What Makes A Manager Good?

I don’t know if there’s a manager in the Major Leagues that gets a blanket pass from his team’s fans.

Maybe, you’d think, Joe Torre would, but anybody who’s ever spent any time in New York listening to sports talk radio (don’t ask) knows that every move Torre makes –and doesn’t make– is as scrutinized and subject to fanatic screeds as the decisions Ron Gardenhire makes here in Minnesota.

I’ve thought about it for years, and I still can’t make up my mind about what sorts of qualities, characteristics, and personality traits I’d want were I hiring a manager for my imaginary baseball team.

There have been plenty of instances where obvious boneheads have managed excellent teams, and even managed clubs that won world championships (Bob Brenley being the example that comes immediately to mind).

Once upon a time –not all that long ago, really– I used to be able to rattle off the names of every manager in the Major Leagues. Right off the top of my head, no problem. A lot of those once-upon-a-time managers were as famous as the players on their teams, and recognized primarily for their fiery and colorful personalities and combativeness with umpires. I’m thinking of guys like Leo Durocher, Earl Weaver, Billy Martin, Dick Williams, and Tommy Lasorda. Or old warriors like Gene Mauch.

I still haven’t made up my mind whether any of those guys were great managers or not. Among that group there were certainly a lot of different philosophies, many of them tailored to the sorts of teams they managed. Looking over their career records makes it hard to draw any definite conclusions, other than that when they had good players to trot out there every night they tended to win.

I think the same thing is probably just as true today, but I also suppose it’s possible that a truly lousy manager (Butch Hobson, for instance) can actually sabotage a decent team’s chances to win.

I also know that today there an awful lot of pretty anonymous characters out there wearing manager’s uniforms in Major League dugouts.

What really are the fundamental qualities of a good manager?

One of them, I’d think, would be the ability to recognize talent in his organization and to make the best use of the talent he does have. That seems pretty obvious, but it’s always surprising to me how many guys who get these jobs fail even that most basic of tests.

With all the money in today’s game, and the big egos that come with it, more and more it seems like the job really does boil down to the job title –an awful lot of time and attention has to be paid to managing disparate personalities in the clubhouse and on the field. People always talk about leadership and chemistry with regard to big league clubhouses, and it’s struck me in recent years that with almost every team those intangibles flow first and foremost from the manager’s office.

Other than personnel decisions, it’s a manager’s strategic approach –or lack thereof– that leads to the most debate among fans: making out the batting order, calling for sacrifice bunts or hit-and-run plays, stealing bases, and the handling of the pitching staff. All of these decisions are a constant source of debate, and tend to look brilliant when they work out and counter-productive when they don’t.

The bottom line, of course, is the bottom line: Whether a team wins or loses. When there seems to be a consistent pattern to the way a club wins or loses I suppose you can draw some conclusions about how much of the credit for that goes to the manager and how much to the players.

I watch a lot of baseball games, though, and have watched a lot of baseball games over the last several decades, and I pretty routinely see managers –even supposedly good managers– make decisions that have me scratching my head.

So, you tell me: what is that makes a manager good? Who are the great ones in the Major Leagues today, and why? What do you have against Ron Gardenhire, or what might you say in his favor? And, finally, if you ran the zoo and could pick anyone, who would you hire to manage the Twins?

I’m headed to New York for a few days, and, weather permitting, might take in a Yankee game.

Before I go, though, I’d also like to discuss what the hell seems to be wrong with Jesse Crain. I did think it was strange when his strikeout rates –which were always pretty impressive in the minor leagues– declined so drastically last year, even as he was inarguably effective.

I’ll tell you one think I noticed the last couple years that seems to be missing from his approach so far this season: Last year in particular he was one Minnesota pitcher who was never afraid of pitching inside, and his above-average fastball was a great weapon for keeping opposing hitters from crowding the plate. I remember remarking that I couldn’t remember the last Twin pitcher who brushed back so many batters, usually early in the count.

I haven’t seen much, if any, of that so far in 2006, and Crain looks to me like he’s consistently finding too much of the plate with his pitches. I think it might be time for him to get back in touch with his inner Don Drysdale.