The “Today’s Game” Ballot: Davey Johnson and Lou Piniella

On December 6th, the first potential inductees to the Hall of Fame Class of 2017 will be announced. The “Today’s Game” ballot features 10 baseball luminaries who are up for consideration for induction into Cooperstown. Unlike the more well known voting for players only (from the baseball writers), this modern version of the “Veteran’s Committee” considers a mixture of players, managers, and executives who are not already in the Hall.

This year’s ballot contains five players (Mark McGwire, Will Clark, Albert Belle, Orel Hershiser, and Harold Baines), two managers (Lou Piniella, Davey Johnson), one owner (George Steinbrenner), one front office executive (John Schuerholz) and former Commissioner Bud Selig.

In this post I’m going to focus on the careers of Johnson and Piniella but I’ll start by saying that it’s my belief that the ballot was stacked in favor of the induction of Selig and Schuerholz, because all of the other nominees have significant weaknesses in their Cooperstown resumes.

(all statistics in this post courtesy of the greatest website in the universe, www.baseballreference.com.

Davey Johnson and Lou Piniella both got their managerial starts in New York City, Johnson with the Mets in 1984, Piniella with the Yankees in 1986. They also were both well-known to New Yorkers during their playing careers. Piniella was a long-time outfielder for the Bronx Bombers and a member of their 1977 and ’78 title teams while Johnson was the All-Star starting second baseman for the ’69 Baltimore Orioles, who lost to the Miracle Mets in the World Series and made the final out in the decisive 5th game.

Let’s look at Johnson’s career first. As a player, Johnson was a solid, above average second baseman who enjoyed a productive 13-year career that featured four All-Star appearances and three Gold Gloves. He was a part of the spectacular Baltimore Orioles infield that featured Hall of Fame third baseman Brooks Robinson and, during his first two seasons, Hall of Fame shortstop Luis Aparicio. As a player, Johnson was part of two World Series champions in Baltimore (in 1966 and 1970). In 1973, after a trade to the Atlanta Braves, Johnson had a breakout offensive season, clubbing 43 home runs (25 more than his previous career best) and 99 RBI. The 43 taters represented a major league best for a second sacker, a record that remains to this day.

davey-johnsonAs a big league skipper, Johnson burst onto the national scene when hired to manage the Mets for the 1984 season. He was already a part of the team’s organization, having served as the skipper of their AAA affiliate (the Tidewater Tides) in ’83. For a heavy majority of the managers already in the Hall of Fame, timing and good fortune are a significant part of their greatness. Johnson took the helm of the Mets at the most perfect time in the franchise’s history. He took over a team that had been awful for seven straight seasons (never losing less than 90 games except for the strike shortened 1981 season when they still went just 41-62) but had a core of young players poised to reverse the fans’ misery.

In the first year under his stewardship, the Mets improved from a 68-win team to a 90-win team in 1984. It certainly did help that he had a 19-year old rookie phenom named Dwight Gooden as well as other rookie hurlers Ron Darling and Sid Fernandez. A year later, after a trade that brought future Hall of Fame catcher Gary Carter to Shea Stadium, the Mets improved to 98 wins and barely fell short of the NL East crown. In 1986, the Mets won 108 games and the World Championship in one of the most thrilling post-seasons in the history of baseball.

The ’86 title was the only one the Mets would win and, after a few disappointments in the years to follow, Johnson was eventually fired during the 1990 season. Three years later, he was hired to replace local legend Tony Perez as the skipper for the Cincinnati Reds. Despite leading the team to the ’95 NL Central title, he was fired mostly due to personality conflicts with team owner Marge Schott. Johnson got another job quickly; he was hired to helm the Baltimore Orioles and led the Birds to two post-season appearances only to leave in another personality conflict with the team’s owner, this time Peter Angelos.

Johnson spent two years (1999 and 2000) as the manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers. It was the only team he skippered that failed to make the playoffs and he was fired after those two seasons. After a decade away from the manager’s seat, Johnson’s final managerial job was with the Washington Nationals (from 2011-2013) and he led the team to its first post-season appearance with a 98-win campaign in ’12.

In the totality of his 17-year managerial career, Davey Johnson led his teams to the playoffs six times. His squads had a winning record in 14 of those 17 campaigns. His overall record was 1,372-1,071, an impressive 301 games above .500. Among all of the managers who ever sat in the dugout and who won at least 1,000 games, his .562 career winning percentage is the 10th best in the history of baseball. The nine men who did better already have plaques in Cooperstown. If you look only at skippers who began their managerial careers after World War II, only Hall of Famers Earl Weaver and Al Lopez had a greater winning percentage than Davey’s.

Now, winning percentage isn’t everything and there are other numbers that speak against Johnson’s Cooperstown resume. Johnson’s 1,372 career wins are only 31st all-time. In the post WWII era, only Whitey Herzog and Billy Southworth have fewer in the modern (post 1900) era.

 

I grew up in New York City and was at the beginning of my college years in the mid 80’s. I personally attended approximately 150 Mets games ’85 through ’88 seasons. I know Johnson’s Mets teams as well as any I’ve ever followed. Without his years in New York, I can’t fathom that Davey Johnson would be under consideration for the Hall of Fame so I’m going to focus on these years.

As a Mets fan, when I look at Davey Johnson and his teams from 1984-1990, I feel that one World Championship and just two post-season appearances was an under-achievement. This team was built to win multiple championships. They had the 1983 and 1984 Rookies of the Year (Darryl Strawberry and Dwight Gooden), two great leaders on the field (Gary Carter and Keith Hernandez), a terrific rotation (Gooden, Ron Darling, Bob Ojeda, Sid Fernandez, and David Cone) and a strong bullpen (Jesse Orosco, Roger McDowell and, later Randy Myers).

Johnson’s Mets won the World Series in 1986. This was a team that won 108 games in the regular season, winning the NL East by 21.5 games. This was a great, great squad and I think it’s safe to say that either Mayor Ed Koch, young comedian Jerry Seinfeld or future President Donald Trump could have skippered that team to the Division title.

I personally remember all of the Mets’ thrilling 13 post-season games in vivid detail (and attended 6 in person). I have to say honestly that I can’t recall one single brilliant managerial decision that led the team to victory. I can’t recall Johnson making any blunders either, except perhaps for double-switching Strawberry out of Game 6 of the Series, which didn’t ultimately hurt at all.

The point is this: it was the players who won the title. It was Lenny Dykstra who hit a walk-off home run in Game 3 of the NLCS. It was Gary Carter whose 12th-inning single won Game 5. It was Dykstra’s triple and Hernandez’ double in the 9th inning of Game 6 (off Bob Knepper) that helped the Mets score three ninth-inning runs to send the game into what would turn out to be a 16-inning thriller. And, of course, it was Bill Buckner who allowed Mookie Wilson’s grounder to go through his legs in Game 6 of the Series.

To me, the best thing Johnson did in the ’86 post-season was to give his team a day off after they had lost the first two games of the World Series. This was a hard partying team. They were exhausted and mostly drunk or high after their Game 6 classic in Houston and came out flat in the first two games of the Series at Shea Stadium. Johnson gave them a break before Game 3 of the Series at Fenway Park in Boston and the team seemed refreshed. They won Games 3 and 4 to send the Series back to New York.

I’m not sure that giving a team a day off is a credential in a Hall of Fame resume but this is why evaluating managers is so difficult. So much of what they do is intangible. They are leaders of men. They don’t accumulate statistics as players do. As I’ve said, any Mets fan could have led that team to the ’86 NL East crown. Would other major league managers have navigated this team through post-season? That’s hard to say. Johnson did it and nobody can take that away from him.

However, it’s indisputable that the years that followed were a disappointment. The ’87 team was be-set with injuries (and Gooden’s drug rehabilitation). The ’88 team won 100 games and the division easily but succumbed to the Los Angeles Dodgers in the NLCS. Ironically, the best player on that team (Cy Young Award winner Orel Hershiser) is also on this “Modern Era” Hall of Fame ballot and the Dodgers’ manager (Tommy Lasorda) is in the Cooperstown club that Johnson would love to join.

Think about the parallels for the Mets in the 1986 and ’88 post-seasons. In both of their NLCS match-ups, they were up against a team with a starting pitcher on a dominant hot streak, Mike Scott in 1986 and Hershiser in 1988. In ’86, the Mets were stymied by Scott in Games 1 and 4 but managed to win all of the others and avoid Game 7.

In ’88, Hershiser had finished the regular season with 59 consecutive scoreless innings. He was unbeatable, adding another 8 scoreless innings in Game 1 of the NLCS. But the Mets tagged him for two runs in the 9th and another off reliever Jay Howell and scored a huge upset victory, followed by another win against the Dodgers’ bullpen in a Hershiser start in Game 3.

So the Mets were up 2 games to 1 with Gooden taking the hill for Game 4. The ace known as Doctor K had fanned 9 batters in 8 innings of 2-run ball and held a 2-run lead. Gooden seemed to be cruising but had thrown 118 pitches. Still, Johnson sent his ace back to the mound for the 9th. The first batter, John Shelby, drew an 8-pitch walk, raising Doc’s total to 126. The next batter, catcher Mike Scioscia, deposited Gooden’s first offering into the right field bullpen for a game-tying home run.

The question here is whether Johnson made a fatal error by sending Gooden back to the mound after having tossed 118 pitches. To be fair, the maniacal attention paid to pitch counts was not, in 1988, remotely as it is today. However, there was a precedent, during the regular season (on May 31st), in which Johnson sent Gooden out to start the 10th inning after having thrown 118 pitches, ironically against the Dodgers. After getting the first out (again ironically Scioscia), Doc gave up three straight hits, leading to two runs and what should have been a loss, except that his team bailed him out and won in 11.

So, now, let’s fast forward to the pivotal Game 4.

Gooden: 118 pitches.

Mets: clinging to a 2-run lead.

Randy Myers, who had a 1.72 ERA during the regular season, sitting in the bullpen.

The leadoff batter was John Shelby, a switch-hitter, who was a much weaker hitter against lefties than righties.

The second batter was Mike Scioscia, a left-handed hitter, also weaker against lefties.

Even after Gooden walked Shelby on eight pitches (with an exceptionally wild ball four), Johnson left Gooden in to face Scioscia and the rest is history. Scioscia was sitting on a fastball and Gooden gave him one.

The Dodgers would go on to win the game in 12th inning. The momentum of the series had shifted; the Dodgers won in 7 games and went on to stun the heavily favored Oakland A’s in the World Series.

I’ll be honest though. I was sitting in the stands, expecting Gooden to finish the game and give the Mets a commanding 3 games to 1 series lead. And, I can’t remember exactly, but I don’t think the opening walk to Shelby had me yelling for Myers to come in at that moment either.

It wasn’t this way a year ago, when I was back in Flushing, sitting in the upper deck at Citi Field, and screaming for Terry Collins to yank Matt Harvey after an opening 9th-inning walk to Lorenzo Cain in Game 5 of the World Series against the Kansas City, which would ultimately lead to a Mets loss and the Royals tasting champagne bubbly.

Johnson himself has certainly been asked about the Scioscia-Gooden match-up for years.

“Doc was still throwing well. If anyone is upset with me for not taking out the best pitcher in baseball, that’s really an ignorant second-guesser.’’

— Davey Johnson, quoted in the New York Daily News (October 5, 2013)

Is it fair to dwell on one decision? No. It’s not fair. Not fair at all. But it’s what happened. It was the pivotal game of a series that everyone expected the Mets to win. Johnson, Hall of Fame candidate, managing against Lasorda, a future Hall of Fame inductee. Johnson has one World Series ring, Lasorda has two. And it really came down to that one inning.

Davey Johnson is now on the same “Today’s Game” ballot with Hershiser. In that momentum-changing Game 4, the Dodgers’ ace, who had just pitched the day before, came out of the bullpen on ZERO days rest to get the final out in the 12th inning, with the bases loaded and the tying run on 3rd. And yes, Hershiser dominated the Mets in Game 7 in the clinching victory for Los Angeles. As with Johnson, the Hall of Fame case for the man called Bulldog is complex and the members of the “Today’s Game” committee have the difficulty of measuring the qualifications of a diverse group that includes five players, two managers, one general manager, one team owner and another owner turned commissioner.

Anyway, post-season disappointments followed Johnson in the rest of his managerial career. The Reds won the 1995 NL Central title and swept the Dodgers in the NLDS but were swept by the eventual World Series champion Atlanta Braves in the NLCS. The ’96 Orioles were the AL’s Wild Card team and ultimately lost the ALCS to the New York Yankees while the ’97 edition had the best record in the American League but were defeated by the Cleveland Indians in the ALCS.

With the 2012 Nationals, Johnson’s team again had their league’s best record and were considered favorites to win the World Series but lost in the NLDS to the St. Louis Cardinals.

 

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Lou Piniella also got his start as a MLB manager in New York City, taking the helm of the Yankees in the same year (1986) that Johnson skippered the best team in baseball to the World Series title. The fiery and short-tempered Piniella, ironically nicknamed Sweet Lou, was well known to Yankees fans, having been a member of the team that won four pennants and two World Championships from 1976-1981. Along with Graig Nettles and Thurman Munson, Piniella was one of the the Yanks’ clubhouse leaders, a future manager in the making. As a player, Piniella was average, best suited as the right-handed side of an outfield platoon, but with a reputation of being a clutch player. Piniella sported a career batting average of .303 with runners in scoring position, compared to .285 in other situations.

Although he was generally known as a mediocre defensive player, three of his most memorable contributions to the Yankees two championships were with the glove. He made a sliding catch off the bat of Cookie Rojas In the decisive Game 5 of the 1977 ALCS. In Game 4 of the ’77 World Series, Piniella robbed Ron Cey of what would have been a game-tying home run in the bottom of the 4th inning. And in the famous 1978 tie-breaker game at Fenway Park, Sweet Lou, battling the brutally blinding sun in right field, made the catch to end a threat that would have given the Red Sox a 4-0 lead in the inning that preceded the famous Bucky Dent home run. The Yankees won that game and the ALCS and World Series contests that followed.

Seven and a half years later, his playing career at an end, Piniella took the reins of the clubhouse, replacing Yankee legend Billy Martin, who had been fired for the fourth time out of his five separate tenures with the Bronx Bombers. While Davey Johnson had inherited a perennial loser in the Mets, Piniella took over a team that had finished 97-64 the previous season. Piniella’s teams won 90 and then 89 games in ’86 and ’87, not bad but not good enough for team owner George Steinbrenner. He was fired during the ’87 post-season and replaced by Martin. Piniella briefly held the General Manager’s title but replaced Martin in the manager’s chair halfway through the ’88 season when Martin was fired by Steinbrenner for the 5th and final time due to his role in a brawl in a topless bar in Texas.

Are you confused yet? Piniella replaced Martin after the ’85 regular season, Martin replaced Piniella after the end of the ’87 season and then Piniella replaced Martin halfway through the ’88 regular season. The ’88 team finished in 5th place in the AL East and Piniella was let go once again.

lou-piniellaIn the sport of Major League Baseball, being fired (twice) by George Steinbrenner was hardly a badge of dishonor. Sweet Lou got another chance in 1990, taking over the Cincinnati Reds. The Reds had been through a dysfunctional season in 1989; this was the year that Pete Rose was banned from baseball and was thus forced to relinquish the managerial helm to his friend and bench coach, Tommy Helms. Although they had finished 75-87 in ’89, Piniella felt he had inherited a good team and he was correct. The Reds had a core of solid position players (future Hall of Famer Barry Larkin, Chris Sabo, Eric Davis and Paul O’Neill), a trio of top-tier starting pitchers (Jose Rijo, Jack Armstrong and Tom Browning) and the famous “Nasty Boys” troika of relievers (Randy Myers, Rob Dibble and Norm Charlton). Myers, incidentally, had been acquired from the Mets in a trade for fellow relief ace John Franco.

The Reds won their first nine games in 1990, building a four-game lead in the NL West, a lead they would never relinquish as they coasted to 91 wins and the Division Title. Still, the Reds were underdogs in the NLCS to Jim Leyland’s Pittsburgh Pirates (who were led by Barry Bonds and Cy Young Award winner Doug Drabek) but prevailed in 6 games. The Reds were even bigger long-shots in the World Series, as they were taking on the defending champion Oakland Athletics, who had cruised to 103 regular season wins. But Reds swept the A’s in four games, most notably with a walk-off 10th inning single by catcher Joe Oliver in Game 2 (against future Hall of Famer Dennis Eckersley).

The 1990 championship is at the cornerstone of Lou Piniella’s potential Hall of Fame resume and the key credential that kept him employed as an MLB manager for 19 of the next 20 seasons. His tenure with the Reds ended after the 1992 season at his own choosing and he quickly got another gig, this one with the Seattle Mariners.

Piniella would be the Mariners’ skipper for a full decade before choosing to go to his hometown of Tampa, FL to take over the fledgling Tampa Bay Devil Rays. Piniella was not fired by the M’s. During his ten years, he led them to the playoffs four times, the only four post-season appearances in the franchise’s history (which is still true to this day). The Devil Rays in fact had to give up two players to “trade” for manager Piniella. For Sweet Lou, this was just about wanting to be home; for Tampa Bay, this was about turning over a brutally bad team to a man with a reputation of winning.

Let’s be kind to say that the Devil Rays in 2003 were not blessed with Hall of Fame caliber talent. Piniella’s best players on the ’02 Mariners were Ichiro Suzuki and Edgar Martinez; his best players on the ’03 Devil Rays were Aubrey Huff and Travis Lee. There was nothing to do with this team: winning 63, 70 and 67 games per season was an improvement over the 55-win squad from 2002. Piniella questioned the team ownership’s commitment to winning and left to take over another losing team, the Chicago Cubs.

The Cubs had gone 66-96 in the last of four seasons under Dusty Baker so this was another turnaround project for Piniella. As he had done with the Reds and Mariners in the past, Piniella did turn the team around, leading them to an 85-win season and the NL Central title. A year later, on a team of mostly above-average but not superstar talent, he skippered the Cubbies to a 97-win season. Unfortunately, both teams were swept in the National League Division Series match-ups (by the Diamondbacks in ’07 and the Dodgers in ’08). Many of the members of the 97-wins Cubs of 2008 were still with the team in 2010, but much of the “above average” bunch had regressed to “below average.” Of the eight players with the most plate appearances, seven were in the 30’s and the eighth was a 20-year old rookie (Starlin Castro).

With a 51-74 record in the midst of his fourth season in Chicago, Piniella decided to step down as the team’s manager, choosing to go home to Tampa to spend time with his ailing mother.

In his 23 years as a MLB manager, Lou Piniella won 1,835 games. That’s more than all but 13 other skippers in the history of the sport. All but one of those 13 others (Gene Mauch) are enshrined in Cooperstown. Among his contemporaries or near-contemporaries, he won more big league games than Hall of Fame skippers Tommy Lasorda, Dick Williams, Earl Weaver and Whitey Herzog. He successfully turned three losing teams into winners. If being a Hall of Famer is partly about being famous, Lou’s got it. During his decades in the dugout, he was one of the game’s most colorful characters. His temper and arguments with umpires are the stuff of a legend.

 

The Hall of Fame cases for Lou Piniella and Davey Johnson are very similar. Consider the parallels, during both their playing and managerial careers.

  • Both had productive but unspectacular MLB careers as players.
  • Both was a member of two World Series winning teams (Piniella with the ’77-’78 Yankees, Johnson with the ’66 and ’70 Orioles).
  • Both got their first managing gig in the majors at a young age and in New York. Johnson was 41 when he took over the Mets in ’84; Piniella was 42 when he first managed the Yankees in ’86.
  • Both won their first (and only) World Series titles early in their managerial careers (Johnson in his third year with the Mets, Piniella in his first year in Cincinnati, which was his fourth year as a big league skipper).
  • Both led teams to the playoffs on multiple occasions since but never returned to the World Series after their one and only championship.
  • Both managed five different teams.
  • They had long careers as MLB skippers. They were turnaround specialists, leading multiple teams out of the abyss and into the post-season. Take a look at this chart, which shows their team’s records during their maiden voyage with each and the record of their predecessors (remembering that Johnson’s numbers look odd due to the strike shortened 1994 and 1995 seasons).

 

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There are differences of course. Piniella’s career was longer (23 years to Johnson’s 17) and thus he accumulated more total wins. Johnson’s winning percentage (.562) was better than Piniella’s (.517) but Davey never took over a truly awful team like the Devil Rays of the early 2000’s.

Another difference is that, with the exception of his two firings in New York in the Yankees’ managerial carousel, Piniella went from job to job on his own terms. Johnson was fired by the Mets, Reds and Dodgers, resigning from his other gigs with the Orioles and Nationals (although his departure from Baltimore might well have been forced upon him if he had not pre-emptively resigned).

 

When it comes to evaluating a baseball manager, it’s much more difficult than evaluating a player. With players, you have a vast array of statistics, both basic (Home Runs, RBI, Wins, ERA) and sabermetric (Wins Above Replacement, FIP, Runs Created, etc.). With managers, it’s pretty much about wins, losses, pennants and championships. There are brilliant people who have created and tracked managerial statistics about how many times certain skippers bunt, employ the hit and run, and utilize their bullpens but nobody is getting to the Hall of Fame based on these numbers. It’s about W’s and rings.

The godfather of baseball sabermetrics, Bill James, believes that the achievements of both Lou Piniella and Davey Johnson put them in the class of Hall of Fame skippers. James listed five criteria that he uses to evaluate a MLB manager and created a points system to serve as methodology for comparative analysis. I will not bore you with all the details but, in James’ system, 100 points should be about right for a manager to get into the Hall.

  1. Winning games (1 point per 40 wins).
  2. Winning a high percentage of your games (1 point for every 10 games over .500).
  3. Winning championships (3 points for each division title, an additional 3 points for each pennant).
  4. Winning the World Series (an additional 3 points for winning the World Series).
  5. Having teams that exceed reasonable expectations (1 point per each five games better than an expected won-loss total in a given season).

Category #5 is the most complex but it’s a formula that creates an expected winning percentage based on the team’s previous two seasons. Anyway, using the James methodology, here is a list of the points accumulated by the 20 Hall of Fame managers who had careers that mostly occurred in the last 100 years (with Johnson’s and Piniella’s records by comparison).

 

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Incidentally, for simplicity of space, I left off five other HOF managers whose careers occurred between 1871 and 1915 (Cap Anson, Harry Wright, Frank Selee, Ned Hanlon and Fred Clarke).

Anyway, of the 20 HOF skippers of the past 100 years, there is a top tier that starts with McGraw and ends with Stengel and a bottom tier starting with Durocher and ending with Robinson. As you can see, both Johnson and Piniella have resumes that place them comfortably in the middle of that second tier so, according to the formula, they should both have plaques in Cooperstown. James wrote in the spring of 2013 that Johnson was “a fully qualified Hall of Famer at this point.” He did not comment specifically on Piniella.

By the way, regarding the efficacy of James’ system, the sabermetric pioneer also plugged the records of 27 other well-regarded managers into the system and only one (Billy Martin) scored above 86 points. Martin’s record placed him right at 100 points. If you agree with James’ comment that the selection of Wilbert Robinson was “capricious” the system pretty much as it pegged.

Not so fast.

I’m going to argue here that, based on the current evidence, both Johnson and Piniella are NOT Hall of Fame managers, at least not in a way that is apparent today. I’m wading into perilous waters whenever I disagree with a Bill James system but I’m going to do it anyway. The reason is this: it’s not that they didn’t have productive managerial careers, it’s that they both fell short of what they actually should have accomplished with the teams they skippered. In addition, just as players are judged in relation to their peers, managers should be as well.

Johnson and Whitey Herzog both managed in the NL East during the 1980’s. Herzog’s St. Louis Cardinals won three pennants and one World Series; Johnson’s Mets managed just one of each. Herzog fares worse on the James points system because his teams had more off years. For the White Rat, it was the World Series or bust.

Piniella and Joe Torre both managed teams with great players in the American League from 1996 to 2002. During those years only, Torre’s New York Yankees five pennants and four World Championships. Piniella’s Mariners lost both the 2000 and 2001 ALCS contests to Torre’s Bronx Bombers.

So let’s use the James system again to look Johnson’s and Piniella’s resumes as they compare to their contemporaries. This list shows current Hall of Fame mangaers who had careers that intersected with Johnson’s or Piniella’s for at least one season as well as others who have resumes that deserve a look for a possible Cooperstown plaque.

 

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Going strictly by the James methodology, among his contemporaries, Davey Johnson’s career as a big league skipper is surpassed by only the obvious Hall of Famers Bobby Cox, Tony LaRussa, Joe Torre and Sparky Anderson. His career record is a tick better than Tommy Lasorda’s also superior to those of Whitey Herzog and Dick Williams. As for Piniella, he’s right there in the mix as well.

The problem is that there are a great number of current big league managers who have the potential to surpass the records of both Piniella and Johnson, both with this objective methodology but also by simple subjective common sense. Going strictly by the Bill James numbers, Mike Scioscia and Dusty Baker will both likely surpass Johnson in the next two years (assuming they continue to manage). In addition, Bruce Bochy, Terry Francona, and Joe Maddon all are likely to be in the Cooperstown conversation in the next few years. Because of his three World Championships, most pundits have already put Bochy into the Hall and Maddon, with a great young Cubs team, has the potential to add more hardware as well.

jim-leylandAnd then there’s Jim Leyland, who (like Johnson) retired after the 2013 season and could have been on this year’s “Today’s Game” ballot but wasn’t. I would argue that his career record is better than both Johnson’s and Piniella’s, despite just a .506 winning percentage. Like Davey and Sweet Lou, Leyland’s teams won just one World Series title (the 1997 Florida Marlins) but he made two additional trips to the Fall Classic (with the Tigers in 2006 and 2012). His overall record is hurt by sticking around for four years in Pittsburgh in the post-Bonds era. After three consecutive NLCS heartbreaks to Piniella’s Reds and twice to Bobby Cox’s Atlanta Braves, two-time MVP Barry Bonds left for greener pastures in San Francisco, former Cy Young Award winner Doug Drabek signed with Houston and Andy Van Slyke (4th in the 1992 MVP voting) broke his collarbone in June of 1993 and was never the same player.

Leyland’s overall won-loss record is also softened by an extra season in Florida after the post-championship fire sale of nearly all of the team’s good players and a year with the Colorado Rockies. Leyland’s great Pirate teams fell short of the pennant three years in a row and that’s a blemish on his resume but history will place more blame on Bonds, who hit just .191 with one home run and 3 RBI in 20 LCS contests. Still, despite those disappointments, Leyland still skippered three different teams to the post-season.

 

Davey Johnson’s teams only appeared in the World Series one time in the 17 years in which he was their manager. If you ignore the two seasons in which he took over mid-season (with the ’93 Reds and ’11 Nats), he still has only one Fall Classic appearance in the 15 years that he started the season as his team’s skipper. There are 30 teams in Major League Baseball (26 or 28 in the various seasons Johnson’s managed). Each year, two out of those teams reach the World Series. So, today, if you took each league and randomly assigned each manager to a different team at the beginning of the year, they would all have a theoretical 1-out-of-15 chance to make the Series.

Based on that 1-in-15 math, Johnson’s World Series appearance accomplishments are just average.

The success or failure of any major league manager is mostly dependent on the quality of their players. Johnson was blessed with a lot of very good players during his managerial career. Here’s a brief list (with Hall of Famers in bold):

  • Mets (1984-1990): Gary Carter, Dwight Gooden, Darryl Strawberry, Keith Hernandez, David Cone
  • Reds (1993-1995): Barry Larkin, Kevin Mitchell, Reggie Sanders, Jose Rijo, Tom Browning
  • Orioles (1996-1997): Cal Ripken, Roberto Alomar, Rafael Palmeiro, Mike Mussina, Brady Anderson
  • Dodgers (1999-2000): Adrian Beltre, Gary Sheffield, Kevin Brown
  • Nationals (2011-2013): Bryce Harper, Ian Desmond, Ryan Zimmerman, Stephen Strasburg, Jordan Zimmerman

With a vast array of stars, Johnson’s teams made the playoffs 6 times in 17 years but only achieved a berth in the World Series once.

With Piniella, it’s the same thing except it’s even worse. With a full 23 seasons in a major league dugout, he managed just one World Series team (the 1990 Reds). Nobody can fault him for missing the Series in his years in Tampa Bay. And, with the Cubs, he made the playoffs twice but was swept in 3 games both times in the NLDS. But those teams were not filled with game-changing stars so it’s fair to argue that just making the playoffs twice was a nice accomplishment. Still, one berth in the Fall Classic in 23 managerial seasons is below what a random sampling would produce.

In particular, Piniella’s record in Seattle deserves scrutiny. In the late 1990’s, his teams employed Hall of Famers Ken Griffey Jr., Randy Johnson along with Alex Rodriguez in his prime and hitting machine Edgar Martinez. His 2001 squad won a whopping 116 regular season games but succumbed to Torre’s Yankees in five games in the American League Championship Series. In the star-crossed history of baseball in Seattle, Piniella’s team’s four trips to the playoffs are the only four in the franchise’s history but not getting even one pennant from the quality teams he skippered seems like a significant under-achievement.

 

So, I have concluded here that Davey Johnson and Lou Piniella are not ready for Cooperstown prime time. Consider this. In the 30 years (from 1984-to-2003) that either (or both) Johnson and Piniella sat in a major league dugout, they were competing against anywhere from 25 to 29 other skippers. Among their contemporaneous managers, seven are already in Cooperstown: Bobby Cox, Tony LaRussa, Joe Torre, Tommy Lasorda, Sparky Anderson, Dick Williams and Whitey Herzog.

Among starting pitchers who competed during the same 1984-2003 period, there are 12 who are enshrined with a Hall of Fame plaque. Seven managers, twelve starting pitchers. And, oh by the way, those 12 include Jim Palmer, who pitched a mere 17.2 innings in his final MLB season in 1984.

30 years (1984-2013).

7 current Hall of Fame managers

16 current Hall of Fame pitchers (12 starters, 4 relievers)

27 current Hall of Fame position players

A major league team has 25 players and one manager. If you consider only the 8 or 9 starting position players, the top 3 starting pitchers, and a relief ace you’re talking about each team having 12 to 13 key players and 12 to 13 secondary players.

Do you see the point?  If you consider a manager the equivalent of a starting position player, pitcher or closer, the ratio of players to managers in the Hall should really be about 12-to-1 but, from 1984-to-2013, it’s about 6-to-1. MLB managers are currently over-represented in Cooperstown during this era by approximately a 2-to-1 margin. If you two more skippers to the mix (Johnson and Piniella), that means a ratio of less than 5-to-1.

Now, because the PED issue and the backlog on names on the writers’ ballot, there are many players from the Johnson-Piniella who are not (and likely will be) in the Hall of Fame in the future. I count 19 players on this year’s ballot who have a legitimate HOF case and another 7 joining the ballot next year.

Suppose all 26 of those players made it into Cooperstown (and throw in one more from this year’s “Today’s Game” ballot)? That would put 70 players into the Hall who played from 1984 to 2013. 69 players. 7 managers. If the appropriate ratio is 12-to-1, even the election of an additional 27 players would put the ratio at 10-to-1. And yes, there are another 20 or so players (from Chipper Jones to David Ortiz) who will hit the ballot from 2018 to 2022 who have a Cooperstown case. Let’s put all of them in too. Now you have 90 players and 9 managers (if you add Davey and Lou). We’re still at 10-to-1. That’s close but not unreasonable.

But now we also need to remember that managers Bochy, Francona, Baker, Scioscia, Maddon, Showalter and others (all contemporaries of Johnson and Piniella) will also be due for consideration in the near future as well.

 

I will finish with this as a matter of perspective. As I’ve already mentioned, a manager’s value is difficult to measure. The worst major league manager who is blessed with a team of superstars will always outperform a brilliant tactician with a team of stiffs. A manager’s statistics (based on wins and losses) is subject almost entirely to the quality of his players. It’s not the same for the players themselves. If you’re one of the best hitters or pitchers in baseball, the statistics you accumulate will shine regardless of the quality of your teammates.

Consider a manager’s value this way. Take a look at Joe Maddon, who just led the Chicago Cubs to their first World Championship in 108 years. Before the 2015 season, Maddon was hired to lead the Cubs to the promised land and he delivered in his second season with the franchise. At the time that he left the Tampa Bay Rays for the Cubs, he was considered one of the best managers in baseball. He was given a 5-year contract worth $25 million.

Last week the St. Louis Cardinals signed relief pitcher Brett Cecil to a four-year contract worth $30.5 million. Cecil, a left-handed specialist, just finished a season in which he compiled a 3.93 ERA in 36.2 innings. With all due respect to the bespectacled Cecil, he is not quite as high on the relief pitcher’s food chain as Joe Maddon on the manager’s totem pole but he just got paid more money.

The multi-billion dollar sport of baseball, with all of its advanced metrics, values a situational left-handed relief pitcher the same as it values one of the best managers in the sport. In the same off-season in which the Cubs signed Maddon to his $25 million deal, the club signed pitcher Jon Lester to a six-year, $155 million deal, a mere $120 million more than Maddon’s.

Ultimately, money talks. According to the very smart people who control each MLB organization’s purse strings, players are more valuable than managers, vastly more valuable, and it’s not really close. That doesn’t mean that managers shouldn’t be represented in Cooperstown beyond their financial value. They should be. But they shouldn’t be over represented compared to the players.

 

The current ratio of managers to players from the last three decades is out of whack and the argument here is that, for now, a priority should be placed on players above managers. If it’s a choice between Hershiser and Johnson, I’m picking Orel because his team won the ’88 World Series and he was one of the biggest reasons. It it’s a choice between Piniella and Albert Belle (whose Indians bested Lou’s M’s in the ’95 ALCS), I’m picking Albert.

Davey Johnson and Lou Piniella had wonderful and distinguished careers as big league managers. Were there careers great enough for a Hall of Fame plaque? Maybe. But more time is needed to more accurately compare their resumes to their peers. Not that much more time; it’s better to induct people while they’re alive. But right now, I feel it’s premature.

Thanks for reading.

Chris Bodig

Updated: November 13, 2018 — 5:24 pm

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