Charlie Manuel: on the Today’s Game Hall of Fame Ballot

Charlie Manuel, the manager who led the Philadelphia Phillies to five consecutive N.L. East titles from 2007-11, is on the Today’s Game Hall of Fame ballot. Manuel was a somewhat surprising candidate given that his 1,000 managerial wins are just the 64th most on the all-time list.

However, even though his time as a MLB manager was relatively brief (he was already 56 years old when he got his first opportunity), it was highly successful, with 6 division titles won in just 10 full seasons.

This Sunday, the Today’s Game Committee will convene a panel of 16 media members, executives and Hall of Famers, who will examine the Cooperstown resumes for Manuel and the other 9 candidates. The other nine men on the ballot are players Will Clark, Albert Belle, Joe Carter, Harold Baines, Orel Hershiser and Lee Smith, managers Lou Piniella and Davey Johnson and the late George Steinbrenner, the longtime owner of the New York Yankees.

Cooperstown Cred: Charlie Manuel

• Career as manager: 1,000-826 (.548)
• 12 years as manager with Cleveland Indians and Philadelphia Phillies
• Won his division in 6 out of 12 seasons as MLB manager
• Won 2008 World Series and 2009 N.L. pennant with Phillies
• Went 29-22 (.569) in 51 postseason games managed

(cover photo: Associated Press/Gene J. Puskar)

Charlie Manuel: Early Years

Charles Fuqua Manuel was born on January 4, 1944. The exact location of his birth is unknown because, as Manuel tells it in the biography on the website of the Society of American Baseball Research…

“Evidently, I was born in a car and they took me to the doctor in North Fork (West Virginia). I never actually lived there, but, if you go online, I’m listed somewhere as their most prominent citizen.”

— Charlie Manuel, from “Favorite Son Returns Home” (Roanoke.com), reported in his SABR bio.

The Manuels, a family of 13, lived in a 3-bedroom house in the western part of Virginia. Young Charlie was a four-sport star in high school and was going to take a basketball scholarship with the University of Pennsylvania but his father took his own life two months before his high school graduation. Rather than going to college, Charlie decided to help support the family by playing minor league baseball. The Minnesota Twins signed him for $20,000.

Charlie Manuel’s Brief MLB Career

Manuel developed slowly in the minors before becoming a Southern League All-Star in 1968. In 1969, at the age of 25, he broke camp with the Twins major league club. After a slow start, Manuel went on a 16-game streak in which he hit .340 with 2 HR and 11 RBI.

Manager Billy Martin put the left-handed hitting Manuel into a platoon in left field with Bob Allison. However, Manuel started to lose playing time as the season progressed and he finished by going a woeful 0 for 36 in his final 26 games, most of which became pinch-hitting appearances.

Manuel shuttled back and forth between the Twins and the minors in 1970 and 1971 before settling in with the big club again in 1972. Still, he got only 129 plate appearances and hit just .205. During his time with the Twins, Manuel played with many high profile teammates, including Rod Carew, Harmon Killebrew, Tony Oliva, Bert Blyleven, Jim Kaat, and Jim Perry (Gaylord’s brother).

Manuel, still in the Twins organization, spent the entire 1973 season in the minors and was then traded to the Los Angeles Dodgers. He remained mostly in the minor leagues in 1974 and ’75, playing in just 19 games over two seasons with the Dodgers.

Decades later, when hired to manage the Philadelphia Phillies, Manuel was asked in a questionnaire to identify his funniest baseball moment. His answer was “my entire career as a player in the states.”

The Red Devil in Japan

Charlie Manuel’s MLB career was over at the age of 31 but his playing career continued in Japan. For six seasons (for the Yakult Swallows and the Kintetsu Buffaloes), the 6’4″ Manuel fulfilled the power-hitting promise that never materialized in the majors. From 1976-81 in Japan, Manuel posted a robust slash line: .303 BA/.385 OBP/.604 SLG.

Manuel hit 189 home runs in those six seasons, including 48 in 1980 for the Buffaloes, which was a record for an American player in Japan. The previous season (with Yakult), Manuel was the first American to be named MVP in the Central League. Because of his power and reddish hair, Manuel became known as the “Red Devil” in Japan.

As Jay Jaffe reported in his FanGraphs profile of Manuel, the Red Devil qualified for being in what he called the “Badass Hall of Fame” for the following reason:

“That season (1979) was marred by a severe beaning that broke his jaw in six places, requiring the insertion of three metal plates in his head and the removal of nerves from his face. Though he was expected to be sidelined eight weeks, he was back in two, wearing a batting helmet with a football facemask. Afterwards, he would wear the screws that came out of his jaw in a little bottle on a chain around his neck and shake the bottle at the pitcher after a brushback pitch.”

— Jay Jaffe, FanGraphs, November 13, 2018

Charlie Manuel’s Minor League Managing Career

Charlie Manuel’s playing career ended after the 1981 season. After a year as a scout, Manuel managed at three different levels in the Twins organization from 1983 to 1987. Next, he was hired as the Cleveland Indians’ hitting coach in 1988. He spent two years in Cleveland before taking over the managerial reins for the Tribe’s AAA affiliate in Colorado Springs in 1990.

Manuel managed in Colorado Springs from 1990 to 1992 and then in Charlotte in 1993 when the team moved its AAA affiliate to the east coast.

At Colorado Springs and Charlotte, Manuel managed many of the stars that would be the foundation players for the Indians mini-dynasty of the mid 1990’s. Hall of Famer Jim Thome, Albert Belle (also on the Today’s Game Hall of Fame ballot), Manny Ramirez, Carlos Baerga, and Sandy Alomar Jr. all played for Manuel on those AAA teams.

Manuel’s 1992 team won the Pacific Coast League title (he was the league’s manager of the year) and his 1993 squad won the International League crown.

The Science of Hitting

From 1994-’99, Manuel was back in Cleveland as the hitting coach of the team that scored more runs than any other squad in baseball. The Indians during those six years were also 2nd in home runs, 1st in batting average, 1st in slugging%, and 2nd in on-base%. The Tribe won five straight division titles starting in ’95 and appeared in the World Series twice.

As a hitting coach, Manuel was a disciple of Ted Williams and in particular the Splendid Splinter’s book, The Science of Hitting. Manuel befriended Williams while he was playing with Minnesota and the Hall of Famer was managing the Texas Rangers.

Decades later, using what he had learned from Teddy Ballgame, Manuel took on a pupil who was, like himself and Williams, a tall left-handed power hitter. Jim Thome, who went into the Hall of Fame this past summer, credits Manuel with teaching him how to hit. Thome’s father is convinced that his son would never have even made the major leagues without the tutelage of Charlie Manuel.

Cleveland Indians Manager: 2000-2002

In the 1999 ALDS, the Cleveland Indians had a series lead of two games to none over the Boston Red Sox. In the next three games, however, the BoSox scored 44 runs en route three consecutive victories. Manager Mike Hargrove had led the Tribe to five consecutive division titles and two pennants but had not delivered the city of Cleveland the World Championship it had craved since last winning in 1948. Hargrove, just days after the collapse to the Red Sox, was fired.

Charlie Manuel was the highly qualified replacement to manage the Tribe. With eight years as the team’s hitting coach and a total of nine seasons of minor league managerial experience, Manuel (at the age of 56) was ready for his first MLB job.

Always a tough hombre, Manuel had to begin his MLB managing career with colostomy bag under his uniform due to diverticulitis and kidney cancer. The next year, his gall bladder needed to be removed.

On the field, the 2000 Indians won 90 games but missed the A.L. Wild Card by one game. In 2001, the Tribe won 91 games, which was good enough to claim the A.L. Central. The Indians were heavy underdogs in the ALDS to Lou Piniella’s 116-win Mariners. Cleveland managed to extend the series to the full five games but Seattle ultimately prevailed. Piniella, incidentally, is on the same Today’s Game Hall of Fame ballot that Manuel is on.

In 2002, the Indians got off to a 39-47 start and Manuel was fired.

Charlie Manuel with the Philadelphia Phillies: 2005-2013

After the 2002 season, Jim Thome left Cleveland and signed a free agent contract with the Philadelphia Phillies. Manuel, unemployed for the first time in decades, joined his protege in Philadelphia, becoming a special assistant to General Manager Ed Wade. Playing for manager Larry Bowa, Thome had two prodigious campaigns in 2003 and ’04.

The team won 86 games each season but that was considered a disappointment. Bowa was let go; Manuel was hired to replace him, taking over the team for the 2005 campaign.

In his first season with the Phillies, Thome was injured and only managed 59 games played. Filling the void at first base was Ryan Howard, another big left-handed power hitter. Howard would become the Rookie of the Year. Meanwhile, second baseman Chase Utley had a breakout season and became a star. The team, however, still wasn’t quite ready to make the breakthrough to October baseball, winning 88 games while Bobby Cox‘s Atlanta Braves won their 14th consecutive division title.

In 2006, Howard was the N.L. MVP (.313 BA, 58 HR, 149 RBI), Utley was again superb but the team sagged to 85 wins. In the media, there were some calls for Manuel’s firing but management kept him on the job.

Before the 2007 season, shortstop Jimmy Rollins famously boasted that the Phillies were the “team to beat” in the N.L. East. Rollins himself delivered a MVP campaign but, overall, it looked like another disappointing season was in store. The Phils were 7 games behind the New York Mets with just 17 games to go. However, the team went 13-4 in their final 17 games while the Mets collapsed. The Phillies finished the season with 89 wins and won the N.L. East by one game.

Philadelphia was swept in 3 games in the NLDS by the Colorado Rockies, who finished the regular season with an even hotter hot streak, winning 14 of their final 15 contests. It was a disappointing end to the season but one in which the Phillies emerged as a legitimate team to beat in 2008.

Championship and Pennant Winning Seasons: 2008-2009

Charlie Manuel’s 2008 Philadelphia Phillies were hardly a super-team but they were good enough to win 92 games and their second consecutive N.L. East crown.

Utley had arguably the best season of his career (136 OPS+, 9.0 WAR) on a team that had a lot of “above average” players. Howard’s “above average” campaign included 48 HR and 146 RBI. Rollins didn’t duplicate his ’07 MVP season but remained solid while Shane Victorino improved as a hitter and became a Gold Glove center fielder. On the pitching side, ace left-hander Cole Hamels was complemented by an ageless lefty Jamie Moyer, who won 16 games at the age of 45. Brad Lidge, acquired shortly after the ’07 campaign, was superb as the team’s closer.

For the second consecutive season, the Phillies trailed the Mets in September (3.5 games behind after the games on the 10th). Again, the Phils finished fast, winning 13 of their final 16 games.

In the postseason, Hamels became a star, going 4-0 with a 1.80 en route to winning both the NLCS and World Series MVP trophies. The Phillies blitzed through the playoffs, losing just one game in each of their three series wins. Manuel managed the Phillies with a heavy heart during the Fall Classic. His mother passed away during the NLCS at the age of 87.

In 2009, the defending World Champion Phillies didn’t have to stage a comeback to win the N.L. East. They were ahead for most of the campaign. During the season, the Phillies added a third left-handed starter (Cliff Lee) in a trade with the Indians. Lee had been the A.L. Cy Young Award winner in 2008. A fourth left-hander, 26-year old J.A. Happ, joined the rotation and finished second in the Rookie of the Year vote.

In the postseason, the Phillies again blitzed through the first two rounds, losing just one game each in the NLDS and NLCS. In the World Series, however, the Phillies met their match as they faced off with the New York Yankees. Despite 5 home runs from Utley, the Yankees prevailed in 6 games. In the meantime, Lee played the role of Hamels in the postseason, going 4-0 with a 1.56 ERA.

The Phillies of 2010-2013

In 2010 and 2011, Charlie Manuel led the Phillies to even more regular season victories than he had in the previous two pennant-winning campaigns. In the off-season before 2010, Cliff Lee was traded to make room for right-hander Roy Halladay, one of the top hurlers in the American League from 2002-09.

The Phillies bolstered their rotation further in the middle of the season by trading Happ to the Houston Astros for Roy Oswalt, who went 7-1 with a 1.74 ERA down the stretch for Philadelphia.

With Halladay delivering 21 wins and a perfect game en route to his 2nd Cy Young, the Phillies won 97 games, most in the majors. They swept the Cincinnati Reds in the NLDS, highlighted by a no-hitter from Halladay in Game 1. The magic ended, however, in a 6-game NLCS loss to the San Francisco Giants.

The 2011 Phillies again led the majors in wins (with 102) but didn’t even make it past the NLDS. In a pitching duel for the ages, the St. Louis Cardinals’ Chris Carpenter outpointed Halladay in a 1-0 victory in Game 5.

2012 represented the end to the five-year mini-dynasty of Manuel’s Phillies. The veteran team all started to get old at the same time and won just 81 games. It got worse in 2013. Philadelphia was 53-67 when Manuel was let go in favor of Ryne Sandberg. Manuel’s managerial career was over.

Charlie Manuel’s Philadelphia Legacy

Charlie Manuel led the Philadelphia Phillies through what was one of the greatest eras in the entire history of the franchise. Only the Phillies from 1976 to 1983 (under Danny Ozark, Dallas Green and Pat Corrales) had a comparable amount of success. Those Phillies, during the Mike Schmidt era, won 5 N.L. East titles (plus a first half title in 1981), two pennants and one World Championship. Manuel’s Phillies won 5 N.L. East crowns, two pennants on one Fall Classic.

Manuel’s 780 wins with the Phillies are the most for any manager in the history of the franchise. The country boy from western Virginia wasn’t an obvious choice to take the managerial reins in the northeast City of Brotherly Love. He certainly wasn’t the first choice of the media class when he was hired in 2005. The fans wanted Jim Leyland and Manuel was mocked by some in the media for his thick drawl from Appalachia. Today, however, Manuel is a hero in the city.

The Hall of Fame Case for Charlie Manuel

I will admit, I was stunned when I saw Charlie Manuel’s name on the list of ten candidates for the Hall of Fame on the Today’s Game ballot. As previously noted, his 1,000 managerial wins are just the 64th most in the history of baseball.

Still, the Historical Overview Committee, a panel of 11 BBWAA veterans, saw fit to nominate Manuel for a plaque in Cooperstown. So, what’s Hall of Fame case for the Philadelphia hero?

Let’s start with his record of having won 6 division titles in just 10 full seasons as a manager. That’s impressive. The only managers to win five division titles in a row (which Manuel did from 2007-2011) are Bobby Cox, Joe Torre and Mike Hargrove (while Manuel was his hitting coach in Cleveland).

Manuel’s career postseason record is 29-22 (.569). That winning percentage is 8th best among the 27 managers who have won at least 20 postseason games. He’s behind active managers Terry Francona and Bruce Bochy on this list, which is nothing to be ashamed of. Many observers believe that Francona and Bochy are Cooperstown-bound. Manuel is also behind Ned Yost on this list but Yost’s career regular season record is well under .500.

Besides his record as a MLB manager, Manuel’s minor league managerial record includes two AAA titles. Manuel is also respected as a world-class hitting coach by Thome and others.

“He not only brought the best out of myself, but he brought the best out of a lot of players”

— Chase Utley, quoted by Philadelphia Inquirer, August 23, 2013

The Hall of Fame Case against Charlie Manuel

This is pretty simple. There are 31 managers who are not in the Hall of Fame who have more than Charlie Manuel’s 1,000 wins. Remember that Manuel won two pennants and one World Series. Also remember that he posted a regular season win-loss percentage is .548 and that he finished his career with 174 more wins than losses. Here are some other non-enshrined managers and what they accomplished.

I’m only showing here the numbers of managers who are eligible for the Hall of Fame, which means they’ve been retired at least 5 years and/or over the age of 65. Included, of course, are Lou Piniella and Davey Johnson, who are also on the Today’s Game Hall of Fame ballot.

WP Table Builder

How does one look at this record and put Manuel into the Hall of Fame above either Johnson or Piniella? Is one extra appearance in the World Series enough?

If two pennants is the standard, doesn’t Danny Murtaugh deserve more credit for two World Series victories?

What about Jim Leyland, who made it to the Fall Classic three times? Yes, Leyland has a lower winning percentage but he hung around for four years in Pittsburgh after the Pirates lost Barry Bonds and stayed in Florida after winning the World Series when owner Wayne Huizenga shredded his championship team. Leyland’s WL% in Florida was .451 in just two seasons but one of them resulted in a championship. Seems like a fair trade to me.

One of the reasons that Charlie Manuel has such a good WL% is because he was let go before his two teams had to go through their painful rebuilding processes.

The Bill James Managerial Ratings System

In the spring of 2013, sabermetric pioneer posted a three-part series of articles on his website in which he created a formula for evaluating the Hall of Fame worthiness for MLB managers. You can see all the details about how it applies to Davey Johnson, Lou Piniella and Charlie Manuel in my piece about Johnson.

The super-short version of the James system is that he evaluates managers based on four criteria: total wins, wins above .500, postseason success and how a manager exceeds expectations based on his teams’ previous records. In the system, 100 points is the benchmark for a Hall of Fame manager. You can see how the points are allocated by clicking here on billjamesonline.

On the James system, Johnson gets 111 points, which would put him solidly into the “yes” camp for Cooperstown. Piniella gets 102 points, depressed a bit by his own choice to manage the putrid Tampa Bay Devil Rays in order to be closer to his ailing mother.

Manuel gets just 74 points, which is below the total of every existing Hall of Fame manager but Harry Wright (who was a baseball pioneer) and Wilbert Robinson. If you look at Robinson’s record, you can see why James calls his Hall of Fame election “capricious.”

Here is the list of managers who have more than Charlie Manuel’s 74 points on the Bill James system who are NOT in the Hall of Fame (including those who are still active or not yet eligible):

• Dusty Baker (119)
• Mike Scioscia (111)
• Terry Francona (105)
• Lou Piniella (102)
• Jim Leyland (102)
• Billy Martin (100)
• Bruce Bochy (89)
• Charlie Grimm (86)
• Joe Maddon (82)
• Ralph Houk (81)
• Charlie Manuel (74)

Danny Murtaugh, incidentally, scores with 73 points, just one below Manuel.

Of the names on the list above, seven of them also managed for at least years between 2000-2013, the years Manuel was a big league skipper. The seven are Baker, Scioscia, Francona, Piniella, Leyland, Bochy and Maddon. On the list above, I didn’t include Bobby Cox, Tony La Russa, and Joe Torre, who all managed throughout the 2000’s and are all enshrined in the Hall of Fame already.

The point is that there are 10 contemporaries of Charlie Manuel who appear to be more qualified for the Hall of Fame. That’s 10 managers over a 14-year period. Considering that there are only 30 MLB teams, that’s obviously way too many managers to be enshrined in Cooperstown from that period of time.

Manuel is bottom of the Bill James list and he’s at the bottom by quite a lot. Maddon is still managing and will likely build upon his resume. Bochy’s number (89) is low because he’s managed a lot of bad teams but he won three World Series in five years. He’s very likely to make the Hall when his time comes.

Conclusion

If there were a Hall of Fame standard that included a playing record in Japan, years as a minor league manager, years as a coach in addition to years as a manager, Charlie Manuel would be a good fit. But there isn’t that category. The categories for Hall of Fame induction are “pioneer, executive, umpire, manager and player.” There is no hybrid category.

Now, it’s certainly possible that a member of the Today’s Game Committee will take it upon themselves to vote for Manuel for the Hall based on his managing record and for turning Jim Thome into a Hall of Fame slugger. It’s unfathomable, however, that 12 out of 16 members of the committee will do it.

Besides, if one were to take into account a candidate’s entire baseball life, Piniella and Johnson both won two World Championships as players. They both had highly productive MLB careers that one would assume would trump Manuel’s time in Japan.

Charlie Manuel had a great baseball life. But he didn’t have a Hall of Fame life.

Thanks for reading. Please follow Cooperstown Cred on Twitter @cooperstowncred.