Pay The Skipper Or The Crew?

An article by Darren Everson in yesterday's WSJ asks Is Joe Torre Worth the Money? (sub req):

Joe Torre, who makes his debut with the Dodgers on Monday, ranks eighth in all-time wins. He won four World Series titles with the New York Yankees during a 12-year career there, which ended last season after the team's third straight first-round playoff loss. He became renowned for his ability to handle star players' egos and navigate crises. But his actual, quantifiable skill as a skipper is debatable.

In close games, in which a manager's decisions in baserunning, pitching and substitutions tend to make the most difference, Mr. Torre's teams have struggled in recent years. Over the past three seasons, his record in games tied after the sixth inning is 23-31 -- a .426 winning percentage, compared with .588 in all games. Several of his peers, including Ron Gardenhire of the Minnesota Twins and Willie Randolph of the New York Mets, have performed better in close games.

It's interesting that the East Coast media starts asking questions about Torre's managerial abilities AFTER he leaves the Yankees for LA. Funny how it works that way.

The story went on to say that it's very difficult to objectively rate the performance of baseball managers. There was also an accompanying piece to this story that attempted to do just that (sub req):

To assess how Joe Torre compares to his peers, we used three criteria to measure the performance of baseball managers: how their teams perform in close games when the manager's strategic decisions have the most impact, how many games their teams win compared to how many runs they score and allow (a formula known as Pythagorean wins) and whether they get more out of players than other managers, measured by additional games won per season. (For more on our methodology, please see below). We ranked 20 current managers by all three criteria and averaged the results:

The top five?

1 Ron Gardenhire Twins
2 Bruce Bochy Giants
3 Ned Yost Brewers
4 Charlie Manuel Phillies
5 Bob Melvin Diamondbacks

And the bottom:

16 Terry Francona Red Sox
17 Joe Torre Dodgers
18 Eric Wedge Indians
19 Jim Leyland Tigers
20 Clint Hurdle Rockies

Obviously, there is not necessarily a correlation between a manager's rankings here and the team's success on the field as amply demonstrated by the Red Sox-Rockies World Series last year. One final word on that:

"I think managers are a bit overrated in terms of the impact that they have on their players," says J.C. Bradbury, an economist and associate professor at Kennesaw State University and author of "The Baseball Economist." To make a team better, he says, "get better players."

Better players make better teams? Funny how it works that way.