What to Expect from Bobby V. When It’s Game Time

Bobby Valentine is officially the manager of the Boston Red Sox. He has been known to have an extreme love-hate relationship with his players and his bosses. While the best Bobby V. stories undoubtedly will happen off the field, I wanted to highlight the way he runs his team on the field.

Managers have very little control over most parts of the game, but there are exceptions. Here’s a look at several ways that Valentine can insert his authority — like with stolen bases, intentional walks, sacrifice hits and lineup changes. I looked at years where he managed an entire season. And I’ve compared the numbers to the league average, when available.

Stolen bases

		SB		CS		Success Rate
Year	Team	Bobby V’s Team	League	Bobby V’s Team	League	Bobby V’s Team	League
1986	Rangers	103	105.0	85	54.4	55%	66%
1987	Rangers	120	123.9	71	55.1	63%	69%
1988	Rangers	130	108.0	57	49.2	70%	69%
1989	Rangers	101	113.4	49	51.9	67%	69%
1990	Rangers	115	107.4	48	55.9	71%	66%
1991	Rangers	102	104.9	50	54.1	67%	66%
	Average	111.8	110.4	60.0	53.5	65%	67%
1997	Mets	97	129.8	74	60.1	57%	68%
1998	Mets	62	100.6	46	46.9	57%	68%
1999	Mets	150	122.4	61	51.9	71%	70%
2000	Mets	66	101.7	46	46.0	59%	69%
2001	Mets	66	91.0	48	45.9	58%	66%
2002	Mets	87	94.6	42	43.9	67%	68%
	Average	88.0	106.7	52.8	49.1	62%	68%

A manager has control over all stolen bases, to a degree. If a player has the opportunity to steal on his own, that’s the manager’s call.

The teams that Valentine managed didn’t steal a ton of bases, compared to the league average. With the New York Mets, he was significantly lower in the number of attempts, compared to the rest of the league. And when his teams did attempt to steal a base, they weren’t very successful. With the Mets and the Texas Rangers, Valentine’s teams were below the league averages. While he had decent success rates in the final years as manager of both teams, the first couple years were killers. Both teams’ success rates in his first full season as manager were 11 percentage points below the league averages. Perhaps might Red Sox fans see a team next year that is little reckless on the base paths?

Intentional Walks

Year	Team	Bobby V’s Team	League
1986	Rangers	37	34.7
1987	Rangers	34	36.1
1988	Rangers	33	42.9
1989	Rangers	42	42.4
1990	Rangers	39	41.9
1991	Rangers	37	43.0
	Average	37.0	40.2
1997	Mets	43	44.5
1998	Mets	59	40.4
1999	Mets	53	42.4
2000	Mets	42	46.5
2001	Mets	60	53.7
2002	Mets	75	59.7
	Average	55.3	47.9

Generally, Valentine hasn’t been too much above or below league average when giving out intentional walks (five seasons more than league average, seven seasons less than).

Sacrifice hits (not including sacrifice fly balls)

Year	Team	Bobby V’s Team	League
1986	Rangers	31	46.1
1987	Rangers	42	49.4
1988	Rangers	48	49.4
1989	Rangers	63	51.9
1990	Rangers	54	48.8
1991	Rangers	42	52.4
	Average	46.7	49.7
1997	Mets	58	73.6
1998	Mets	88	72.9
1999	Mets	63	68.6
2000	Mets	70	66.4
2001	Mets	53	67.1
2002	Mets	75	70.9
	Average	67.8	69.9

He was barely below average with both teams. He doesn’t like to get too involved, and he lets his hitters hit.

Different Lineups

Year	Team	# of Lineups	Year	Team	# of Lineups	Year	Team	# of Lineups
1986	Rangers	121	1997	Mets	131	2006	Red Sox	116
1987	Rangers	126	1998	Mets	124	2007	Red Sox	109
1988	Rangers	125	1999	Mets	76	2008	Red Sox	131
1989	Rangers	126	2000	Mets	118	2009	Red Sox	113
1990	Rangers	122	2001	Mets	143	2010	Red Sox	143
1991	Rangers	129	2002	Mets	122	2011	Red Sox	123
	Average	124.8		Average	119.0		Average	122.5
	Low	121		Low	76		Low	109
	High	129		High	143		High	143

I had no desire to look through the average number of lineups each team had to get an average value. Instead, I took the number of lineups for the teams Valentine managed (pitchers were removed from the Mets’ values) and then added — for reference — the Red Sox values for the last six years under Terry Francona.

Red Sox fans should expect to see about the same number of lineup changes that they saw under

Conclusions

During a game in 2012, Red Sox fans shouldn’t see much in the way of extreme over- or under-managing from Bobby Valentine. The one exception might be that he Red Sox players could have limited success when stealing bases, compared to the rest of the league.