dougthonus wrote:johnnyvann840 wrote:I think it's just the opposite. A baseball manager makes the most decisions by FAR and dictates what happens in a game more than any other sport. From day to day lineups, when to swing and when to bunt... when to pull your starter, what reliever to use, when to change pitchers, when to pinch hit where to play your fielders. I mean, like bearadonisdna said they control the game. What does an NBA coach do except roll out a lineup? Look at a guy like Hoiberg.. the Bulls players didn't even listen to him. NFL head coaches most of them don't even call plays.
There are far more substitutions in every other sport per game than the NFL, so other coaches are making radically more lineup decisions than a baseball manager is. If you view each at bat as the equivalent of a play, there are probably more plays in virtually every other sport as well per game.
You have a point about salaries but that I don't think that correlates at all to importance. For whatever reason, MLB manager salaries hit the skids a few years back and you have the haves and the haves nots. The highest paid managers are making $5-6 million, but you have half the league with managers making around a million or less.
You never know, market inefficiencies do exist, and I'm no baseball expert, but if manager makes that big a difference teams are morons for not spending 6 million to get the best guy they can. If a great manager added 5 wins consistently vs a normal manager, that's easily worth 6 million.
yeah, I've always thought that baseball manager was by far the least taxing/least impactful coaching position in sports. particularly nowadays when it's all about homeruns. fewer smallball decisions. even the lineups are probably mostly down to a moneyball science. more pitching changes now though I guess...
and what does the baseball manager even do outside of game action? there are no plays to draw up or practice, no scrimmages...it's all mindless repetition. a largely solitary pursuit. and there are hitting and pitching coaches to deal with the minutae. baseball is barely even a team sport. in the other sports you'll hear about how a particular coach is a real "taskmaster" or a "player's coach" or whatever, and there are a lot of player/coach conflicts about role or playing time or "touches". not so in baseball. I don't think that the average baseball player cares all that much about who his manager is or has his experience with a team affected much by it
admittedly I haven't paid much attention to baseball since the '80s mets fizzled, but I can't think of many legendary baseball managers who are known for something beyond their personality or association with a great team. I think larussa was considered a pioneer - a forerunner of a lot of the things that are commonplace now. whereas in basketball you've got phil Jackson, larry brown, bob knight, john wooden...all clearly very impactful in their own ways. TEACHERS. that aspect is certainly quite minor when it comes to baseball managers
clock management, play calling, timeouts, ego management, lineup chemistry considerations...all very important factors in basketball and football that are virtually irrelevant to being a baseball manager
the sheer amount of time that football coaches feel obligated to put in preparation-wise is killer. highly stressful job. many basketball coaches are the same way (thibs comes to mind). you never hear that kind of thing about baseball managers
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