Book Review: Evaluating Baseball's Managers

Evaluating Baseball's Managers: A History and Analysis of Performance in the Major Leagues, 1876-2008
by Chris Jaffe
c. 2009

If you read The Hardball Times as often as I do, you are very familiar with Chris Jaffe. Now, Jaffe has a book out called Evaluating Baseball's Managers. (which can be purchased here...). As a baseball history buff and an amateur stat nerd, this book is right up my alley.

Now, I only received excerpts of the book that related to Baltimore franchises but the taste I got was more than enough to peak my interest.

For instance, having just read Weaver on Strategy this fall and The Bill James Guide to Baseball Managers in the past year, I didn't think there was anything new that I could learn about the managerial habits of Earl Weaver. I was wrong.

Sure, I knew that Weaver's teams tended to improve as the year went on and that they had never had a losing September but only Jaffe delves in to determine why. Was it luck? After exploring that idea for awhile, Jaffe gives us this great insight:

As was the case with his pitchers, it does not appear that Weaver benefited from having a large collection of men who just happened to improve as the season wore on.His hitters improved on the whole, but not enough to explain Baltimore’s annual surge.

That leaves one obvious variable: Weaver himself. One of Weaver’s hallmarks as manager was compiling as much information so he could put his players in the game at the most opportune circumstances....That was exceptionally difficult because it required gathering and mastering those details, and then also staying on top of how they change from year to year and week to week...He learned and as the season went on had an ever-improving sense of exactly where to put all his players.

The Weaver excerpt is fascinating as you can imagine and offers several original insights about his career.

There's a ton of interesting facts in there.

Ned Hanlon, hailed as a pioneer during his days managing the old National League Orioles, had the game pass him by at the relatively young age of 46. Except that 46 was actually exceptionally old for a manager at the turn of the century with only two other NL managers over 36 when he lost his touch.

Frank Robinson, win-loss record aside, was actually a really good manager but no manager managed so long with so little talent.

How was Johnny Oates so effective as a manager? He was exceptionally good at building bullpens, especially middle relievers (see Todd Frohwirth and Alan Mills).

How does Jaffe determine all this? Using devices like the Birnbaum Database, the Tendencies Database and Average Opponent Winning Percentage (AOWP), among others. There's no sense in me trying to explain all this here but you can get a good overview from this FAQ.

There's just a ton of information even in the small excerpts I was given. I haven't even talked about the examination of the career of Paul Richards.

I'm no expert but I would consider this book an essential reference for the amateur (or professional) baseball historian. And I say that even though Jaffe is completely wrong about the Hall of Fame worthiness of Willie Keeler.

As soon as Christmas is over, I'm going to get me a copy.


To order a copy of Evaluating Baseball's Managers, go here.

Book Review: Palmer and Weaver: Together We Were Eleven Foot Nine

Palmer and Weaver: Together We Were Eleven Foot Nine

by Jim Palmer and Jim Dale

c. 1996

I hadn't picked this book up in over ten years but after reading "Weaver on Strategy", I wanted to read this book with different eyes. In "Together We Were Eleven Foot Nine", I found that Jim Palmer's remembrances of his career actually made a nice compliment to Weaver's book.

Palmer takes you through his Hall of fame career (which, by the way is amazing. He has been in the booth so long that you sometimes forget what a dominant pitcher he was.) but spends almost as much time on Earl Weaver. The battles between these headstrong competitors were legendary and Palmer takes pains to make sure you get his side of the story.

Palmer was there for all the Orioles' World Series appearances including the wins in '66, '70 and '83 and offers a good perspective on each one. Through Jim's eyes you see the careers of Rick Dempsey, Elrod Hendricks, Mike Flanagan and the fascinating road to professional baseball of Dave Leonhard (probably the best story in the book).

But this is ultimately a book about Palmer, by Palmer and he chronicles his playing days with anecdotes and a virtual blow by blow of each season he pitched. Highlights include the near end of Palmer's career in 1968 due to fragile arm, the various World Series appearances...and his philosophical differences with Earl Weaver.

And about the Weaver stories. Palmer, at least early in the book, is merciless, painting Weaver as a tiny tyrant, a drunk, a manager who didn't understand his players one iota and laying out the case that the Baltimore pitchers he managed succeeded in spite of Earl rather than because of him. While some of the stories are quite amusing, the number of stories and the apparent viciousness leaves you with the impression that Palmer is relishing kicking a guy who can no longer have the last word.

What tempers this vitriol are the later stories in which Palmer admits that, sometimes, he was clearly wrong and that Weaver actually had handled certain situations completely appropriately. Most of these capitulations regard Palmer spouting off to the media, notably griping about his contract and his war-of-words with Oriole third baseman Doug DeCinces. Palmer gives Weaver his due, eventually, and concedes that Earl probably actually knew what he was doing. Palmer comes off as a wiser, more mature player at the end of the book and even a bit apologetic for some of his behavior. Although he won't say it explicitly, he eventually gives Earl his due as integral to the success of the team.

Surprisingly, his recounting of Weaver's farewell at Memorial Stadium and his own retirement are well-told, heartfelt and I did find myself getting a bit misty reading those passages.

How is the book overall? There are a lot of good stories. Are they as good as Palmer seems to think they are? Not always. (Although the story about Jim and Earl starring in the same Jockey underwear ad is pretty hysterical.) But it is an entertaining read for the diehard Oriole fan and did indeed make a good companion piece for the unmissable "Weaver on Strategy". After all, Palmer was the only Oriole to play for all 6 World Series teams and there's something valuable to his account of the glory days of Baltimore baseball.

The book is out of print but can be found used on Amazon.com and Half.com. Worth a read if you can pick it up cheap.

Book Review: Weaver on Strategy

Weaver on Strategy: The Classic Work on the Art of Managing a Baseball Team

by Earl Weaver with Terry Pluto

c. 1984 (revised 2002)

Former Baltimore Orioles manager Earl Weaver was best know for losing his head on the field with the umpire. But what "Weaver on Strategy" reveals is that Weaver used his head far more than he lost it.

As you read Weaver's tome on baseball strategy, you begin to realize what amazing foresight he had on the direction the game was heading and simultaneously begin to shake your head that many managers (and organizations) still haven't picked up the hint 25 years after it was first published.

Earl has his opinions. Baltimore fans are probably well aware of them and they are best summed up by the phrase "Pitching, defense and the three-run homer". That's not just a catchy slogan; Weaver had very specific reasons for the methods he chose and lays out the arguments for his strategies in great detail and does so in very common sense terms.

It makes all the sense in the world. Yes, 27 outs are a team's most valuable offensive possession. Yes, the bunt makes little sense unless you're playing for one run. Yes, job security can be achieved with a .583 career winning percentage.

And I haven't seen on base percentage and walks discussed so often since I read Moneyball.

Weaver touches on every aspect of the game from spring training to the playoffs, from defense to hitting, from lineup formation to in-game strategy. You'd better enjoy "inside baseball" if you want to read this book but Weaver make even the more mundane parts of the game interesting with humor and anecdotes.

For example, spring training is boring. So how do you keep bored beat writers at bay? With Weaver's Cliches of Spring:

1. The hitters are ahead of the pitchers. You use this one after your staff get pounded for fourteen runs early in the spring. After all, maybe the hitters are ahead of the pitchers at this point? Who's to say which group develops faster?

2. The pitchers are ahead of the hitters. The opposite of number 1, so it should be used when you get shut out by three rookie pitchers nobody's ever heard of.

You can get the gist of Earl's philosophies just by reading the chapter and sub-section titles. "The Bunt: Rarely Worth the Trouble", "The Base on Balls or Why I Played Glenn Gulliver", "Clubhouse Meetings: A Real Waste of Time", "Winning and Losing Players: Baseball's Myth" and "The Offense: Praised Be the Three-Run Homer!"

Many of Earl's philosophies are considered standard practice today. Hit charts on opposing batters, pitching charts on opposing pitchers, hitting/pitching splits for Baltimore and opposing players, breaking in rookies in long relief, the eschewing of the steal and the hit and run (Earl didn't even have a hit and run sign and considered it the worst play in baseball) and valuing skills beyond batting average (OBP and slugging). Earl would have loved the integration of the computer and the internet in baseball!

One Weaver philosophy that has fallen by the wayside is the four man rotation. In this 2002 revision, Earl admits that a four man rotation would not work today. He believes it could if players were developed through a system that prepared them for that kind of workload but admits that you would have a hard time selling it to potential free agents who are more concerned about their health than their complete game total.

Other Earl philosophies:

Earl hated the intentional beanball and never called for one. He considered it dangerous and counter-productive. Throwing inside was fine but he didn't think there was ever an excuse to try to hurt somebody with a pitch. Weaver seemed to be way ahead of his time on this subject.

Earl believed that sign stealing was a part of the game but that it was overrated:

Say you find out a runner is stealing on a 2-2 pitch. The manager calls for a pitch-out and nabs him. Well, the guy in the other dugout isn't stupid. He'll see what happened and change his signs.

Earl said that you should never curse an umpire. That's right. Read that again. You should curse the call but not the umpire. OK, Earl.

And this was interesting...on cheating.

Every year there are whispers about certain players. The word is that a hitter who is suddenly having a good year is doing more than singing a good bat...

What is this? Steroids? HGH?

...he's swinging a loaded or corked bat.

Not nearly as sexy or shocking as steroids but it does raise a couple of interesting points.

First, if there were whispers about corked bats in the 60's-70's-80's, how can players look the public straight in the eye and claim nobody ever suspected anything during the steroids era? Of course, they can't.

Secondly, Weaver makes this statement:

I've managed pitchers who have used the spitter, and I've seen some corked bats lying around.

Since Earl came up managing in the Oriole organization, the odds are very good that Baltimore Oriole players were using the spitball and corked bats during their glory days. To put it more harshly, they were cheating!

Just something to keep in mind before getting all spun up about steroids.

And Earl admitted to using a corked bat in the minors. Not that it helped much.

In addition, Weaver goes into a detailed description of his scouting techniques including visuals of the index cards he kept on opposing players, hit charts, pitching charts and defensive charts. Chapter 11 is a detailed breakdown of the preparation for and the playing of the 1st game of the 1979 ALDS against the California Angels. There are charts showing all the managers fired during Weaver's tenure, various breakdowns on how many times he was ejected (and by umpire) and a epilogue from 2002 where Earl revisits Weaver's 10 Laws of baseball and finds that nearly all still apply.

This is an essential book for any Oriole fan and is also a must read for any baseball fan. It's a fascinating look inside the mind of one of the brilliant baseball minds of the modern era. It has to be in your baseball library.