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Washington to Rest In Arlington
2006-11-06 21:53
by Mike Carminati

Long-time A's coach Ron Washington has finally gotten the call to manage. He takes over the Rangers for 2007. I can't help but think that Willie Randolph's success with the Mets had something to do with it. Both Washington and Randolph were veteran African-American coaches and both were middle infielders as players. And Ozzie Guillen probably didn't hurt.

It's also a reverse of decade-long hold that backup catchers had on the cherce managerial spots. Here's a quick tally by position of managerial record (data through 2005):

POSGWLPCT#yrs
C 737233587737366.490594
OF 674393359333322.502557
2B 506462528725136.501407
3B 394011979719371.505324
SS 387771913319426.496307
1B 314641592315287.510257
P 227011126911286.500191
DH 267512671407.47418
Total326826162146162601.4992655
Avg408532026820325.499332

So shortstops like Washington are a bit below the average for all positions, but they're miles ahead of pitchers. I guess Bob Lemon could do only so much, especially when he was getting fired on a semi-annual basis in New York.

Given that Washington had to wait so long for a managing job, he will be a 55-year-old rookie manager next year. He is one of a handful of managers to debut that late (or later) in life:

Age#WLPCT
6614650.479
6416795.414
6215272.419
60273121.376
5817173.493
574180177.504
565211192.524
5510308381.447

The bad news is that the winning percentage for this group is .465 on average in their debut year.

Finally, Washington becomes just the 15th manager with a presidential last name. That is, they have a last name that matches that of a U.S. president. Here they are with their career totals:

LastFirstYrsWLPCT
BushDonie7497539.480
ClintonJim1011.000
JohnsonDarrell8472590.444
JohnsonDavey141148888.564
JohnsonRoy101.000
JohnsonTim18874.543
JohnsonWalter7529432.550
KennedyBob4264278.487
KennedyJim12673.263
KennedyKevin4309273.531
NixonRuss5231347.400
TaylorGeorge14064.385
TaylorZack5235410.364
WilsonJimmie9493735.401

Yeah, it was a slow news day.

Comments
2006-11-06 22:18:34
1.   das411
Cool data, but is there any way you can add the names to that chart of oldest-debut managers Mike?
2006-11-07 03:07:29
2.   Bluebleeder87
how about adding the youngest just for fun?
2006-11-07 03:07:50
3.   Bluebleeder87
i have insomnia today
2006-11-07 06:26:57
4.   mehmattski
I would assume the reason the position chart doesn't add up to .500 is that managers who never played any professional baseball account for somewhere between 0.5 and 1 percent of all managed games. According to your numbers that's still 32,000 games managed by "baseball outsiders." What's their record?
2006-11-07 06:39:35
5.   mehmattski
4 Forgive my screwy math above, it's early in the morning. If you add your total wins to your total losses, it's less than your total games. I take this as meaning there have been 2,089 ties in the history of baseball. And that there have been zero managers who have never played professional baseball. I solved my own mystery!
2006-11-07 17:25:15
6.   Mike Carminati
The oldest debuts for a manager:

Age Name Yr W L
66 Tom Sheehan 1960 46 50
64 Bobby Mattick 1980 67 95
62 Red Corriden 1950 52 72
60 Luke Appling 1967 10 30
60 Jack Onslow 1949 63 91
58 Phil Regan 1995 71 73
57 Joe Morgan 1988 46 31
57 Felipe Alou 1992 70 55
57 Don Gutteridge 1969 60 85
57 Bill Adair 1970 4 6
56 Hank Gowdy 1946 3 1
56 Billy Meyer 1948 83 71
56 Dave Garcia 1977 35 46
56 Hans Lobert 1938 0 2
56 Charlie Manuel 2000 90 72
55 Andy Cohen 1960 1 0
55 Mel Queen 1997 4 1
55 Jim Snyder 1988 45 60
55 Jerry Coleman 1980 73 89
55 Frank Skaff 1966 40 39
55 Eddie Popowski 1969 5 4
55 Don Heffner 1966 37 46
55 Davey Lopes 2000 73 89
55 Connie Ryan 1975 9 18
55 Bill Cammeyer 1876 21 35

The youngest:

Age Name Yr W L
20 John Clapp 1872 5 19
20 John Ward 1880 18 13
21 Jim Clinton 1872 0 11
21 Joe Miller 1872 0 11
22 Bill Boyd 1875 0 2
22 Bob Allen 1890 25 10
22 Cal McVey 1873 20 13
22 Holly Hollingshead 1875 4 16
22 Jim McCormick 1879 27 55
22 Juice Latham 1875 4 14
23 Bill Lennon 1871 5 9
23 Cap Anson 1875 4 2
23 Charlie Comiskey 1883 12 7
23 Dick Higham 1874 29 11
23 Fred Dunlap 1882 42 36
23 Jack Farrell 1881 24 27
23 Jack Manning 1877 7 12
23 Roger Peckinpaugh 1914 10 10
23 Scott Hastings 1871 4 21
23 Silver Flint 1879 5 12
24 Bill Holbert 1879 0 1
24 Charlie Pabor 1871 10 19
24 Dan Shannon 1889 10 46
24 Deacon White 1872 0 2
24 Fred Clarke 1897 35 54
24 George Davis 1895 16 17
24 Harry Stovey 1881 8 18
24 Henry Myers 1882 19 54
24 Jimmy Macullar 1879 5 21
24 John Hatfield 1872 24 14
24 Lou Boudreau 1942 75 79
24 Mike McGeary 1875 34 27
24 Tom Carey 1873 14 9

2006-11-07 17:47:15
7.   Bluebleeder87
57 Joe Morgan 1988 46 31

Joe Morgan?? i've heard Vin Scully talk greatly of him but i never ever thought he managed.

2006-11-07 17:47:52
8.   Bluebleeder87
young was the rave back then i guess
2006-11-07 17:55:47
9.   das411
Interesting how all of the super-young managers were so long ago (except for Boudreau) and the oldest are relatively recently...
2006-11-07 22:08:22
10.   Mike Carminati
9 Back in the day there were a tremendous amount of player-managers.

7 That's the other Joe Morgan.

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