The following baseball managers are the best of the best. With a range of temperaments and management styles, these managers are all considered great for different reasons.
Highest Win Percentage
Surprisingly, the manager with the highest win percentage never played major league baseball. Joe McCarthy played over 10 seasons on minor league teams but the lingering effects of a childhood knee injury prevented him from advancing to the majors. An introspective man with a gruff manner, McCarthy spent 24 years managing the Cubs, Yankees and Red Sox leading such baseball greats as Lou Gehrig, Babe Ruth and Joe DiMaggio. McCarthy’s .615 win percentage is unmatched in baseball history and ranks him as one of the greatest baseball managers of all time.
Greatest Number of Wins… And Losses
No list of great baseball managers can exclude Connie Mack, a giant of the game whose baseball career as player, manager and team owner lasted 65 years. Mack played 11 seasons in the major leagues before managing the Milwaukee Brewers for four seasons. In 1901, Mack moved to the Philadelphia Athletics, where he remained as manager for nearly 50 years. Mack had a reputation as a gentleman who never raised his voice and was so respected that he was inducted into the baseball Hall of Fame in 1937, a full 13 years before retiring at age 88. Mack’s 3,731 victories and 3,948 losses are both baseball records.
Most World Series Games Won
Casey Stengel joins the list of great baseball managers for most World Series game victories, although he ties Joe McCarthy for the largest number of World Series Championships. Stengel executed a rather successful major league career from 1910 to 1925 with a brief hiatus to serve in World War 1. His subsequent career as a manager with the Dodgers, Braves and several minor league teams was less than impressive until he took the helm of the Yankees in 1949. Stengel led the Yankees to seven World Series championships between 1949 and 1958, and won more World Series games as a manager than any other.
Manager of the Year Two Years In a Row – And Most Ejections
Bobby Cox managed the Atlanta Braves twice. His first term between 1978 and 1981 was followed by an impressive four season stint in Toronto. Cox returned to the Braves as general manager in 1985 and took over as fi
eld manager in 1990. After the Braves dismal decade of the 1980s, Cox revived the team in the 1990s and was named Manager of the Year by the Sporting News publication four times during his career. Cox also has the greatest number of ejections from a game, being thrown off the field a total of 159 times.
Best All Around
Long before he retired in 2011, Tony LaRussa began appearing on “best managers of all time” lists compiled by sports experts and journalists. LaRussa played major league ball intermittently between 1963 and 1973 before going to law school in the mid-1970s. He then managed the Oakland A’s and Chicago White Sox for a combined 17 years before becoming manager of the St. Louis Cardinals in 1995. LaRussa is one of only two managers with 500 or more victories with three different teams and one of only two managers with a World Series win in both the American and National Leagues. He is also second only to Connie Mack in number of games managed. For all of these accomplishments and more, LaRussa makes the cut as one of the top five baseball managers of all time.
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Seth Roberts is a lifelong baseball enthusiast who has turned his love for sports into a career. You can read his latest article on getting an online masters in sports management at TopManagementDegrees.com.
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