What Makes Bruce Bochy and Joe Maddon Great? | FanGraphs Baseball

It's not real hard to figure out or quantify. They consistently make the whole greater than the sum of the parts. If in the pre-season you crunch all the numbers and figure they have a team that is expected to win 81 games, they will win you 85-90 games . In Maddon's case, if you expect 70-75 you get 80-85. The classic making a silk purse from a sow's ear.

Bochy generally ranks higher. Due to the three rings, he takes a higher level roster and that's mainly due to the payroll measurement. That should change going forward with Maddon now being employed by the Cubs. The early returns are good for Maddon. With the increased payroll comes increased expectations. He should do very well under the bright lights, but ultimately that is the last question needing answering for Maddon. Consistent out-performance at the higher levels, where wins are harder to come by, and out-performance when all the marbles are on the table. For that reason, Bochy should get a higher grade for now. Check back in another five or ten years.

Both guys have teams that consistently out-perform expectations regardless of how you measure that. Both seem to have a similar demaeanor and approach to handling players, so no difference or surprise there. Showalter would be next-up for now and deserves to be in the team picture among current managers.

from FanGraphs Baseball:
What Makes Bruce Bochy and Joe Maddon Great? | FanGraphs Baseball:

With the Cubs in San Francisco to face the team just behind them in the wild-card race, it makes sense to compare the two managers. After all, they both ended up within the top five in a recent ESPN.com survey, and their teams have both found success in recent years. Though they were born just a year apart, their styles are different enough that they seem to be a study in contrasts.

Who better to ask about what makes them great than their own players and coaches and beat writers? Well, maybe unbiased observers can be more critical than our sample, but the task at hand is to delineate the managers’ strengths.

So, what makes Bruce Bochy great? What makes Joe Maddon great?

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