HOW DO YOU TELL A GREAT MANAGER FROM A NOT-SO-GREAT?

Managers are paid to win ballgames. Some always win because they have the horses to win, a great front office that supplies great players and a lot of money behind the team. Then there are managers that know how to manager, with both so-so players and even bad ones. They know how to manage men, understand the game and have a philosophy that sustains their approach.

It can be difficult to assess a manager’s ability when you’ve always managed a great team like the New York Yankees, as opposed to say the New York Mets. Most managers on the Yankees aren’t necessarily great because they need only to put their best nine men on the field and chances are those nine are better than anyone else’s nine.

Look at Casey Stengel and Joe Torre. Both have managed on both the Yankees and Mets, and both have had feast and famine.

Joe Torre managed the Braves in Atlanta, the St. Louis Cardinals besides the Mets and Yankees. He had only one winning season where the team went onto the playoffs, other than the Yankees, and that was with the Atlanta Braves, where he took over from Bobby Cox. His team went on to finish 89-73 and capture the NL Western Division title.

When he became Yankee manager, he managed for 12 years managing 1,942 regular season games with a won-loss record of 1173–767 and lead them to divisional and championship seasons. His overall managerial record: 2,326 wins 1,997 loses and a .538 winning percentage.

Casey Stengel, between playing and managing is the only man to have worn the four New York major league club uniforms. He was the first of four men to manage both the New York Yankees and the New York Mets, Yogi Berra, Dallas Green and Joe Torre being the others, and like Torre, he also managed the Braves and the Dodgers.

Stengel's first managerial positions were with the Brooklyn (1934–1936) and Boston Braves (1938–1943), and never finished better than fifth place in an eight-team league. "I became a major league manager in several cities and was discharged. We call it discharged because there is no question I had to leave.”

In 1949 the Yankees hired Stengel where he suddenly became a winning manager. "There is less wrong with this team than any team I have ever managed." He was right. Stengel became the only manager to win five consecutive World Series championships (1949–1953). In 1954 the Yankees failed to win a pennant, and in 1955 lost to the Brooklyn Dodgers in the World Series, Stengel and the Yankees then continued their winning ways, going on to win two more World Championships (1956 and 1958), and another American League pennant in 1960.

In 1962 after being fired by the Yankees for being too old, the newly organized Mets were calling and he answered the call. They finished with the worst record ever recorded by a major league team. 42-120, good for last place in a 10-team league. Casey’s overall record was: 1,905 wins, 1,842 loses and a .508 winning percentage.

That’s all I wrote, folks!