Username:	Password:

Remember me

Forgot your username/password?

Print Email

Home>Articles

Do Good Players Make Bad Managers?

By Dave Fleming

December 31, 2008

If you had to guess an answer to the question listed above, how would you answer it? What’s your first instinct? Your gut-reaction?

My gut reaction is that good players would make terrible managers. If I had to say why, I’d say that it has to do with a specific aspect of human nature; namely that all of us interpret our perception of the world as a universal thing. If we see, say, an image of suffering, or an image of beauty, we have an expectation that everyone understands and interprets that image in a similar way. We strive for relativism, but are undone by ego.

I’m not making sense, am I?

Here’s a better example: Ted Williams was probably the smartest hitter to ever play professional baseball. But as a manager for the Senators, Teddy would routinely get pissed off at his player’s inability to do things he did. Why couldn’t they see that pitch was four inches off the goddamn plate? How come they didn’t know a change-up was coming?

You see where I’m going? Williams imagined that everyone had the capacity to judge ball from strike just like he did. He didn’t buy all that crap about his miracle eyesight. He thought, “Damnit, you just gotta work at it.”

Forced to guess, I think most of us would assume that great ballplayers make lousy managers because great players have a fundamentally different experience with the game than a lousy player has. A great player understands success, while a lousy player understands struggle and failure. A good player had a gift that carries him blissfully through his years on the diamond. A lousy player, by contrast has to work hard and adapt and learn how to stay in the game.

Great Players Turned Managers: Overall

Below is a list showing the managerial record of all of player/managers elected to the baseball Hall of Fame, who were elected as players.

This is an important point: I didn’t list guys like Miller Higgins or Tommy Lasorda or Sparky Anderson or Earl Weaver, because they weren’t great players.

There are a few difficult cases. Al Lopez was a fine catcher and a terrific manager. He’s not on the list. Same holds true for John McGraw. Both men made significant contributions as players, but they weren’t elected to the Hall of Fame as players.

I drew a hard line, and this obviously diminishes the record of the player/managers, as McGraw and Lopez would obviously skew the numbers in favor of good players. To put the great players at a further disadvantage, I left off a lot of near-Hall of Fame players who would sway the numbers further. Joe Torre and Gil Hodges are near-Hall of Famers, but they’re off the list. Same thing holds for Dusty Baker, Don Baylor, Mike Scoscia, Tony Pena, and Davey Lopes: they were fine players who posted excellent managerial records.

Another point: I used a cut-off. You had to manage at least 80 games.

When I originally posted this article, I was (unknowingly) using a cut-off of 500 games. The problem with this cut-off was quickly pointed out by Richie: you have to be a good manager to manage 500 games.

I’m still using a cut-off. Cy Young was 3-3 as a manager. Honus Wagner was 1-4 as a manager. Ed Walsh was 1-2. They don’t belong on the list. Tommy McCarthy was 15-12 as a manager. I don’t think that’s a reasonable measure. Luke Appling was 10-30. Rabbit Maranville was 23-30. There are a few other Hall-of-Famers who had really brief tenures as managers. If they didn’t get to 80 games I left ‘em off the list.

So we’re left with forty-five truly great players who also managed. Here are their records, listed by win percentage:

NAME	G	W	L	PCT
Frank Chance	1594	946	648	.593
Mickey Cochrane	598	348	250	.582
Cap Anson	2243	1296	947	.578
Fred Clarke	2783	1602	1181	.576
John Ward	732	412	320	.563
Bill Terry	1484	823	661	.555
Buck Ewing	884	489	395	.553
Walter Johnson	961	529	432	.550
Nap Lajoie	686	377	309	.550
Jimmy Collins	831	455	376	.548
Hughie Jennings	2179	1184	995	.543
Bill Dickey	105	57	48	.543
Tris Speaker	1137	617	520	.543
Joe Cronin	2291	1236	1055	.540
King Kelly	321	173	148	.539
Pie Traynor	863	457	406	.530
Yogi Berra	928	484	444	.522
Red Schoendienst	1996	1041	955	.522
Eddie Collins	334	174	160	.521
Ty Cobb	923	479	444	.519
Bob Lemon	833	430	403	.516
Frankie Frisch	2216	1138	1078	.514
Joe Kelley	659	338	321	.513
Joe Gordon	613	305	308	.498
Joe Tinker	612	304	308	.497
Jim O'Rourke	504	246	258	.488
Lou Boudreau	2386	1162	1224	.487
Christy Mathewson	340	164	176	.482
Eddie Mathews	310	149	161	.481
Kid Nichols	168	80	88	.476
Max Carey	307	146	161	.476
Frank Robinson	2241	1065	1176	.475
George Sisler	459	218	241	.475
Mel Ott	994	464	530	.467
Rogers Hornsby	1513	701	812	.463
Ray Schalk	227	102	125	.449
Hugh Duffy	1206	535	671	.444
George Davis	246	107	139	.435
Burleigh Grimes	302	131	171	.434
Roger Bresnahan	760	328	432	.432
Ted Lyons	430	185	245	.430
Ted Williams	637	273	364	.429
Larry Doby	87	37	50	.425
Billy Herman	463	189	274	.408
Dave Bancroft	612	249	363	.407
	42998	22225	20773	.517

Interestingly, 23 of the 45 players have winning records as managers.

A quick point, which I’ll come back to later: it’s worth mentioning that a manager’s record doesn’t tell the whole story. Ted Williams has the second-worst record of any manager, but for that he turned around a lousy Washington team and landing a Manager-of-the-Year award. Same holds true for Frank Robinson: he was a good manager saddled with lousy teams.

Also: a lot of these guys were player-managers, and as such they had the benefit of at least one Hall of Fame-quality player on their team. How much did it help Mickey Cochrane the manager to have Mickey Cochrane the catcher as his catcher?

Great Players Turned Managers: Generations

I wanted to look at the list of great-players-turned-managers in a few different ways. Because of the small sample size (thirty careers), I’ll resist drawing too many conclusions about anything.

One reader was wise to point out that there are fewer former players managing in baseball today. It makes sense because there are fewer incentives on players becoming managers than there were in the past. Decades ago, players didn’t have pensions and salaries and memorabilia shows to pad their retirement incomes. For guys like Chance and Hornsby, managing was a way to stay employed. In today’s game, players hardly need such motivations.

There is a second factor, which is that the transition to becoming a manager is far tougher for today’s players than it was fifty years ago. I watch a lot of minor league baseball out here in Iowa, and I remember being surprised to see Ryne Sandberg standing in the dugout of a Single-A team. It didn’t matter that he’s a great player: to manage in the major leagues you now have to earn the position.

Here are the forty-five players listed above fall into three loose ‘generations’, based on the year they started managing:

Generation 1: The Dead-Ballers

These are the old-timers, guys who were typically player/managers, who managed rough-and-tumble teams in those pre-Ruthian days. Of the eighteen player/managers listed here, eleven have winning records. As a whole, they have a remarkable .540 winning percentage.

NAME	G	W	L	PCT	YEAR
Frank Chance	1594	946	648	.593	1905
Cap Anson	2243	1296	947	.578	1875
Fred Clarke	2783	1602	1181	.576	1897
John Ward	732	412	320	.563	1880
Buck Ewing	884	489	395	.553	1890
Nap Lajoie	686	377	309	.550	1905
Jimmy Collins	831	455	376	.548	1901
Hughie Jennings	2179	1184	995	.543	1907
Tris Speaker	1137	617	520	.543	1919
King Kelly	321	173	148	.539	1888
Joe Kelley	659	338	321	.513	1902
Joe Tinker	612	304	308	.497	1913
Jim O'Rourke	504	246	258	.488	1881
Christy Mathewson	340	164	176	.482	1916
Kid Nichols	168	80	88	.476	1904
Hugh Duffy	1206	535	671	.444	1901
George Davis	246	107	139	.435	1895
Roger Bresnahan	760	328	432	.432	1909
18 players	17885	9653	8232	.540

Generation 2: The High-Offense Managers

These guys managed as the game of baseball was experiencing a number of dramatic changes. Of the fourteen players listed here, eight have winning records, and were it not for the abysmal records of Dave Bancroft and Rogers Hornsby, this group would be more impressive than the generation ahead of it.

NAME	G	W	L	PCT	YEAR
Mickey Cochrane	598	348	250	.582	1934
Bill Terry	1484	823	661	.555	1932
Walter Johnson	961	529	432	.550	1929
Joe Cronin	2291	1236	1055	.540	1933
Pie Traynor	863	457	406	.530	1934
Eddie Collins	334	174	160	.521	1924
Ty Cobb	923	479	444	.519	1921
Frankie Frisch	2216	1138	1078	.514	1933
Max Carey	307	146	161	.476	1932
George Sisler	459	218	241	.475	1924
Rogers Hornsby	1513	701	812	.463	1927
Ray Schalk	227	102	125	.449	1927
Burleigh Grimes	302	131	171	.434	1937
Dave Bancroft	612	249	363	.407	1924
14 players	13090	6731	6359	.514

Generation 3: Everyone Else

Great players were far less inclined to manage, and they did a much poorer job than previous player/managers. Of the recent great players-turned-managers, only four have winning records.

NAME	G	W	L	PCT	YEAR
Bill Dickey	105	57	48	.543	1946
Yogi Berra	928	484	444	.522	1964
Red Schoendienst	1996	1041	955	.522	1965
Bob Lemon	833	430	403	.516	1970
Joe Gordon	613	305	308	.498	1958
Lou Boudreau	2386	1162	1224	.487	1942
Eddie Mathews	310	149	161	.481	1972
Frank Robinson	2241	1065	1176	.475	1975
Mel Ott	994	464	530	.467	1942
Ted Lyons	430	185	245	.430	1946
Ted Williams	637	273	364	.429	1969
Larry Doby	87	37	50	.425	1978
Billy Herman	463	189	274	.408	1947
13 players	12023	5841	6182	.486

It would be easy to draw the conclusion that great players once made good managers, but now they don’t.

I would suggest a slightly different interpretation: great players are no longer expected to manage, and those who have an inclination to manage are often shackled to lousy teams. Ted Williams wasn’t hired by the Red Sox, but by the lowly Senators. Bob Lemon managed a lousy Yankee team to a division title, and was fired for his efforts. Frank Robinson managed loser teams for fifteen years.

Ted Williams, he has the second-worst record of any of these managers. But he was a good manager: in his first stint the Senators went from a 65-96 record to an 86-76 mark, improving by 21 games. Not surprisingly, the hitters improved dramatically, going from an OPS+ of 97 in 1968 to an OPS+ of 112 in 1969. (I used OPS+ because every team in baseball scored more runs in 1969 than 1968.)

Great Players Turned Managers: By Position

Here’s a play on the first question: what position makes the best manager? Are catchers typically good managers, or shortstops? What about outfielders?

Here are the players, listed by position grouping. I’ve ranked the positions from best managerial record to worst.

NAME	POS	G	W	L	PCT
Frank Chance	Corn. In.	1594	946	648	.593
Cap Anson	Corn. In.	2243	1296	947	.578
Bill Terry	Corn. In.	1484	823	661	.555
Jimmy Collins	Corn. In.	831	455	376	.548
Pie Traynor	Corn. In.	863	457	406	.530
Eddie Mathews	Corn. In.	310	149	161	.481
George Sisler	Corn. In.	459	218	241	.475
		7784	4344	3440	.558

Surprisingly, the corner infielders do the best, with all five men having winning records as managers. John McGraw was also a middle-infielder, as was Gil Hodges (who had a poor winning percentage but a World Series ring).

NAME	POS	G	W	L	PCT
Mickey Cochrane	C	598	348	250	.582
Buck Ewing	C	884	489	395	.553
Bill Dickey	C	105	57	48	.543
Yogi Berra	C	928	484	444	.522
Ray Schalk	C	227	102	125	.449
Roger Bresnahan	C	760	328	432	.432
		3502	1808	1694	.516

Catchers also do very well as managers, which is not surprising. Interestingly, none of these catchers had particularly long managerial careers, which shows just how tough it is to be a major-league catcher.

NAME	POS	G	W	L	PCT
John Ward	Mid. In.	732	412	320	.563
Nap Lajoie	Mid. In.	686	377	309	.550
Hughie Jennings	Mid. In.	2179	1184	995	.543
Joe Cronin	Mid. In.	2291	1236	1055	.540
Red Schoendienst	Mid. In.	1996	1041	955	.522
Eddie Collins	Mid. In.	334	174	160	.521
Frankie Frisch	Mid. In.	2216	1138	1078	.514
Joe Gordon	Mid. In.	613	305	308	.498
Joe Tinker	Mid. In.	612	304	308	.497
Lou Boudreau	Mid. In.	2386	1162	1224	.487
Rogers Hornsby	Mid. In.	1513	701	812	.463
George Davis	Mid. In.	246	107	139	.435
Billy Herman	Mid. In.	463	189	274	.408
Dave Bancroft	Mid. In.	612	249	363	.407
		16879	8579	8300	.508

This is another group I figured would do well. They didn’t. Half of the middle-infield managers had sub-.500 records.

To me, this illustrates why we no longer have player/managers: it’s just not effective. Most of these guys were player/managers, guys who had to manage their teams while simultaneously fielding their positions. And they didn’t do a great job of it.

NAME	POS	G	W	L	PCT
Fred Clarke	OF	2783	1602	1181	.576
Tris Speaker	OF	1137	617	520	.543
King Kelly	OF	321	173	148	.539
Ty Cobb	OF	923	479	444	.519
Joe Kelley	OF	659	338	321	.513
Jim O'Rourke	OF	504	246	258	.488
Max Carey	OF	307	146	161	.476
Frank Robinson	OF	2241	1065	1176	.475
Mel Ott	OF	994	464	530	.467
Hugh Duffy	OF	1206	535	671	.444
Ted Williams	OF	637	273	364	.429
Larry Doby	OF	87	37	50	.425
		11799	5975	5824	.506

One thing worth noting is that the better defensive outfielders generally have the best managerial records. Fred Clarke was a fast outfielder prone to making dramatic catches. Tris Speaker and Cobb were fine centerfielders. Frank Robinson was a good fielder and a better manager than his record suggests. By contrast, the guys with the losing records are corner OF’ers and lackluster fielders.

I said ‘generally’: Hugh Duffy throws a wrench in the theory, as he was a damned fine outfielder, but a poor manager. And he wasn’t that bad: it was hardly his fault that the Red Sox turned into a farm club for the Yankees in 1921 and 1922.

NAME	POS	G	W	L	PCT
Walter Johnson	P	961	529	432	.550
Bob Lemon	P	833	430	403	.516
Christy Mathewson	P	340	164	176	.482
Kid Nichols	P	168	80	88	.476
Burleigh Grimes	P	302	131	171	.434
Ted Lyons	P	430	185	245	.430
		3034	1519	1515	.501

The pitchers did the worst as managers, with only Johnson and Bob Lemon having winning records. Like catchers, pitchers have short managerial careers. This is surprising, as pitching is certainly the most cerebral position in baseball.

Conclusion

Up to this point, I’ve resisted drawing any real conclusions about these numbers. As I said earlier, one’s managerial record isn’t a great measure of how good a manager someone is. It’d be better to measure these guys against their team’s record before they arrived, and after they left. It’d be nice to know the contexts around their coaching. But this gives us a start on the discussion.

I’ll say this, though: my expectations were wrong. Maybe great players aren’t great managers, but they’re pretty good managers.

(Dave Fleming is a writer living in Iowa City. He would like the Yankees to know that he is left-handed and will not insist on an opt-out clause. He welcomes comments, questions, and nine-figure contract offers here and at dfleming1986@yahoo.com)

COMMENTS (12 Comments, most recent shown first)

evanecurb
Dave:

Nice work. I think the idea that good players make lousy managers is based on the assumptions that you outline in your article about the character traits of great players. People have apparently mistaken the traits of Ted Williams jor Ty Cobb for the traits of all great players. Where this idea came from is hard to figure. It is well documented throughout baseball history that great players have all different types of personalities. There apparently is no one set of traits that correlates to greatness on the playing field. By all accounts, Ted Williams and Stan Musial were two completely different people, as were Honus Wagner and Ty Cobb, Sandy Koufax and Bob Gibson, etc.
10:16 AM Jan 3rd

fsumatthunter
My initial reaction to the question was that some would be and some wouldn't be. That is was more of an individual trait. 23 out of 45 does nothing to change that really.
10:53 PM Jan 1st

Richie
In (I believe) his 1st Historical Abstract, BillJ said that Honus couldn't manage because he was just too nice a guy.
10:14 PM Jan 1st

DaveFleming
Dear Richie,

Yeah, 80 might still be a little high, though the only HOF player who gets cut who managed anywhere near 80 games is Jim Bottomley, who took over as player/manager for Rogers Hornsby.

Here are the list of HOF'ers who managed less than 80 games, and their records:

Jim Bottomley: 21-56
Roger Conners: 8-37
Tommy McCarthy: 15-12
Luke Appling: 10-30
Pud Galvin: 7-17
Rabbit Maranville: 23-30
Honus Wagner: 1-4
Cy Young: 3-3
Ed Walsh: 1-2

All of these guys were mid-season replacements. Appling took over for Alvin Dark on the '67 A's. Rabbit took over the helm of the 1925 White Sox halfway through the season but didn't make it to the end of the year.

Roger Conner was actually the fourth out of five guys who managed the 1896 St. Louis Browns, and none of them did a good job (the team finished 40-90). Three of the five guys were actually player/managers, which is kind of interesting.

This rapid changing of the guard was nothing new to those Cards teams: in 1895 they had four different managers, and in 1897 they had four managers again.

Lastly, I'd bet Honus Wagner would've been a great manager.
7:11 PM Jan 1st

Richie
Thanks for the rework, Dave. It's now a very good article.

I note that 11 of the 14 with less than 500 games had sub .500 records. This does make me wonder if even 80 is perhaps too high a cutoff. If you're an absolute disaster as a manager, I would think a couple of months would suffice to make that totally clear. On the other hand, perhaps the primary way you get less than 80 games to prove something is by taking over the last part of a lousy season from a lousy team. In which instance you of course would post a lousy record.

But I suspect your 80 game cutoff still slightly biases the study in favor of the star managers. What the study still though illustrates is that it's not self evident that stars make lousy managers.

Thanks, Dave.
6:04 PM Jan 1st

DaveFleming
Updated lists are up. You might have to click the 'refresh' button to see it.

Sorry about all of that. It was a blip in the data: baseballreference only lists HOF managers who have managed 500 or more games. I should have noticed that none of the managers on the list had short careers.

I kept a cut-off of about 80 games, just because I didn't want the list crowded with guys like Cy Young (3-3 record as a manager) or Honus Wagner (1-4).
2:38 PM Jan 1st

DaveFleming
Dear Cunegonde and Richie,

On Johnny Evers: I used the HOF index on the baseball reference site. They list the HOF'ers who managed, and while they don't mention a cut-off, it seems apparent that there is a cut-off.

A data error. I''ll probably end up reworking the entire article, so check back in a few hours.
1:08 PM Jan 1st

Richie
Regarding cunegonde's point, did you use a '# of games cutoff', Dave? If so, I suspect that would bias your study to the point of making it invalid. I'd posit that the typical 'lousy record' manager gets only 100-300 games to prove his point. Any 'games managed cutoff' even above 10 or so will start giving you an artificial result. (a late-season guy who goes 14-6 will be retained for next year; the 6-14 guy won't)

Much smaller point re Lemon. Where you have a tyrant owner who spends tons of $$$$ to fill any possible roster hole, and who'll fire you if your record starts sinking towards/under .500, I would darn well expect you to exhibit a darn good win-loss record there. So long as you last.
11:59 AM Jan 1st

Trailbzr
Those managers of the 70s had played against blacks, but they were rarely hired as managers. So there was a smaller pool of great players who became managers at that time.
9:49 AM Jan 1st

evanecurb
Dave:

I think the notion of good players making lousy managers was at its peak during the early to mid 1970s, when the top managers were Sparky Anderson, Walt Alston, Earl Weaver, Dick Williams, and Danny Murtaugh. Gil Hodges was often cited during this period as an exception to the "good player = lousy manager" rule. In hindsight, it seems like the conventional wisdom was incorrect even then. Gil Hodges, Yogi Berra, and Bob Lemon all were good managers in the 1970s, but Berra and Lemon never received the recognition that their won-lost record should have merited.

McGraw and Torre probably deserve to be Hall of Famers as players. It would not be a stretch to term either of them as "great" players. Same goes for Hodges.
12:38 AM Jan 1st

ventboys
As in so many other things, we remember the failures, and tend to forget the successes. I count 10 WS wins among this group, though I might have missed a couple, plus more than that number of pennants, not counting the pre-1900 managers who certainly added something like 10-15 to the cause. Just guessing, 35-40 pennants in 240 seasons. Someone might be able to take the time to figure out the exact number.

With roughly 240 total seasons here, this is an excellent record. Good stuff.....
12:10 AM Jan 1st

cunegonde
Dave,

Happy New Year.

I'm not sure why Joe Tinker is on the list and Johnny Evers isn't. Was there a cutoff of minimum number of games managed? (If you wrote that and I missed it, egg on face.)

Ted Williams wasn't a great manager, except for that one year. It's really a stretch to say otherwise. He did a great job his first year, but by the time he left, his team was terrible and had flat out given up.

You point out several such situations, ones where a superstar inherited a bad club. Bill James deals with this phenomenon in his excellent book on managers, and gives credit in one system for how a team prformed versus statistical expectations based on past performance. It would be interesting to see how that method compares with yours. If the economy knocks me out of a job, maybe I'll spend some time working on that.
9:30 PM Dec 31st

Do Good Players Make Bad Managers?

COMMENTS (12 Comments, most recent shown first)

Leave a comment

Report inappropriate comment


Type of Abuse:
Comments: