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Chroncast #49: Who’s the best manager in the NL?

Barry Bonds isn’t the best manager in the National League, but there’s no good reason to not use a picture of Barry Bonds as coach.

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MLB: Spring Training-San Francisco Giants at Milwaukee Brewers
BONDS’ INNER MONOLOGUE: Jeromy Burnitz looks grizzled af now.
Rick Scuteri-USA TODAY Sports

There are 13 rankable managers in the National League and by gawdness, we rank the everlovin' heck out of 'em. This comes just before the first pitch of the 2017 season and on the heels of the national baseball writers anointing Cool Joe Maddon as the greatest manager in the game. We think there's something wrong with that label and try to sort out just exactly where Joe and the other NL managers fall on that list of 13.

But then, and perhaps most importantly, we mourn the loss of Buster Posey's peak performance. He just turned 30, you see, the age at which most baseball players begin to enter the "decline phase" of their careers. But catchers have a steeper slope on that phase and we can't expect Buster Posey to be an exception to that. Was 2016 a harbinger of 2017 results or is the unstoppable stampede of time just taking a minor detour on its way to dragging the beauty of Buster Posey's peak away from our collective consciousnessness?

Oh, and we also answer your Twitter questions.

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