There is no great mystery to the job of managing a baseball team. You have to be blessed with certain talents – a high baseball IQ, a dash of fearlessness, a plentiful helping of intellect, an ability to relate with an eclectic assortment of personalities – and then you have to work at it. A lot. You need reps. You need a lot of reps.
Back in Joe Torre’s salad days with the Yankees, much was made about how he seemed to know, inherently, instinctively, just what to do: whom to start, and whom to bench; which pitcher to trust (famously David Cone, Game 3 of the ’96 World Series) and whom to dismiss (famously Denny Neagle, Game 4 of the 2000 Series).