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According to reports, the Kansas City Royals strongly considered four men for the recently opened position as manager of the worst team in the major leagues. Having employed five straight managers with no previous experience as major-league managers, the Royals decided that this time their manager would be experienced.

So, before hiring Buddy Bell, they considered four candidates: Bell (six seasons as a major-league manager), Jerry Manuel (six), Terry Collins (six) and Gene Lamont (eight). Now, I would argue that a rebuilding team should at least consider trying to find the next Earl Weaver. The next Sparky Anderson. The next Buck Showalter.

Those guys are hard to spot, though (or so the thinking goes, which I suppose is why teams rarely bother trying). So let's look at just those four. All of them might be considered retreads, of course, but that doesn't mean they're all the same. I'm going to do something you don't often see: I'm going to consider each candidate's minor-league record along with the major-league record. I've heard the argument for not considering what happens in the minors: the manager is stuck with whatever talent the organization gives him. But isn't that essentially true in the majors, too? The manager's job is to get the most of the talent that's available, and that's true in both the minors and the majors.

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