What do you want from your coaches?
 

Dusty Baker is loved by every player that seems to play for him, always seems to win in the regular season, but never gets it done when it counts. I think Dusty's argument is a classic argument of do you want your coach to be a great coach of people or do you want them to be tactical? Another way of saying it in my mind is do you want them to be respected from inside the locker room or outside it?

They're paid to win. How they do it -- assuming no ethical/moral lapses -- is pretty irrelevant.

I think this is heavily dependent on sport.

And to Jon's point...

A coach that is a complete hard ass and an overall dick will be hated by his players on a struggling team.

That same coach will be respected on a winning team.

See: Tom Coughlin

i was thinking about this the other night but specifically about football. the offensive or defensive gurus that get hired/promoted almost never work out.

I want one that does both.

I want Buck Showalter. :D

I want Lou Piniella back.

exactly, although Coughlin has really softened up over the last few years.