Dodgers of the Decade: Manager
January 13, 2010 at 1:04 pm | Posted in Davey Johnson, Grady Little, Jim Tracy, Joe Torre | 9 CommentsAfter over 500 votes, I’m finally putting down the General Manager competition, but I don’t even feel like I can call anyone a winner… because Dan Evans finished with 35% (176 votes), just barely beating out Ned Colletti at 34% (174 votes). Paul DePodesta wasn’t far off, at 28%.
I have to say that I’m a little surprised, because Dan Evans wasn’t a big name and didn’t have any playoff success, while Colletti’s teams have made it in three of the last four years. Not that I disagree; I’d have voted for Evans too. With the voting that close, I’m going to have to include both of them on our team:
Dodgers of the Decade team:
C: Russell Martin (68%)
1B: James Loney (62%)
2B: Jeff Kent (88%)
3B: Adrian Beltre (80%)
SS: Rafael Furcal (87%)
LF: Gary Sheffield (62%)
CF: Matt Kemp (94%)
RF: Shawn Green (79%)
LH starter: Clayton Kershaw (56%)
RH starter: Kevin Brown (42%)
LH reliever: Hong-Chih Kuo (57%)
RH reliever: Paul Quantrill (33%)
Closer: Eric Gagne (71%)
General Manager: Dan Evans (35%)/Ned Colletti (34%)
We are, mercifully, nearly to the end of our team, and I thank everyone who put in a vote. There’s just one more position to fill. Now that we have a full team and a GM, who’s going to run this mess on the field?
I was going to do a list of good things and bad things like for GMs, but I really don’t remember much about Davey Johnson’s one season at the helm… and there’s only so much room to list bad things about Jim Tracy and Grady Little. I expect that Joe Torre will roll here, but don’t forget that he did bat Matt Kemp 8th for much of last year while consistently hitting Juan Pierre leadoff when Furcal was hurt and helping to run Russell Martin into the ground with his “days off at third base” idea.
Manager
Davey Johnson (2000)
Record: 86-76 (.531)
Playoffs: none
Jim Tracy (2001-05)
Record: 427-383 (.527)
Playoffs: 2004 NLDS
Grady Little (2006-07)
Record: 170-154 (.525)
Playoffs: 2006 NLDS
Joe Torre (2008-09)
Record: 179-145 (.552)
Playoffs: 2008 NLCS, 2009 NLCS
Who do you want filling out the lineup card?
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This is almost as torturous as voting for GM. Torre’s the best of a bad lot, but I haven’t liked anyone in this job since Alston.
Comment by Bill Grabarkewitz— January 13, 2010 #
Lasorda?
Comment by Chris— January 14, 2010 #
I was tempted to go with Tracy if only for his Limatime-fueled moment of glory in the 2004 NLDS, but I caved and voted for Torre. This hardly seems fair given that his teams have been much more complete.
I would much rather have voted for “Worst Manager of the ’00s,” which, to my mind, could be no one other than Grady.
Comment by Casey— January 13, 2010 #
I agree with Casey. Torre certainly has the best, most complete and most competitive teams out of the lot. Grady… nuff said. In Tracy’s best season the team was pretty weak; fueled by Roidtre at 3rd and Gagroid out of the Pen, everyone else was pretty mehh. The person to put up the lasting memory was Lima from that season. Can’t fault Tracy for ownership and lack of players to work with.
Comment by TheStig— January 13, 2010 #
I’m surprised that all of these managers have winning records. As far as who to pick, I went with Tracy. I almost feel bad for the guy b/c of who he was given to work with. Despite all that he managed to win more than he lost and he wasn’t gifted guys like Manny Ramirez. He actually had to manage Milton Bradley! There’s nothing on this list that makes a very promising argument, so I went with the longest tenured guy and gave him points for dealing with so much BS. He did lose a few macho points for not once pitching to Barry Bonds. I couldn’t give it to Torre. I think he’s pretty bleh as a manager and he got a lot of credit for his teams winning when they were in reality just a product of the Yankees forking over unimaginable payrolls. We’ll see what happens this year, b/c he sure isn’t getting the kind of free agents that he got when he was the Yankee skipper.
Comment by Wes— January 13, 2010 #
I feel much the same about Torre. He’s done nothing to impress me as the Dodger manager , but I couldn’t stand either Grittle or Tracy. (Davey Johnson is a non-entity as far as I’m concerned.)
The thing about Torre is, he’s been a sooper genius when he’s had good ballplayers (Yankees, Dodgers) and stunk when he hasn’t Mets, Braves, Cards).
Like Wes said, we’ll see how he does when he actually has to do something with the garbage that Frank and Ned are going to provide him with in 2010 and beyond.
Comment by Bill Grabarkewitz— January 13, 2010 #
There you go…the incumbent should usually have a leveraged advantage. So Torre gets the benefit of being the incumbent and the team that was a result attributable to Dan Evans.
Colletti’s incumbancy advantage wasn’t enough to overcome Evans. That is an impressive group of readers at MSTI to recognize what Evans did for the Dodgers and overcome the incumbency factor.
Comment by DTW Dodger— January 14, 2010 #
A+. The intelligence of those who read and comment here is really great.
Comment by Mike Scioscia's tragic illness— January 14, 2010 #
[...] (33%) Closer: Eric Gagne (71%) General Manager: Dan Evans (35%)/Ned Colletti (34%) Manager: Joe Torre [...]
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