Manager (baseball)

Whitey Herzog managed the St. Louis Cardinals in the 1980s

In baseball, the field manager (commonly referred to as the manager) is the equivalent of a head coach who is responsible for overseeing and making final decisions on all aspects of on-field team strategy, lineup selection, training and instruction. ^[1] Managers are typically assisted by a staff of assistant coaches whose responsibilities are specialized. Field managers are typically not involved in off-field personnel decisions or long-term club planning, responsibilities that are instead held by a team's general manager. ^[2]

Duties

The manager chooses the batting order and starting pitcher before each game, and makes substitutions throughout the game – among the most significant being those decisions regarding when to bring in a relief pitcher. How much control a manager takes in a game's strategy varies from manager to manager and from game to game. Some managers control pitch selection, defensive positioning, decisions to bunt, steal, pitch out, etc., while others designate an assistant coach or a player (often the catcher) to make some or all of these decisions.

Some managers choose to act as their team's first base or third base coach while their team is batting in order to more closely communicate with baserunners, but most managers delegate this responsibility to an assistant. Managers are typically assisted by two or more coaches.

In professional baseball

In many cases, a manager is a former professional, semi-professional or college player. From 1901 to 1981, 21% of MLB managers had played catcher during their playing career--the most common. Outfielders made up 16.6% and second basemen made up 13% of managers. Over the same period, managers who were second basemen had the highest winning percentage.^[3]

The manager's responsibilities normally are limited to in-game decisions, with off-field roster management and personnel decisions falling to the team's general manager. The term manager used without qualification almost always refers to the field manager (essentially equivalent to the head coach in other North American professional sports leagues), while the general manager is often called the GM. This usage dates back to the early days of professional baseball when it was common practice for teams to have just one "manager" on their staff, and where GM duties were performed either by the field manager or (more commonly) by the owner of the team. Some owners (most famously, Connie Mack of the Philadelphia Athletics) carried out both GM and field managerial duties themselves.

Major League Baseball managers differ from the head coaches of most other professional sports in that they dress in the same uniform as the players and are assigned a jersey number. The wearing of a matching uniform is frequently practiced at other levels of play, as well. ^[4] The manager may be called "skipper" or "skip" informally by his players.

Baseball Hall of Fame managers

There have been 24 people who have been elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum primarily for their careers as managers. Of the 24 Hall of Fame managers, 20 were Major League players before becoming managers (the exceptions being Jim Leyland, Joe McCarthy, Frank Selee, and Earl Weaver). The most recent manager to be elected was Leyland, who was elected to the Hall of Fame by the Contemporary Baseball Era Committee in 2024.

Connie Mack and John McGraw were the first managers to be elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1937.

References

External links

Media related to Baseball managers at Wikimedia Commons

[1] "Manager | Glossary". MLB.com.

[2] "General Manager | Glossary". MLB.com.

[3] "Playing Background of Major League Managers".

[4] "Why exactly do managers wear uniforms in the dugout?". MLB.com.

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v t e Members of the National Baseball Hall of Fame
Pitchers	Alexander Bender Blyleven M. Brown R. Brown Bunning Carlton Chesbro Clarkson Cooper Coveleski Day Dean Dihigo Drysdale Eckersley Faber Feller Fingers Ford B. Foster Galvin B. Gibson Glavine Gomez Gossage Grimes Grove Haines Halladay Hoffman Hoyt Hubbell Hunter Jenkins R. Johnson W. Johnson Joss Kaat Keefe Koufax Lemon Lyons Maddux Marichal Marquard P. Martínez Mathewson McGinnity Méndez Morris Mussina Newhouser Nichols Niekro Paige Palmer Pennock Perry Plank Radbourn Rivera Rixey Roberts Rogan Ruffing Rusie Ryan Seaver H. Smith L. Smith Smoltz Spahn Sutter Sutton Vance Waddell Walsh Welch Wilhelm J. Williams Willis Wynn Young
Catchers	Bench Berra Bresnahan Campanella Carter Cochrane Dickey Ewing Ferrell Fisk J. Gibson Hartnett Lombardi Mackey Mauer Piazza Rodríguez Santop Schalk T. Simmons
First basemen	Allen Anson Bagwell Beckley Bottomley Brouthers Cepeda Chance Connor Foxx Gehrig Greenberg Helton Hodges G. Kelly Killebrew Leonard McCovey McGriff Mize Murray Pérez Sisler Suttles Taylor Terry Thomas Thome
Second basemen	Alomar Biggio Carew E. Collins Doerr Evers Fox Frisch Gehringer Gordon Herman Hornsby Lajoie Lazzeri Mazeroski McPhee Morgan J. Robinson Sandberg Schoendienst
Third basemen	Baker Beltré Boggs Brett J. Collins Dandridge J. Johnson Jones Kell Lindstrom Mathews Molitor B. Robinson Rolen Santo Schmidt Traynor D. White J. Wilson
Shortstops	Aparicio Appling Bancroft Banks Boudreau Cronin Davis T. Jackson Jennings Jeter Larkin Lloyd Maranville Reese Ripken Jr. Rizzuto Sewell O. Smith Tinker Trammell Vaughan Wagner Wallace Ward Wells Yount
Left fielders	Brock Burkett Clarke Delahanty Goslin Hafey Henderson Irvin Kelley Kiner Manush Medwick Miñoso Musial O'Rourke Raines J. Rice A. Simmons Stargell Wheat B. Williams T. Williams Yastrzemski
Center fielders	Ashburn Averill Bell W. Brown Carey Charleston Cobb Combs DiMaggio Doby Duffy Griffey Jr. Hamilton Hill Mantle Mays Puckett Roush Snider Speaker Stearnes Torriente L. Waner H. Wilson
Right fielders	Aaron Clemente Crawford Cuyler Dawson Flick Guerrero Gwynn Heilmann Hooper R. Jackson Kaline Keeler K. Kelly Klein T. McCarthy Oliva Ott Parker S. Rice F. Robinson Ruth Slaughter Thompson Walker P. Waner Winfield Youngs
Designated hitters	Baines E. Martínez Ortiz
Managers	Alston Anderson Cox Durocher R. Foster Hanlon Harris Herzog Huggins La Russa Lasorda Leyland López Mack J. McCarthy McGraw McKechnie W. Robinson Selee Southworth Stengel Torre Weaver D. Williams
Executives and pioneers	Barrow Bulkeley Cartwright Chadwick Chandler Comiskey Cummings Dreyfuss Fowler Frick Giles Gillick Grant Griffith Harridge Hulbert B. Johnson Kuhn Landis La. MacPhail Le. MacPhail Manley Miller O'Malley O'Neil Pompez Posey Rickey Ruppert Schuerholz Selig Spalding Veeck Weiss S. White Wilkinson G. Wright H. Wright Yawkey
Umpires	Barlick Chylak Conlan Connolly Evans Harvey Hubbard Klem McGowan O'Day
Italics denote members who have been elected, but not yet inducted.

Authority control databases
International	FAST
National	United States Israel