Now that Chipper has agreed to do work again for the Braves, speculation has naturally arisen that maybe he wants to manage. (Maybe he doesn’t… In fact, I’d be willing to bet he doesn’t. But let’s assume he does. Otherwise, I have nothing to write.) It has often been observed that the best players are rarely very good managers. How good a manager would Chipper have to be to rank as a great former player and a great manager?

I used the BRef list of all managers and reduced the list to those with 10 years or more of managing experience, an over 0.500 record as a manager, at least one year finishing in first place and an ELO rating as player on BRefs ELO lists. It turns out to be a pretty short list. In order of ELO ranking, we have:

Num Mgr ELO Yrs W-L% G W-L%post AvRk Plyof App WSwon
1 Frankie Frisch HOF 2298 16 0.514 2246 0.571 4.3 1 1
2 Joe Cronin HOF 2215 15 0.54 2315 0.333 3.9 2  
3 Fred Clarke HOF 2165 19 0.576 2829 0.467 3.7 2 1
4 Joe Torre HOF 2152 29 0.538 4329 0.592 2.4 15 4
5 Cap Anson HOF 2148 21 0.578 2288   4    
6 Bill Terry HOF 2065 10 0.555 1496 0.438 3.2 3 1
7 Hughie Jennings HOF 1969 16 0.543 2203 0.25 3.5 3  
8 Clark Griffith HOF 1947 20 0.522 2918   4.2    
9 Al Dark 1940 13 0.51 1950 0.526 4 3 1
10 Red Schoendienst HOF 1924 14 0.522 1999 0.5 3.5 2 1
11 Felipe Alou 1909 14 0.503 2055 0.25 2.9 1  
12 John McGraw HOF 1893 33 0.586 4769 0.481 2.6 9 3
13 Frank Chance HOF 1857 11 0.593 1622 0.55 3.1 4 2
14 Dusty Baker 1812 20 0.526 3176 0.422 2.7 7  
15 Fielder Jones 1806 10 0.54 1297 0.667 3.5 1 1
16 Miller Huggins HOF 1745 17 0.555 2570 0.545 3.2 6 3
17 Fred Hutchinson 1724 12 0.501 1666 0.2 4.2 1  
18 Davey Johnson 1714 17 0.562 2445 0.49 1.9 6 1
19 Mike Hargrove 1647 16 0.503 2363 0.519 3.1 5  
20 Casey Stengel HOF 1610 25 0.508 3766 0.587 4.4 10 7
21 Mike Scioscia 1572 16 0.546 2592 0.438 2.1 7 1
22 Lou Piniella 1509 23 0.517 3548 0.46 2.8 7 1
23 Billy Southworth HOF 1497 13 0.597 1770 0.5 2.4 4 2
24 Steve O’Neill 1485 14 0.559 1879 0.571 3.3 1 1
25 Charlie Grimm 1468 19 0.547 2368 0.294 3.3 3  
26 Bill Virdon 1379 13 0.519 1918 0.4 2.9 3  
27 Al Lopez HOF 1369 17 0.584 2425 0.2 2.4 2  
28 Ned Hanlon HOF 1326 19 0.53 2530   4.3    
29 Wilbert Robinson HOF 1321 19 0.5 2819 0.25 4.8 2  
30 Roger Craig 1271 10 0.5 1475 0.438 3.4 2  
31 Leo Durocher HOF 1244 24 0.54 3739 0.467 3.2 3 1
32 Charlie Comiskey HOF 1163 12 0.608 1410   3.4   1
33 Patsy Tebeau 1163 11 0.555 1339   4.1    
34 Billy Martin 988 16 0.553 2267 0.441 2.3 5 1
35 Don Zimmer 971 13 0.508 1744 0.2 3.8 1  

Chipper’s ELO rating is 2315, so if he can fulfill the managerial criteria, he’ll be the greatest player ever to manage at the top level.

As a final combined metric, I create a harmonic average of games managed and ELO ranking as a player, to give a combined ranking from this list. Thus, my aggregate rating for a manager is:

(ELO x Wins Managed)/[(ELO+Wins Managed)/2]

By using the harmonic average, whichever you’re worse in (player or manager) dominates. All player nonmanagers get a 0, as do all manager nonplayers.

The top 10 look like this:

Mgr Harmonic
John McGraw HOF 2257.105
Joe Torre HOF 2237.005
Fred Clarke HOF 1859.466
Casey Stengel HOF 1748.524
Dusty Baker 1738.416
Clark Griffith HOF 1709.219
Lou Piniella 1655.831
Cap Anson HOF 1637.045
Joe Cronin HOF 1598.206
Miller Huggins HOF 1569.666

A fancier scheme might have scaled the two criteria a little better, but other than one of the worst managers I’ve ever seen ranking 5th on the list, this is probably a pretty good summary of the best players who managed well, or, equivalently, the best managers who played well.

So with an ELO rating of 2315, how many games would Chipper have to win as manager to displace Miller Huggins in 10th place? 1188 wins, a figure achieved by only 42 managers in history. (Mike Hargrove happened to have exactly 1188.) And to beat out Little Napoleon, John McGraw? 2202 wins, which would put Chipper 6th all time, between Joe Torre and Sparky Anderson.

Ain’t happening.