As the regular season came to a close, the Tigers fired former good luck charm Alan Trammell and hired veteran manager Jim Leyland. Or to be more accurate, Jim Leyland came down from on high and deigned to manage the lowly Tigers next season.

When last heard from, Leyland was campaigning for the Phillies job last season when everyone in the land of hoagies knew that Ed Wade was hiring his own version of Harriet E. Miers, the portly obtuse Charlie Manuel. Leyland seemed scorned the Mets to join the Phils' hunt late in the process even though Wade and Manuel had already been seen holding hands in public. He played the Jennifer to Wade and Manuel's Brad and Angelina. In the fallout somehow the press sided with Leyland, perhaps because he was at least a credible managerial candidate.

Now, suddenly the Tigers have to kiss his ring to get him to debase himself into actually managing their club. What papal bull! Meanwhile Dave Johnson can't get a jingle.

I know that Leyland had a great run with the Bonds & Bonilla Pirates, and he helmed the Marlins to the first, free agent-laden Series championship. But when did he become the second coming of John McGraw. Let's not forget his last managerial stint was a stellar one-year, 70-92 run with the Rockies.

Overall, Leyland is a losing manager. In fact, he is one of a handful of managers to win a thousand games and still lose more than he won. He is the only active one:

That made wonder how many times a team had hired a manager who had already lost a thousand times as the Tigers did in hiring Leyland. So I looked it up…

It's the fourteenth time that a team has turned to a thousand-time loser. The last time when the D-Rays hired Lou Piniella, and we all know how well that turned out. Here's the complete list ranked by most losses at the time of hiring. I also list how the team performed in the manager's first season:

On average the new team had a ,488 winning percentage, which translates into 79 wins in a 162-game schedule, only eight more than the Tigers won this year. Of course, this is in no way definitive, but it demonstrates that hiring a veteran manager who hasn't had nonpareil success previous is unlikely to have a one-year turnaround with his new club.