By The Common Man
Note: Today’s firing of Bob Geren, the first managerial change of 2011, gives The Common Man an excuse to update and re-present his data regarding the benefit of changing managers in the middle of the season, which he originally rolled out in
just over a year ago. As he points out in the article below, however, all situations are unique. While TCM’s ultimate conclusions are that changing the manager tends not to actually help all that much, despite what talking heads on baseball broadcasts might tell you, those changes are clearly warranted in many cases. For instance, in this case, it sounds like Bob Geren has effectively lost the A’s clubhouse. In that case, to prevent a further poisoning of the environment around a team, making a move is actually the smartest move you can make. But for the most part, changing managers doesn’t do anything to change the actual performance of a team on the field, at least during the season in question. See below. (Note, all figures have been adjusted to reflect the six in-season managerial changes last year).
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Is it a good idea, in general, to fire the manager during the season? Since the Royals shuffled Trey Hillman out for Ned Yost last year, The Common Man has wondered whether changing horses in midstream is generally a good idea. So he went back and looked at every team that switched managers midseason from 1901 until today, to see what kind of differences a new manager might make.
