Was Casey Stengel a good manager?

[Jim65]

Most managers are only as good as the players they have, I view Casey the same way I view Joe Torre, mediocre managers who benefited from having great players.

[John1941]

I think Stengel was a good manager. His managing style, with platooning everyone but Mantle, switching players in and out of the lineup, not giving any single pitcher too much work, all are strategies which work if you have a lot of good players and don't if you don't. The Yankees were the team he was made to manage.

I'm not sure how much credit you should give Stengel for this, but the Yankees were very smart with players in the '50s. Maybe Weiss was a bigger part of that, but Stengel at least cooperated.

[frankbmd]

Ford never started more than 30 games until Houk took over.

Larsen was an accidental starter in the fifth game of the 56 WS.

If a pitcher did well against a certain team, he might have to wait 7 days for a start until that team showed up.

Not conventional but he got results.

The Yankees might have done as well or better with another manager, but the process would have been different.

[egri]

Stengel didn't have a whole lot of success before or after New York, but he wasn't given much to work with either. The Dodgers, Braves and Mets were all bottom-feeders during his tenure. As I recall, he was one of the first managers to take his hardest throwing pitcher (Joe Page) and use him in relief, not as a starter.

[ALR-bishop]

I am from St Louis. In 1967 the Cardinals had just moved from Grand Avenue to a new round stadium in downtown and the All Star Game was held there in July. Stengel who was asked what he thought of the news stadium. His response was a classic

https://r.search.yahoo.com/_ylt=Awr9...PB8D2yIcvHHAU-

[frankbmd]

I did have a brief chat with him in 1957, but didn't give him any advice.

[Peter_Spaeth]

I have read that a lot of what he did, he had learned from John McGraw. Presumably the Yankees saw something in him to hire him despite his lack of past success. Was he Earl Weaver? Probably not, but it's hard to argue with that much success.

One of the funniest things I read was Stengel testifying before a Senate committee on the antitrust exemption. They ask him his opinion and he proceeds to talk for half an hour nonstop about everything but the question. When he finishes, they turn to Mantle who for some reason was also called in to testify, and ask him what HE thinks. He says, I agree with Casey.

[Cliff Bowman]

Originally Posted by frankbmd

I did have a brief chat with him in 1957, but didn't give him any advice.

I imagine Stengel would have taken advice from an elder .

[Mark17]

He won the pennant in 1949, 1950, 1951, 1952, 1953, 1955, 1956, 1957, 1958, 1960. How much more does a guy have to accomplish to be called "good?"

No manager can win without good players, but a lot of managers can lose with them. Stengel did more than his share of winning.

As has been mentioned before, he also saved Larsen's WS perfect game by moving Mantle over into left center right before Hodges crushed it there.

Although......... I think Stengel blew the 1960 World Series.

[Cliff Bowman]

Originally Posted by ALR-bishop

https://r.search.yahoo.com/_ylt=Awr9...PB8D2yIcvHHAU-

When I looked at that site I knew that date of death was wrong for Stengel knowing that he died in 1975, but they got everything wrong. He was born July 30, 1890 and died September 29, 1975.