The Temptation of Old Managers

Early Friday morning, I was having a conversation with a friend about Davey Johnson. He was saying that Davey should be in the Hall of Fame. I was saying, eh, I could see it, I think Davey was a terrific manager — and one of my favorite managers to cover — but I’m not sure I see him as one of the Hall of Fame’s biggest misses. I mean, his teams did win just the one pennant and one World Series (the 1986 Mets).

“Well,” my friend said, “you’ve said yourself that the postseason is a crapshoot. Davey’s one of the few managers in baseball who is 300 games over .500 for his career. If you’re 300 games over .500, you should be in the Hall of Fame.”

Well, it’s an interesting argument. There are only 16 managers in baseball history who are 300 games over .500 for their careers — and of the 300, only half of them have coached in the expansion era:

1. Bobby Cox, 503 games over

2. Walter Alston, 427 games over

3. Earl Weaver, 420 games over

4. Tony La Russa, 387 games over

5. Sparky Anderson, 360 games over

6. Joe Torre, 329 games over

7. Dusty Baker, 303 games over

8. Davey Johnson, 301 games over

Terry Francona could join this group next year — he’s 288 games over 500.

Dave Roberts surely will join this group next year — he’s 272 games over .500 and has the highest winning percentage ever for an MLB manager at .632.*

*There are three Negro leagues managers — Bullet Rogan, Vic Harris and Rube Foster — who are credited with a higher winning percentage than Roberts. Rogan and Foster are in the Hall of Fame, though not as managers. If you want to talk about managers who deserve Hall of Fame consideration, you should start with Vic Harris, who had a .663 winning percentage and managed the Homestead Grays to eight pennants.

In any case, while I like the argument that the true value of a manager is connected to their overall record and not their postseason success — it fits nicely with my preference for a long regular season over short playoff series — I don’t think that’s the way baseball goes anymore. I don’t think Davey Johnson will make the Hall of Fame.

But Bruce Bochy definitely will.

Can Bochy work some magic in Texas? (Sebastian Widmann/WBCI/MLB Photos via Getty Images)

Bruce Bochy’s overall record as a manager is 2003-2029 — 26 games under .500. He had a losing record in his 12 years with the San Diego Padres, which tracks with what you probably expected. But he also had a just-barely losing record with the Giants, which might not be what you expected. His teams won 90 games just twice in his 13 years with San Francisco, and they made the playoffs four times.

Winning three World Series in those four playoff appearances certainly helps a managerial resume.*

*His teams also made the playoffs four times with the Padres, but they did not win a World Series. They won the pennant in 1998 but bombed out of the playoffs the other three times.

Yes, Bochy is going to the Hall of Fame, no question about it. He only delayed that certainty this week when he took the Texas Rangers job. And he absolutely should go to the Hall of Fame; three World Series titles is three World Series titles, no matter how you get them.

But now you ask the question: How likely is it that Bruce Bochy will help turn the Rangers into a winner?

I don’t think it’s very likely at all.

In fact, I do believe a younger Davey Johnson would have been much more likely than Bochy to turn around the Rangers.

My wife and I just finished the first season of “Welcome to Wrexham,” the documentary series about Rob McElhenney and Ryan Reynolds trying to get struggling soccer team Wrexham AFC promoted out of the National League, the lowest level of professional soccer in Great Britain. The series is wonderful, the town is great (Wrexham reminds me so much of the incredible time I spent in Burnley), and I totally want Rob to be my friend and all of that.

But to me the most compelling character in the whole thing is Wrexham manager (gaffer) Phil Parkinson, who came to town with a pretty big reputation for turning around the fortunes of struggling clubs. I’ve long thought that the closest comparison to a baseball manager is a football gaffer in that there are only so many things you can do. It’s not like American football, where you can literally call every play or basketball, where you have 2,000 or so timeouts to help design the action.

In any case, I don’t want to give anything away, except to say that Parkinson’s greatest strength as a manager seems to be his energy and his unceasing devotion to making the team just a little bit better every day. It’s damn hard work trying to turn a team around.

And, look, maybe Bruce Bochy wants to do that hard work. But … he’s going to be 68 years old in April. He’s won three World Series. He’s going to the Hall of Fame. And, being honest, he didn’t seem all that engaged in his final years in San Francisco.

I get the temptation of bringing in a Bruce Bochy. I really do. The Rangers have been bad for five years now. They tried the young and unproven manager route with Chris Woodward and that didn’t work out. They spent big money bringing on Corey Seager and Marcus Semien and would like to see some payoff.

I totally get the temptation of old managers. Bochy brings experience and gravitas and a calm demeanor that might play well. It could work. Then again, anything COULD work. Tony La Russa in Chicago COULD have worked. It most definitely didn’t.*

*The rumor is that the White Sox are seriously considering Ozzie Guillen to be their next manager, to which I quote Smiling Jack Ross in his opening argument from “A Few Good Men”: “He’ll have no evidence, mind you, none. But it’s gonna be entertaining.”