Each season, Nick Cafardo of The Boston Globe opens his Spring Training coverage by ranking the league's managers from 1-30. His ranking is not only based on his own opinion, but opinions that he's able to collect from around the league.
A year ago, Cafardo ranked Ryne Sandberg as the league's 24th best manager, which was a pretty high mark considering how poorly he managed the club in 2014 and that he would eventually resign from the job during an embarrassing 2015 campaign.
This season's countdown was released today and Cafardo ranked Pete Mackanin, now the Phillies' full-time manager, as the league's 21st best manager. He offered this reasoning:
Mackanin doesn't have the sexy name, but he can manage. Sometimes executives look for excuses to bring in their own guy, or someone with name value to excite the masses. But as Ryne Sandberg came to realize in Philadelphia, that doesn't always work.
Mackanin is not a sexy name, as evidenced by the fact that he's a 64 year-old who has coached in the league since 1997 and is entering his first Spring Training as manager. But that's not necessarily a bad thing. Bruce Arians of the Arizona Cardinals comes to mind as someone who seemed unlikely to ever get a head-coaching job just five years ago, before stumbling into being an interim coach and making the best of it. Whether Mackanin has the same amount of success that Arians has after making the best of his initial opportunity remains to be seen, but it's an interesting parallel.
Most returns on Mackanin last season were that he was everything that Sandberg wasn't: he was a good in-game manager and connected with modern athletes. He also is fluent in Spanish, which is valuable considering the increasing Latin influence in today's game. That led to a 37-51 record (.420 winning percentage) under Mackanin, as compared to a 26-48 record (.351 winning percentage) under Sandberg.
Mackanin's successful audition as interim manager last season essentially earned him a longer audition this year, as new president Andy MacPhail gave him a one-year deal. Keep in mind, that deal was given before MacPhail hired new general manager Matt Klentak.
Klentak seems to be very flexible and though he's sabermetrics driven, seems to understand that the team needs a mix between sabermetrics and traditional "baseball people", which is the category that Mackanin and MacPhail would seem to fall under. The working relationship between Klentak and Mackanin will be worth monitoring this season, because it will determine whether Mackanin or someone else is the team's long-term manager.
Tim Kelly (@TimKellySports) is the Managing Editor of Philliedelphia.com, focusing on news and features.
