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.
Jeff, one of the authors of the fantasy baseball guide,The Process, writes for RotoGraphs, The Hardball Times, Rotowire, Baseball America, and BaseballHQ. He has been nominated for two SABR Analytics Research Award for Contemporary Analysis and won it in 2013 in tandem with Bill Petti. He has won four FSWA Awards including on for his Mining the News series. He's won Tout Wars three times, LABR twice, and got his first NFBC Main Event win in 2021. Follow him on Twitter @jeffwzimmerman.
where’s the analysis of bullpen management? that strikes me as being a pretty important way that a manager can affect his team’s winning percentage.
Interesting idea, even if the numbers don’t deviate from the average enough to really mean anything. The apparent lack of SB can probably be equated moreso to the lack of speed on the late-90’s Mets.
The best part of Bobby Valentine becoming
the Red Sox manager is we no longer have to
listen do games from the TV booth. He is truly
annoying and obnoxious, not to mention his
opinions are questionable.
assert, not insert his authority
You don’t know, maybe that’s how he let’s his players know who’s boss
An in-depth & fair analysis of Valentine’s career. As a season ticket holder in his Texas days, I am not a fan. After the 1st year, he never lived up to his big mouth. He only stayed in Texas for 7+ years because he & the GM were great buddies. They had to fire the GM before they could fire Valentine.
I do not understand why baseball keeps hiring old managers. They seem to do nothing but re-cycle the old ones. Let’s get some new blood in the game.
It is just the opposite for GMs. They are much younger than managers.
So, put a guy in his early 30s with a stats ivy league degree who’ve never played above JUCO baseball in a dugout to manage the egos of guys in their mid 20s-mid 30s who are the best in the world at what they do.
You forget that it’s not just “statistically, I shouldn’t put the steal sign on here” it’s “no Star Player X, I’m not going to move you down in the lineup despite you not hitting for shit, I trust you will come around”.
“Let’s get some new blood in the game.”
John Farrell
Kirk Gibson
Don Mattingly
Robin Ventura
Mike Matheny
I’m no blood connoisseur, but they look decidedly new to me.
In the great cycle of Manage Laidback->Manager Hardass->Manager Laidback->Manager Hardass->and so on, I think Bobby Valentine is a fantastic addition to my beloved Red Sox. And I hope they don’t keep him around more than three years or so.
He could be the greatest manager in the history of the game and i still wouldnt want him on my team with that voice of his
His teams SB% seems to be below average meaning they gave away quite a few outs/runs, resulting in fewer wins on average.
To me, that could be a big deal. I’m most interested in where he bats Ellsbury and Crawford and how he handles them on the bases. Provided Crawford can get on base, my guess is that they steal more times than Francona’s Red Sox.
A slower team = less SB attempts
This also can lead to more hit and runs…where a failed hit and run will lead to a SB attempt. Since he had a slower team, the SB attempt failed more often than league average.
This analysis is nice, but not very in-depth. It would take a LOT of work to do an in-depth analysis of managing.
I think if I’m Bobby V, I want to see what the Red Sox’s base-stealing success rate was this past season, and who was successful and who wasn’t. Then I can decide, as the manager who I green light and who I don’t. I wouldn’t be in charge of finding new talent that can steal bases. Training them how to be better at it would be my responsibility and thus I’d hire a coach who knows what he’s doing.
For bullpen I do bullpenWPA-BullpenWPA/LI-bullpen clutch. Valentine is a little better than league average at this.
I guess you guys will discount Bobby’s management in Japan (Chiba Lotte Marines).
I’ll make this call, since I was a fan of the Marines those days when Bobby was there: “He doesn’t like to get too involved, and he lets his hitters hit.”
Not really. He made Satozaki, the catcher who couldn’t bunt, bunt at crucial at bats.
He changed lineup ALL THE TIME. He had the most different lineup on day-to-day basis among his peers.
He benched Zuleta, because Zuleta would not bat as he directed.
Bobby involves, hell lot.