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Who has the best winning percentage as a major league manager?
Whitey Herzog
Tony LaRussa
Joe Torre
Mike MathenyFor the same 4, who has the best winning percentage as a Cardinal manager?
Matheny’s winning % is still good because of the great start he got off too since he inherited a World Series champion team. But our year end finishes have gotten worse since 2013 so I suspect his winning % won’t measure up much longer.
If you really want to compare the four managers let’s list the number of pennants and world series championships each has won.
Why don’t we take a look at those winning percentages –
Whitey Herzog –
Career – .532
Cardinals – .530Tony Larussa –
Career – .535
Cardinals – .544Joe Torre –
Career – .537
Cardinals – .498Mike Matheny –
Career and Cardinals – .561
“MM was a terrible hiring from day 1″………..Sheesh. Wonders never cease.
gs –
Why not look at when championships were won by the other 3.Torre won a WS finally in his 16th season.
Herzog won a WS finally in his 11th season.
Larussa won a WS finally in his 13th season.Last time I looked, MM was in his 6th season.
Larussa finally won a pennant in his 12th year.
Torre finally won a pennant in his 16th year.
Whitey finally won a pennant in his 11th year.
Matheny won a pennant in his 2nd year.Look at what they inherited. Larussa, Torre, and Whitey inherited garbage when they took over the Cardinals. Matheny inherited a World Series champion and we have continued to regress since then.
If you are truly trying to claim that MM is on par with those hall of fame managers then that is quite a statement. I suspect you will be in the minority.
College football equivalent of what is being explained to you :
Look at florida after urban meyer left.
Look at nebraska after tom Osborne left.
Look at usc after pete carroll left.It is different sports and the parallels arent exact but you cannot sit there with a straight face
When things fall apart a few years after a great coach leaves you with a great roster there is usually reason beyond “the roster sucks now”.
The closest equivalent above was osborne who retired after winning 3 titles in four years and demolishing florida and tennessee in 95/96 and 97/98.
Five years later they were 7-7. Frank Solich was fired the year after due to the regression.
Larussa had his issues but matheny has some SERIOUS explaining to do about how a team with this much depth has sucked this badly. Maybe we will make a run against an easy schedule late but one thing is for sure — he hasnt righted the ship and has had ZERO answers to our issues.
This much depth? He lost his #3 hitter much of last year, and still was in the hunt until the last day of the season. This year he has a mish mash around the horn, no proven #3 or #4 hitter, and is only several games out of 1st place with 50 games to go.
If you want to place blame, place it on what he has to work with.2011 Cardinals under Tony – Molina, Pujols, Schumaker, Theriot, Freese, Holliday, Rasmus, Berkman
Pujols, Holliday, and Bergman in the middle of the lineup for Tony
2013 Cardinals – Molina, Craig, Carpenter, Kozma, Freese, Holliday, Jay, Beltran
He took this team into the World Series with Kozma, Jay, Freese, and Craig?
2016 Cardinals – Molina, Adams, Wong, Diaz, Peralta, Holliday, Grichuk, Piscotty.
How did he challange for a playoff spot until the last day of the season with this lineup? His #3 hitter was hurt much of the year and he had no #4 hitter.
2017 Cardinals – Molina, Carpenter, Wong, DeJong,
Gyorko, Pham, Fowler, Piscotty, and Grichuk.Really? Tonight his #3 hitter was in Memphis several months ago and his #4 hitter is pure AAAA. Both rookies.
The main issues with bad fundamentals and in game decisions are all him and have gotten progressively worse.
Is some of that the players? Yes.
Is all of it? Takes a vivid imagination to not notice a cultural problem. It is the managers job to fix that problem.
He hasnt. If anything it has gotten worse.
Trying to spin that with records when he was handed the best team in baseball is a bad spin job at best.
Suggest you compare the lineup in Tony’s last year to the lineup in MM’s first year. You might change you mind about the team MM “inherited”.
Not at all..
This team by pythagorean should be in first place. Guess whose responsibility that is?
Directly with no way to blame anyone else.
I am the first person to admit that mo has screwed up the last year or so. I think he is a great gm who needs a perspective change.
However… That doesn’t excuse matheny. This team had enough talent to be much much better. It isn’t. Mass personnel failure is also on the manager — He is the one who motivates and teaches and this many abject failures is not acceptable.
When MM bashers are confronted with facts, they retreat into squishy generalistic negative comments about MM.
Nothing is going to change their dislike of him as a manager. He could win the WS and some posters would insist the team won in spite of him. It’s bizarre.Generalistic?
First off I was relatively specific. This year’s team is underperforming majorly and I gave specifics that he has responsibility for.
Second I never said he was a horrible manager. I simply dont think he is a good one and I want a balanced perspective here.
He has not been good. I am not sold on whether or not he can be good.
Your mindless devotions to wins and losses when he was handed a way above average team that has regressed in ways that he obviously influences or controls is not productive.
You still haven’t said anything that’s factually based. Just your opinion on the matter. Mindless devotion to wins and loses? Mindless? Really? Isn’t that what baseball is all about – wins and loses?
He was handed a way above average team? Really?
Care to quantify that?Please tell me who the #3 and #4
hitters for the Cardinal have been in 2016 and 2017. We can use that as a start in the MM analysis.Pretty much Brian if you don’t agree with bccran and his man love for the worst manger in baseball then he makes stuff up to try to say whatever you say is wrong and stupid. His stuff gets old
I don’t have man love. I disagree with some decisions MM makes. But the fact is, he has a better winning percentage than most Cardinal managers over the history of the franchise. And his roster wasn’t as strong without Albert with the team he inherited. All I hear back is opinion, without supportive data. I guess some people just have an authority complex with this particular manager. They “feel” he’s the worst manager in MLB. Of course one of the best owners in MLB feels differently, but who cares about that.
The problem is your “argument” also says that he deserves no credit for his record.
“Look at the team he was handed”.
His teams have been very good.
If the manager both deserves no credit and deserves no blame he is an empty figurehead and should be fired on principle.
If you’re getting paid millions of dollars and add no value what the hell are you doing there?
Your argument has no teeth and has nothing based in the real world.
I’m waiting for a factual explanation on why he’s a bad manager.
The folks I have talked to inside the organization think he has done a good job. There seems to be a disparity here. Maybe you should just agree to disagree with his bosses.Folks inside the organization would not normally be considered objective observers. This is the organization that hired him and continues to choose to employee him.
LAMO Bccran that is comical, people inside the org, really funny one, do you think they would say otherwise come on now get real
As a way to tell how a manager performs, still imperfect but at least it is statistically based, is looking at how a team’s won-loss record compares to expected won-loss (the so-called “Pythagorean” W-L record).
I tracked the difference between actual records and the pythag expectation for Whitey (1982-1989, throwing out the 1981 split season), LaRussa (1996-2011), and Matheny (2012-2016).
While Matheny comes out the worst of the three in average Pythag difference over his managerial career, the numbers are not all that different between him and TLR. Mike is at exactly zero, with a high of 7 wins over projected in 2014, and a low of -5 wins in 2012.
LaRussa averages a +.375 wins per year, with a high of 7 over in 2007, and a low of -6 in 1997.
Whitey does the best, with an average of +1.75 wins per year. He was also the most consistent, with no season coming in under the expected wins. His best year was 1987 at +4.
My thoughts on Whitey are that his teams usually had great speed and defense, and good bullpens. Thus he would literally “steal” a game here and there, and his bullpens kept the close games in check. On a side note, I still think speed is under-rated in baseball, because it gets lost in the metrics used today, which put value on OBP and power.
But back to the topic at hand – Matheny’s big year of 2014 was when Neshek was lights out, and Rosenthal saved 45 games. He had a real good late inning pitching.
LaRussa has the longest track record, and thus his teams were all over the board. One interesting note, Tony’s 2011 team finished at a +2, so they played a little better than expected. Then in 2012 and 2013, when Matheny took over, the team finished -5 and -4 compared to expected. That makes sense in a way, in that the rookie and still inexperienced second-year manager probably contributed to botching some close games with his late game managing. Of course just plain old bad luck also plays a part.
Then in 2014 and 2015 he reversed the trend, going +7 and +4. 2016 was back down at -2, and so far in 2017 he is -5. But that 2017 number is a bit skewed by the sudden offensive explosion of the last three games.
Overall it looks like Whitey was a real good manager, never getting in his team’s way, and getting the most out of what he had. Tony’s good teams were good, and bad teams not so good although it is interesting that one of his worst teams, 2007, were probably even worse than their record.
Matheny’s teams performed well for him 2014 and 2015, but have not so good of late.
If we bring in the post season, Matheny also gets the lowest marks of the three although he has not managed as long as the other two. Whitey won a ring and two other NL pennants. He probably wins a second ring in 1985, when his team was the best in baseball and likely beats the Royals in six games in the World Series despite playing without Vince Coleman, but that terrible ninth inning call seemed to zap the life out of the club and inspire the Royals.
LaRussa had the two teams that were not expected to do much win it all, and the powerhouse 2004 team fall on their face in post season. And he had several other post season qualifiers not get to the finish line.
Mike’s got the one pennant so far, and some post season flops that include some questionable decisions.
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