Kimmie…
My nephews pop-warner (football) coach works harder than a baseball manager.
(and he’s coaching 7 yr olds)
lets see…. I know this stuff pretty good….. pitch stats are kept by pitchers and pitching coaches. all player stats are kept by team and league statisticians. Those, along with pitching stats are printed out on papers by team statisticians. the manager simply looks at these papers during the game and he knows who can hit what or what pitcher can dominate who…. Basically what the announcer has already told us (because he has the same stat sheets). Torre also managed an AL team so he rarely had to consider pinch hitters or whether to pull a pitcher who was still pitching a good but close game. Baseball strategy is pretty basic and uniform. You "hit and run" on certain pitches or in certain situations almost automatically... same goes for stealing a base, bunting, hitting behind a runner and sac flies….. you name it. Tagging up on a fly to right… those stat guys also keep track of who has the most put outs from right field (ie… stronger throwing arm). This is all dictated by what's on those stat sheets, not what the manager knows…. Simply because he doesn’t know anything that hasn’t already been charted a hundred times by a multitude of stat guys. When the situation calls for it... they usually do it. If anything... Torre was one of the least un-predictable managers that i can remember (valentine comes close, and he's an idiot).
Lets not even get into the differences between managing from the seat of your ass (most managers sit the games out) as compared to a head coach in football who stands on the sidelines, in constant communication with his players, calls the plays, makes about a hundred position and formation changes during the course of a game and in most cases is wearing a headset and getting information from coaches upstairs. of course both have their assistants to help with the duties here and there.. but baseball doesn't take a week to "game plan" as football does. Basketball and hockey or somewhere between baseball and football... but baseball is BY FAR the easiest of them all. ever see a baseball playbook... NO because there isn't one. all they need to do is memorize the third base coaches signs which change once or twice a week. oh.. I didn't even get to "clock management" which is something a manager doesn't ever have to concern himself with.