For the most part, if you’re a manager in Major League Baseball, it means that you played in the bigs earlier in your life. Out of the game’s current 30 skippers, only seven fell short of the majors. That list consists of the Orioles’ Brandon Hyde, the Angels’ Joe Maddon, the Braves’ Brian Snitker, the Mets’ Luis Rojas, the Cardinals’ Mike Shildt, the Pirates’ Derek Shelton and the Padres’ Jayce Tingler. Of course, no MLB experience as a player doesn’t mean you’ll fail as a manager (just ask the resoundingly successful Maddon). Nevertheless, with baseball shut down and so little going on in the sport, I figured it would be interesting to see which current managers accumulated the most value when they played. Keep in mind that we’re only using one metric (fWAR), which certainly isn’t the end-all, be-all, and this doesn’t take factors such as intangibles and playoff performance into account (some of these guys produced some memorable postseason moments). However, fWAR does give at least a general idea about the kinds of careers these managers had as players (and here’s a fun fact: There’s only one ex-pitcher here). Take a look…
- Don Mattingly, Marlins (first baseman for the Yankees from 1982-95): 40.7 fWAR in 7,721 plate appearances
- Dusty Baker, Astros (outfielder for the Braves, Dodgers, Giants and Athletics from 1968-86): 37.9 fWAR in 8,021 plate appearances
- David Ross, Cubs (catcher for the Cubs, Red Sox, Braves, Dodgers, Reds, Pirates and Padres from 2002-16): 22.4 fWAR in 2,644 plate appearances
- Bud Black, Rockies (left-hander for the Mariners, Royals, Indians, Blue Jays and Giants from 1981-95): 18.2 fWAR in 2,053 1/3 innings
- Dave Martinez, Nationals (outfielder for the Cubs, Expos, Rays, White Sox, Giants, Braves, Rangers, Reds and Blue Jays from 1986-2001): 18.1 fWAR in 6,48 plate appearances
- Craig Counsell, Brewers (infielder for the Rockies, Marlins, Diamondbacks, Brewers and Dodgers from 1995-2011): 17.6 fWAR in 5,484 plate appearances
- David Bell, Reds (infielder for the Phillies, Cardinals, Mariners, Indians, Giants and Brewers from 1995-2006): 13.5 fWAR in 5,380 plate appearances
- Dave Roberts, Dodgers (outfielder for the Indians, Dodgers, Red Sox, Padres, Giants from 1999-2008): 10.3 fWAR in 3,092 plate appearances
- Aaron Boone, Yankees (infielder for the Reds, Yankees, Indians, Marlins, Nationals and Astros from 1997-2009): 10.0 fWAR from 1997-2009
- Rocco Baldelli, Twins (outfielder for the Rays and Red Sox from 2003-10): 8.0 fWAR in 2,065 plate appearances
- Joe Girardi, Phillies (catcher for the Yankees, Cubs, Cardinals and Rockies from 1989-2003): 5.6 fWAR in 4,535 plate appearances
- Gabe Kapler, Giants (outfielder for the Tigers, Rangers, Rockies, Red Sox, Brewers and Rays from 1998-2010): 5.4 fWAR in 3,315 plate appearances
- Scott Servais, Mariners (catcher for the Astros, Cubs, Giants and Rockies from 1991-2001): 4.9 fWAR in 2,778 plate appearances
- Ron Roenicke, Red Sox (outfielder for the Dodgers, Phillies, Giants, Padres, Reds and Mariners from 1981-88): 3.6 fWAR in 1,294 plate appearances
- Mike Matheny, Royals (catcher for the Brewers, Blue Jays, Cardinals and Giants from 1994-2006): 2.8 fWAR in 4,287 plate appearances
- Bob Melvin, Athletics (catcher for the Tigers, Giants, Orioles, Royals, Red Sox and White Sox from 1985-94): 2.5 fWAR in 2,095 plate appearances
- Ron Gardenhire, Tigers (shortstop for the Mets from 1981-85): 0.9 fWAR in 777 plate appearances
- Chris Woodward, Rangers (shortstop for the Blue Jays, Mets, Mariners, Braves and Red Sox from 1999-2011): 0.7 fWAR in 1,986 plate appearances
- Charlie Montoyo, Blue Jays (second baseman for the Expos in 1993): 0.0 fWAR in five plate appearances
- Rick Renteria, White Sox (infielder for the Pirates, Mariners and Marlins from 1986-94): minus-0.2 fWAR in 456 plate appearances
- Torey Lovullo, Diamondbacks (second baseman for the Tigers, Yankees, Angels, Mariners, Athletic, Indians and Phillies from 1988-99): minus-0.5 fWAR in 837 plate appearances
- Terry Francona, Indians (first baseman/outfielder for the Expos, Cubs, Reds, Indians and Brewers from 1981-90): minus-1.7 fWAR in 1,826 plate appearances
- Kevin Cash, Rays (catcher for the Rays, Blue Jays, Red Sox, Yankees and Astros from 2002-10): minus-2.4 fWAR in 714 plate appearances
One pitcher on the list, so maybe Ted Williams was correct?
Surprised Dusty is that close to Don Mattingly.
He was a very good hitting outfielder though.
Happy to have him with the Astros for a year.
Great person to have around the team and community
Keep in mind Mattingly was a 1Bman and not a great fielding 1Bman either.
Not a good fielding one…
He’s one of the best fielding first basemen ever.
Every metric dictates otherwise.
I saw Mattingly play. He was an incredible fielder. For a time in the 1980s he was considered one of the best all-around players in baseball. Those Gold Glove awards weren’t given out as jokes like they are today.
Never had one season with a positive defensive rating.
Y’all can keep saying, “I saw him play, he was great.” But anecdotal evidence doesn’t mean anything when we can evaluate a body of work objectively.
Defensive ratings often sell first basemen short and you often have to rely on the eye test.
What’s this we stuff? You’re pretty much alone with your argument.
Mattingly last gold glove was 1994.
Palmeiro won a gold glove in 1999 when he started 28 games at first.
When was the cutoff for gold glove jokes?
1974 Thurmon Munson has 22 errors and won a gold glove… must have been a good framer. A Hall of Framer?
If you’re going to use a stat as an end all be all you should probably understand what it means. The Def portion of fWAR includes the positional adjustment. A negative Def input doesn’t mean a below average defender. Because of the steep positional adjustment almost all 1b have a negative Def input. By the actual defensive metric used for that era (Total Zone) Mattingly graded above average as a defender every year except his rookie and final seasons. Between 1984 and 1994 he was +43 runs. Which was definitely among the best defensive 1b of that era. So he’s getting dinged in WAR for playing 1b, but not because he played it poorly.
He ha a career 33 total zone runs above average at first base. He only ever once posted a negative TZ total at first base in at least 100 games. That being in 1995 when he was 34.
Mattingly was a wizard at first base. Amazing how insane people’s perspectives can be. He was literally one the best fielding first basemen ever. He was the best thing about baseball during the mid 80’s.
Without question Mattingly was a HOF on both sides of the ball until the back went out
Only one guy on that list had a career Batting Average of .400 in the Majors though. Charlie Montoyo, Legend.
Mattingly was a great fielding first baseman… career was just cut way short as was his prime
Art fly was always a top defender. Did you watch him play?
Mattingly
Dusty had a pretty long career. Mattingly had about 6-7 seasons where he played like a Hall of Famer and the back went out.
Bob Melvin should be higher in this list, fWAR be damned. WAR, what is it good for? Absolutely nothing.
I remember him with the Giants and Baltimore. I think Baltimore had high hopes for him.
But he was pretty much a backup catcher.
He is another very smart guy. Not just regarding baseball.
I mean, Melvin was a backup his entire career and horrific offensively….
Melvin must have dated his sister or something.
I see what you did there. Thanks for getting that stuck in my head now.
Don Mattingly had the slightly better regular season career based on both fWAR and bWAR. Dusty Baker had far more postseason opportunities, put up solid numbers, was in three World Series and won a ring. Tie goes to the more accomplished manager, Dusty Baker who has won one pennant and three Manager of the Year awards.
GTFO Dusty was a really good player, but he’s not even in the same conversation with Mattingly as hitter. Geez
Both have their place in baseball history.
Mattingly hit 6 Grand Slams in a season.
Funny story is that those are the only 6 Grand Slams he ever hit
Dusty Baker was on deck when Hank Aaron broke the All Time Baseball HR record
Plus Baker supposedly invited the High Five when he hit his 30th HR off JR Richard. The Dodgers became the first team in MLB history with 4 30 HR hitters when he hit the home run
Baker’s impact goes well beyond baseball.
Baker had a good seat to history= accomplishment to show he was good? Lmfao
Mattingly had a good team around him = accomplishment he was good?
Being the on-deck hitter when Aaron broke the record means as much as being the guy who chased Aaron around the bases after he hit it. Is Al Downing a part of history for being on base when he did it?
Baker’s impact on baseball is being given amazing teams time and time again and perpetually finding ways to blow it. It’s as dubious an honor as being the guy who invented spitting sunflower seeds in the dugout.
Mattingly retired early from bad back injuries. he was the better player. more years in the game would have proven that.
Baker was on a team that had pitching and won rookie of the year from 1977-1981. Thats why he was in the postseason. Sutton, John, Welch, Fernando, Charlie hough. Hooton, Dodgers were stacked.
fWAR values David Ross way too highly… a backup catcher basically his whole career. bWAR only has him at 10 WAR.
He had some pop though in his bat.
Haven’t looked at the stats yet but his HR to At Bat ratio was pretty good for just being a backup catcher
I guess, but I’m sure all that extra WAR Fangraphs is giving him is from framing.
his war was significantly higher based on his bench sitting
Francona was hitting over .300 as a rookie in June ‘82. Tore his knee and missed the rest of year. In June of ‘84 he was leading the NL in hits, was a likely all star, tore his other knee and missed the rest of season.
I refuse to believe a player with 5 career plate appearances had a “more productive” career than 4 players who had at least 400 PAs each. I understand they were all below replacement level, but there’s a reason he only had 5 PAs and the other guys were given more chances.
When you suck, you suck… imagine how much you suck to play a sport for almost a decade, and in a cumulative stat, you’re seen as a negative for your entire career.
Yeah, 5 PAs is too small to judge anyone on. WAR is a cumulative stat by the way. So it would be almost impossible to have anything other than 0 WAR thought them. Unless you hit like 4 hrs in those 5 ABs. I agree that if had been given 1000, he would have a much lower total war than those guys.
The proverbial “cup of coffee” was still hot when he was sent on his way.
Terry Francona was a much better player than fWAR would have you believe. He hung around as a pinch hitter after injuries virtually ended his career because he was so game intelligent and that dragged down his career WAR. But his first couple of years, he really was a special player.
And there is NO WAY David Ross was worth that much during his career. The guy averaged less than 200 plate appearances a year for his entire career. If you aren’t on the field, how can you possibly be worth that much?
Just more reasons why WAR does not always tell the whole story, either positively or negatively.
(He was a really good framer before people knew that was)
It was still valuable genius
He could have been a better framer than Vincent Van Gogh and it wouldn’t have helped him from the bench.
A good framer is more valuable than a good hitter at the the catcher position (most of the time).
Yeah, but is a good framer more valuable than a good hitter when he is NOT on the field? Ross only had one year in his career with more than 300 plate appearances. Framing is a valuable skill, but it does nothing from the bench.
It’s Mattingly and not even close right? I mean Baker is I guess in the same conversation because he played for significantly longer — but otherwise it’s Mattingly by a mile. And then past Baker — it’s just not even the same conversation lol. Like Mattingly was a star player (and I guess Baker was too to some extent) but everyone after him on the list was just kind of a scrub or backup. Even Ross – I mean he had some good moments but for the most part he was a really below average hitter with some pop!
Looking at the stats, Mattingly had about 4 really stellar years, but what happened to his pop at the end of his career? His power numbers went way down. I’d think that narrows the gap between Baker and Mattingly where a case could be made for Baker. An above average OF would hold more value than a 1B, to me at least.
…he had a horrible back injury that he could barely walk with. That’s where his power went
Really that’s an unknown?
right? the first game i went to, he came in to pinch hit in the 7th and could barely make it to first on what should have been a double.
Please hand over your man card!
Dusty only played 2 more full season’s than Mattingly. And other than 84-87, Mattingly was an avergae bat for a 1Bman. I agree that Mattingly was better in his prime, but part of evaluating who was better is taking into account who was good for longer. Availability is maybe the best ability.
Ross .229/ .316/ .4.23 in 2644 plate appearances
Martinez .276/ .341/ ..389 in 6480 plate appearances
Ross has a higher war because he hit some home runs. Martinez 15 fewer homers, but had almost 200 steals.
Backup catcher >starting center fielder.
Bud Black… a 15 year veteran starting pitcher with a career winning record and 3.84 era. 7 years more than 10 wins is only worth a little over 1 win above replacement? Today he’d be getting 15 mil a year.
Again no. Ross was an excellent defensive catcher and framer. It’s not just his DINGERZ
Imagine ignoring defense completely, comparing the hr rates of a player with 3 times the number of PAs than the other, and using wins to show a pitchers effectiveness. Would hate to be that guy.
Didn’t ignore completely… Ross defense in 40 games per year will be better than a centerfielder in 110 games a year. All that “framing” goes a long ways.
I would think a pitcher with more than 10 wins a year, a winning record and 3.84 era over 15 years would be much better than replacement value. A guy like that would be making 15 mil a year. Just ask JA Haap.
You need more context than a guy with 10 wins a year and a 3.84 ERA. That’ could be either 2019 Julio Teheran (10 wins, 3.81 ERA) or 2019 Aaron Nola (12 wins, 3.87 ERA). Ovbisously between the two, Nola was way more productive, and not because he got run support two more times than Teheran did.
Bud Black had winning records, so more along the line of Nola. But he didn’t have a pretty k/9. I don’t know what his spinny action number was… maybe that’s why he’s rated at just above a 1 for WAR?
His peripherals shouldn’t matter, the guy was in the league for 15 years… had over 2,000 innings pitched. You can’t blame anything on “small sample size”.
You knew what you got and he was obviously better than replacement value. He was no ace, he was no superstar. The guy was a number 4 or 5 starter for some decent teams.
Definitely Mattingly he may of been a Hall of Fame if career wasn’t cut short due to injury. His defense was the best as well
Off topic a bit, I always thought Joe Morgan and Barry Larkin would have been great managers. I wish the Reds had given the latter David Bell’s job. I hope he does a better job when we get this thing going again.
Lol Joe Morgan is a dingbat. One of the dumbest baseball minds I’ve ever had the misfortune of being exposed to
You think you know more about baseball than one of the greatest baseball players of our time? Riiiggghhhttt.
Go post some more random unrelated movie quotes, that seems to be more your expertise than anything baseball related.
Hayes, I agree with you that Dynamite’s comment is, inherently, absurd: the fact that Morgan is an all-time great is proof of his understanding of the game. However, I’m not sure that Morgan would be good at COMMUNICATING his understanding, if his broadcast career is any indication. Granted, broadcasting and managing are not the same, but Morgan was abysmal in that job. I also read that he is not convinced that analytics are worthwhile – again, he knows more about the game than I do, and he may not be wrong, but I doubt that this attitude would be very popular with today’s front office.
Sad to think I remember all these guys as players….But cute to see Francona and Cash, two BFF’s, holding up the rear……
Bob-Your comment just means that you are “ experienced ”,not “ old”.
Mattingly and it’s not even close
i’m just happy that this is an intelligent debate section about metrics, not filled with nastiness. seriously. cheers, boys
Definitely Carlos Beltran. Oh wait…
remember that old saying?
stats don’t lie
Neat coincidence that Roberts and Boone are right next to each other, given their roles in major Red Sox/Yankees moments in back-to-back years
Mike Shildt
I wish some people wouldn’t talk out of their rectal passage. Davis Ross did not play everyday, hence he didn’t hit every day, hence he couldn’t get continuity and timing. You be a bench player or a pinch hitter or a catcher back up and see just how damn hard it is. Baseballers improve their swing & timing & mechanics by playing consistently, ‘back up’ players get inconsistent playing time, hence it’s difficult to be successful. I really don’t care what fWar or War Ross had because I watched him nearly his whole career, he never let the Braves down, and if you look at his post season record it contradicts all the detractors here, 4 NLDS, 2 ALDS, 1 ALCS, 2 NLCS, 2 WS, 2 rings(he contributed), yep, ‘horrible player’, just ask Jon Lester who he wanted catching him, enough said. Ross would have been a regular on most other teams, look at the rosters he was on. Some of you will continue to talk from your rectal passage no matter what.
I wish some people wouldn’t talk out of their rectal passage. *David Ross did not play everyday, hence he didn’t hit every day, hence he couldn’t get continuity and timing. You be a bench player or a pinch hitter or a catcher back up and see just how damn hard it is. Baseballers improve their swing & timing & mechanics by playing consistently, ‘back up’ players get inconsistent playing time, hence it’s difficult to be successful. I really don’t care what fWar or War Ross had because I watched him nearly his whole career, he never let the Braves down, and if you look at his post season record it contradicts all the detractors here, 4 NLDS, 2 ALDS, 1 ALCS, 2 NLCS, 2 WS, 2 rings(he contributed), yep, ‘horrible player’, just ask Jon Lester who he wanted catching him, enough said. Ross would have been a regular on most other teams, look at the rosters he was on. Some of you will continue to talk from your rectal passage no matter what.
We knew who you meant. Didn’t have to repost that wall of words.
Hardly a “wall”..
I never said he was a terrible player, I am saying WAR is a terrible metric to compare players. There is a reason Ross was a backup everywhere (except 2 yrs in Cincy) he played. That’s not a bad thing. He had an amazing career, but was he worth more to a team than a guy like Martinez who was a starting CF everywhere he went.
WAR is good when you compare players based on the position they play. I bet Ross had the highest WAR for backup catcher… I would say he was a very good backup catcher, so it wouldn’t be shocking if he had the highest WAR for backup catchers. But how can you compare the backup catcher to a starting pitcher or a CF? Their role is so different.
If I was choosing the last spot on my roster and I had the choice between Ross, Martinez and Black. I don’t need a starting pitcher. I don’t need an outfielder. I don’t need a backup catcher. All those spots are filled. Who would I choose? Ross would probably be the last of those three I would choose. I’m not saying he would never be a choice, I just think many people would choose one of the other two over him.
FYI, some players who beat Ross out for starting catcher..
Paul LoDuca (very good)
Humberto Cota (Who?)
Ramon Hernandez (Good)
Paul Bako (Who?)
Brian McCann (Yes!)
Jarrod Saltalamacchia (Decent)
AJ Pierzinsky (37 year old AJ not so good… Ross was 37 also) Christian Vazquez was getting more playing time
Miguel Montero (Ross was barely hanging on)
Ross was a very good backup catcher. But that roster is spot is usually reserved for the very old veteran or the youngster breaking in. Starting pitcher and starting CF are spots that you want players in their prime.
Just of interest to me as a Mets fan they went from Beltrán who would’ve topped the list (70.1) to Rojas who never played in the majors. Not saying it’s good or bad just interesting imo.
@SteveNebraska stop liking your own comments. You’re a tool.
Of course He liked his own posts! Everyone my age likes their own posts; it’s the coolest!
Blunt axe.