In the last year, baseball has lost several of its most mockable managerial minds: Dusty "I [Heart] Veterans" Baker, Mike "Stallin', Not Ballin'" Hargrove, Jerry "Snuh?" Narron. And so it is with a heavy heart that we present our annual ranking of fellas who shouldn't be permitted to manage the night shift at a day care center, much less a heavily scrutinized collection of 13-times-over millionaires. R.I.P., Dustbag.

10. Ron Gardenhire, Minnesota Twins (last year's ranking: 2): His boosters tend to confuse "stability" with "ability"—a reasonable error, given the extra two consonants and all. Gardenhire lacks lineup logic and, whether or not he's following orders from upstairs, refuses to play younger players until they've completed a season-long apprenticeship on the bench. The Twins' success should be attributed to their impressive player-development carousel, not Gardenhire's gosh-gee-almighty leadership.

9. Lou Piniella, Chicago Cubs (last year: out to pasture): Sure, the Cubbies are winning, but they seem to be doing so in spite of Piniella's too-frequent player moves (the Felix Pie/Angel Pagan/Jacque Jones center field shuffle, the mix-and-match approach to both middle-infield positions) and you-all-suck rants. His volcanic temper now inspires giggles rather than awe—"hey, look at that crazy old screw trying to punt third base into the bleachers!," etc. Sweet Lou belongs on a nice enclosed porch with a bottomless pitcher of lemonade.

8. Bob Melvin, Arizona Diamondbacks (last year: 5): Shouldn't these young prospects be developing just a bit faster than they are? You'd think so, given that the sexy stat heads have made the D'backs the sexy pick for the sexy NL pennant. Melvin just… We don't know what he does, actually. This may be part of the problem.


7. Ken Macha, Oakland Athletics (last year: unranked): Listed here less due to overt signs of incompetence than due to the manager's limited role within the A's organizational framework. Unlike other skippers, the guy behind the wheel in Oakland is subject to civil and criminal penalties if he bunts, steals, hits and runs, changes the batting order, visits the pitcher on the mound, departs from a set bull pen usage pattern, fills out the lineup card in blue rather than black ink, or otherwise improvises from the Moneyball script. Macha, in fact, could probably disappear for a week without anybody noticing.

6. Joe Maddon, Tampa Bay Devil Rays (last year: unranked): Everybody loves ol' Joe, and nobody questions that he walked into a situation only slightly less calamitously awful than the Middle East. But jeez, the D-Rays seem actually to have become more anarchic under his watch. B.J. Upton may finally be realizing his potential, but he and his fellow 2009 supadupastars fail to hit the cutoff man, run out ground balls, or tuck in their shirts. There's less organizational order here than in most communes, and the only place to point the finger for that is at the manager.