As promised, in no particular order, except that I’m going to get the last word. But to start with, SABR’s biography is really good. Most of you will know most of what’s in there, but if you want to click away and read that before seeing what we have to say, it will be time well spent.

From Mac in 2007

I know that Bobby has his detractors, but they’re wrong. He’s the greatest manager of the last 50 years and losing him is going to hurt the ballclub.

From AAR

As I expect others will focus more on Bobby Cox‘s more apparent legacy – his win record, his celebrated on-field moments, and perhaps even the more complex legacy of domestic violence and reconciliation, I wanted to focus on one particular sabermetric analysis of precisely *why* he was so good.

Chris Jaffe, in his book “Evaluating Baseball’s Managers,” applied a historical analysis to all of the managers in baseball history through the 2008 season. In this analysis, Bobby Cox is the second-best manager in all of baseball history at handling his pitchers, behind only Joe McCarthy, long-recognized by all modes of analysis as the greatest manager of all time. (Cox scores significantly less well in his handling of hitters, which jibes with our memories of Cox giving too few at-bats to Ryan Klesko and too many to Keith Lockhart.) 

What made Bobby so good?

If you’ll permit me, I’d like to quote at length from Jaffe’s book. 

He maintained the delicate balance between getting the most innings he can from his arms without ruining them. Smoltz was the only member of Atlanta’s trinity to eventually break down, but only after a full decade of use. According to Peter Bendix and Matt Gallagher’s presentation at SABR’s 2005 national convention, “The Leo Mazzone Effect,” the Braves once went five years without a hurler missing a start due to injury.

[In his first managerial stint,] Cox pushed his one dependable starter, Phil Niekro, exceptionally hard… In 1978–79, only two pitchers in baseball were within 125 of Niekro’s 676.3 innings. He started 86 games and faced 2,825 men in those two years, the most by any senior circuit hurler since Pete Alexander. Despite that heavy use, Niekro remained an effective and durable starter for years to come…

Cox’s Braves achieved an impressive track record with reclamation projects, especially in the bullpen. In 2002, they took a flyer on Chris Hammond, a 36-year-old who had neither thrown a pitch in the majors in four years nor had a good season in seven. In 63 appearances, he posted an ERA of 0.95. Fellow 36-year-old Atlanta reliever Darren Holmes, who posted a 13.03 ERA with three separate squads the year before, achieved a 1.81 ERA in 55 games for Cox’s 2002 bullpen. A third 36-year-old reliever, southpaw Mike Remlinger, worked alongside them. He had been a mediocre journeyman before coming to the Braves in 1999, but posted a 2.65 ERA in nearly 300 appearances and an All-Star selection while with Cox. Every year or two the Braves have received great work from a reliever plucked from the scrap heap, including hurlers Juan Berenguer, Marvin Freeman, Steve Bedrosian, Mike Bielecki, Juan Cruz, Kyle Farnsworth, Rudy Saenz, Antonio Alfonseca, Chad Paronto, and Will Ohman.

…

Atlanta’s homegrown products also show Cox’s ability to get quality from seemingly unremarkable pitchers. Cox also wrung tremendous production from numerous pitchers who did not even make the majors until they were 26 or older. [Including Greg McMichael, Kerry Ligtenberg, Kevin Gryboski, and Peter Moylan.]…

Almost every season for fifteen straight years, the Braves got a quality arm in the bullpen from otherwise overlooked quadruple–A relievers. While pitching coach Leo Mazzone certainly deserves considerable credit, divorcing the manager from this sustained success is as foolish as giving him all the credit. Developing, coaching, and handling pitchers to ensure they produce at their fullest is a team effort, and Cox has played a vital part in it. Atlanta’s success with late-inning arms is especially noteworthy because Bobby Cox has spent his entire career on the cutting edge of reliever-usage patterns. Two dominant trends in reliever usage pervade the last 50 years: bullpens eat an increasing share of innings and innings per relief appearance keep declining. Bobby Cox is as responsible for the latter change as anyone.

From tfloyd

The summer of 1978 was the first full baseball season after my wife and I married.  It was also the second season that virtually every game was televised on Ted Turner’s station.  My wife knew I was a Braves fan, but spending much of the summer watching baseball on TV was probably not what she anticipated.  But she was a good sport about it, and now 49 years later she watches almost as much as I do (sometimes even watching by herself when I’m not home).

That season was also Bobby Cox’s first season as manager of the Braves.  With a record of 69-93, it was not a good team.  But they finished 8 games better than the season before; and more importantly, young talent was arriving to give the team hope for the future.  Twenty-two year old Dale Murphy was a regular for the first time, and Bob Horner was the number one overall pick in June, promptly started for the big league club, and went on to win NL ROY.  I became a big Bobby Cox fan that year.  Two years later, the team finished over .500 for only the second time since the division-winning 1969 team.  But after the 1981 season saw a small regression, Ted Turner made what he later called the biggest mistake of his professional career and fired Cox.

I’ve long agreed with Ted that firing Cox was a mistake.  Lately, though, I’ve reflected on Bobby’s years as Braves GM.  Cox is one of the greatest managers of all time, and pretty clearly the best of my now long lifetime.  That makes it easy to overlook the fantastic job Cox did as GM from 1985-1990.  As GM, he drafted or traded for John Smoltz, Chipper Jones, Steve Avery, David Justice, Kent Mercker, Mike Stanton, and Mark Wohlers, and he developed minor leaguers Tom Glavine, Jeff Blauser, Mark Lemke, and Ron Gant into productive big leaguers.

If Turner had not fired him in 1981, Cox never would have been hired to build the team that dominated the 1990’s.  So, thanks, Ted!

Brief Coda: I was fortunate to be at the final game Bobby managed, the loss to the Giants in the 2010 playoffs.  The ovation from the fans was overwhelming; even the Giants paused their celebration to join in the applause.

One more Coda: Anyone who says that Cox was a good manager but that he did not know how to win in the playoffs is showing their ignorance.  Of course he made in game decisions that we all can question, but the truth is that bad luck in October was a much bigger factor than bad managerial decisions.  They went 13-20 in one run games.  Win a handful of those they lost, and Cox could have won at least four World Series.

From cliff

My father in law is 94 and appears to be passing quickly.  He has been in slow decline for 4 years.  Yesterday around 10, he was asked what he wanted for lunch.  Within a few minutes his other daughter said, “Daddy, look at those 2 quail.”  He said, “that’s what I want for lunch, quail.”  My son was there and said “I’ve got bags cleaned and frozen.”  He and his brother and his grandmother fried about 40 birds and smothered them in onion gravy and all of the local great grandchildren and grandchildren and both living children all shared in the feast.  Later he said for supper “I want oysters.”  Again my oldest son went to a good restaurant and got oysters for his grandfather.  But this morning, he was fading fast.  I hope Bobby got to have a good day of quail and oysters sometime in the past few.  

It is old and trite and was, at times, embarrassing to him, that he ended up with the all time record for ejections. But his job was to win games and as he said on a few occasions (substitute names as necessary), it was a whole lot better for the team for me to get ejected than ___.”  His players treated him with a loyalty rarely seen.  He was, as Erk Russell, a coach whose players would run through a wall for him.  So far as I remember, the ONLY player ever to route through that clubhouse that didn’t get along with Cox was Kenny Lofton.  MANY players called difficult seemed to respect and appreciate Bobby Cox.

Just as Scout Finch was told, “stand up, Mr. Atticus Finch is walking by”, we need to remember the same for Robert Joe “bobby” Cox.

From ububba

Bobby Cox? Two quick memories come to mind…

***One, my gal & I were embarking on a vacation and after a long trip, we rented a car & drove to the hotel. We pulled up and we were greeted by a porter/bellhop guy, who started to take our luggage out of the trunk.

He saw that I was wearing a Braves t-shirt and he said, “Oh, Braves fan, huh?”

A bit bleary, I replied, “Yup, that’s my team.”

And then, quite stupidly, he replied, “Y’know, they would’ve won more World Series if it weren’t for Bobby Cox…”

I was probably a little tired, perhaps a tad cranky & I just stared at him for a long second & said: “I’ll take these,” and I stacked & lugged everything up the steps to the front desk.

***Two, I was at Bobby’s final game at Turner Field in 2010 – the Braves first post-season since 2005 – Braves/Giants, an NLDS essentially decided by some ill-timed fielding errors in Game 3 & a couple questionable calls at 2B in Games 1 & 4. A very bitter series loss.

As it turned out, it was the end of one era (Cox’s amazing run in ATL) & the beginning of another (Bochy’s 3 titles in 5 years in SF).

After the Game 3 tease of Eric Hinske’s euphoric PH HR, Game 4 provided another. With ATL down a run in the bottom of the 9th, we had 2 on with 1 out. Despite the traumas of the previous day, it had been a season full of comebacks & mostly good vibes, so everyone was on their feet at Turner Field anticipating another wild ending. Why not? Instead, Omar Infante struck out on a check swing & Melky Cabrera chopped one to the Kung Fu Panda at 3B, who threw somewhat wildly to 1B, but it was hauled in gracefully by Travis Ishikawa. Just like that, series over.

As the Giants celebrated, a collective groan emanated from the crowd on a very muggy, ultimately frustrating night. Nothing to say, really, but my friend & I watched the Giants whooping it up & I offered, “Well, that was tough…”

Just then, after the perfect amount time to allow the Giants to celebrate their victory, we see No. 6 waddle out of the dugout & raise his cap to the fans. Everything we’d seen in the previous couple days melted away at that moment.

He honored the victors, who are still on the field, with a wave their way & a point toward Bochy. He didn’t overplay it, didn’t steal their moment. All class.

What got me was that the Giants completely stopped what they were doing – they all faced Bobby and began applauding him. I’m pretty sure I’d never seen that on a Major League ballfield. And that tells you all you need to know about Bobby Cox.

From Rusty S.

Bobby Cox was by all accounts outstanding at his job. Any critique of his managing should begin with the premise that he was right, and you are wrong. I didn’t need 14 division titles to remain a Braves fan all these years, but after the 80s, man, I needed something. I wonder how many of us would have drifted off by now otherwise?

From Me

First, I’ll reproduce what I said after Saturday’s game:

Bobby Cox was the last manager of a school that will never come back: the pre-Sabermetric leader of men. I know a fair amount about Sabermetrics and I know next to nothing about leading men into battle, so I stood in awe of Bobby’s manifest skills as a leader even as I (and many others here) bemoaned the lack of in-game strategery. We wanted more than one man could possibly be, and Bobby Cox proved that managing a diverse set of prima donnas (and, to be fair, all sorts of personalities, really) into a focused, successful group is both really important and really rare, and gets results that no amount of Sabermetric legerdemain could possibly achieve on its own.

Elaborating slightly, and stressing that I haven’t read the Chris Jaffe book AAR discusses, while fielding is often thought of as the thing Sabermetrics is worst at, there is absolutely no question that it is in the assessment of managers. For any statistical model to work, you need data, but more importantly you need the right data to model the thing you’re trying to model. Baseball is almost uniquely rich in data, but it is the wrong data to evaluate managers. Listening on Saturday and Sunday to the guys who played for Bobby and worked for Bobby over his managerial career, not one of them discussed a single thing that is even potentially captured in data. And even before I heard those testimonies over the last two days, I knew that.

Even in the narrowest sense that managers exist to win games, you’d think that the fact that Bobby was fourth all time in wins ought to tell you all (or at least a lot) of you need to know. It tells you almost nothing, beyond the fact that people were happy to keep him around, with the hilarious exception of Ted Turner firing him, Bobby showing up to the press conference where he was fired, and ted Turner saying he wanted the next manager to be just like Bobby. (That’s the single best story about both of them, as tfloyd also mentions.) Connie Mack was not a great manager. I’m not even certain Tony La Russa was. And I really have no tools to evaluate John McGraw. But I know that Bobby Cox and Joe Torre were. That ain’t data talking. It’s the purest form of experiential guesswork. If I had data, and the data told me that Cox and Torre weren’t great managers, it’s like what Rusty S. says above — either the data is wrong, the model is wrong or the analyst is an idiot.

Sabermetrics can assess strategies (though in the process of doing so there are so many assumptions to be made that it isn’t that easy.) But strategies account for x% of the success of a manager, and I put an x there because nobody knows what x is. And that’s because of people like Bobby Cox, who are so manifestly great at what they do in ways that data can’t touch, the counterfactuals necessary to estimate x will never be there. And that’s true even though everyone knows he was not a great in-game strategic manager. But he was the greatest leader Baseball will ever know. And my only argument for that is my memories, so don’t ask for data.