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Is Terry Francona the best manager in the AL Central?

There has been a lot of chatter on Tito Francona’s managerial skills for the Indians lately. Does that mean others believe the other managers in the AL Central are better?

Terry Francona in one of his good moods
Terry Francona in one of his good moods
Jim Rogash/Getty Images

There is an interesting symmetry within the AL Central right now when it comes to managers. Ned Yost has been with the Kansas City Royals for five years, Robin Ventura has spent four years at the helm of the Chicago White Sox. Francona has three years here in Cleveland with the Tribe, Brad Ausmus has two years under his belt with the Detroit Tiger, and Paul Molitor just completed his debut season with the Minnesota Twins.

Inherently, it almost impossible to measure a manager's true worth, as much of their value comes from off the field stuff such as keeping the team motivated, dealing with personalities, and communication to the front office. There are actual numbers to look at too, but can we glean any information from them?

Here are some rudimentary numbers dealing with records. Note that SRS is a BRef calculation called Simple Rating System which is a combination of Run Differential and Strength of Schedule averaged down to a per-game basis.

Record

Expected

Pythag

Net

SRS

One run

Ned Yost

2015

95-67

90-72

+5

0.7

23-17

2014

89-73

84-78

+5

0.2

22-25

2013

86-76

87-75

-1

0.4

31-25

2012

72-90

74-88

-2

-0.3

27-26

2011

71-91

78-84

-7

-0.2

25-32

Robin Ventura

2015

76-86

72-90

+4

-0.2

29-30

2014

73-89

71-91

+2

-0.5

28-24

2013

63-99

67-95

-4

-0.6

24-36

2012

85-77

88-74

-3

0.4

26-21

Terry Francona

2015

81-80

84-77

-3

0.2

15-18

2014

85-77

83-79

+2

0.1

25-21

2013

92-70

90-72

+2

0.5

30-17

Brad Ausmus

2015

74-87

69-92

+5

0.3

26-22

2014

90-72

86-76

+4

0.4

23-20

Paul Molitor

2015

83-79

81-81

+2

0.2

21-20

Molitor looks to have made an initial impact, but one year is a fairly small sample size. Ausmus appears to have done a whale of a job the last two seasons with a +9 and positive SRS, but the largest payroll in the division will help in that regard. Francona did well the last two seasons, but the -3 last season has undone most of the goodwill from the first two seasons, although in 2015 they still had a positive SRS.

Ventura appears to have the most issues in general with just the one positive SRS and an overall negative Pythag. Yost appears to have pushed all the right buttons the last two seasons (+10), but those first two seasons were very poor.

But honestly, can we use that information to make a final decision? It is just a small slice of the overall picture.

Another angle we could use is the use of pinch hitters, overall sacrifice hits (bunting yay!) and pinch runners.

Pinch hitters

PA

OPS

Overall

SH

Pinch runners

RS

SB

Ned Yost

2015

40

525

34

11

11

2014

51

715

33

13

15

2013

78

632

37

7

11

2012

59

641

26

6

6

2011

36

495

55

8

7

Robin Ventura

2015

116

580

30

3

3

2014

85

776

19

14

7

2013

74

543

19

9

5

2012

71

666

31

11

2

Terry Francona

2015

137

723

47

3

0

2014

123

628

51

2

1

2013

78

795

31

13

2

Brad Ausmus

2015

83

463

23

8

4

2014

78

528

61

18

8

Paul Molitor

2015

75

356

30

6

1

Now granted, some of those numbers will be due to specific roster constructions and overall team ability. But there are a couple of shocking numbers in there. Ausmus, not Francona has the season with the most sacrifices (61), but Francona is very consistent in his usage of them. Yost also uses them fairly consistently, but not quite to Francona's level.

Where Francona and Yost really differ is the use of pinch hitters. Francona by far surpasses all of the other managers. And again, a lot of that is due to the right field platoons that he was employing for much of the past three seasons. The one area where Yost really likes to use his bench is pinch running. Francona did that in 2013, but not so much anymore.

The last area we can at least take a little information from, is the use of the bullpen.

App

IP

K/9

BB/9

LOB%

FIP

fWAR

Ned Yost

2015

493

539.1

8.4

3.2

80.4

3.56

5.0

2014

451

464.0

8.7

3.3

73.7

3.29

5.0

2013

427

461.2

9.6

3.1

81.4

3.21

6.2

2012

500

561.1

8.6

3.6

77.8

3.52

6.4

2011

420

508.1

8.1

4.1

76.6

4.07

1.7

Robin Ventura

2015

414

441.2

8.6

3.6

74.5

3.82

3.2

2014

453

471.0

7.2

4.5

70.9

4.22

0.0

2013

470

472.1

8.1

4.0

70.3

3.73

5.2

2012

466

465.2

8.1

3.5

76.4

4.19

3.1

Terry Francona

2015

476

453.1

8.7

3.0

73.7

3.38

4.9

2014

573

513.1

8.8

3.2

76.7

3.58

3.2

2013

540

516.2

8.7

3.9

74.9

3.79

2.0

Brad Ausmus

2015

505

505.0

7.0

3.6

72.7

4.37

-0.1

2014

473

447.0

7.8

3.9

71.8

4.09

-0.2

Paul Molitor

2015

520

515.0

6.9

2.9

73.2

4.20

1.7

Again, this is also subject to the quality of relievers on staff, but Yost definitely cleans up with just one season under 5.0 WAR. And two seasons of 80% LOB% is fantastic. Francona likely edges Ventura here, but just barely. That 2014 White Sox bullpen was atrocious. Molitor had a decent year last year and Ausmus has been saddled with a lot of meh pitchers.

So given the three tables above, I's have to rank the managers as follows:

1. Yost

2. Francona

3. Ausmus

4. Molitor

5. Ventura

Please give your 10 cents in the comments to tell me how crazy I am. Or just post your rankings.