There has been discussion here at HHS about the fact that even today, half a century after the first wave of major league franchise expansion, generally speaking the fourteen teams that have been created from the 1960s on have a tougher time being consistently successful than the sixteen teams that date back to the beginning of the 20th century or before. It follows that serving as manager of one (or more) of the those fourteen expansion franchises can be a task with special challenges. Mike Scioscia has handled that task as well as anyone. Indeed, Scioscia needs just four more more wins as manger of the Angels to become the winningest expansion franchise manager ever. The numbers are after the jump.
Bobby Valentine managed expansion franchises over fifteen different seasons — eight with the Rangers and seven with he Mets. He never did finish in first place in any of those years. But he did win a total of 1,117 regular season games with those clubs. That’s more wins than any other manager to date has achieved as an expansion franchise manager. But with Bobby now wrestling with the difficulties of his first gig as skipper of an Original-16 franchise team, his record as the winningest expansion franchise manager seems ready to fall within the next few days. Mike Scioscia is now in his thirteenth season as the field general of the Angels and has skippered 1,114 regular season wins over that time. With just four more wins, Mike will pass by Valentine — although Scioscia has reached his win number over only 2,030 regular season games managed in total, compared to the 2,189 games that Valentine needed with the Rangers and Mets to reach 1,117 wins. Here’s a top 10 list for most wins as an expansion franchise manager.
Most Regular Season Wins As Manager of Post-1960 Created Franchises:
1. Bobby Valentine 1,117
2. Mike Scioscia 1,114
3. Lou Piniella 1,040
4. Dick Williams 1,023
5. Bruce Bochy 951
6. Cito Gaston 894
7. Gene Mauch 878
8. Phil Garner 840
9. Buck Rodgers 784
10. Felipe Alou 691
Although there are over 9,000 wins in the above Top-10 list, they’ve produced just three World Championships: one by Scioscia and two by Cito Gaston with Toronto.
If you go by winning percentage instead of raw win totals, the most successful expansion franchise manager is a guy who has been doing it — successfully managing an expansion franchise — again this year:
Best Regular Season Winning Percentage as Manager of Post-1960 Created Franchises (min. 500 games managed):
1. Davey Johnson .581
2. Whitey Herzog .574
3. Larry Dierker .556
4. Mike Scioscia .549
5. Bobby Cox .548