Which Current Baseball Managers Are Hall of Fame Worthy?

There are currently three managers leading their teams in the major leagues right now that when they retire should be easily elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame, and another that has a great chance at being enshrined there. Bobby Cox of the Atlanta Braves, Joe Torre of the New York Yankees, and Tony LaRussa of the St. Louis Cardinals will be all but impossible to keep out of Cooperstown, with Lou Piniella of the Chicago Cubs a good candidate to end up there as well. After those four it is hard to predict who will put together a Hall of Fame career as a manager, but there are a couple of possibilities among active skippers.

Cox is a no-brainer of a choice, as he sits fourth on the all-time managerial victories list with 2,240, behind only LaRussa, John McGraw, and Connie Mack, whose 3,731 triumphs on the bench is well out of reach for the rest of time, unless someone else buys a team and runs it for over fifty years. Cox has won fifteen division titles, five National League pennants, and one World Series title, in 1995 over the Indians. Bobby began his managing days back in 1978 at the age of 37, running the Braves for five years before moving to the Toronto Blue Jays, where he won the AL East with them in 1985 before losing the pennant to the Royals by a 5-3 score in Game Seven of the AL Championship Series. Cox then came out of the Atlanta front office in 1990 to take the reigns once more of the Braves, putting together a run of eleven division titles in a row before the Mets ended it in 2006. Cox has a winning percentage of .561, good for fourteenth all time. As a player, Cox saw action for the Yankees in 1968 and 1969, with very little success at the plate or in the field as a third baseman.

Many forget that Tony LaRussa began his long managerial stint in the majors with the Chicago White Sox, as they associate him more with the A's and the Cardinals, both of whom he won a world title with. LaRussa as a player was a seldom used middle-infielder with the Athletics and White Sox, hitting no home runs in six seasons that saw him get to the plate for only 176 official at-bats. However, he now sits in third place with his 2,362 managerial wins, with a division title everywhere he has worked. Tony has captured three American League pennants, all with Oakland, and a duo of NL flags with St. Louis. His days with Chicago hurt his overall winning percentage, as the White Sox were not very good and played at just a .506 clip for LaRussa.

Joe Torre was not considered a managerial genius by any stretch of the imagination at stops with the Mets, Braves, and Cardinals, but in charge of the Yankees fortunes he has won four World Series, six pennants, and ten American League East crowns. Torre did lead the Braves to first, second, and third place finishes in his trio of years in Atlanta, but was well under .500 as a skipper in his other two stops before a return to New York in 1996. Torre now stands at eighth place on the wins list for managers, recently passing Walter Alston, and he could possibly go by Joe McCarthy, Bucky Harris, and Sparky Anderson if he stays in the Big Apple for two more seasons. Torre was a borderline Hall of Fame candidate as a player, winning the NL MVP Award in 1971 and finishing his career as a .297 lifetime hitter, having batted over .300 five times and over .280 a dozen with the Braves, Cardinals, and Mets.

Piniella was an accomplished batter as a player, a former Rookie of the Year Award winner with the Royals in 1969. Always known as a great clutch hitter, Piniella took over the Yanks in 1986, went to the Reds in 1990 where he won it all in an upset of LaRussa'a Oakland club, and then to Seattle where he won three division title with the Mariners, including an extraordinary 116-46 campaign in 2001. Three years with the Devil Rays brought Lou's winning percentage down, but he now has the Cubs in first place in the volatile NL Central. With 1,587 career victories, Piniella will probably have to manage at least three more seasons and make it up to number twelve or thirteen on the career wins list, where he would be assured of a spot in the Hall of Fame.

Mike Scioscia of the Angels would be one manager to put your money on as a Hall of Famer if you had to choose one from those now working that haven't yet won enough games to be considered. Mike won't be 49 until November, he has already won a title with the Angels along with three AL West championships, and if he stays at it long enough he has a chance to attain the Hall of Fame. Ron Gardenhire of the Twins is a current manager that has a slim chance to be considered for baseball immortality, as he has won four AL Central titles with the Twins in his six years and is young enough at fifty to keep at it long enough to rack up the type of numbers the baseball writers need to see in a potential Hall of Fame manager.