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I just don’t think it matters much. The Red Sox apparently have their manager in Bobby Valentine, and it’s good to see one of the most active and flamboyant and active managers in recent memory get a fresh start with a good organization. Valentine was once one of the youngest managers in the game—he became the manager of the Rangers at 35—but other things got in the way, and after a ten-year hiatus that included stops in Japan and ESPN, he’ll be picking up his career at 62.  He was once a young manager for a young team—Valentine’s Rangers broke in Oddibe McDowell, Pete Incaviglia, Ruben Sierra, Edwin Correa, Jose Guzman, Mitch Williams, and Bobby Witt, among others, all at once. Now he’ll be an old manager for a veteran team.

Just as Casey Stengel said that you had to have a catcher or you’d have a lot of passed balls, a team has to have a manager because… well, it’s not exactly clear at this point, given win expectancy studies showing that most managers regularly botch games with bunt, steal, and intentional walk signals. I suppose it’s because without a manager, Albert Pujols might call his own inexplicable hit and run plays or your starting pitchers with 6.41 ERAs will sit in the clubhouse and clog their arteries with chicken-fried chicken fat with a side of batter-coated human fingers. The inmates can’t run the asylum, that is clear. One of Valentine’s good points is that he’s a restless, creative character who likes to draw attention to himself. He’s both the inmate and the asylum, and Boston has not seen that flavor of manager since Stengel himself grew sullen and morose managing a bankrupt Boston Braves team that he had to loan money to so it could make payroll.

That’s all good—better than an unwanted sequel like “Don Zimmer II: The Gerbil Reborn”—but there might not be much more than entertainment value in the move for the time being. As much as Valentine can be a progressive manager who loves to move players in and out of the game, he has never shown a consistent ability to get a team to overcome a conspicuous lack of talent. His sole World Series team, the 2000 Mets, far outplayed its Pythagorean record on the merits of some excellent relief work, a starting rotation that was that fronted by three lefties having strong seasons, and Mike Piazza. It was also blessed by having its worst player, shortstop Rey Ordonez, break his arm early in the season. Ordonez was a mirage Valentine could never see through (or if he did, couldn’t bring himself to quit), and his injury allowed the team to turn the position over to Kurt Abbot, Melvin Mora, and Mike Bordick. That wasn’t great either, but it probably gave the Mets a couple of wins over what Ordonez would have provided. Fate is not always so kind to a manager as to save him from his worst inclinations.

As that Mets team aged, Valentine was incapable of prodding a lineup of fading thirtysomethings and a rotation of Al Leiter, Pedro Astacio, Steve Trachsel, Jeff D’Amico, and Shawn Estes into contention. Nor could he get all those young Rangers moving in one direction for long enough to climb any higher than a distant second place. The elements of the pitching talent were there, from Nolan Ryan to Kenny Rogers to Kevin Brown, but they were never at the same stage of development at the same time. Valentine seems to have conceived Rogers almost exclusively in reliever terms, and that decision probably cost the Rangers several wins over the years, though it’s unlikely an alternative assessment would have pushed them into the postseason.

Valentine’s inability to sort out a rotation in the Texas years and the Mets’ almost total reliance on veteran pitchers during his tenure should be troubling for the Red Sox. We’re still looking for a second young pitcher to blossom under Valentine after Brown—Witt counts if you squint—and the vets came as fully formed products; whatever Leiter accomplished in his career, he figured it out a few years before he ever pulled on a Mets jersey. The Red Sox are short of starting pitchers right now. We can assume Jon Lester, Josh Beckett, and Clay Buchholz will head up the rotation, health permitting, but the identity of the remaining two starters is unknown at this writing. Lackey is out and Daisuke Matsuzaka won’t be ready to start the season. Do the Sox give Andrew Miller another spin? Felix Doubront? Is Junichi Tazawa still an option as he comes back from Tommy John surgery? Should Alfredo Aceves come out of the pen? These are options that haven’t worked for Valentine in the past. New GM Ben Cherington might be better off going the free agent route.

It’s hard to say why a manager isn’t good at something. With the Rangers, he became so frustrated with his young charges’ command problems that he vowed to hook them if they ever walked two consecutive batters in a row. It’s nice to think you can mature a pitcher by fiat, but Valentine demonstrated that it’s not so simple. One of the problems with young players is that when they don’t work out, you can’t know if they failed due to a lack of talent, the way they were handled, or if they simply got hurt. If Valentine, who is old school in singling out players for tough love in the press and perhaps the clubhouse, has problems communicating with his young charges, that might explain his poor track record in this regard.

Valentine reminds me a great deal of something Stengel said about Billy Martin: “He’s a good manager. He might be a little selfish about some of the things he does, and he may think he knows more about baseball than anybody else, but it wouldn’t surprise me if he was right.” Valentine clearly knows a great deal about baseball, and he’s willing to be adventurous in his decisions, which, as we will show in Extra Innings: More Baseball Between the Numbers, can’t be said of many of his peers. But the shattered Red Sox don’t necessarily need adventurous now. What they need, even more than a strong hand in a chicken-free clubhouse, is a manager who knows how to rebuild a pitching staff. Ben Cherington knows this, which is why his rumored avid pursuit of John Farrell makes all the sense in the world. For all Valentine has done, for all he knows, he has yet to show an aptitude for doing the one thing that will make a real difference next year.

Thank you for reading

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prs130
11/30
rotation problem solved: bring Leiter and Trachsel back! that also solves the problem of red sox/yankees games going too fast. (somebody has to pick up the slack now that posada is gone.)
brucegilsen
12/10
I bring a pillow to baseball games to sit on - it's good for my back.

I went to a Met game back then that Traschel was pitching. On entry, the ticket taker asked me about the pillow, and I said, "Traschel is pitching", and we all had a good laugh.
sam19041
11/30
Bah humbug, Steve! I say baseball will be a brighter place with Bobby V back in the game. We need more than the humorless automatons. A few more Bobby V / Ron Washington types would be a good thing!
sam19041
11/30
Excuse me... Steven.
orlandoca7
12/01
I am no Valentine lover, but this seems an unfair summary of Valentine's managerial record and talent, and one that completely ignores his work in Japan.
bossfan101
12/01
It seems Valentine played the hands he was dealt, as far as starting staffs go. He had the vets in New York, so he ran them out there. Were there any pitchers that should have developed but didn't under his watch? Witt never really harnessed his stuff, but he didn't in his other stops either. Guzman Correa and Williams all showed flashes, but none ever stuck for long in a rotation.
mattymatty2000
12/01
Great work as always, Steven. Only complaint is the Over The Monster link is broken.
hotstatrat
12/01
This may be an over simplification, but both the Rangers and Mets improved quite a bit during Valentine's tenure over the years leading up to his hiring. Neither Gil Hodges, Jim Lemon, Whitey Herzog (not given much of a chance), Billy Martin, Don Zimmer, or Doug Rader were able to elevate the Rangers as Valentine did. It wasn't until nearly 20 years later Ron Washington was able to do better. Valentine is the Mets' 3rd or 4th most successful manager depending on whether you rank him above or below Willie Randolf. Davey Johnson and Gil Hodges did better. Valentine did better than Joe Torre, Art Howe, Jeff Torborg, and Yogi Berra to name the most prominent former Mets managers.

You can buy veterans, but they don't always perform up to expectations. Choosing the right players for the right roles may be more important than employing the right strategy at the right moment, but keeping the players inspired and focused to play their best could be the most important role for a manager. That could be Valentine's strength.
jjaffe
12/02
Going to dispute your inclusion of Billy Martin in that grouping. In September 1973, Martin took over a team en route to a 57-105 season and a 6th place finish in the AL West. The next year the Rangers went 84-76, exceeding their Pythagorean by five games and helping the team to a 2nd place finish, their highest ever to that point. It wasn't sustained, as didn't make it through the next season, fired with a 44-51 record, as the team finished 79-83.

Valentine guided the Rangers to 87 wins and 2nd place in his second season, but then went through two seasons well below .500 before winning 83 in his fifth, and he never got them above third place again.
69wildcat
12/01
Anything that gets Valentine out of the Sunday Night Baseball booth is a positive in my opinion. Perhaps he can hire Orel Hershiser as his pitching coach and we will be doubly blessed.
jthom17
12/01
I have not follower Valetine closely since has 7+years in Texas. Hopefully for Boston fans, he has matured & improved. He often fustrated me as a season ticket holder with his style. He only stayed so long in Texas because he and the GM were great buddies. They had to fire the GB before they could fire Valentine.
His teams were poor defensive teams & did not play good fundamental baseball. His focus seemed to be offense only. Every spring he would talk about focusing more on defense & pitching -- But never did.
His ego was always on dispay. He would often critize his players through the media.
As I said hopefully, he has improved.
I do not understand why baseball, keeps recylcing the same old managers. I would think someone younger would relate better to players & better understand the sabermetrics side of the game. There has to be some good young managers in the minor leagues. It does not seem to be a good career path.
StarkFist
12/02
I met Bobby Valentine during his time with the Mets. It was Sept 2001. The Towers had gone down, my Mets were wearing police & fireman ballcapsb in game, and I was looking for something useful that I could do, in the wake of such an incomprehensible tragedy. I heard on the radio that the Shea Stadium parking lot was being used as a loading dock for crates of food going into lower Manhattan to feed the workers digging through the wreckage at Ground Zero. So I went and volunteered to load and unload crates. Spent an afternoon there, working up a sweat.

And Bobby V. was the foreman of the work crew. When I finished for the day, he slapped me on the shoulder and thanked me for coming down.
WaldoInSC
12/04
Two consecutive batters . . . in a row? Would that be four straight?