Top Managers

The Yankees always start off slow, and even though that's not really an adequate excuse, it's still too early to say that Girardi should be fired. However, at some point Girardi has to you know, get the Yankees to play above .500 baseball. The Yankees can play the injury card if they want, they are missing a top 5 player, Wang has been worse than if he was just hurt all year, and their only setup men who have succeeded in the majors are on the DL. But, the Red Sox are without Dice K and Papi has the same ops+ as Ramiro Pena.

You could argue which is worse all you want, but the point is injuries are part of the game, and the Yankees have been very bad at dealing with them, they have a great team but currently they arguably have 11 players on the roster who should be in the minor leagues. It's still only May, and unless you are the Dodgers, the division is still wide open, but I think it would be safe to say Girardi isn't among the best managers. That makes us ask who are the best? John Heyman lists his:

1. La Russa, Cardinals: We can't ever forget he won a World Series in 2006 with a team that was generally considered the eighth-best of eight in the playoffs. But even better, he and pitching coach Dave Duncan consistently have gotten the most out of their roster ever since.

4. Joe Torre, Dodgers: Sure, I thought his time was up with the Yankees. And I've heard the claims that he's lucked into yet another great situation with the Dodgers. But his teams just keep winning, and you can't argue with that kind of success.

7. Ozzie Guillen, White Sox: There's really no good reason not to love Ozzie besides occasional political incorrectness. Sure, he's goofy. But don't let that fool you. He's smart. We can't forget he ran the table with a very good but not great team in 2005.

Others: There was criticism in past years for ranking Bobby Cox in the second five, and I'll have to accept what comes my way now for omitting him altogether. But this isn't 1995 anymore. Cox was a very good manager in his heyday, and players consistently vouch for him, even today. But he was never great strategically and he's lost a vast majority of one-run road games in recent years, including a record 29 straight on the road that was ended last Sept 13 (some of that may be attributable to a shaky bullpen, though).

I totally agree with LaRussa, he is in a class by himself. He does have the best player in the game, but he doesn't have much more than that. What he and Dave Duncan has done is utterly incredible. Leo Mazzone was credited as being a pitching genius, but he was also given three Hall of Famers, and we saw what he did (or didn't) do in Baltimore. Chris Carpenter, Jeff Weaver, Kyle Lohse, Joel Pineiro, Todd Wellemeyer, Duncan and LaRussa have brought in pitcher after pitcher who were really just bad and made them pitch quality innings.

The only real problem with the list is that this is about managers today yet Heyman tells us we can't forget about LaRussa in 2007, Ozzie in 2005, the early 90s with Cito Gasten, and Torre on the Yankees but that we should forget about Bobby Cox. I don't think Cox could go from a great manager for 15 years, then become one of the lesser managers that easily. I suppose it's not that bold of me to criticize a guy who's saying I understand I'm going to be criticized for doing this, but don't one run games have a lot to do with luck, and as he even mentioned, bullpens?