Ralph Houk, "The Major," manager of two championship Yankees teams as well as the Tigers and the Red Sox, has died. Houk was many things: a legitimate World War II hero who received a Silver Star for courage under fire at the Battle of the Bulge; a backup catcher who was eternally stuck behind Yogi Berra and Charlie Silvera and thus maintained the least-valuable roster spot in baseball from 1950 through 1954; the manager who took over for Casey Stengel and became the feel-good, let 'em play alternative to the controlling older man; a guy who just had to lead off his bad second basemen; the general manager who hired, then undermined Yogi Berra; George Steinbrenner's first managerial scalp... I could go on and will in a longer consideration of Houk. For now, I'd like to share this brief passage from Season of Glory, the book that Houk co-authored with Robert Creamer. I've always been critical of Houk--he never won with a team that wasn't put together by Stengel and George Weiss, and his handling of Whitey Ford is ironically celebrated for the very reason that it was a bad idea--but he did have some ideas that might never have occurred to, say, Don Baylor. The reference to Baylor is pointed--this section refers to Houk's time as the manager of the Yankees' farm club at Denver from 1955-1957:

[Yankees co-owner Del Webb] loved baseball--he'd been a semipro pitcher... Denver was the top Yankee farm club and naturally Del and I would sit and talk about the ball club. He'd always say, "I like the way you handle pitchers." I had a tendency to leave a pitcher in a game a lot longer than other managers in the league did, even when they were being hit pretty hard. Del really liked that, being an old pitcher himself and from the old school where pitchers stayed in there and pitched.

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The by-now-familiar boilerplate: the inspiration here is Bill James' The Bill James Guide to Managers, which contains several of these "teams" for various historical managers. The idea is to find the peak player at each position and put together a “best-of” team. Previously I’ve compiled teams for Bobby Cox and Tony LaRussa.

This was the most surprising of the three managerial all-star teams we’ve done so far, because there wasn’t the same range of great players and seasons to choose from as there was for Cox and LaRussa; I’m pretty sure either of their teams would lick Piniella’s in any seven-game series. There is a reason that both of those managers are going to go to the Hall of Fame and Piniella might not; they’ve had the horses, or created them (if you chose to give them that much credit) while Piniella worked with some lesser rosters. Here is Sweet Lou’s team, featuring fewer Yankees than I expected:

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Inspired by the Yunel Escobar trade, I cobbled up the Bobby Cox All-Stars, a lineup of the best single-season performances that Cox has received at each position over the course of his 30-year managerial career. Due to a massive storm of requests--well, one guy, but I assume he stands for an army of millions--we now move on to LaRussa's best, culled from 33 seasons of managing. As with Cox, LaRussa's latest is for the most part his best--I couldn't find a place for early players like Chet Lemon 1980 or Harold Baines 1984. Those guys were very good, but didn't tower over their leagues the way some of Tony's later, possibly jet-fueled, hitters. 

Once again, the format is borrowed from Bill James' The Bill James Guide to Managers, which contains several of these "teams" for various historical managers. I've mostly relied on offensive measures to rank players, but did consult WARP, which does include defense, in the case of two similar players. I needed to do that here far more than with Cox; LaRussa has had so many good performances (everywhere except second base) that I had to add a DH and still didn't have room for everyone:

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In Bill James’ underappreciated book The Bill James Guide to Managers, James lists “All-Star Teams” for several of the great managers, choosing the best single-season performances the manager got at each position. This approach led to surprises, a subjective approach notwithstanding. Did Casey Stengel never have a better first baseman than Sam Leslie in 1934? Was Bobby Tolan really a better center fielder for Sparky Anderson than Chet Lemon? Al Bumbry ’80 for Earl Weaver’s center field instead of Paul Blair ’69?

It is premature to compile Bobby Cox’s all-time all-star team given that his players have through the end of the season to jump onto the list before the 69-year-old is expected to wrap up his Hall of Famer career. Despite this, I was inspired by the trade of Yunel Escobar to try to compile a list covering the manager’s 30-year career. The question I wanted to answer: did the Braves just trade the best single-season shortstop of Cox’s career? Escobar’s .299/.377/.436 and 14 home runs of last season would seem to be a strong year by a shortstop for a man who never managed any of the era’s Hall of Fame shortstops.

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Dead Player of the Day (Johnny Mostil Edition)

#27 Johnny Mostil CF 1918, 1921-1929 (1896-1970)

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With their ninth straight loss on Friday, the Orioles’ team winning percentage to .273. This puts them on a pace for a record of 44-118. It is a very, very special place to be in historically. This is probably my favorite list in all of baseball:

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Dead Player of the Day (Jack Fournier Edition)

#26 Jack “Jacques” Fournier 1B 1912-1918, 1920-1927 (1889-1973)

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Dead Player of the Day (Pinky Higgins Edition)

In which I open the encyclopedia to a random page and riff on what I find.

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Dead Player of the Day (Stan Hack Edition)

In which I open the encyclopedia to a random page and riff on what I find.

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Dead Player of the Day #23 (John Gochnaur Edition)

John Gochnaur SS 1901-1903 (1875-1929)

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Dead Player of the Day #22 (Thurman Munson Edition)

Thurman Munson C 1969-1979 (1947-1979)

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We started doing manager comments with the 2007 edition of the BP annual, so we got to review Ned Yost's performances from 2006 until the Brewers canned him with just 12 games to go in 2008. On the occasion of his hiring by the Kansas City Royals, a look back at what we thought of his Yost-ness during his Milwaukee blue period:

2007
Yost is one of the more conservative coaches in the business, making relatively few moves. He's not particularly worried about platoon matchups on either offense of defense, and as a result doesn't use a lot of lineups or go to the bullpen a million times a game; he pinch-hits infrequently for an NL manager, but gets decent results when he does. Yost isn't overly fond of the bunt, and the Brewers don't do it very well, but he does have a fondness for the squeeze play. He also likes the running game--another thing his Brewers haven't been particularly adept at--and the hit and run. With a young team that may soon deliver on its power-hitting potential, better Yost continues to observe his stay-the-course tendencies than give in to the smallball manager that's trying to break out.

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