Which Active Managers Could Get Their Numbers Retired? Part Two

In part one, I looked at what it generally takes for a manager to get their number retired by a team. Now that we have a framework established, we can pretty easily go through each team’s manager and see which ones measure up. Of course, in some cases, the manager is relatively new, so I also threw in a few other recent managers for some teams who seem to fit at least one of the major criteria. There’s a lot to get through here, so let’s get to it:


Red Sox-It's still way too early to say for sophomore manager Alex Cora. Obviously, winning a title in your first season is a pretty good start, but the last guy did that too, and he was let go after five years with a .533 record. Cora definitely seems better than that, of course, but it's still going to be an uphill battle.

On the subject of recent managers, while he was technically three managers ago (already???), he's still active with some pretty good credentials: I'm speaking, of course, about Terry Francona. He didn't even make it to a decade in Boston, which might seem a little short, but it was actually the second-longest managerial tenure the team has ever seen (and the longest excluding player-managers). Two World Series, including the one that broke The Curse, should be more than enough to smooth over whatever anger ownership felt towards him when he retires (also, like Cora and John Farrell, Francona won a World Series in his first year with the team. That means every manager since the curse ended except Bobby Valentine did that. I don’t know that it means anything, but it’s weird that it’s happened three times now). They might wait for him to make the Hall first (which he seems like a lock for), and we'll get to his Indians number later, but I expect #47 to get retired shortly after Francona hangs it up for good.



Orioles-Brandon Hyde was just hired this past offseason, and it’s too early to call whether he’ll still be in place by the end of the Orioles’ present rebuilding, let alone anything beyond that. His predecessor Buck Showalter had the second-longest Orioles tenure ever, and is second in team history on wins (both behind Earl Weaver), but it’s hard to see him getting a number retired given the lack of pennants.



Blue Jays-Charlie Montoyo is another first-year manager, so again, it’s probably not worth getting too into. I got into it last time, but their interesting manager in recent history is Cito Gaston, who won two World Series managing the Blue Jays from 1989 to 1997 (then came back for a second, less successful fun from 2008 to 2010). He’s also the all-time winningest Blue Jays manager. I’m not sure why they haven’t retired his number yet, but they did add him to their “Level of Excellence” that seemed like their twist on retired numbers right up until they actually started to retire numbers as well. So we’ll see how that goes in the next few years, I suppose. I still think they’ll eventually retire his number, unless they’re leaving retired numbers to Hall of Famers exclusively (Gaston might not make the Hall, but I haven’t looked at his case too hard yet either way to be 100% sure of that gut reaction).



Rays-Kevin Cash is only four games above .500 at the moment and had a tough first three years, but the Rays have looked like a strong team since last year, so maybe he’s on the upswing. If he brings the Rays their first World Series, he’ll likely also take over their franchise win record, so that would make him a strong contender.

Joe Maddon is also interesting, as the current franchise win leader and the guy who brought Tampa their first pennant. If Cash actually wins a World Series, it takes a lot of the luster off of Maddon’s achievement. Conversely, if Maddon makes the Hall (which still seems pretty feasible), the Rays may honor him for getting his start there. I can see it going either way.



Yankees-Aaron Boone, again, seems like he’s off to a decent start, but just winning a World Series doesn’t seem to be enough for the Yankees, so he has a tougher hill to climb than just about anyone else. His predecessor Joe Girardi managed the team for a decade, but his lone title probably isn’t enough for their standards. Maybe it could happen if the owners decide they like him more in retrospect, like with Billy Martin.

What Does it Take for a Manager to get Their Number Retired?

Earlier this season, manager AJ Hinch moved into the Astros’ franchise top three in all-time wins with the team, passing Art Howe with his 393rd win in Houston. Inspired by that, I wondered if Hinch is the best manager in Astros history. Looking into it and asking around, the answer was… a pretty resounding yes. After moving into third place already this year, he’s already four wins shy of tying Larry Dierker (435) for second place. Barring anything unforeseen, he should pass Bill Virdon’s 544 wins sometime next year. And of course, no other Astros manager has won a World Series, only one other one has a pennant (Phil Garner in 2005), only Virdon has managed the team for more seasons (8 to 5), and the only manager with a winning percentage higher than his .583 mark is Salty Parker, who went undefeated in one game in 1972 in between Harry Walker and Hall of Famer Leo Durocher (who I hadn’t even realized managed the Astros for just under 200 games).

So, uh… yeah. Glad I could answer that question. But I wanted to dig into the topic a little more. So, in typical me fashion, I decided to look at it from the perspective of retired numbers: which current managers have a shot at getting their numbers retired by a team? (It may not seem like it, but this is probably a more interesting question than making the Hall of Fame, to be honest, since the standards are more ambiguous.)

That of course brings up the question of “what does it take to get your number retired as a manager?” The easiest thing to do would be to look at managers who already have their numbers retired, but that can be something of a difficult question given the number of people with a retired number who served as both a player and a manager. Would players like Dierker (#49) or Red Schoendienst (#2, Cardinals) have gotten their numbers retired if they didn’t also have notable playing careers with their teams? Or even further, is their honor entirely due to their playing days, with managerial achievements serving just as icing on the cake? And this isn’t even getting into old-time player-managers where the two components are even more intertwined, like Bill Terry (#3, Giants).

You kind of have to play it by ear a little bit, but there are some trends you start to notice:

1) Win multiple World Series titles.
This is the surest route. 23 managers have won more than one World Series, and 9 of them have gotten their number retired.* Which doesn’t sound great, until you consider all the complicating factors. Two manages on that list are still active (Bruce Bochy and Terry Francona, both of whom have pretty compelling cases). A number of other notable ones never wore uniform numbers, including Joe McCarthy (most World Series wins as a manager) and Connie Mack (most wins). That accounts for another six managers. Now to be fair, John McGraw never wore a number either, and that didn’t stop the Giants from adding him to their retired number section, but the Giants are not the norm in that regard.

* That list includes: Casey Stengel (#37, Yankees and Mets), Walter Alston (#24, Dodgers), Joe Torre (#6, Yankees), Sparky Anderson (#10, Reds; #11, Tigers), Tony La Russa (#10, Cardinals), Tom Kelly (#10, Twins), Tom Lasorda (#2, Dodgers), Danny Murtaugh (#40, Pirates), and John McGraw (see above). All of them won multiple World Series with those teams specifically except for Stengel and the Mets, and Anderson and the Tigers, but we’ll come back to that.

The remaining six managers are interesting exceptions to use as case studies:

-Cito Gaston had two titles for Toronto and was added to their Level of Excellence, which seemed like their version of retired numbers until they suddenly retired Roberto Alomar’s #12 in 2011. Who knows if they honor him again one day, but he’s far and away their most successful manager.

-Bucky Harris’s biggest success came with the Washington Senators (their only World Series, two of their three pennants, eighteen seasons total), who no longer exist. His other World Series title came with the 1947 Yankees, but he only helmed them one other season before new ownership decided to replace him with Casey Stengel, and it’s gonna take a lot more than one title in two seasons to stand out among Yankees managers.

-Ralph Houk had quick success as the Yankees’ manager, winning the 1961 and ‘62 World Series as well as the 1963 pennant, but then moved into the front office. He returned to a second, longer managerial stint with them to much less success (only finishing above fourth place once in eight seasons) before becoming the first of many managers to leave under the new Steinbrenner administration (and his nine years after that with Detroit and Boston, which saw him finish with a losing record, did little to remind anyone of those early titles).

-Bill McKechnie’s success was spread out: he won one World Series with the Pirates (1925), one pennant with the Cardinals (1928), and a Series and another pennant with the Reds (1939-40). Cincinnati might make sense as an option, except that his #1 was later retired in honor of a different manager (Fred Hutchinson, who’s successful stint was brought to an early end by cancer).

-Billy Southworth was the manager of the Cardinals during their early 1940s dynasty, winning three straight pennants and the ‘42 and ‘44 World Series. He left after his seventh season with the team for the Boston Braves, where he was okay (1 pennant and a still-winning record over six years), but his reputation was probably hurt by the fact that the team continued fine without him, winning the World Series again in their first year without him. He was sort of forgotten for a while after that, only getting elected to the Hall relatively recently back in 2008.

-Dick Williams, like Southworth, left a dynasty team mid-run, leaving the A’s after a spat with owner Charlie Finley. In three seasons in Oakland, Williams had three playoff appearances as well as the 1971 and ‘72 World Series, but his successor immediately continued with another title in 1973. Williams also brought pennants to Boston (1967) and San Diego (1984), but never managed anywhere for more than five seasons (his Expos stint was five exactly, but they, again, no longer exist). His overall success got him elected to the Hall, and he did well considering he worked mostly for expansion teams and the Yawkey-owned Red Sox, which put him at a disadvantage. But his spat with Finley, his short overall stint in Oakland, and the team’s immediate success without him all probably hurt his reputation at the place where he was most successful.

So, to try and draw summaries from them: don’t tick off the owner, don’t get shown up by a successor, and make sure that your team is both willing to retire manager numbers and continues to exist. Also, the Yankees seem to be a little stricter than other teams.

Retired Numbers Series: Los Angeles Angels

The Angels, despite being an expansion team, have quite a bit of history to them. They were included in the first round of expansion back in 1961, and have the best winning percentage of any expansion team since then (at .499, they also place ahead of four original teams). It’s no surprise, then, that they have several compelling candidacies for retired numbers. And so, they become the next team to be covered in the Retired Numbers Series.