Skipper Why Baseball Managers Matter and Always Will

From the award-winning baseball writer and coauthor of Ninety Percent Mental, an unprecedented look at the job of Major League Baseball managers—showing how they shape the game, and how the ever-changing game shapes them.

Skipper takes on an ambitious Moneyball-esque premise: a deep dive into the ongoing struggle for control that often takes place behind the scenes between Major League Baseball managers and the ownership groups, and now, their data analysts. In a culture still attempting to come to terms with the Digital Age, there’s a bigger story behind the evolution of authority of managing inside the major leagues. 

Packed with baseball history, interviews with dozens of MLB's current stars and veterans, and an exclusive, inside look at the day-to-day life of manager  LA Dodgers’ Dave Roberts, Skipper is a fascinating look into the highs, the lows, and the inner workings of the changing world of professional baseball.

Scott miller is an award-winning veteran national MLB writer who has been a contributor to the New York Times’ baseball coverage in 2021 and 2022 following long-term stints as the national baseball columnist at Bleacher Report and CBSSports.com. He co-authored Ninety Percent Mental with former MLB All-Star pitcher and mental skills coach Bob Tewksbury in 2018 and is an analyst for MLB Network Radio on Sirius XM.  Well-connected throughout the baseball industry, Miller has been honored several times as one of the top baseball writers in the nation by the Associated Press Sports Editors and was included in the book 2019 Best American Sportswriting.  Before Bleacher Report and CBSSports.com, he covered baseball for the Los Angeles Times and St. Paul (Minn.) Pioneer Press.