Is Tony LaRussa the most overrated current manager?

All managers are overrated.

a lot of my larussa hate stems from the fact that i live in the st louis market and am therefore subjected to his idiocy on a nightly basis (i am a cardinals mini-fan). [note that the two league structure in major league baseball DOES allow for a fan to root for a second team, as long as it takes a backseat to the first one (aligning yourself with two teams in the same professional sport is a cowardly copout, as i'm sure you know)].

Ultmiately, though, bnw is all sorts of right. Hang 'em all, except (possibly) Earl Weaver. Current manager most worthy of being exempt from hangin' = Jim Tracy.

This is somewhat debatable. Torre made a few freakishly on the money calls in the years they won three years straight like starting Viscaino for the first time in the playoffs and he has a huge game. Remember starting Leyritz and he hit those dingers?

When King George started going out and buying stars is when they stopped winning the world series. The reason NY haven't been as good a scoring team in the past couple of seasons is because they turned into a free swinging team that strikes out too much. The Angels and Marlins both made the Yankees pay for this achilles heel.

Dusty Baker is freakin' overrated (and I am a Cubs fan). He BLEW game six of the WS against the Angels. He does get alot out of platoon and bench players, but I don't know about handling pitchers.

Earlnash, I attribute Torre's use of Vizcaino and Leyritz in the playoffs more to "luck" than as an example of his excellence. If there's such a thing as "baseball intuition", maybe he has it, but I doubt that. If anything, his reliance on supposed baseball truisms - hey, put that speedy free-swinging guy @ leadoff! - & alliegance to certain players has hurt the Yanks as much as his know-how & gumption has helped. Not that George helps, & it's not his free-wheeling spending so much as his free-wheeling SWAPPING that has killed them of late, if at all.

But there are SO many reasons why Yankee success (cough cough) has been hard to come by (cough cough) in recent years - the turnover in personnel, age-related decay, the "free swinging", the god-awful defense (urgent & key!!!), Jeter's partying, Bernie's guitar playing, George's meddling, Cashman's sad puppy dog eyes, etc etc etc. All I know is, there are places where Joe could have and should have (and can - hi Mr. 3rd Baseman!) affect/ed change to the team's benefit, and he hasn't.

Current manager most worthy of being exempt from hangin' = Jim Tracy.

LOL @ ME

Davey Johnson is 70 today! HOF?

http://mlb.sbnation.com/2013/1/30/3932868/davey-johnson-hall-fame-candidate-nationals-manager

I know about the two Series wins, but Bruce Bochy as a HOF manager just doesn't compute for me. Cito won two too...I'm missing something.

Loved Bochy when he was the Padres' manager, and his work with the Giants has been stellar.

i love jim leyland but come on

I agree with Neyer, he's probably deserving but needs two more really good seasons (and a league or WS title) to clinch it.

I had no idea that Piniella had so many wins.

What makes a HOF manager?

I'm not sure where to put this but I liked this highlight reel of Mike Hargrove's trip to a museum:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?&v=jOdzHgbGM7I

A relocated A's fan I know ran into LaRussa in Prospect Park during All-Star 5K run. TLR showed photos of his ten chihuahuas.