Thursday, November 12, 2009
Local heroes as managers
Posted by Chris JaffeYa know, when I sat down to write this piece for my blog, I thought it would be a nice, little short thing - kinda like one of my typical THT Live posts. It turned out to be akin to one of my columns here, not a Live post.
In response to a newspaper column earlier this week by Mike Imrem, I wonder if it's actually true if a team has a hard time firing a manager who used to be a star player for them. I found the answer a bit surprising, but was able to figure out a conclusion that made sense to me at least.
Short version: star players don't seem to have a longer managerial shelf life, and if anything many are fired quicker than normal. I figure it's because their local fame allows them to get hired in the first place, rather than a sense that they're always the most qualified person for the job.
History instructor by day, statnerd by night, Chris Jaffe leads one of the most exciting double lives imaginable; with the exception of every other double life possible to imagine. Despite his lack of comic-book-hero-worthiness, Chris enjoys farting around with this stuff. His new book, Evaluating Baseball's Managers is available for order. Chris welcomes responses to his articles via e-mail.