What Do You Think of Your Team’s Manager?
Last weekend, the Cardinals fired manager Mike Matheny. Several teams are and were doing worse than the Cardinals in the standings, but then, the Cardinals hold themselves to a certain standard, and there were mounting concerns regarding not only Matheny’s strategy, but also leadership skills. The clubhouse seemed to be fracturing around him, so management pulled the trigger in the hopes that the season and roster might be salvaged. The response was immediate, and nearly unanimous: It was about time. Over the years, no other manager seemed to attract such a degree of internet criticism.
In a podcast after the firing, Ben Lindbergh and myself wondered who might take Matheny’s place. Not with the Cardinals — that’s Mike Shildt — but on the internet at large. Matheny was probably the most criticized manager in baseball. Now he’s out of work, which means someone else will become the most criticized manager in baseball. Who, though, will it actually be? That conversation led me to this broader polling project. This felt like a question to take straight to the FanGraphs community.
If you’ve been around for any length of time, you know how these things work. Below, you will find a poll for every team. There are actually two polls for the Cardinals. For the sake of consistency, I have to ask about Shildt, but I’m also asking about Matheny, despite the fact that he’s gone. Anyway, for each poll, the question is simple: What do you think of the manager? We don’t talk about managers here a whole lot, but they wouldn’t get paid what they do if they didn’t matter, and I want to evaluate the landscape of community opinions.
I’d ask that you only vote in polls for teams that you care about and follow pretty closely. If you don’t have much of an opinion, that’s fine, and I’m collecting that information, too. Don’t worry if you don’t know whether a manager is actually good. We don’t know if any managers are actually good or actually bad. I just want to know what you all think, because you know more about your own managers than I do. So who am I to pretend I’m all-knowing?
As far as the question is concerned, keep in mind the extent of a manager’s responsibilities. First and foremost, a manager is supposed to serve as a leader of men. Do you sense that a given manager is an effective leader? An effective communicator? The strategy does also matter, too. Do you love or hate how a given manager uses his bullpen? Does he seem particularly creative, or especially stubborn? Compare the current manager to previous managers. Compare to other active managers, if you’d like. I know it basically comes down to gut feelings, but if you have a gut feeling, I want to record it. God knows I can never get enough of another polling project.
Thank you all in advance for your participation. We’ll look at the results either later this week, or early next week. Then we’ll see which manager might take Matheny’s place as an internet punching bag. And we’ll look at everybody else, as well. Who doesn’t love a 1-through-30 ranking? With your assistance, we’ll have that very thing coming up.
To proceed directly to a specific team manager poll, click on the team’s name below.
Angels, Astros, Athletics, Blue Jays, Braves, Brewers, Cardinals, Cubs, Diamondbacks, Dodgers, Giants, Indians, Mariners, Marlins, Mets, Nationals, Orioles, Padres, Phillies, Pirates, Rangers, Rays, Red Sox, Reds, Rockies, Royals, Tigers, Twins, White Sox, Yankees
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Angels
Astros
Athletics
Blue Jays
Braves
Brewers
Cardinals
Cubs
Diamondbacks
Dodgers
Giants
Indians
Mariners
Marlins
Mets
Nationals
Orioles
Padres
Phillies
Pirates
Rangers
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Red Sox
Reds
Rockies
Royals
Tigers
Twins
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Jeff made Lookout Landing a thing, but he does not still write there about the Mariners. He does write here, sometimes about the Mariners, but usually not.
I’m expecting a direct correlation to how the team is performing!
Not so sure about that. Sometimes managers for the top teams are looked at far harsher than ones from more mediocre teams.
For sure. Having multiple valid options available increases the ability of people to say “Why did you send in X instead of Y?” when X has a bad performance. Clearly the manager screwed up!
Well, we can actually mathematically assess that prediction when the polls are done. Which is nice.
Yeah the Sox won 3 division titles and a WS under Farrell, and I don’t know anybody that wanted him back this year.
For good teams postseason success is probably better indicator of how well liked they are
Maybe I have rose-colored glasses, but my sense with Farrell was that he just lost control of the team. He was good for a while, but perhaps he relied a little too much on Ortiz to keep the team going in the right direction.
I think he might be a very good manager again in another place.
Teams stuck in the middle or on the back end of the WC race are going to be the interesting ones, I think. Angels, Rockies, Rays, ect.
yeah. I think some of the ones as well like Arizona, Philly, Atlanta, Milwaukee- would be interesting.
Philly’s leading the NL East in Kapler’s first season after losing 96 games last year. I don’t see any suspense in whether he’ll be popular.
His bullpen management is incredibly unpopular and has plenty of people doubting him. I personally don’t think he’s that bad at it, but a lot of people do.
Yeah my hunch is Kapler will be one of the more polarizing guys on this. Just looking at the 10 playoff teams currently- the only one who has more combined pretty bad and very bad ratings is Atlanta. And I would say- that’s here on Fan Graphs.
I’m thinking a correlation to the difference in record from last year might be stronger.
That’s a good point. Fair or no, we generally see managers’ performance as Team Talent – Team Record. Perceptions of Team Talent is linked to expectations about the club, and expectations are largely based off last year’s record.
I’d guess the strongest correlation might be difference from 2018 expected record.
Great points about my comment. I may have been haste with that thought. I’m hoping Jeff does the correlation for us.
I’m curious if fans can separate Front Office from Field Management in their assessment.
Chicagoan. Not a Cubs fan, so didn’t vote on Joe Maddon … because there’s no “can’t stand to look at his dumb hipster doofus grandpa face” choice.
I am a Cubs fan and I find his spiel tiring too. But yours, more so.
It’s not a popularity contest, the players respond to him, he takes the heat off of them and his teams win, more often then not. Joe and his coaching staffs consistently develop young players at the MLB level on teams that are in win now mode.
And I’m not talking Kris Bryant and…well Kris Bryant. It’s easy to point at all the top 10 picks., but:
2011 draft. Javy Baez. 2016 NLCS co-mvp. Say what you want, but what that Javy was for a series took the patience of Job and even more to get to this Javy, that even the most knowledgeable Cub fans is still a little skeptical of offensively.
2012. Albert Almora. Theos first pick. Really the only pick, thanks to Dexter Fowler practically pulling an Andre Dawson blank check move in 2016, to being brought along at a pace commiserate with his growth. But he needed to be ‘sheltered ‘ at the MLB level against LHPing. And is entering his prime.
2012. Addison Russell. Ironically he replaced Starlin Castro, who was also, likely, brought up to early (by Hendry), out of need. An elite SS, 3 win player on a championship team. And is entering his prime.
2013. KB
2014. Kyle Schwarber. I can’t say anyone can say they had anything to do with what this kid went thru and can do. He barely has a 1000 PA’s, may never be an analytic darling, but I wouldn’t bet against him (watch the second round of the HR Derby, if you’re not sold – he was gassed, and in that minute or so, he went into beast mode. It at once reminded me of what he went through to get to the 2016 WS run and why he was drafted by the FO.
2015 Ian Happ. If you look at his start, when all is said and done, may be the coaching staffs masterpiece.
And that’s just the kids. If Jon Lester had a prickly reputation ( I don’t even know how to classify Lackey) , he has become quite likable and raves about the staff and players. You can’t not give props to the coaching staff for helping navigate his yips.
Heywards struggles, without team drama. The ‘Zobrist’ type player. Navigating the youth, veterans and depth of contending teams.
Maybe someone else could have broken the curse.
Pretty good is not a high bar. I mean, think about it, if it wasn’t for bullpen usage, what would the vast majority of fanbase’s have to agree on?
So how do I feel about my teams manager, pretty damn good.
Joe crosses the line when he starts preaching how players on other teams should play and be coached. He is an insufferable know it all that thinks he invented the data driven approach. He was also woefully out managed in that 2016 WS.
“Tiring”? He who smelt it, dealt it. And it’s all irrelevant to the fact that I can’t stand to look at his dumb hipster doofus grandpa face.
My team’s manager has given 326 plate appearances to the hollowed-out husk of Victor Martinez, on a rebuilding team that is supposed to be giving young players reps. He plans to give him another 300 in the second half. And we’re no longer overachieving so there’s no goodwill left already.
Looking forward to September 2019, when, with the Tigers at 65-85, Gardy will have Matt Manning throw out of the bullpen because Mike Fiers is a proven major leaguer and doesn’t deserve to lose his spot in the rotation even though he’s striking out 5 per 9.
Pretty bad.
Gosh, I really have no idea how to evaluate Calloway. Sure, he’s made some small but glaring mistakes on the field, but he’s been dealt such a crap hand by management. How would he be doing if the team on the field was better or less injured? How many decision are foisted upon him, especially w/r/t injured players? Is it his decision or the front office’s to, say, give Reyes this much playing time? I just don’t know.
I agree with much of this but a lot of his in game stuff has been bad too. Also he writes the lineup and somehow some way Reyes keeps getting penciled in, Callaway has to take some blame there. He’s also said some really dumb things in pressers, nyc is hard, McNeil only a 2b, Reyes (again) been playing better. It’s almost kind of sad.
I’m not at all trying to argue that Calloway is blameless. The lineup card, the botched pitching changes, that’s on him. But beyond those things, it’s just so hard for me to parse where the blame on the front office ands and where the blame on him begins. Would he be in a position to make tactical blunders if the team was capable of scoring more than two runs per game? Has he been given the support from the front office needed to bench veterans like Reyes, or is the front office calling that shot? Can we give him credit for the steps forward that some of the pitching staff has taken? I honestly have no clue, and I have not yet voted because of that.
The lineup card incident is a result of your managerial hire being a career pitching coach who’s never had to give thought to that entire half of the game of baseball before. The botched pitching changes are mostly just bad perception because of the negative results that seem to follow when he goes to anybody in the bullpen. My issue with his bullpen management has actually been him being too “by the book,” because he’s scared of criticism.
That’s more or less how I felt when I clicked “Average” in the poll for Callaway but I’ve been thinking about it more and I kind of wish I could go back and lower my vote. The lineup and bullpen gaffes are forgivable but I see it as fair to blame him for the team’s inability to pull itself out of the season-destroying losing streak in May-June — that’s the kind of thing where, if a manager is going to earn his money as a motivator of his players, he has to get them to hit the reset button psychologically and get back to at least playing competitive ball far sooner than Mickey did. The true talent level of the personnel he had available to him was not “~4 wins in a calendar month.” For underperformance that sustained, I think it’s fair to put some of the blame on his head.
Playing in nyc IS hard. The only reason we even remember that statement was the media swarm it caused, which is, ironically, EXACTLY what he was referring to. Regarding McNeil, they probably want to wait until they have his natural position to give to him when Cabrera is traded, to avoid him having to worry about where he’ll play when trying to acclimate himself, and all the criticism that would follow. I don’t understand why blame is attributed to him for providing the rationale for something that’s ultimately not even his decision in the first place. He’s not in charge of promotions/ demotions. Why does he play Reyes? I honestly don’t know.
All totally fair. I haven’t given up on the guy ( like I haven’t given up on Rosario and Smith) but they all need to be better. I also just find it kind of funny that they threw Dom in LF but bring up positional issues with other guys.
Too bad for Callaway that loving his players more than other managers hasn’t manifested itself in more wins for the team.
He’s also been guilty of *ahem* “dry humping” his pitchers (his words, not mine), when he promised not to.
Maybe he loves them too much?
So we’re just going to ignore all Buck’s years of outperforming his teams talent level… with the Orioles AND several other teams. Got it.
Yeah, as someone who hates the Orioles, Showalter’s on the shortlist of the very best non-Francona managers in baseball.
he was, but the list of questionable decisions/comments has been growing a lot over the last twoish years
I like him a lot less than I used to, but I still think Joe Maddon is up there.
You could put Maddon, Showalter, and Francona in any order and I wouldn’t bat an eye, but one of those guys is #1.
The baffling Britton decision in the Wild Card game hurts his reputaton
I’m still confused how Britton wasn’t in there for 9th (and probably 10th) on the road.
That was and is still a real head-scratcher. Shame/not-shame, because he’s still netted more good than bad for the franchise, but yet he made the wrong call when it really counted. Baseball, tugging at my emotions again…
That single game moved him from “very good” to “average” for me. I contemplated going with “pretty bad” too.
I voted for Buck Showalter as being ‘pretty bad’. Now on a general basis, I don’t really believe this. After all, he ranks pretty well among All-Time managers. Yet with the Orioles at the start of a deconstruction and rebuild, I don’t see Buck as one that could oversee this process. He’s too wedded to the traditional role of a manager and over the next few years, the Orioles are going to need someone in that position that is creative and can think “outside the box”. In addition, once again the role of manager is evolving further away from what it’s been over the past fifty or so years, and the Orioles need someone that will roll with that tide rather than against it.
My main beef with Aaron Boone is that he doesn’t have a tighter leash on CC Sabathia. Once that lineup turns over for a third time, Boone should know that implosion is imminent. Opponents are slashing .367/.404/.644 on their 3rd PA vs CC.
My main beef with Boone is that he leaves his middle initial off his uniform. F.
My main beef is that he continually makes awful baseball decisions, with the bullpen specifically. His bullpen is stacked with incredible relievers, yet he rarely brings any of them in if the Yankees are trailing, even by a run or two (which, with their offense, is almost like being tied or up by a run!). He will bring in Betances when up by 5 but uses Chasen Shreve in tie games.
The worst was a few weeks ago when the Yankees were up 10-0 (or something) against Boston in the final game of the series. They were playing Atlanta (first place team at the time) the next day. He literally used every single good reliever to “secure” that 10 run lead. Predictably, the next two games were close and he had nobody to pitch against the Braves.
Last week they had the tying run on 3rd with 1 out in the 9th against Baltimore, with Britton pitching. Their 3rd-string catcher (Kyle Higashioka) with all of 40 or 50 major league at-bats was up. Brett Gardner (probably the most likely Yankee to at least get the bat on the ball) was on the bench. Higashioka struck out. THEN Gardner hits for the next batter (Tyler Wade, a better hitter than Higashioka) – but with 2 outs now – and grounded out to end the game.
This week they were down by 2 in the 8th against Cleveland with 1 out. Judge on first with Hicks up and Stanton on deck. He calls for a hit and run. Hicks stikes out and Judge is caught stealing. Stanton (the tying run) is left at the plate . There’s absolutely no reason for Judge to be running in that situation when you’re down by 2. Down by 1? Sure – get him into scoring position. But not then.
It’s almost as if something is intercepting the vision that Boone sees when he looks that the scoreboard and he thinks the score is something different than it actually is. He routinely makes completely inexplicable decisions and I think he’s cost the Yankees at least 3 or 4 games so far.
I want Joe Girardi back. Boone’s nice and cool and young and fun and looks good talking to the media, but if that’s what makes a good manager, we could hire an actor. He’d probably make better baseball decisions too.
Ned Yost batted Alcides Escobar leadoff for years. People don’t forget
That’s the only thing I thought of when I selected “very bad”. It’s just mind-boggling.
Also, great username. Go Rams!
very good for whom? I found Matheny great!
I wish people had a better opinion of Mike Shildt based only on the fact that he went from being a HS coach with no professional playing experience to being a major league (interim) manager. You don’t get there without truly being good.
Mike Matheny was a major league manager….
My opinion of some of these guys is too complicated for these categories. Do I think Joe Maddon is a pretty good manager from a winning and lineup creation standpoint? Yes. Do I think he’s an entitled whiny prat *cough*slide rules*cough* whose creativity gets in the way of his good sense? Also yes.
How is Shildt not at 100% “Very Good”. Show me one other manager on this list that is undefeated. You can’t.
Yet Maddon is 40% “Very Good”? They have the same record if you go back to 7/15/2018???
You know, you’re not wrong
So far, the results of this poll suggest a pretty clear replacement for Matheny in Mickey Callaway. I thought Gardenhire or Mattingly would be getting the worst results, but so far Callaway seems to be a pretty clear leader.
Being a first-year manager in New York for a dysfunctional organization has to be awfully difficult. That doesn’t mean he’s not bad, but he’s definitely in a position to fail.
Problem is there are not enough Marlins fans to get enough people fired up about Mattingly..& that said, I never see the Marlins, but, they’re doing much better than many expected. Surprised to see him so low, esp. with the crap & dysfunction he has been handed. Or is this due to his Dodgers stint?
I agree on Callaway & Gardy. I thought Gibbons & Molitor would be worse. Ned Yost is another obvious candidate once the statute of limitations on the WS win is over.
I’m going to posit that with the Mets the overwhelmingly negative responses are a result of their record.
Calloway’s bullpen management and continued penciling in Cespedes when hurt early in the season + playing Jose Reyes during a lost season meant has me already sharpening up my resume for when he is deservedly canned.
Outside of strategic gaffs, of which he’s made a few, he has not shown the urgency or passion publicly that fans and media are pining for. The team has stunk (epically) for a variety of reasons. He needs to stop talking about loving his players and “trusting the process”, and get ANGRY. I don’t think he needs to go full-blown, vintage Lou Piniella and turn over tables in the clubhouse, but he needs to express his dissatisfaction with the results and admit that they need to make adjustments.
Is there something wrong with that?
My opinion of Cardinals manager Mike Schildt:
Can’t be worse than Matheny!
He could make decisions D&D style, rolling a 20-sided die, and I’d call it an improvement!
So, Ricky Renteria. He gives away outs too much and he sometimes his bullpen decisions are…bizarre. But this year doesn’t really matter. He’s had to play guys so obscure their mother’s don’t know they are MLB players, and maybe some of it is either teaching the young players, protecting the young pitchers, or trying to position the tradeable relievers best to get something back for them? I think he’s probably average or maybe a little less based on what I have seen, but I don’t know if it is fair to judge a guy who’s job is more to develop guys than win games so I said “no opinion” since “incomplete” isn’t really an option.
I’m a Braves fan, and have been pleasantly surprised by their performance this year, but I don’t feel I can give Snitker a positive rating based on his stubborn insistence on sub-optimal line-up construction.
As a Cubs fan this poll is complicated. Maddon seems to be a good players coach but a pretty meh game day manager. Hard to say which is more valuable.
Does this take into account prior teams that the manager has worked for? For instance, Bud Black has always been mediocre at best.
The only real consensus seems to be that Terry Francona is, bar none, the best manager in the game.
Which is correct.
As long as he’s not using abbreviation-based nicknames when making calls to the bullpen..
lol
Some managers don’t have enough of a track record to judge properly.
Unless you’re talking a Maury Wills disaster it takes time for a manager to really learn his team’s organizational strengths and weaknesses, especially if coming from the outside.
Aaron Boone and Callaway are two examples that can’t really be evaluated as managers; Boone is surrounded by talented players and one of the best-run organizations in the game whereas Callaway has the most dysfunctional team around.
I reserved judgement on both as well as Shildt.
On the flip side, some guys like Black, Gardenhire, and Riggleman come with track records so we have more to work with than just their current tenure.
As for Showalter, he is almost certainly overdue to move on voluntarily.
With his contract about to expire he should move on.
I’m thinking St Louis or KC.
I watch every Yankees game. I find it hard to believe that anyone could make worse in-game decisions than Boone does. The Yankees record is what it is in spite of Boone, not because of him.
I think part of the public’s current opinion of Matheny is due to the Internet echo chamber. I doubt 58% of people would have said “very bad” even two weeks ago. Not that he was good, but popular opinion can spread like wildfire.
Although my personal knowledge is anecdotal and is subject to SSS, the few die-hard Cards fans I know were already talking a couple years ago about how Matheny needed to be fired. This was mainly just based upon his game management decisions. Then you add the more serious clubhouse issues that have started to pop up in the past year or so, and I’d suggest that the general consensus among the folks who have been paying attention to St. Louis baseball is that Matheny was very bad.
I’m impressed with Cora this year. He’s done a great job managing our SP innings and I like what he did with our lineup. His bullpen usage has been questionable at times, but then again so have our bullpen arms. Leagues better than John “left him in too long again” Farrell.
Buck Showalter’s results are fascinating
What are you gonna do now, Buck?
As a Giants fan who thoroughly enjoyed having Mike Matheny coach against them in the playoffs, I’ll miss him dearly.
In similar articles in the “What Do You Think of Your Team’s ____” series, Jeff creates a 1 to 5 score of all responses, averages everything per team, and ranks them. (e.g. https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/here-are-the-complete-front-office-ratings/ )
These type of articles are great! But what would be even better is getting a view of the *distribution* of scores per team. E.g. Some teams have more haters than others, so while the average is pretty consistent, there would be an abnormally large number of “poor” rankings that are washed out by the average. For example, Showalter’s current scores are fascinating, as he has a significant amount of haters and fans.
(One way to show this is, after all the usual ranking graphs, to show a table of the median score per team, as well as, say, the 25th percentile and 75th percentile. This would let us see how “flat” the scores are per manager.)
The number one thing I learned from this: The surprising number of managers I have no real opinion of.
So for Buck and my O’s, I said pretty good. I still feel he’s as qualified as anyone else out there (and more than most) to drive a team to succeed. Correlation to performance aside, what would also be interesting to see is a follow-up poll mapping Manager to Ownership/General Management. One can only do so much with the tools given. Sometimes it is more than expected (see O’s of previous seasons), sometimes it is far, far less (hello, 2018).
The Britton game in the playoffs showed such a fundamental level of cluelessness that I can’t see how anyone could rate Buck higher than average (at best).
I will always like John Gibbons, mostly because of that time Ted Lilly punched him in the face during a game and Gibbons calmly (but carefully) walked back to the bench to finish doing his job (managing the team).
Yeah, that was a very Gibbons-like reaction.
Kevin Cash has managed the Opener, Bullpening the majority of the rotation for a while, and gotten this roster to actually somehow score runs…given what he has to work with, I’m impressed (as opposed to the last few years, where he’s looked lost).
I’d like to see the side by side comparing the managers to the front offices. My instinct says the good managers should line up about the same.
I’m not surprised to see that folks in Milwaukee are happy with Counsell. The record was bad when it was expected to be bad, and it’s been good (and perhaps better than expected) when it was supposed to be improved. Also, he comes across as a smart, well spoken guy. Then you add that he was raised in Milwaukee, and he gets the hometown guy bump in approval rating. All in all, a recipe for a well-regarded manager. It will be interesting to see how much benefit of the doubt he gets if the team starts to struggle.
As a Jays fan, I don’t know how the fans can dislike John Gibbons. No matter how old the players are, he always manages to come across as that “more mature than you” adult uncle who also doesn’t treat you like anything but what you deserve based on your actions, but also not in a condescending way either. Like if you fuck up, he tells you straight up, lets you sit on it for a while, gives you a chance to stop being a bitch, and then helps you fix your truck followed by a BBQ and some drinks.
On top of that, he’s cerebral in his own way – he’s GREAT for media quips and jokes. Basically, he treats his players like he treats everyone else he encounters.
Maybe he’s not the absolute greatest tactically, but his style of “be respectful, do your job, don’t be afraid to have fun” attitude is far more important. It gives the team an easy atmosphere and lets them be a team. Having watched Gibbons for so long, I’m of the absolute opinion that if there’s a problem between him or the team and a player, because of who he is, I side with him.
There’s not much more you can ask for from a baseball manager, in my mind. Gibbons is great!
Astros shift a lot and do other things that players don’t usually like, but seems to get buy in most of the time not counting Giles. Loved seeing team cheering on Bregman at the derby. Rasmus loved environment so much he accepted a QO.
A.J. Hinch in the All Star Game: the two pitchers who gave up runs were the two he chose to give a shot at multiple innings. Morton got to give up bombs in consecutive innings. Meanwhile Sale and Severino? One and done. And then pitchers like Kimbrel just sat…
I’m curious to see how Hurdle rates among this crowd. Locally he is viewed more negatively than he deserves due to issues with management and his love for Sean Rod/questionable decision making (not really any worse than most managers). I think the overwhelming majority of manager impact is behind closed doors and Clint strikes me as an excellent leader of young men with a lot of life perspective to impart.