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Cardinals top minor league manager – Chris Maloney

Brian Walton — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 03:59:10 +0000

Not only does Chris Maloney manage at the highest level of the St. Louis Cardinals system, at Triple-A Memphis, he is also the winningest one in terms of regular season action since at least 1966. Maloney has also managed across the most diverse of prospect environments, down to rookie ball.

Top regular-season winning percentage (.519) and most different levels managed (six) – Chris Maloney

Like so many of the best coaches it seems, the man known as “Hammer” began as a middling player, putting in four seasons in the Mets and Cardinals organizations as an outfielder-first baseman, reaching no higher than A ball. Ironically, Maloney ended his playing career as a member of the 1986 Springfield (IL) Cardinals, managed by Gaylen Pitts.

Prior to receiving his first managerial job at Johnson City in 1991, Maloney coached at Springfield in 1988, Arkansas in 1989 and Johnson City in 1990. In his second year managing, the .737 mark posted by Hamilton set a record that still stands today as the best season by a farm club in the history of the Cardinals organization.

By his third season, Maloney’s Savannah Cardinals played .662 ball on their way to the Sally League crown. He was named Manager of the Year by USA Today Baseball Weekly. After six years of managing, he was a coach for Triple-A Louisville in 1997.

In 1998, he returned as skipper of the Double-A Arkansas Travelers and was named Manager of the Year for the system for the third time at the third different level. He remained with Arkansas for three seasons before being assigned back to Johnson City for 2001. From 2002 through 2004, Maloney jumped to the Houston Astros system where he led the Triple-A New Orleans Zephyrs.

Returning to the Cardinals organization in 2005, Maloney was selected to lead the new Springfield Cardinals in their inaugural season in the Double-A Texas League. He was the recipient of the 2006 George Kissell Award for excellence in player development. Maloney remained with Springfield for two seasons before assuming his current assignment as manager of the Triple-A Memphis Redbirds.

2009 marks Maloney’s 18th season with the Cardinals in coaching and 15^th as a manager. He has managed at every level in the system with the exception of the complex rookie leagues and has posted the highest career winning percentage (.519) of any manager with six or more seasons of service since at least 1966.

It is reasonable to assume given Maloney is just 47 years of age that he can pass Pitts with just two more seasons to become the longest-tenured manager in the system over at least the last 45 years.

Chris Maloney Cardinals career managerial record

Level	Club	Year	Win pct.	Wins	Losses	Div place	Playoffs
AAA	Memphis	2008	0.528	75	67	2
AAA	Memphis	2007	0.389	56	88	4
AA	Springfield (MO)	2006	0.478	66	72	3
AA	Springfield (MO)	2005	0.500	70	70	3
SS-R	Johnson City	2001	0.470	31	35	5
AA	Arkansas	2000	0.489	68	71	2
AA	Arkansas	1999	0.421	59	81	4
AA	Arkansas	1998	0.571	80	60	1	L1
A-Adv	St. Petersburg	1996	0.543	75	63	4
A-Adv	St. Petersburg	1995	0.489	64	67	5
AA	Arkansas	1994	0.504	68	67	3
A	Savannah	1993	0.662	94	48	1	WC
SS-A	Hamilton	1992	0.737	56	20	1	L1
SS-R	Johnson City	1991	0.606	40	26	2
			0.519	902	835		1-2

(Note: This series does not take the 2009 season into account. Maloney’s Memphis Redbirds won the Pacific Coast League championship, the club’s first since 2000. With the club’s 77-67 record, Maloney’s Cardinals career winning percentage improved to .520.)

Related articles:

“Top Cardinals minor league managers – 1966 to present”

“Cardinals minor league franchise census since 1974”

“Cardinals in the Gulf Coast, Arizona and Pioneer Rookie Leagues”

“Cardinals in Triple-A – 1977 to present”

“Cardinals in Double-A – 1966 to present”

“Cardinals in the Florida State League – 1966 to present”

“Quad Cities: Cardinals top minor league club has a long history”

“Cardinals in the Appalachian League – 1975 to present”

“Cardinals in the New York-Penn League – 1981 to present”

“A quarter century of Cardinals minor league results”

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Top Cardinals minor league managers – 1966 to present

Brian Walton — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 04:05:12 +0000

As I sat down to write an article commending the excellent managing job done in 2009 by Memphis’ Chris Maloney, I couldn’t help but recall the last time the Redbirds were in the playoffs.

Here is a reminder just how long ago it actually was. 20-year-old Albert Pujols hit a walk-off home run in the bottom of the 13th inning to sink Salt Lake and make Memphis the 2000 Pacific Coast League champions.

Here and now, Maloney not only did a superb job leading his club into the playoffs for the first time in nine years, but he did it while shipping players to St. Louis at a rapid pace as well as losing arguably his best hitter, starter and reliever among others via mid-season trades.

At this point, I expected to link to a series of articles I wrote prior to the season about the history of the St. Louis Cardinals farm system as well as its best managers. Specifically, I wanted to point to my Maloney article during which I highlight him being the winningest Cardinals minor league skipper in at least the last 40 years.

There was only one problem. I discovered that I only posted the team-oriented half of the series. Apparently distracted by my annual trip to spring training and everything that followed, I never got back to the top managers articles.

So I am going to fix that starting right now. To be consistent with the rest of the series, all the records mentioned and listed are through the 2008 season. I will look to do some kind of update over the upcoming winter.

With that, I am ending what has to be my longest introduction ever…

Over the 43 baseball seasons from 1966 through 2008, the St. Louis Cardinals employed at least 71 different individuals to lead their various US-based farm clubs. They managed all or parts of 295 individual seasons.

During this time, the Cardinals averaged between six and seven minor league clubs per year. Their high-water mark was eight, from 1988 through 1994, with a low of five, from 1974 through 1976 and again in 1979-1980. Their current count is seven.

Of the 71 leaders, fewer than one in four, only 14 of them precisely, managed for six or more years in the Cardinals system. They are the focus of this report.

We will look at several measures, including time in the job, number of clubs and leagues managed, won-loss percentage plus frequency of playoff participation and championships.

The data that follows is ordered by regular season winning percentage. Note that several managers’ marks have asterisks. That is due to them either taking over jobs or being replaced in-season. In a handful of cases where partial won-loss records were unavailable, the entire season’s results were credited to all managers. Any playoff results were assigned to the final skipper that season only. Finally, in any leagues with no playoffs, any regular-season first-place club is considered the post-season champion.

Here are the top St. Louis Cardinals minor league managers since 1966. The categories led by each are in bold. I will profile each of the six leaders in subsequent individual posts.

Manager	Years	# Yrs	Cities	Lvls	Win %	Playoffs	Playoff %	Champs	Champs %
Chris Maloney	1991-96	14	8	6	0.519	3	21%	1	7%
	1998-2001
	2005-08

Gaylen Pitts	1981-82	16	7	5	0.515*	5	31%	2	13%
	1985-90
	1997-2002
	2007-08

Dave Bialas	1982-92	11	4	4	0.513*	5	45%	0	0%

Jack Krol	1966-76	13	7	4	0.511	3	23%	3	23%
	1992-93

Tom Burgess	1969-1975	7	4	4	0.509	2	29%	2	29%

Nick Leyva	1978-83	6	4	4	0.507	2	33%	0	0%

Jim Riggleman	1982-88	6	2	2	0.506	1	17%	0	0%

Mark DeJohn	1986-91	13	9	5	0.503	5	38%	2	15%
	2002-08

Roy Majtyka	1968-75	8	5	4	0.497	1	13%	1	13%

Steve Turco	1992-99	8	1	1	0.4855	1	13%	0	0%

Joe Rigoli	1981-87	6	4	2	0.4854	1	17%	0	0%

Joe Cunningham III	1992-94	12	7	4	0.480	2	17%	0	0%
	1997-2005

Danny Sheaffer	2001-06	6	3	3	0.475	1	17%	1	17%

Joe Pettini	1989-96	8	4	4	0.454	2	25%	1	13%

Three of the 14 are managers in the Cardinals system today – Maloney, DeJohn and Turco. Two others, Pitts and Rigoli, are also still under the Cardinals employ. The former is a roving instructor and the latter serves as a professional scout.