Best players to manage in the major leagues

[BobbyStrawberry]

Cap Anson, King Kelly

[rats60]

1 Honus Wagner
2 Ty Cobb
3 Ted Williams
4 Rogers Hornsby
5 Walter Johnson
.
.
.
Albert Pujols

[G1911]

Eddie Collins, who I'd call the overall #1 2B all time, managed for a couple years.

Otherwise the absolute best few have been named already, but Al Spalding managed for a couple years. His career was brief but he led the league in Wins in every season he pitched more than 11 innings, and posted a 132 ERA+ in an era with low ERA's where it was difficult to beat the league by a wide margin. Spalding was a fantastic pitcher whose on-field performance has been almost entirely forgotten.

3 Finger Brown managed briefly. Mickey Cochrane did, so did Roger Connor. Hugh Duffy, Kid Nichols, Ed Walsh. A lot of the best players just got made managers or filled in after a manager was fired and the team didn't really have one picked out to replace them during the first half century or so of the majors.

Frank Chance and Fred Clarke are probably pretty high up the list if one balanced and awarded both player performance and being an actually good manager. Many of the best players who managed were not very good at it. John Mcgraw might be #1 by this method.

[bk400]

Originally Posted by rats60

1 Honus Wagner
2 Ty Cobb
3 Ted Williams
4 Rogers Hornsby
5 Walter Johnson
.
.
.
Albert Pujols

Well, comparing players across eras is like comparing religions. But I'll take Albert Pujols over all those guys. 3 MVPs, 700 HRs, batting title. Low strikeout rate. 2 rings. And played in an era when baseball was played by properly trained professional athletes from all racial backgrounds and from all over the world.

My top 5, including the guys that no one's father has seen play:

Pujols (if he gets the job)
Ty Cobb
Ted Williams
Frank Robinson
Walter Johnson

[rats60]

Originally Posted by bk400

Well, comparing players across eras is like comparing religions. But I'll take Albert Pujols over all those guys. 3 MVPs, 700 HRs, batting title. Low strikeout rate. 2 rings. And played in an era when baseball was played by properly trained professional athletes from all racial backgrounds and from all over the world.

My top 5, including the guys that no one's father has seen play:

Pujols (if he gets the job)
Ty Cobb
Ted Williams
Frank Robinson
Walter Johnson

You must have missed his 10 seasons in Anaheim when he hit .256/.311/.447 OPS+ 106 and collected 240 million dollars to give the Angels 12.5 WAR. I preferred the eras when players played to win instead of to get a huge contract and then coast for the rest of their career.

[packs]

Cobb lost three World Series before he was 23 years old and never played in another one. Ted played in one World Series and hit 200.

Not sure they were winning anything either.

[bk400]

It tells you how amazing Pujols' 12 years at STL were when you consider that when he was with the Angels he was only 6 percent above league average (as RATS60 points out above).

(His stats over 12 years in STL: 88.7 WAR, .326/.417/.614, OPS+169)

[rhettyeakley]

Amazing players rarely make great Managers.

There are a lot of theories behind it but it does appear to be a thing.

In a very extreme example…Rogers Hornsby was so reviled by his players they actually presented Bill Veeck a 24 inch trophy when he finally fired him as their Manager in 1952.

[Mark17]

Originally Posted by bk400

It tells you how amazing Pujols' 12 years at STL were when you consider that when he was with the Angels he was only 6 percent above league average (as RATS60 points out above).

(His stats over 12 years in STL: 88.7 WAR, .326/.417/.614, OPS+169)

It's an odd argument in support of a player to say, "Look how great he was over part of his career, to offset how average he was over the rest of it."

Wagner won 8 batting titles instead of just one, won a World Series, led in stolen bases numerous times, and was the best of his time, by far, at a far more difficult position than Pujols ever played. And Wagner would've had more home runs, obviously, had the ball in his day not been made of mush. And his lifetime batting average tops even Pujols' peak years at St. Louis.

[Balticfox]

Originally Posted by rats60

1 Honus Wagner
2 Ty Cobb
3 Ted Williams
4 Rogers Hornsby
5 Walter Johnson
.
.
.
Albert Pujols

I think you've got it just about right.