USA Today has this story on baseball managers and the fact that they don't get paid like coaches in the NFL or NBA. There are several explanations suggested, but the correct one is not. The correct explanation would be that baseball managers don't get paid as much because they aren't worth as much. And they aren't worth as much because they, literally, don't do as much.
All this talk of, "Well, they have to keep the clubhouse happy" and "They need to monitor so many more games" obviously isn't valuable or else baseball managers would be getting paid.
Cubs manager Lou Piniella says the pool of available candidates for major league teams is so large, teams don't feel they have to bid to get their man, so salaries are kept in check.
"You can get a manager from Double-A or Triple-A and you can start them at an entry-level salary," Piniella says. "I think that's the biggest reason."
That's obviously ridiculous. The NFL has candidates from not only Division I football, but the Divisions below that. On top of those potential candidates, there is an offensive and defensive coordinator on every single one of those teams that are potential candidates. The pool of candidates for NFL head coach positions is huge. The main difference? A football (or basketball) coach that has success at one level, more often than not, can recreate that success at another level. And the number of people who are successful at coaching football teams (or basketball teams) is the limited commodity ."You can get a manager from Double-A or Triple-A and you can start them at an entry-level salary," Piniella says. "I think that's the biggest reason."
If what Piniella is saying is true - that the number of candidates for baseball managers is so huge - then it proves my point, because what he's saying is that just about anybody can coach at the Major League level and find some success.
The moral of the story is that somebody should pay me $500k a year. I'll keep that clubhouse happy.
What. What'd I say?