Reverse the decisions by your predecessor

 MARCH 26, 2013

The New Baseball Manager's Job Is to Reverse the Previous Guy's Bad Choices

A poorly performing professional baseball player is 4% to 6% more likely to be traded once the next manager or general manager takes over the team, according to an analysis of U.S. Major League Baseball by Roberto Pedace of Scripps College and Janet Kiholm Smith of Claremont McKenna College. However, while new managers tend to rid themselves of poor performers hired by their immediate predecessors, they're less quick to divest such players hired during earlier periods, suggesting that team owners order new managers to reverse just the most recent managerial regime's bad choices.

Source: Loss Aversion and Managerial Decisions: Evidence from Major League Baseball