Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Hardball Times: Book excerpt: Evaluating Baseball’s Managers—Billy Martin
Billy Martin was the most fearless manager in baseball history. In 20 years of managing, he never backed down from a challenge. As has been well documented by others, Martin consistently caused dramatic improvements to his squads immediately upon arrival by pushing them hard. The A’s went from losing 108 games to fighting for .500. The Rangers, who had posted back-to-back seasons in which they had played .350 ball, suddenly won half their games when Martin arrived. The Twins and Tigers improved by 18 and 12 games for him respectively. The Yankees won their first pennant in a dozen years under him. The Birnbaum Database gives him high scores for every stop along the way: +64 runs in Minnesota, +199 runs in Detroit, +91 runs in Texas, +142 runs with Oakland, and +219 runs in his various New York stops.
Chris Jaffe’s got a book coming out next month that looks at pretty much every manager in MLB history through 2008. I’ve helped Chris with editing the Yankee chapter and was very impressed by what he’d put together in that part. The linked excerpt here looks at Billy Martin, who managed the Yankees once or twice. Perhaps more than that even.
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