Steward says dismal season dents Bochy’s HOF credentials.
Giants’ poor season has dropped his career managerial mark under .500
There have been so many indignities and downright embarrassments to this Giants season that they have almost become too numerous to count, and a few have slipped through the cracks.
Like this one: This past week, Bruce Bochy’s career managerial winning percentage in the regular season actually slipped under .500 for the first time since 2013.
That’s right, the man so many of us have labeled as a lock for the Hall of Fame after he won his third World Series as a manager in 2014 entered Monday night’s game against the Los Angeles Dodgers with a rather amazing ledger of water-treading for his 23 years of regular-season service:
Games managed: 3,691. Games won: 1,845. Games lost: 1,846. Bochy is almost certainly still on a fairly comfortable path to the Hall. To keep things simple, every manager with three or more World Series titles on his résumé has made it to Cooperstown. Only 10 men have won three.
Moreover, if Bochy fulfills the remaining two years on his contract, he has a decent shot for 2,000 regular-season wins, and every manager who has made it to two grand is in
the Hall. There are only 10 now, and while Dusty Baker could get there first (Baker entered Monday with nine more wins than Bochy), being part of that kind of dozen would no doubt assure enshrinement.
That said, you can’t overlook the unanticipated rocks in the road to upstate New York. The Giants have to go 9-8 over their final 17 games to keep Bochy out of the red. They have to go 8-9 to avoid his worst-ever season record as a manager (which was 64-98 with the San Diego Padres in 2003) and 7-10 to avoid his firstever 100-loss season.
Oh, and for you dreamers, they have to go 15-2 to avoid Bochy’s worst season as Giants manager (which was his first, in 2007, at 71-91).
However you slice it, it’s quite a shame it has come to this because Bochy did so much good work to climb out of a pretty deep numbers hole. After his first two seasons with the Giants, his career won-lost mark was 62 games under .500. He’d had only five winning seasons in 14 years, four postseason appearances and one playoff run past the opening round, when the Padres were swept in the 1998 World Series by the New York Yankees. In short, he had an OK ledger but one far shy of Hall of Fame consideration.
But after those first two tough years in San Francisco, Bochy made a remarkable 106-game turnaround on his career record from the beginning of the 2009 season to the end of last season’s first half from 62 under to 44 over .500. It didn’t look as if we would ever have to think about him having a losing career record again under any circumstances.
But as it has turned out, that was his high-water mark, and it has become a pretty swift ebb since. The Giants are 45 games under .500 since last year’s All-Star Game. Entering Monday, their record since that time is 86-131, a .396 winning percentage. Another season like this one and Bochy would actually be under .500 just as Giants manager, at least during the regular season. That’s almost impossible to fathom.
Since a special Hall committee votes on managers, not the Baseball Writers Association of America, it’s anybody’s guess how Bochy’s managerial career ultimately will be debated if he winds up with a losing ledger. Only two managers with losing records have ever been voted into the Hall (discounting those such as Frank Robinson and Lou Boudreau, who were inducted as players).
One was Connie Mack, who actually had a winning mark when he was voted in after the 1936 season (he would go on to manage mostly losing teams for 14 more years), and Mack won nine pennants and five World Series. The other was Bucky Harris, who managed five teams over 29 years and won 2,158 games, seventh most all time. He also won titles with the Washington Senators and the Yankees.
Of course, Bochy’s postseason win percentage of .571 (an astounding .679 with the Giants) will keep him in good stead for Cooperstown consideration no matter how much longer he manages. Even that .571 figure is a higher postseason win percentage than Earl Weaver, Tony La Russa, Tommy Lasorda, Whitey Herzog, Dick Williams, Leo Durocher and Bobby Cox. All are in the Hall.
But where we are in two years might be more significant than where we are now. Can the Giants realistically hope to get back to the postseason that quickly? How does Bochy view the prospects for this Giants team over that period, particularly considering the improved quality of competition in the National League West? How does he weigh the last year and a half of tough times against his health at age 62?
A little less than a year ago at this time, Bochy told this newspaper’s Andrew Baggarly he had no thoughts of retirement. Since then, in April, he had a third “minor” procedure involving his heart, which required him to miss two games. It was his third episode in three years, but he once again maintained a strong desire to continue for the long term.
We probably won’t know until this horrible season is fully over how Bochy’s thinking might have changed, if at all. The bet here is he’s going to want to stick it out and continue because he doesn’t want to go out on this kind of note. The Giants, to be sure, will bend over backward to accede to whatever Bochy’s wishes are, at least for this season.
But who knows? Another season even approaching this year’s nightmare not only could jeopardize his job but do even more to tarnish his legacy, and that just wouldn’t seem fair. When Bochy finally does see the writing on the wall, he deserves to view it on a bronze plaque.