hurt and couldn't play 3B.  

It was Gibby who piled up all those strikeouts on pitches out of the zone.

It was Gibby the former NL batting champ who couldn't hit or run or throw.....

Wait it wasn't Gibby?  I thought a team's success was strongly correlated to the manager?  Good managers win pennants and bad managers end up with the Jays right?   Right?

Well, I have been having this debate with two friends over the past few days and I'm in the camp of a good manager may be worth at most, an extra three or four wins a season and a bad manager may cost you two to three losses a season.  But I have no way to prove this.  And you have no way to prove I'm wrong.

I mean what comes first?  The well performing team creates the impression of a great manager or a good manager builds up a good team?

I believe that strong performances from players make managers look good. Torre, La Russa and Francona, just to name three examples, were all disasters and fired at one point. So were they bad managers previously who turned into good managers later?  Or why was Mike Hargrove such a genius in Cleveland in the 90s and terrible since then?

Hmm interesting..... maybe that is something we can delve into a little further.  Why don't we take a look at the managerial records of all AL and NL pennant winning managers.  And to be fair, we are only going to look at how they did after their World Series appearances when they were in a new gig with a new team.  No sense in giving a Joe Torre undo credit for having a Yankees juggernaut year after year.  Or penalizing a manager as their champion teams go through an inevitable decline e.g. Lasorda.  I mean if a manager is THAT important, they SHOULD be able to switch orgnizations and have success right? To the Wikipedia!  Let's take a look from 1980-2000 at all pennant winning managers who subsequently managed different teams and grade them in terms of SUCCESS or FAIL during such subsequent tenure.

1. Dallas Green - Won the World Series with the Phillies in 1980.  Fired a few years later.  With the Yankees (1989), he was under .500 at 56–65 (.463). With the Mets (1993–96), he was under .500 at 229–283 (.447). FAIL
2. Jim Frey - Won the AL pennant with the Royals in 1980.  Went onto manage the Cubs and won a division title. SUCCESS
3. Dick Williams - Won the NL Pennant with the Padres in 1984 - Went onto manage the Mariners and put together a dismal record of 126 - 192. FAIL
4. Davey Johnson - Davey won the World Series in 1986.  I think Davey is the rare manager who does make a true difference.  Years ago I openly pined for the Jays to hire Johnson.  After his tenure with the Mets, Johnson reached the playoffs with the Reds, Orioles and Nationals.  His only blip was a bad year with the Dodgers....oh and this year.  SUCCESS
5. John McNamara - Won the AL pennant in 86 but lost to Johnson's Mets.  Went onto Cleveland and put together a very bad record of 102-137.  FAIL
6. Tony LaRussa - Won three straight AL pennants with the A's (88-90).  Went onto win 2 World Series with the Cardinals.  I hate Tony LaRussa, but he was a thinker and probably a good manager.  But remember, this is the same guy who tried to blame his critical bullpen mishandling in the World Series on a broken phone and then got caught in a lie. SUCCESS
7. Lou Pinella - Won the world Series with the Reds in 1990.  Another great manager in my mind.  Went onto have success in Seattle and Chicago, but was a disaster in Tampa. SUCCESS
8. Cito Gaston - Won back-to-back World Series.  Now he never worked anywhere but Toronto, but there was a long enough gap you can call them two different teams.  He must have lost his magic pixie dust during his second tenure because the Jays had three consecutive 4th place finishes under Gaston. FAIL
9. Jim Fregosi - Won the NL pennant in 1993 and lost to Touch em all Joe! Hey another Jays connection!  Another proven winner!  Let's hire him. Oops.  What happened?.  FAIL but not too badly.
10. Mike Hargrove.  Won two pennants with Cleveland.  Managed the Orioles and Mariners after that for a combined 6 full seasons.  Finished 4th every year.  FAIL
11. Jim Leyland - Won the World Series with the Marlins in 1997. Went on to manage in Colorado and lose 90 games.  Years later ended up in Detroit...we know how that has gone. SUCCESS
12. Joe Torre - Damn Yankees!  Finished his career withe Dodgers and won two division titles before finishing 4th.  SUCCESS
13. Bruce Bochy - Won the NL pennant with the Padres in 1998...wait that happened? 

          Huh.  Anyways Bruce has gone onto lead the Giants to two World Series.  SUCCESS

    14. Bobby Valentine - Won the NL pennant in 2000 with the Mets.  Um does anyone remember how last year went in Boston?

I'm going to stop here, because all of managers that won in 00's, may still end up with other orgnizations in future years.  So we have 14 examples. 7 pennant winning managers who went to have success elsewhere and 7 winning pennant managers who went onto fail elsewhere......so 50%?  What does that tell us?  Nothing really, but based on this very limited exercise, there is no direct correlation between the manager and success.  Do I think that some managers are worth more than others and can in fact lead to a few more wins?  For sure.  I'm not going to try and argue that Davey Johnson, Joe Torre and Bruce Bochy are not great managers.  But they are the rare exceptions.  In the big picture, it doesn't matter.  You can win with a moron e.g. Bobby Valentine

And you can lose with a genius e.g. Leyland in Colorado, Johnson in LA and Pinella in Tampa. 

So let's all give Gibby a break and accept that this year's failure is on the players and the GM who assembled those pieces.  If next year we see more of the same, you can all sharpen your knives then.  And I hope if they do have success that you will give a ton of credit to Gibby.  Personally I will be complimenting the players.....and still loving Gibby!