MLB Managers With No Experience (since 1997)

By Paul Semendinger, Ed.D.

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NOTE - We have written, a lot, about the Yankees' hiring of Aron Boone back in 2017, as this site was just starting.

This article ran in December 2017. It shows, clearly, that the Yankees were taking a huge leap of faith when they hired Aron Boone, a manger with no leadership experience as a coach or manager with any baseball team.

The move made no sense in 2017. The history indicated that it wasn't likely that Aaron Boone would find success. And, if success is determined by World Series' championships, he still has not.

What frustrates this writer is that so much of this was clear at the time.

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December 4, 2017

A lot has been opined about the fact that Aaron Boone, the new Yankees manager, is coming to the team without any experience as a professional baseball coach or manager in any capacity.

Since his retirement as a player, Aaron Boone has served as an analyst for ESPN.

I decided to do some research to see what recent baseball history has to say about this. I learned that in the last 30 years, there have nine times that teams have reached out and brought in managers with no experience.

The results, as expected, have been mixed.

The following chart is self-explanatory. This highlights how the teams performed the season prior to the "no-experience" manager and in that manager's first year. Some brief notes also follow.

In order to eliminate interim managers, I used 162 games managed as a qualifier. This chart only lists managers who led their teams for at least the equivalent of a full season.