Free Bill James Guide to Baseball Managers, The by Bill James Page B

Carl Hubbell, and Freddie Fitzsimmons.
    Did He Prefer to Go with Good Offensive Players or Did He Like the Glove Men?
He wouldn’t risk his defense to get a slugger in the lineup, because he never thought he had to.
    Like most managers, McGraw was a control freak, and as such perpetually battling against anything that represented a loss of control. If a player doesn’t make the plays he is supposed to make, that’s a loss of control. He didn’t get much out of Hack Wilson, for example, because he was concerned about the stocky Wilson’s ability to play the outfield. He rejected a young Earl Webb, a career .306 hitter who holds the major league record for doubles in a season, because he didn’t like Webb’s defense. He got rid of Rogers Hornsby after one year. He used George Kelly, who had the defensive ability of a middle infielder, as a first baseman. There’s a story about Bill Terry (below) which also reflects on this issue.
    Did He Like an Offense Based on Power, Speed, or High Averages?
McGraw’s teams commonly led the league in batting average—a total of eleven times in his career. Until 1920, McGraw’s teams were speed dominated. His 1911 team still holds the major league record for stolen bases, and five of the top ten teams all-time were McGraw’s teams.
    When the game changed in 1920, however, McGraw understood the change and adapted to it more rapidly than any other established manager.
    Did He Use the Entire Roster or Did He Keep People Sitting on the Bench?
He kept kids sitting around, waiting to earn playing time, and also he liked to pick up a veteran player who maybe had had an injury or who had gotten out of shape, and just keep him sitting around playing twice a month until he could get him in shape. Jack Scott, for example, was released by Cincinnati in early 1922 and reportedly contacted every major league team, asking for a chance to pitch. McGraw said okay, come work out with us for a while, and we’ll see what we can do. By the end of the year he was 8–2, and pitched a shutout in the World Series.
    But he also used specialists much more than any other manager of his time. He had several players that he used as full-time pinch runners. In 1914, for example, he kept Sandy Piez on the roster all year as a pinch runner. In 1913 he used Claude Cooper in that role, in 1919 he used Lee King, and in 1923 Freddie McGuire. He had Jim Thorpe for several years, and used him to pinch-run, and he would often use one of his young projects as a regular pinch runner.
    Most intriguingly of all, one year he had Tony Kaufman. Tony Kaufman was a veteran pitcher, had been in the league for years, but his arm went dead and he was released by St. Louis in 1928. McGraw took him on and used him in 1929 as a pinch runner and defensive replacement in the outfield, just killing time hoping his arm would come back. It never did.
    He also used pinch hitters probably more than any other manager of his time, and he absolutely loved to have a pitcher who could also pinch-hit. In 1923 he was thrilled when he was able to purchase Jack Bentley from the great Baltimore minor league team. Bentley had hit .371, .412, and .351 at Baltimore the previous three years, playing everyday at first base, and also filled in on the mound, going 16–3, 12–1, and 13–2 the same three years. McGraw made him mostly a pitcher, and in 1923 he went 13–8 for the Giants, also hitting .427, and leading the National League in pinch hits.
    Did He Build His Bench Around Young Players Who Could Step into the Breach If Need Be, or Around Veteran Role-Players Who Had Their Own Functions Within a Game?
More of the latter. He always had kids on the bench, but he had a timetable in mind for them, and he wasn’t going to rush them in just because somebody got hurt. He liked to keep around two or three players who had been regulars for some other team, like Casey Stengel, Billy Southworth, and Beals Becker, who was a regular in Boston in 1909, and a