A week ago, I wrote a column -- maybe you read it -- about the Montreal Expos. Specifically, I wrote about the Expos hitters showing a great deal more plate discipline than they did last season. Last year, the Expos were managed by Felipe Alou and Jeff Torborg; this year, they're managed by Frank Robinson. And after a moderate amount of research and a short conversation with Expos general manager Omar Minaya, I concluded that Robinson and new hitting coach Tom McCraw just might be having a beneficial effect on the Montreal hitters, not to mention Montreal's place in the standings, which was then (and still is) first place.

I did take great pains to mention that the Expos weren't just walking more, but a lot more. Four of the seven returning regulars had essentially doubled (at least) their walk rates, and the other two were walking about 50 percent more than they had the year before. That is to say, the collective improvement appeared significant.

	“	When you played for Frank (Robinson), I don't care if it was baserunning, or how you positioned yourself defensively, or trying to work the count, he expected you to get the job done. Your concentration level had to be very high, because he didn't stand for anything less than that. And if that meant more walks, great. ”
		— Duane Kuiper

Of course, it was (and is) early in the season. So I covered my bets. I acknowledged the possible role of chance in the equation, and I qualified -- by the way, successful columnists rarely qualify -- my theory with a "maybe."

Still, maybe I didn't do enough. There's a message board connected to this page, and I check in from time to time. I initially hoped that the message board would generally be devoted to thoughtful analyses of whatever I'd happened to write that day, but as you probably know if you've spent much time there (or on any other message board), "message board" and "thoughtful" don't often go together. That's not to say you won't find intelligent people there, but a fair number of posters are interested in little more than venting their spleen. And last week, one angry individual vented his spleen all over my Expos column. My analysis was incomplete, the improvements weren't significant, Rob Neyer is the worst writer in the history of the English language, et cetera et cetera.

Fair enough. Everybody's entitled to his own opinion. This particular body seemed to have missed the various caveats I'd sprinkled throughout the column, but the truth is that he did cause me to think more about what I'd written. And fortunately, I did get one constructive comment. Scott Lemieux, perhaps the only Expos fan who currently resides in the Great State of Washington, pointed out something -- via e-mail rather than the message board -- that I should already have known: nearly 20 years ago, a chunk of The Bill James Baseball Abstract 1983 is directly relevant to the discussion of Frank Robinson. Robinson managed the San Francisco Giants in 1982, and as James wrote on page 57, "The San Francisco Giants of 1982 were, down the line, an Earl Weaver team. The team was led by four ballplayers ... whose batting averages represented an unusually small part of their offensive value ..."

If your offensive value isn't filled with batting average, what does that leave? Home runs and walks, usually.

In 1980, the Giants finished ninth in the National League in home runs, fifth in walks.

In 1981, Robinson's first season managing the Giants, they finished sixth in the National League in home runs, first in walks.

In 1987, the Baltimore Orioles finished third in the American League in home runs, but just ninth in walks.

In 1989, Robinson's first full season managing the Orioles, they finished fifth in the American League in home runs, but second in walks.

In 2001, the Montreal Expos finished 16th in the National League in home runs, 14th in walks.

And slightly more than four weeks into 2002, Robinson's first season managing the Expos, they rank sixth in the National League in home runs, and first in walks.

No human being ever born, no computer ever constructed, can judge with any degree of certainty how much responsibility for those numbers belongs to Frank Robinson. But considering all of the conversations we have about managers, and considering the books published about managers, and considering how many managers get fired when their teams aren't playing well ... considering all that, isn't it likely that managers can and do have some effect on how well their players play?

Today, Duane Kuiper is one-half of the best daily TV tandem in baseball, as he and Mike Krukow call games for the Giants.

Two decades ago, though, he was playing for Frank Robinson. In fact, I think he probably played more games for Frank Robinson than anybody: two-plus seasons in Cleveland at the beginning of his career, and two-plus seasons in San Francisco near the end.

In the four full seasons in which Kuiper played for Robinson, he drew 57 walks per 600 plate appearances and reached base 37 percent of the time. In the four full seasons in which Kuiper did not play for Robinson, he drew 33 walks per 600 plate appearances and reached base 32 percent of the time. The other day, I asked Kuiper, "Did Robinson go out of his way to stress plate discipline?"

"We were scared to swing at bad pitches because we'd have to face him when we went back to the dugout," Kuiper replied. He was kidding. But seriously, folks ...

"Frank was not only the manager, but also a hitting instructor if you needed his advice. He didn't search you out unless he could see that you'd hit rock bottom, but he was really good. And I can't think of too many ballplayers who wouldn't want to take advice from a guy with his reputation."

But Robinson was not the hitting instructor, and wasn't regarded, then or now, as some sort of hitting guru. Kuiper says, "The one thing he always encouraged us to do was hit your pitch. Nothing unique, just try to get in fastball counts."

Yeah, but how did he get his message across?

"When you played for Frank, I don't care if it was baserunning, or how you positioned yourself defensively, or trying to work the count, he expected you to get the job done. Your concentration level had to be very high, because he didn't stand for anything less than that. And if that meant more walks, great."

Of course, maintaining concentration, getting good pitches to hit ... none of this stuff is revolutionary, and every manager from John McGraw and Joe McCarthy to Buddy Bell and Tony Muser has preached the same things. The difference is that some managers get the message across, and some do not. Sound simple? It is. And I believe that Frank Robinson is one of those managers who gets the message across.