The Baseball Hall of Fame recently announced their 2014 Veterans' ballot. A week or so ago, I took a look at seven people on the ballot whose Hall-of-Fame case rests at least in part on their record as a player.

As I noted in my article on Joe Torre, I calculate Player won-lost records, so I don't necessarily have much to say about managers. But one of the other managers on this year's Hall-of-Fame ballot is interesting enough that I thought I'd at least try: Billy Martin. The SABR BioProject has a very good biography of Billy Martin.

Billy Martin actually had a fairly long and respectable playing career, not enough to make much difference in his Hall-of-Fame case, but it was still worth noting. So, just because, the first table below presents Billy Martin's career as measured by Player won-lost records.

Billy Martin Basic Player Won-Lost Records
												Value Decomposition
Season	Team	Age	Games	pWins	pLosses	pWin Pct.	pWOPA	pWORL	eWins	eLosses	eWin Pct.	eWOPA	eWORL
1950	NYA	22	34	1.1	0.9	0.558	0.1	0.2	1.0	1.0	0.515	0.0	0.1
1951	NYA	23	52	1.5	2.2	0.403	-0.3	-0.2	1.7	1.9	0.465	-0.1	0.1
1952	NYA	24	109	12.0	10.0	0.547	1.1	2.0	10.8	11.2	0.492	-0.1	0.8
1953	NYA	25	149	17.9	15.9	0.529	1.2	2.6	16.9	16.9	0.500	0.2	1.6
1955	NYA	27	20	2.5	1.8	0.577	0.4	0.6	2.2	2.1	0.502	0.1	0.2
1956	NYA	28	121	14.2	12.9	0.524	1.0	2.1	13.2	14.0	0.486	-0.1	1.0
+– 1957		29	116	10.6	13.1	0.447	-1.2	-0.2	11.0	12.7	0.464	-0.7	0.2
	KC1		73	7.2	8.3	0.464	-0.5	0.2	7.5	7.9	0.488	-0.1	0.5
	NYA		43	3.4	4.8	0.414	-0.7	-0.3	3.4	4.8	0.418	-0.6	-0.3
1958	DET	30	131	13.0	16.0	0.448	-1.2	-0.1	13.3	15.7	0.458	-0.9	0.2
1959	CLE	31	73	6.6	6.5	0.504	0.1	0.7	6.6	6.6	0.499	0.1	0.6
1960	CIN	32	103	7.9	10.7	0.424	-1.1	-0.4	8.3	10.3	0.446	-0.7	0.0
+– 1961		33	114	10.7	12.2	0.469	-0.2	0.8	10.4	12.5	0.453	-0.6	0.4
	MIN		108	10.7	12.0	0.472	-0.2	0.9	10.3	12.3	0.456	-0.5	0.5
	MLN		6	0.0	0.2	0.075	-0.1	-0.1	0.0	0.2	0.155	-0.1	-0.1
------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------
CAREER (reg. season)			1,022	98.0	102.1	0.490	-0.1	8.1	95.2	104.9	0.476	-2.8	5.3
			------	------	------				------	------
PostSeason (career)			28	3.6	3.1	0.540		0.6	3.6	3.0	0.546		0.6
			------	------	------	------		------	------	------	------		------
COMBINED			1,050	101.5	105.1	0.490		8.7	98.8	107.9	0.476		6.0

Billy Martin the Manager: Turnaround Specialist

Of course, Billy Martin is not on this year's Hall-of-Fame ballot because he was a league-average second baseman in the 1950s. He's on the Hall-of-Fame ballot because of his managerial career.

Billy Martin managed for five different franchises. For all five of them, he took over a team that had a losing record the season before he got there and managed them to a winning season his first full year.

The 1968 Minnesota Twins went 79-83 (after three straight winning seasons). Billy Martin took over in 1969 and the Twins won 97 games and the first American League West Division title. That was Martin's only season in Minnesota.

Meanwhile, the 1970 Detroit Tigers were finishing 79-83, after six straight winning seasons. The next season, they hired Martin as their manager and promptly won 91 games. Martin lasted most of the next two seasons with the Tigers, but was fired late in the 1973 season.

Martin didn't stay out of work long, though, as the Texas Rangers hired him to finish out a 57-105 season. There wasn't much that Martin could do that season, but in 1974, the Rangers won 84 games. Martin was fired in the middle of the 1975 season.

He then took over the Yankees in mid-season of 1975, before being fired in 1978, re-hired in 1979, and then fired again. Because this didn't include him taking over a new team essentially to start a new season, we'll set this part of Martin's record aside for now.

Meanwhile, Charlie Finley had sold off his three-time World Championship team and the Oakland A's bottomed out in 1979 with a record of 54-108. In came Billy Martin to the rescue in 1980 and, true to form, his A's team won 83 games. Also true to form, Billy Martin was looking for work again at the end of the 1982 season (although his three consecutive full seasons in Oakland was a first).

Meanwhile, the Yankees had fallen on hard times with the 1982 Yankees going 79-83. For the third time in his career, Martin took over a team that had gone 79-83 the year before, and for the third time, led them to over 90 wins the next season, as the 1983 Yankees won 91 games.

Five teams: an average record of 70-92 the season before Martin came (setting aside Martin's 23-game stint with the '73 Rangers). The same five teams the next season with Martin at the helm: an average record of 89-73. They all had losing records before Martin; they all had winning records with Martin. They all improved by at least 12 games with an average improvement of 19 games.

That's a stunning record. So, how exactly did he do it?

The rest of this article compares the Player won-lost records of these teams before Martin came along to the same teams in Martin's first season as their manager.

The first table compares aggregate Player won-lost records in and out of context.

	pWins	pLosses	pWOPA	pWORL	eWins	eLosses	eWOPA	eWORL
Before Martin
1968 Minnesota Twins	241.0	245.0	-2.3	18.5	246.9	239.1	3.5	24.4
1970 Detroit Tigers	241.0	245.0	-1.8	20.4	239.8	246.2	-3.0	19.2
1973 Texas Rangers	219.0	267.0	-23.9	-1.4	234.5	251.5	-8.4	14.1
1979 Oakland A's	216.0	270.0	-27.2	-6.1	228.8	257.2	-14.4	6.7
1982 New York Yankees	241.0	245.0	-2.2	18.9	245.5	240.5	2.3	23.4
Average before Martin	231.6	254.4	-11.5	10.1	239.1	246.9	-4.0	17.5
With Martin
1969 Minnesota Twins	259.0	227.0	16.1	38.5	251.8	234.2	8.9	31.3
1971 Detroit Tigers	253.0	233.0	10.1	31.0	246.7	239.3	3.8	24.6
1974 Texas Rangers	245.0	238.0	3.3	23.8	244.2	238.8	2.6	23.0
1980 Oakland A's	245.0	241.0	1.6	22.0	246.7	239.3	3.3	23.7
1983 New York Yankees	253.0	233.0	9.6	30.1	248.2	237.8	4.8	25.3
Average with Martin	251.0	234.4	8.1	29.1	247.5	237.9	4.7	25.6
Difference	19.4	-20.0	19.6	19.0	8.4	-9.0	8.7	8.1

Martin took over teams that under-performed their context-neutral performances (by about 7 games) and got them to out-perform their context-neutral performance (by about 4 games). But even controlling for context, the players on Martin's teams were about 9 wins better than the same teams had been the year before.

The rest of this article looks exclusively at context-neutral and teammate-adjusted Player won-lost records.

The next table compares the four basic factors: batting, baserunning, pitching, and fielding.

	Batting			Baserunning			Pitching			Fielding
	eWins	eLosses	Net Wins	eWins	eLosses	Net Wins	eWins	eLosses	Net Wins	eWins	eLosses	Net Wins
Before Martin
1968 Minnesota Twins	113.6	112.2	1.4	11.0	10.6	0.3	75.5	71.9	3.7	47.6	46.9	0.7
1970 Detroit Tigers	109.3	110.1	-0.8	8.8	9.2	-0.4	78.5	82.7	-4.1	43.8	44.1	-0.3
1973 Texas Rangers	102.5	108.2	-5.6	10.9	10.5	0.4	74.3	81.0	-6.6	47.0	50.2	-3.2
1979 Oakland A's	96.3	111.0	-14.7	10.1	11.9	-1.8	77.7	85.2	-7.5	49.3	52.1	-2.8
1982 New York Yankees	113.3	112.0	1.3	9.3	10.3	-0.9	77.9	71.5	6.3	45.9	48.8	-2.8
Average before Martin	107.0	110.7	-3.7	10.0	10.5	-0.5	76.8	78.4	-1.6	46.7	48.4	-1.7
With Martin
1969 Minnesota Twins	118.1	109.5	8.6	11.2	11.9	-0.7	76.0	71.3	4.7	45.2	44.1	1.1
1971 Detroit Tigers	120.7	110.4	10.3	10.6	12.6	-2.0	76.3	80.7	-4.3	46.6	45.3	1.3
1974 Texas Rangers	106.8	103.4	3.4	11.3	10.9	0.5	72.1	70.6	1.5	42.7	46.0	-3.4
1980 Oakland A's	105.1	106.4	-1.2	12.0	11.1	1.0	75.5	73.1	2.4	43.7	42.0	1.7
1983 New York Yankees	118.2	112.0	6.2	10.0	10.1	-0.1	75.7	71.3	4.3	43.9	45.8	-1.9
Average with Martin	113.8	108.4	5.5	11.0	11.3	-0.3	75.1	73.4	1.7	44.4	44.6	-0.2
Difference	6.8	-2.3	9.1	1.0	0.8	0.2	-1.7	-5.0	3.4	-2.3	-3.8	1.5

Martin's teams improved in all four aspects, although barely in baserunning. Only one of Martin's teams did not improve in pitching (the Yankees) while all five of his teams improved in batting and fielding. On average, the biggest improvement came in batting where Martin's teams improved by almost 9 net wins.

Finally, the next table looks at (context-neutral, teammate-adjusted) results by position. Because of space considerations, only averages with and without Martin are shown here by position.

	Average before Martin			Average with Martin
	eWins	eLosses	eWOPA	eWins	eLosses	eWOPA	Difference
Catcher	14.1	15.0	-0.2	14.0	14.7	0.0	0.2
First Base	16.2	15.9	-0.6	17.3	14.9	0.5	1.1
Second Base	19.2	20.5	-0.1	18.8	19.9	-0.2	-0.0
Third Base	17.6	18.6	-0.7	18.9	18.0	0.2	1.0
Shortstop	17.3	20.1	-0.5	18.8	19.7	0.3	0.8
Left Field	22.0	21.2	-0.4	23.0	21.0	0.4	0.7
Center Field	21.2	20.2	0.1	21.0	20.0	0.1	0.0
Right Field	21.7	20.6	-0.0	22.0	19.2	0.8	0.8
Starting Pitcher	54.7	57.3	-1.3	57.8	55.9	0.9	2.2
Relief Pitcher	23.8	23.8	-0.0	19.1	19.4	-0.1	-0.1
Other	12.2	15.5	-0.7	13.6	15.0	0.3	0.9

Again, the improvement brought by Billy Martin was broad-based. The only position at which Martin's teams did not see any improvement was second base. Gains were also somewhat minimal at catcher, center field, and in the bullpen.

In terms of pitching, the improvement from Martin came exclusively from the starting pitching. The most famous example of this is the 1980 Oakland A's who completed 94 games, 53 more than the year before and 46 more than the second-most by any AL team in 1980. The A's were the most extreme example, but 4 of the 5 teams being considered here increased their complete games by at least 20. Only in Martin's first stop did his team's starting pitchers complete fewer games than before he got there.

In terms of position players, Martin's teams tended to see the most improvement at the corner positions: the offense-first positions, first & third base and left & right field. Much of this was a willingness to play and benefit from improvement from young players - e.g., Mike Hargrove and Lenny Randle had their first chance as starters for the 1974 Texas Rangers, the corner outfielders for the 1980 Oakland A's were 21-year-old Rickey Henderson and 26-year-old Tony Armas, the latter of whom played 40 games more than his previous career high. Martin was also willing to push players defensively to get another big bat in the lineup: for example, Harmon Killebrew played more third base than first base in 1969 for the first time since 1959, which opened up more playing time for Rich Reese, who had an OPS of .875 (OPS+ of 139) in 1969.

To be honest, trying to look for common denominators on the teams that Martin took over are a little hard to find, other than the obvious one: when Billy Martin took over a team, it got better - a lot better, in a lot of ways.



All articles are written so that they pull data directly from the most recent version of the Player won-lost database. Hence, any numbers cited within these articles should automatically incorporate the most recent update to Player won-lost records. In some cases, however, the accompanying text may have been written based on previous versions of Player won-lost records. I apologize if this results in non-sensical text in any cases.

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