Cal Baseball: Bob Melvin Poised to Become Oakland A's Winningest Manager
Bob Melvin would have to average 93 victories a season for the next 30 years to overtake the legendary Connie Mack as the winningest manager in A’s franchise history.
Mack -- who was born in 1862 during the time of the Civil War -- skippered the Philadelphia Athletics for 50 years, from 1901 through 1950, winning the mind-boggling total of 3,582 games.
Melvin would need to manage until nearly 90 years old to get there, so we’re going to take a leap and suggest it’s not going to happen.
But with 798 wins, Melvin is now tied with Tony La Russa for most managerial victories since the team relocated to Oakland in 1968. He moved even with La Russa on Friday night when the A’s beat the Los Angeles Angels and young star Shohei Ohtani 3-1.
The Angels won 4-0 on Saturday so the A’s will attempt to give Melvin sole ownership of the Oakland record on Sunday afternoon as the series concludes.
Bob Melvin
Photo by Robert Hanishiro, USA Today
Melvin attempted to downplay the achievement.
“It just means I’ve been here a while,” Melvin told reporters on Friday. “I’m lucky to be here. I have bosses that have had faith in me and I’ve had really good players and coaches.
"It’s about the players. Players win games for you. Coaches prepare them. I’m just a glorified cheerleader that gives them a pat on the back and gets credit every once in a while. It just means I’m lucky.”
Melvin, of course, began as a player. He was a freshman catcher for Cal in 1980, helping the Bears to a school-record 44 wins, a Pac-10 co-title and a third-place finish in the College World Series -- the program's highest finish since winning its second national championship in 1957.
Melvin batted .269 with 12 RBIs n 67 at-bats in 29 games, then transferred to a junior college. But professional scouts saw something they liked, and Melvin was drafted No. 2 overall by the Detroit Tigers in 1981.
He played 10 seasons in the majors, batting .233 with 35 home runs while playing for seven teams. He hit 11 homers for the Giants in 1987.
But Melvin has made his mark in baseball history as a manager. He had stints of two seasons with Seattle (2003-04) and five seasons with Arizona (2005-09) before returning to the East Bay with the A’s.
The team had lost nine in a row in 2011 when manager Bob Geren was fired and replaced by Melvin. The A’s lost 9-4 to the Chicago White Sox in his debut on June 9, 2011, but they turned the tables a day later, winning 7-5 when a three-run double by Scott Sizemore capped a four-run rally with two outs in the top of the ninth.
A year later, the A’s won 94 games and Melvin earned the first of his two AL Manager of the Year awards.
Now 59, Melvin is the longest-tenured active manager in baseball, which speaks to the fact that his success is the result of more than just being lucky.
A’s third baseman Matt Chapman told the Mercury News he knew Melvin was special in 2017 when a young team struggled but its manager took a measured approach to things.
“Talking to other guys who have played for BoMel or played for other teams and came back,” Chapman said, “you see and understand how good of a manager and how lucky all of us are because he was never too hard on us when we were young.”
The approach seems to work. Since that 2017 season, the A’s are 261-177 and have finished no lower than second place in the AL West. They take a division-leading 31-23 record into Sunday’s game.
Cover photo of Bob Melvin by Stan Szeto, USA Today
Follow Jeff Faraudo of Cal Sports Report on Twitter: @jefffaraudo