October 30, 2007

Francona: Greatest Post-season Manager?

It might be too early to annoit Terry Francona as the greatest post-season manager in baseball history -- although his tactical skills have been completely beyond reproach and have led me to rethink almost all of my previous complaints about him.

However, among managers who have managed at least 20 post-season games, he has the highest winning percentage:
                            W   L   PCT
Terry Francona, Bos 22 9 .710
Joe McCarthy, NYY 30 13 .698
Tom Kelly, Min 16 8 .667
Bob Lemon, NYY 15 9 .625
Sparky Anderson, Cin-Det 34 21 .618
Joe Torre's post-season record with the Yankees was 76-48 (.613). He was 4-14 (.222) in his last 18 post-season games with the Chokers. Which means that after Game 3 of the 2004 ALCS, Torre's record stood at an impressive 72-34 (.679) -- still not as good as Tito's mark, though Torre obviously managed many more games.

Francona is the 19th manager to win multiple championships and he is the first manager in history to win his first eight World Series games.

9 comments:

Rob said...

Governor Obvious (MA Gov., Deval Patrick): I was doing a radio call-in show, actually in New Hampshire, and I can tell you that Red Sox Nation extends beyond the borders of the Commonwealth.

I'd say that Deval Patrick is such a tool, but Tom Menino is standing right next to him.

Rob said...

LL called Beckett's Game 5 ALCS performance, "Very Manly"

I wish I had a tape so I could tape this for you and L. Is there anyone else recording this? Maybe Cakey?

Rob said...

Schilling: I'd like to come back for one more year and pitch for the Red Sox, and then retire.

Jack said...

Huh, each year the Sox have made the playoffs with Tito, they've lost 3 games. Interesting...

s1c said...

Ish - WEEI's interview with Schilling was very good. Not for sure if you saw his latest post at 38 pitches but he basically said good byes. He reiterated again that its 1 year at this years price, that is all he is asking for and if the Sox don't do it, then that is the way it goes.

I also got the feeling if the Sox do tell him no, he would just go somewhere else even if it was for less money. Will be interesting to see what happens.

Zenslinger said...

I think that, given his large sample size, Torre can be given a break. Francona's got a ways to go before he can be considered a better post-season manager than Joe -- but I think he'll have the opportunity to do so over the next few years, glad to say.

Film Scholar said...

I think Francona is one of the most underrated managers in sports. He's helped his team down 3-0 and 3-1 and go on to sweep the next series, which happened just happend to be a little thing they call The World Series. I'm glad the sox got him. If they would have lost I would have made a J.D Drew voodoo doll

allan said...

Sounded more like G38 was writing letters to marginal players who would not be with the Sox next year. Don't think he was writing to Tiz and Beckett.

CaKeY said...

[i]Huh, each year the Sox have made the playoffs with Tito, they've lost 3 games. Interesting...[/i]

Three in a row even.