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.