Terry Francona enters. As field manager of the wealthy and dedicated Boston Red Sox – and later of the Chris Antonetti-led Cleveland organization – Francona enjoyed the fruits of the former’s well-spent money and the latter’s frugal, shrewd front-office leadership, culminating in a managerial record that portends his induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame one day. And Francona just radiated responsibility.
If the question was who could push a group of electric weapons and a young core of promising, lumbering youngsters to a postseason run, Terry Francona was never the answer, because managers — regardless of background — simply don’t enjoy that kind of influence on player production.
Hallmarks like “good managers put players in position to succeed” are empty calories masquerading as baseball wisdom. As with another meaningless sporting insight – “momentum” – fed to the public by “expert” NFL commentators looking to fill the time and make sense of every moment, it is a truth that should have been buried long ago among the dead in Shakespeare’s Agincourt.
For Reds fans, this is a very tough pill to swallow. A beloved Sparky Anderson inherited a burgeoning superstar in Johnny Bench, a ruthless Pete Rose, and a supporting cast of great talent in Tony Perez and Lee May, along with just enough pitching talent that flourished together – if only briefly for some – all backed up by a brilliant front office run by Bob Howsam, who would only add the greatest second baseman to ever walk the earth and, um, furthered the addition of some serious machine-like force via trade to compensate for the loss of May.
Lou Piniella benefited from a talented roster that won 87 games under manager Rose in 1988, partially recovering from the media circus that engulfed the franchise during the former manager’s gambling scandal, which led to a disappointing 75-win season. That 91-win championship season started off in a sprint, as the club raced to a 30-12 record through May, before the momentum faded over the next four months as the team barely managed a .500 record.
These two men led teams responsible for 3 of the 5 World Championships that defined the first professional baseball club. It is completely understandable that they are so highly regarded. So much so that local media and podcasters are now watching Francona, convinced he has the same magic wand Sparky waved. Reds radio play man Tommy Thrall was so enthralled (sorry, not sorry) that he called Terry worth 10 wins, which must have made ownership absolutely giddy as they no longer have to consider trading the entire farm system for the likes of Aaron Judge, who was rated 10.1 wins above replacement by Fangraphs this past season.
If managers are so crucial to a team’s success, why did the Padres hire Craig Stammen, a former reliever with no significant coaching experience? Tony Vitello will patrol the Giants dugout, even with no professional experience. The Twins looked at longtime Pirates manager Derek Shelton and said, “He’s our guy,” no doubt because of all that success in Pittsburgh. Walt Weiss is back, this time in Atlanta. Apparently there’s more to his skills than what he showed a decade ago in Colorado, never winning more than 75 games.
If you really believe that major league baseball managers have a baseball-like Paul Skenes grip on a club’s fate, can someone tell me why Craig Counsell, the highest-paid manager in the history of the game, made about the same as Emilio Pagán last year? No one in Milwaukee seems concerned about losing the brilliant Counsell. His replacement has just won Manager of the Year for the second season in a row.
Clearly, the people doing the hiring—the ones you’d think would know best what makes a successful manager—have no idea, and instead hesitate, whether to turn to college coaches, strict schoolmasters, or simply choose from a vending machine of old boy network choices.
TThe Reds won 83 games with Francona at the helm. Two years ago they won 82 with the previous man driving the bus. If you think the six-win difference from 2024 was a testament to Ten-Win Tito’s leadership, well, okay. Maybe you’ve been to a clubhouse that I wasn’t given access to. But those two teams were different. Francona got plenty of valuable innings from Brady Singer and a resurgent Noelvi Marté. He got more from TJ Friedl, but less from Elly. He got fewer innings from Hunter Greene, but an All-Star season from Andrew Abbott. Neither manager got any offense from Matt McLain, but at least Francona got some defense, something Jonathan India was short on.
What it all added up to was a 2025 team that produced a weighted run rate of +92, versus their 2024 wRC+ of +89. Francona was gifted a team pitching performance that produced a team ERA of 3.86, while the 2024 version produced a 4.09 ERA. Marginal, but real differences. Add to that the variety that comes with the game of baseball, the way the ball bounces, etc., and it’s easy to see what caused that win spread of six, rather than attributing it solely to the new pair of legs pulling on those manager’s baseball pants.
While fans everywhere denounced the 2024 Reds for — as one radio man put it — “running around like idiots on the base paths, imagine that!”, ignoring information that showed they were achieving success at the same pace people routinely praise the Brewers for, a year later they did a U-turn and blasted Francona for hitting the brakes during the running game.
The same idiotic blame game that was laid at the feet of the last man turned its gaze on Francona, as this is perfectly embodied:
You can’t make this stuff up. And by a former player, no less.
We tend to mythologize managers who win. George Anderson understandably stands head and shoulders above the others in that respect. I tend to think that the most important quality a manager can have is the respect of his players. Losing a clubhouse is a reality. Additionally, Francona may have a philosophy that requires starting pitchers to go deeper into games, but if Hunter Greene tells his manager he’s ready to come out of the game after 99 pitches and 6 innings in a postseason elimination game, as Tarik Skubal told respected manager AJ Hinch after throwing 16 pitches at 100 miles per hour or more, you take him out.
Yes, dear manager, you may want your players to embrace more situational hitting, but you better have players who can do that or you may just be giving up run balls for weak double play grounders.
The reality of today’s game tells us that front offices make the crucial decisions that guys like Earl Weaver used to have. I don’t care much about the individual decisions a manager makes during the season. If one works, great. If not, he will have to recalibrate tomorrow and make a different choice. I do care about the decisions a manager makes when the season is on the line. John Schneider’s love of sacrificial flags may very well have cost the Blue Jays their World Series rings, just as Dusty Baker’s decision to keep Aroldis Chapman in the bullpen while he spit sunflower seeds during high-leverage situations that weren’t worthy may have kept Cincinnati from sweeping the San Francisco Giants in 2012.
If you’re saying that the lackluster final four months of the season were turned around by Piniella’s demanding leadership, I’d ask you to check the box scores of those ten postseason games, especially the ones in which the mighty bats of the Oakland Athletics held eight runs over four games. José Rijo, Tom Browning, Rob Dibble and Randy Myers answered the bell for Lou. They threw. The Reds have made history.
THey, tell Sparky Bench, Rose & Co. has been in charge of maintaining order in the clubhouse and setting the tone. If you say that the respect these tremendous talents had for their manager made that possible, I agree. But in the end, the players did the heavy lifting, just like Scott Rolen did for Baker. That’s how it always works out in the end, no matter how much we insist on mythologizing the father figures of our ball game.
Or, as Weaver said when asked how many games a manager wins and loses during a season, he replied: “Every game.”
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