As usual, I was sitting at my desk, thinking about baseball instead of working...
Here's the thought: which manager could field the best team based on players he had managed? Is it a Joe McCarthy who managed a single team that dominated the league for years, or a better traveled manager like Joe Torre or Billy Martin, who managed a wider range of players?
Since I figure the great Yankee skipper will be well represented in the comments (Casey is my pick) I started looking at the non-Yankee options:
| John J. McGraw | Lou Pinella | Bobby Cox | Connie Mack | Sparky Anderson | |
| C | Roger Bresnahan | Geovany Soto | Javy Lopez | Mickey Cochrane | Johnny Bench |
| 1B | Bill Terry | Don Mattingly | Fred McGriff | Jimmy Foxx | Tony Perez |
| 2B | Rogers Hornsby | Brett Boone | Marcus Giles | Nap Lajoie | Joe Morgan |
| 3B | Freddie Lindstrom | Alex Rodriguez | Chipper Jones | Home Run Baker | Pete Rose |
| SS | Travis Jackson | Barry Larkin | Rafael Furcal | Jack Barry | Alan Trammell |
| LF | Willie Keeler | Rickey Henderson | Dale Murphy | Al Simmons | George Foster |
| CF | Fred Snodgrass | Ken Griffey Jr. | Andrew Jones | Ty Cobb | Chet Lemon |
| RF | Mel Ott | Dave Winfield | Gary Sheffield | Tris Speaker | Kirk Gibson |
| SP | Christy Matthewson | Randy Johnson | Phil Niekro | Eddie Plank | Jack Morris |
| SP | Carl Hubbell | Joe Niekro | Gaylord Perry | Lefty Grove | Gary Nolan |
| SP | Burleigh Grimes | Carlos Zambrano | Greg Maddux | ? | David Wells |
| SP | Joe McGinnity | Tommy John | Tom Glavine | ? | Dan Petry |
| CP | Rube Marquard | Dave Righetti | John Smoltz | Chief Bender | Willie Hernandez |
Obviously, I'm taking the players' careers rather than a specific season.
I think it's tough to beat Lou Pinella: although his starting pitching isn't as elite as Bobby Cox's, Lou has Ichiro and Carl Crawford to pinch run, Edgar Martinez to pinch hit, and he's got Willie Randolph for a defensive replacement.