Ranking the MLB managers

Hyde has some familiarity with winners, having spent time as both bench coach and first base coach with the Cubs under Joe Maddon. He also has some familiarity with losing, as he was also bench coach under Maddon's predecessor, Rick Renteria. His task as a first-time manager is a monumental one: get the Orioles back to respectability in the post- Manny Machado era. One flip side for Hyde is that expectations are low. Baltimore spent in free agency and then went belly-up in 2018, with their 115 losses a franchise record for futility. Hyde's main task will be to get these new Orioles to play hard and figure out what on earth to do with Chris Davis, whose hideous contract still looms over the franchise for several years.

Woodward will try to bring the whiff of winning with him to Arlington, as he's spent the last three seasons with the Dodgers as their third base coach. Woodward was previously with the Mariners under Lloyd McClendon. Woodward is only 42 and had a fairly lengthy, if relatively undistinguished, playing career. Texas is hoping its pitching pans out and that offense just happens, as it often does, in Arlington. Woodward's challenge is a tall one, as he takes over a squad in a division that features arguably baseball's best team, it's most resourceful one and one with the sport's unquestioned best player. Oh, and the team not mentioned previously, the Mariners, won 89 games last year. Good luck!

Bell has extensive experience as both a minor league manager and a coach for multiple big league teams, but this is his first shot at managing in the majors. Bell and his father, Buddy, will become the fourth father-son pair to manage at the major league level. The Reds that he has inherited are interesting, with Yasiel Puig and Matt Kemp in the fold, as well as Joey Votto still manning first base but with the same questions as always about their pitching. Expectations are higher in Cincinnati after their active offseason, but Bell's task will be tough, given that the NL Central could easily send three teams to the playoffs, and the Reds seem, at best, fourth in the divisional pecking order. 

Montoyo takes over as Blue Jays manager needing to right the ship for a franchise that was a major contender not long ago, and given his experience as Tampa Bay's bench coach last year, he certainly knows a thing or two about performing above expectations. Montoyo was an accomplished minor league manager and, in fact, is the all-time wins leader for the Durham Bulls. The pitching is woeful in Toronto at the moment, but hey, there's always Vladimir Guerrero Jr. to look forward to — whenever the Jays decide to bring him up. Something tells me if it was up to Montoyo alone, Guerrero Jr. would be in the opening day lineup.

Donnie Baseball has never topped 79 wins in Miami, and while he won three straight NL West titles in Los Angeles, he's far away from there now. The Marlins are, again, going through a massive sell-off of all of their assets and are in many ways the embarrassment of the sport. Mattingly's acumen and experience will probably be better served developing young talent for the future rather than winning games in the present. Mattingly is in the final year of a four-year contract, and if things really bottom out in south Florida this season, one wonders which side might be more inclined to walk away from the relationship. 

Gardenhire certainly had his moments with the Twins, but in his second year in Detroit, it's abundantly clear that he's overseeing a major roster rebuild and overhaul. The Tigers spent big but fell short, and now they're trying to spend less and acquire as much cheap young talent as possible. Certainly the mindset when hiring a guy like Gardenhire for this kind of job is that his experience and steady hand will get more wins out of a young group than another manager would, but is that really what Detroit should want? The Tigers would be best served by being bad for a few years, retooling and then trying to retake control of the AL Central, because it's doubtful that the Indians can sustain their run at the top of the division forever. Gardenhire's situation isn't great, but he probably knows that better than anyone.

Ausmus had some up-and-down years with Detroit, where he alternated between good and bad every other year. Now he gets to take on the challenge of getting the most out of a Mike Trout-led team before Trout possibly bolts in free agency in a few years. The bigger challenge, though, will be figuring out what to do with Albert Pujols, whose decline continues apace and who makes too much money to sit but doesn't produce much. Shohei Ohtani's bat should help matters, but what will make or break Ausmus is how he brings along some of Los Angeles' young pitching. Second place is probably the Angels' best hope, but even that figures to be a tall mountain to climb.

Renteria's White Sox are probably a year or two away from serious contention, but there's reason to believe that they will be considerably better than the group that lost 100 games last year. One reason is that it's tough to lose 100 games in consecutive seasons, and another is that their young talent should be on the rise. It's on that latter point that Renteria will be judged. If guys like Yoan Moncada, Lucas Giolito and Carlos Rodon all make major leaps forward, chances are Renteria's record will improve, and with it, his job approval rating among White Sox fans. 

Yost took the Royals to back-to-back AL pennants in 2014 and 2015 and paid off their "all-in" effort in that 2015 campaign with a World Series title. For that, one imagines, K.C. fans will always look upon his time fondly. However, the Royals' subsequent rebuild has perhaps shed light on a truism — even the most accomplished managers, in almost every case, can't make miracles with a substandard roster. Since that 2015 title, Yost's teams have won 81, 80 and 58 games. Things might get worse before they get better in Kansas City. Yost, whose detractors focus on his love of sacrifice bunts, will have to make magic happen to change the immediate outlook for his squad.

Expectations have arrived in San Diego, which is what happens when your general manager goes out and signs Manny Machado to a 10-year, 300 million-dollar mega-deal. That burden of pressure might be a year too early for the rest of the roster, though San Diego does have plenty of optimism about the future of its franchise. Green has never won more than 71 games on the job with the Padres, so if he doesn't bring in some better results this year, as well as get the most out of Machado, whose lack of hustle in the playoffs irked some around the game, he might find himself out of a job sooner rather than later. 

Callaway drew the ire of Mets fans in his first season as manager, mostly due to the fact that his team couldn't come close to sustaining its 11-1 start. Beset by a rash of injuries to positional talent, particularly Yoenis Cespedes, the Mets plummeted to a 15-39 mark in May and June. Outside of those two months, the team was 16 games over .500 on the year. Callaway did oversee a pitching staff that had Cy Young winner Jacob deGrom as the anchor, but it's a commentary on just how terrible New York was on offense that, despite posting historically great numbers, deGrom managed only a 10-9 mark on the season. Is Jed Lowrie the answer to the Mets' offensive struggles? Probably not, but Callaway had better hope so.

Kapler drew plenty of attention early last season for some unconventional managerial tactics, particularly his heavy bullpen usage and strange, often abrupt hooks for his starting pitchers. The Phils collapsed down the stretch, going from possible wild-card contender to an 80-82 finisher, mostly thanks to an 8-20 September and a nine-game losing streak near the end of the season. That said, Kapler will be under enormous pressure this year for one reason: Bryce Harper. Philly's free agent splash pickup brings with him expectations of a championship, or championships, and whether or not the rest of the squad is ready, less-than-patient Philly sports fans will expect big things. It'll be up to Kapler to manage egos and deliver wins.

Unlike some managers on this list, Martinez did not see his team collapse in September to miss out on a shot at the playoffs. Rather, in his first year at the helm, Martinez's Nationals defined mediocrity for much of the year. Bryce Harper was good, but not great, and now he's not around. The pitching still is both great, and around, and Washington added Patrick Corbin, which means that the rotation looks like this: Max Scherzer, Stephen Strasburg and Corbin. Anibal Sanchez will be the fourth starter, it seems, and the fifth spot is up for grabs. How Martinez handles the back end of his rotation might be the most crucial element for Washington's success, and if he does well with it, the Nats could, and perhaps should, still win the NL East. With that top three in the rotation, there won't be many excuses for failure in D.C.

Hurdle's time in Pittsburgh has been up and down. He'll forever be remembered by Pirates fans as the man who oversaw the end of 20 straight losing seasons and then took the team to the playoffs three straight years. But he's also a guy who hasn't found a way to win a division and couldn't sustain the momentum his team generated with an 11-game winning streak just prior to the trade deadline. At his best, Hurdle has proved to be one of the best at merging analytics with old-school motivational tactics and beliefs. At his worst, he's careless with his bullpen and juggles his lineups too often. No one expects Pittsburgh to be a serious threat in the rugged NL Central this year — can Hurdle turn back the clock to 2013 and defy expectations yet again?

Baldelli, like several others on this list, is a first-time manager this season. Also like many others, he is a young man at an organizational position that until recently has been manned by older men. So why is he so much higher than the other first-timers on this list? Primarily because he cut his teeth working for the Rays after his playing days ended. Tampa Bay is consistently on the cutting edge of strategy and using every advantage it can find, and so it stands to reason that Baldelli will both command respect because of his background and be able to put what he's learned with the Rays to use quickly in Minnesota. This could prove to be a ridiculous ranking when the year is over, but Baldelli seems like the right guy in the right job at the right time.

Bochy's borderline comical "even year" run of World Series titles ended in 2014, and since then, the Giants have won a total of two playoff games. Last year, they followed up a truly awful 2017 with a 73-win season. San Francisco still has Madison Bumgarner, but they've been anemic on offense for a few seasons. Bochy's reputation is that of the game's ultimate winner — a guy who, at his best, has guided the Giants to titles when few expected them to win. 2019 will be his last season at the helm, and were he to somehow guide San Francisco to a title this year, it would be by far his unlikeliest and most impressive title run by a wide margin. It looks like the career of one of the league's most successful managers will end with a relative whimper. 

Servais' Mariners went 89-73 despite being outscored by 34 runs on the season. He's 253-233 in his three years in Seattle, so on some level, he's doing his job. The problem is, the Mariners haven't been to the playoffs under his watch, and general manager Jerry Dipoto seemed to realize that last year's club, despite its record, wasn't built for the long haul, so he decided to rebuild. Is Servais the right manager for that job? Possibly. His record would suggest that he's slightly above average and has benefited from luck to some degree. About the only thing he seems to have definitively changed up in his three years on the job is his approach to sacrifice bunting relative to the rest of the league. If he coaxes 80 wins out of this year's team, he'll have done a great job.

Lovullo followed up a sterling 93-69 managerial debut with an 82-80 season in the desert, but the most disappointing thing about it wasn't the 11-game drop in wins, but rather the fact that Arizona was in possession of first place in the NL West as late as Sept. 1, but an 8-19 final month doomed it to third place. Lovullo's challenge gets much greater this year, particularly because Paul Goldschmidt is no longer a member of the organization, having been traded to the Cardinals for what was regarded around the league as a somewhat underwhelming return. At this point, if Arizona goes 82-80 in 2019, it may mean that Lovullo has done a good job.

Not many teams would have the guts to fire a guy like Mike Matheny after several excellent seasons at the helm, but the Cardinals aren't most teams and clearly hold themselves to a higher standard. St. Louis was 47-46 when Shildt took over, and he proceeded to guide the team to a 41-28 mark during his 69 games at the helm. The Cards did fall apart late with a 12-15 September undoing the gains made during a torrid 22-6 August, and that ultimately kept them from postseason play. Still, Shildt did a good enough job, and the Cards have a good enough reputation, not to mention Paul Goldschmidt in the fold, to expect that his first full season as manager will be a big success.

Boone handled the Big Apple pressure, and his only real issue in his first season at the helm in the Bronx was that he resided in the same division as the Red Sox. Otherwise, a 100-win campaign in your first year as a manager is nothing to sniff at. Again, though, he was bested in that department by Alex Cora, who won 108 games and the World Series in his first year at the helm. The Yankees set the MLB record for team home runs with 267, and there exists a strong possibility that they break that record this year. Boone's ability to get even more out of Luis Severino will be crucial to his chances of winning the division, though if Gary Sanchez and Aaron Judge stay healthy, and Giancarlo Stanton settles in in Year 2 in New York, a merely good year from Severino will be enough.

Too low for Joe? Not if you watched the Cubs stagger to the finish line last year, cede the division to Milwaukee in a one-game playoff, then go home with a whimper in a wild-card loss to Colorado. Chicago has World Series or bust expectations, and while most anonymous player polls seem to suggest that guys like playing for Maddon, his reputation as some sort of infallible baseball genius took a hit last year. The Cubs brought more or less their entire team back this year, so there will be plenty of pressure on Maddon to deliver the goods. A healthy, productive Yu Darvish would help matters immensely. 

Roberts has back-to-back NL pennants to his credit, and his worst season in three with the Dodgers still yielded 91 wins and a division title. But he can't quite be at the top of the heap because few, if any, managers in the game have more resources or higher expectations. Roberts came up just short two years ago, then his Dodgers were routed by Boston in the World Series. Now Yasiel Puig is gone, Matt Kemp is gone, Yasmani Grandal is gone and Manny Machado is going to ply his trade two hours south. Roberts' main task is to find a way to get L.A. over the hump. If he does that — and nothing less — then his 2019 will be a success.

It's not unheard of for managers to win in Colorado — witness Clint Hurdle's "Rocktober" run to the NL pennant in 2007 — but it is strange for the Rockies to be a team built around sturdy, at times flat-out excellent starting pitching. Colorado's team ERA wasn't impressive overall, but it was over half a run better as a staff away from Coors Field, and Kyle Freeland was a stud at the top of the rotation. Black has plenty of offense from Nolan Arenado and Trevor Story, and really, plenty of everything from Arenado, and this year he'll have to replace the sublime relief work of Adam Ottavino. The Rockies have never had three full winning seasons in a row, as their strike-shortened 1995 campaign doesn't count, but with another winning campaign this year, Black will have accomplished the feat.

The most impressive part about Snitker's work with the Braves in 2018 was the fact that he was able to get consistent performance all season long from Ronald Acuna Jr., who was all of 20 years old. That level of steadiness on Acuna's part is a testament to his manager's ability to help manage the grind of a long season. Snitker's excellence carried over to his pitching staff, especially the relative youth that anchored it, but he was also able to get big years both on the mound and in the field from older players. Nick Markakis was good, and Anibal Sanchez turned back the clock in a big way. All eyes will be on Philly in the NL East, but it would be foolish to count out Snitker and Atlanta.

The case can be made that Hinch was the best manager of the best team in baseball last season, particularly if you're of the opinion that the regular season is a much better arbiter of a team's overall performance than a short playoff drive. The Astros were a superb 103-59, and their plus-263 run differential was baseball's best by a considerable margin — and they did it without a huge year from Carlos Correa. Alex Bregman merely stepped in and played at a near-MVP level. Houston remains flush with talent this season and is deservedly the favorite to win the AL West again. Hinch's players seem to genuinely enjoy playing for him, and he and his staff turned Gerrit Cole into the monster, ace-level pitcher Pirates fans always yearned for him to be. There's no reason to believe that this won't be another superlative year for one of the best managers in the sport.

In his seven full seasons at the helm in Oakland, Melvin has topped 90 wins three times, including last year's 97, made four playoff appearances and been the steady hand on the field for Billy Beane and David Forst's perpetually interesting effort to win on a shoestring budget. Last year's A's may have been the most stunning team in the league. There were high hopes for Oakland before the season, but they were almost entirely based on young starting pitching. That pitching got gutted by injuries, and so the Athletics were forced to forge ahead with the likes of Edwin Jackson, Brett Anderson and Trevor Cahill. I repeat, they won 97 games while playing in the same division as the juggernaut Astros. Oakland has a reputation for overachieving, but that makes last year's run no less stunning and Melvin's work no less exemplary.

It's easy to forget Francona, considering that younger, sabermetrically savvy managers are all the rage in baseball at the moment. At 59, Francona certainly isn't old, but he feels like he's been around forever. What's most impressive is the way that he has embraced new trends, weaponizing Cleveland's bullpen around Andrew Miller in previous seasons to shorten games to an almost humorous degree and using his best pitchers based on situational leverage rather than traditional roles. Francona has not had a losing season yet in Cleveland, and the Tribe are three-time defending AL Central champions. Both of those streaks are a good bet to continue this season.

Counsell's Brewers looked to be in a spot of trouble entering the All-Star break. Milwaukee had just suffered a humiliating five-game sweep at the hands of the Pirates and had ceded the lead in the NL Central to the Cubs. Fast-forward to Aug. 18. The Brewers lost their second in a row to the Cardinals and fell into third place into the division. From that point on, Milwaukee went 27-10, lost back-to-back games only once and forced a one-game playoff with Chicago, which the Brewers went on to win, 3-1. Counsell oversaw Christian Yelich's breakout, MVP season, got great years from Jesus Aguilar and Lorenzo Cain, and perhaps most of all, masterfully handled a pitching staff featuring mostly journeymen. Though the Brewers fell a game short of the World Series, Counsell is one of the game's best managers.

No manager did more with less last year than Cash. The Rays were not imposing in any one area, but thanks to Cash's embrace of the "opener" concept, Tampa Bay kept opponents off-balance and rolled up a 90-72 record in the brutal AL East. Moreover, the Rays held their own against the two juggernauts of the division, going a respectable 17-21 against Boston and New York. Tampa Bay can't draw flies to their ballpark, ownership never spends much of anything on the team, and yet, since their breakout year in 2008, they've been one of the better franchises in the league. Can Cash find a way to stay ahead of the curve again this year? I wouldn't bet against him.

Some of the managers immediately behind Cora on this list are classic cases of people who did more with less in terms of resources or name-brand talent. Cora would qualify as an example of someone who did more with more to a spectacular degree. It would not be right for anyone else to occupy this spot after the Sox went 108-54 last year then steamrolled their way to a title by going a combined 11-3 in the playoffs. Cora managed big personalities, big expectations and the general pressure associated with being the Red Sox skipper, and he did so with aplomb. Oh, and it was his first season as an MLB manager. The Yankees are coming, but Boston is in good hands.