TDA Bullpen - Our Writers' Blog

Monday, March 14, 2005

The First Hall of Fame Coach...?

There's been a little rattling of late to create a special wing of the Hall of Fame for scouts, to recognize both the outstanding talent-spotters, and in general to give some acknowledgement to the vast underpaid army that for 120 years populated the major leagues with players. While I can't say I'm opposed to the idea, it strikes me that the role of scouts can only continue to diminish in an age when t-ball games are videotaped and stats kept and reported on nearly every youth game any potential major leaguer plays -- at least in North America. In-person evaluation will always be a necessity, but the talent scout aspect of evaluation, and advance scouting, becomes a far narrower and more technical field as time goes on. One strongly suspects that in the past the cream of the scouts would rise to different organizational jobs -- Director of Minor League Operations, perhaps a GM job, where they could be recognized in turn for special achievement. That's not to say some scouts don't deserve recognition qua scouts -- it's just among the several Hall of Fame injustices, this is a relatively minor omission. Not so a few other deserving specialty areas (not the least of which is the complete lack of any women players, despite very good scholarship on the AAGPBL. Go to the Basketball Hall of Fame, you'll find plenty of women among the "regular" members.)

There are no Hall of Fame coaches. There are Hall of Fame Managers, and many coaches who made the Hall on other achievements, but nobody who entered solely for their contributions as a coach. The reason is, of course, if a coach was considered to be any good, he'd eventually get a managerial job, and then would be judged on the merits of his performance in that role. From Clark Griffith and Tommy LaSorda to Joe Kerrigan and Ray Miller, pitching coaches either cut it or were cut as managers. (It is worth noting that of the Hall of Fame Managers, only a handful were pitchers.) The pitching coaches who get fired as managers tend to go back to coaching and rarely resurface as managers.

But as we've entered a new era of specialization, there are some exceptions emerging: coaches, particularly pitching coaches, who have deliberately chosen to remain coaches despite the opportunity to move "up" to the manager's seat. As we enter the 2005 season, St. Louis Manager Tony LaRussa is sixth on the all-time wins list for managers with 2114. Another 80 wins -- probable this year with a defending NL-Champion Cardinal roster -- he'll move into third, behind the unpassable John McGraw and Connie Mack. With him as pitching coach for 1876 of those wins, since the 1983 Chicago White Sox and through ten years with the Oakland A's and ten more with the Cardinals, has been Dave Duncan.

Insofar as LaRussa's Hall of Fame credentials are nearly inpeccable (despite winning "only" one World's Championship), it's hard to distinguish much of that record from Duncan's role as the great innovator of pitching roles. The LaRussa-Duncan team perfected the modern approach of six or seven innings from a starter, followed by pre-defined set-up roles, capped off by the one-inning close. Fans may curse the extra half hour pitching changes have brought into the game, but the LaRussa-Duncan approach is now nearly universal, and an important part of the chess match of most close games. Dave Duncan made a Cy Young winner out of the likes of LaMarr Hoyt and Bob Welch, and made a Hall of Famer out of Dennis Eckersley, who was barely hanging on as a below-average starter when Duncan and LaRussa put him in the defined closer's role. Duncan and LaRussa were the first managers to openly use a "book" -- literally -- to get optimal match-ups between hitter and pitcher. LaRussa has won Manager of the Year four time with three different clubs; the pitching staffs fot those clubs were 4th, 3rd twice, and best in the league despite such immortal presences as Mike Moore, Rich Dotson, Bob Welch, and Storm Davis among his rotation stalwarts.

I sense an imminent decline in LaRussa's reputation because of the steroids controversy, so his Hall of Fame coattails may be very short, indeed (unlike Sparky Anderson, who has dragged in a member or two of the Big Red Machine along with him to Cooperstown.) More's the pity for Duncan, part of one of the greatest coaching-managerial combinations of all-time. Since there's no "coaches" wing of the Hall, and Duncan's gritty decade as a Major League catcher was not marked by much in the way of offensive accomplishment, the only path Duncan has to Cooperstown is in the "others" category, one voted on by the Veterans' committee. Since the Veterans' committee is now dominated by current members of the players' part of the Hall, and among those are precious few pitchers (although they include Duncan's former teammates Reggie Jackson and Rollie Fingers), I see little shot for Duncan.

But if I had to name one Hall of Fame coach, it's Duncan. He's been a big part of a lot of winning, and a big part of the biggest innovation in how the sport is played. There may be a few other innovators in the coaching ranks who at least deserve recognition -- maybe the "reputation" guys like Charlie Lau -- but I don't know enough to comment intelligently. But we should open the conversation about some of these other contributors to the game who have obviously achieved greatness and great things for baseball.

posted by The Crank 12:18 PM