Baseball Musings: Catchers as Managers

February 10, 2004

Catchers as Managers

Glenn Berggoetz and Jeff McBride have done some research on managers and found what is to me a suprising result. They've asked me to publish this on my website. Here's the article.

Do Catchers Really Make the Best Managers?

For the last hundred years, the baseball world has accepted as fact that former catchers make the best managers. But do statistics prove this out?

Adding up the wins and losses of every manager from 1871 to 2003, and categorizing the managers into eleven groups based upon the position they played the most games at as a major leaguer (the tenth and eleventh categories cover outfielders as a whole and those managers that did not play in the majors), reveals the following winning percentages by position:
              Pos          WP
               LF         .510
               1B         .506
               3B         .506
              DNP         .503
               2B         .502
               OF         .502
               P          .502
               RF         .499
               SS         .497
               CF         .496
               C          .490
As you can see, the statistics reveal that catchers make the WORST managers. In fact, catchers are far and away the worst managers, with the largest gap from any one position on the list to the next coming between centerfielders in tenth place and catchers in last place.

But maybe straight-up winning percentage paints a false picture. Not hardly. Catchers rank low just about any way the numbers are broken down. For instance, when comparing the percentage of managers that managed at least 1000 games and posted a winning percentage of .500 or better, catchers come in last - again, far out of tenth place. Here's the breakdown in this category:
               Pos     .500+       %
                P       4/5      80.0%
                1B      7/9      77.8%
                3B      7/9      77.8%
                LF      5/7      71.4%
                SS      6/9      66.7%
                OF     17/26     65.4%
                CF      7/11     63.6%
                RF      5/8      62.5%
                2B      8/13     61.5%
               DNP      7/12     58.3%
                C      11/24     45.8%
Catchers also rank low in many other categories. When it comes to the percentage of all managers that have posted a .500 record or better, catchers come in seventh (leftfielders are first). Catchers come in sixth for number of games managed per World Series championship (rightfielders are first). They also only place sixth for percentage of managers by position that captured a World Series title (secondbasemen come in first here).

Yet catchers dominate in other categories. They are first in total number of games managed. First in total number of managers. Fourth in length of tenure (secondbasemen lead this category). All this despite their consistently poor performance.

The only stat catchers can be even mildly proud of is the total number of World Series they have won as managers, where they place second behind the outfielders. Considering, however, the number of games catchers have managed compared to the other positions, it's hardly a stat catchers can brag about.

For example, firstbasemen and rightfielders have combined to manage 22 World Series championship teams, while managing a total of 48,949 games by 94 different managers (an average tenure of 521 games). Catchers have managed 20 World Series winners while having 111 managers manage 71,208 games (an average tenure of 642 games). Once again, catchers display nothing special when directing a team.

An interesting comparison to make comes when comparing catchers' managing statistics against the position that is generally accepted as making the worst managers - pitchers. Let's compare the two positions in six major categories: total number of managers, total number of games managed, average tenure (in games), winning percentage, percent of managers with a winning record, and percent of managers that have managed at least 1000 games and posted a winning record.
                           Pitchers       Catchers
   Number of managers         53             111
   Games managed            24,454         71,208
   Average tenure             461            642
   Winning percentage        .502           .490
   Percent with winning 
        record               43.4%          35.1%
   Percent with winning 
        record (1000 games 
        managed)             80.0%          45.8%
For the last 133 years, pitchers have consistently outperformed catchers in the managing arena, yet pitchers are routinely overlooked for managing posts (not a single former pitcher managed even a single game in 2003 while ten former catchers led teams), and are fired sooner while winning more often. A look at the numbers leaves little doubt that the belief that catchers make the best managers is a myth. The obvious fact is, catchers make the worst managers.

Given this data, my question is, why did catchers become so popular to hire as managers? Was there a great early manager who was a catcher? Do catcher just talk a good game?

My other question is, how much does Connie Mack, as a managerial outlier, effect this research? Mack is credited with managing 53 seasons. His record in that time is 3776-4025, a .484 winning percentage. So he's going to drag down catchers by giving them a boost in longevity while taking down their winning percentage. From looking at the charts presented, I don't think it makes a big difference. Connie, of course, couldn't be fired because he owned the team. I would be interested to see what the first chart looks like with Mack taken out.

Posted by StatsGuru at 02:26 PM | Management | TrackBack (0)

Comments

I would think that straight wins and losses are not the best way to judge managers. I'd suggest using the methodology that Bill James introduced in his manager book. I believe his approach basically judges a manager by the extent he can maintain a strong winning percentage, against the natural tide of "regression to the mean."

By this approach, Joe McCarthy was the greatest manager of all time, though I think Bobby Cox may be giving him a run for the title.

Posted by: studes at February 10, 2004 02:51 PM

Comparing actual wins/losses vs. expected wins/losses is probably also more useful than just looking at winning percentages, also.

For a recent example, how much is Alan Trammell to blame for the 2003 Tigers? Not much, in my opinion.

I think this excercise would probably be more useful (and a lot harder to gather the data for) if we expanded the sample size to include minor league managers - or, at least, AAA. What about the negro leagues?

I'm all for questioning the conventional wisdom with statistical analysis. But I want to make sure we've got the right data set to do so; in this case, I'm not convinced we do.

Posted by: John Y. at February 10, 2004 03:21 PM

I wonder also if the common conception that catchers make good managers isn't the cause of the performance noted in the study. That is, when an owner doesn't have an obvious good choice as to who to hire, he uses the fact that one candidate is a catcher as a tie-breaker. Thus more marginal oe inexperienced candidates who are catcahers are hired.

Posted by: Cap at February 10, 2004 04:11 PM

I'm no statistician, but wouldn't you expect that the larger the group the more average it would be? I mean, doesn't the fact that so many more catchers have managed than any other position mean that a lot more bad managers would be hired among the catcher pool than among, say, the left fielder pool? I understand that we're looking at percentages, and the comparisons are valid, but I think that if you stopped hiring catchers to manage and hired left fielders in their place, the left fielders' collective winning percentage would drop. I'd be interested to see how the average catcher/manager compares to the average manager.

Posted by: rauscher at February 10, 2004 04:19 PM

51%-49% is the difference between the "best" and the "worst"? Looks like all that time and energy proved that you win about 50% of the time. The rest appears to be nothing more than margin of error.

Posted by: Al at February 10, 2004 06:14 PM

There is also a case to be made that the data used is very biased. That is to say that if the front office feels that catchers make the best managers, they will be more likely to hire a catcher as a manager in hopes that they will help their team. A team that needs more help is more likely to be a worse team. So, it is possible that the front office who has a bad team will hire a catcher to manage in hopes that they will enliven and drive thier team toward greatness. Additionally, it seems that it is more difficult for other position players to be hired as managers. These other potential managers may well have to bust their balls and be BETTER managers than their catching peers, simply because they have a different reputation.

Posted by: dillple at February 10, 2004 09:21 PM

I think the bigger question is how much difference does a manager make. I haven't read Bill James work on manager evaluation but how many wins is a good manager really worth. Maybe I'm negative and can only see how a bad manager can really wreck his team (i.e. overuse pitchers, steal too much, etc.).

As for this thread, has anyone considered the evolution of the manager, i.e. is there any difference in the quality of the team that a manager takes over? It seems that if a manager took over a good team at the start of his tenure and did well, he'd be labeled a good manager and would be able to ride out a few .400 seasons before people showed him the door.

Posted by: Ken at February 11, 2004 09:01 AM

As for your questions, I can only surmise that
sometime long, long ago, some baseball people just
decided that since catchers have the whole field in
front of them, make the defensive calls, and sometimes are allowed to call pitches, that they must have the best baseball minds. Enough people repeated this theory over the years that it came to be accepted as gospel.

I have always taken issue with this theory. As
someone who played baseball (pitcher and outfield)
all through high school and college, and continue to
play in an adult men's league (I'm 37), I have long been convinced that most catchers were cocky blowhards who tried to boss people around. This belief is what spawned our research.

I was hoping that catchers merely weren't in the
top three in winning percentage. I was ecstatic to
find they placed last - it validated three-decade's
worth of personal beliefs.

When it comes to Connie Mack, his winning
percentage was .486, so he's right in line with the
overall .490 percentage posted by catchers.

Other than Mack, about the only other old-time highly successful former catcher who became a manager was Pat Moran. Moran led the Phillies to the pennant in 1915, and managed the Reds to the 1919 World Series title. He is the only catcher from baseball's early days to place in the top 50 in career winning percentage for managers.

As far as winningest managers, Mack is the only
catcher in the top ten. There are only six catchers
among the top 50 winningest managers.

When it comes to winning percentage, only one
catcher ranks in the top ten (Al Lopez). And,
again, just six of the top 50 are former catchers.

Posted by: Glenn Berggoetz at February 11, 2004 02:40 PM

I think Al's comment says it all. We're talking about a 2 point swing. Not to mention the fact the the players on a team have a lot more to do with it's WP than the manager does.

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