Jim Leyland steps down as Tigers manager: A victory for stat nerds?

Two days after his team bowed out of the American League Championship Series, Tigers manager Jim Leyland announced he was stepping down to spend more time with his favorite antiquated baseball statistics.

Okay, the veteran skipper is actually leaving his post because, as he put it, "the fuel was starting to get low." And Leyland plans to remain with the Tigers in some capacity as he heads toward retirement, so he's not stepping away from the game entirely.

The 68-year-old Leyland managed four teams over his 22-season career, winning three league pennants and one World Series title. Yet his enduring legacy— aside from that time he cursed out a young Barry Bonds — may be his unveiled disdain for the new breed of stat-minded baseball nerds who have taken over the game.

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Leyland has long pooh-poohed attempts to modernize statistical analysis, preferring instead the old time-y metrics he's more familiar with. He's something of an anti-Moneyball type, a curmudgeon in high-waisted pants who trusts his gut more than complex math.

"I'm a baseball manager, not a statistician," he said earlier this year. "I don't care about all that stat stuff."

At the time, Leyland was dismissing questions about Tigers ace Max Scherzer and his amazing winning percentage. Scherzer went 21-3 and is expected to run away with the AL Cy Young. Except wins are one of the more controversial holdover stats from yesteryear, since they're heavily dependent on a factor beyond a pitcher's control: Run support.

The Tigers, to that point, had averaged almost six runs per game for Scherzer, giving him a chance to win every time out even if he pitched terribly. Yes, Scherzer's peripheral numbers were also pretty great; he racked up the second-most strikeouts in baseball. All reporters wanted to know, though, was whether Leyland believed Scherzer's win total had to do with more than just his arm.

"I don't believe in any of that stuff," he said, adding, "Some people could find a flaw in Bo Derek."

Yes, Leyland is old — really, Bo Derek as a cultural reference? — and at times the personification of old school. Tigers outfielder Torii Hunter once even called him an "old school pimp".

When the power went out briefly during Game 3 of the ALCS, he used the opportunity to light up a smoke in the dugout. When his team slumped to start the series, he didn't pour over reams of data to find a fix; he lay down on his couch for a bit and then scratched out a new lineup on a pad of paper.

Interestingly, Leyland's lineup change — he moved his leadoff man, Austin Jackson, to the back end of the order and bumped everyone else up — went over well with his nerdy nemeses. The shakeup put Miguel Cabrera, the game's best hitter, second in the batting order, where statheads have long advocated a team's best hitter should bat.

Yet for Leyland, the change wasn't about Cabrera, but rather about burying the struggling Jackson. And though the lineup change helped the Tigers win their next game, Leyland said he had no attachment to that night's lineup card. "I'll throw it away," he said. "Unless I can sell it at some bar on the way home."

Leyland had great success as a manager, and there are already calls for him to be voted into the Hall of Fame. With his semi-retirement, though, the Tigers could move in a new direction. They could finally hire a more forward-thinking manager to helm the team, someone who isn't afraid to bat Cabrera second every day, and who can readily find a flaw in Bo Derek — or perhaps a more contemporary movie star, for that matter.