Duckworth later came in and got the Sox out, 1-2-3.

Also see: Royals Review game thread, FanGraphs live WPA chart (you can tell where Bell inflicted his Peralta damage with that steep decline in the middle).

Buddy Bell makes Tony Muser look like Tony LaRussa.

I'm surprised that Gary Busey Duckworth got into the game tonight. I thought that Bell forgot about him.

TP Jr looked OK at the plate today. First time I seen him since the first week.

Has he been as good defensively as we Braves fans had been parroting him to be, or a disappointment?

And idiot Angel fans STILL deride Bill Stoneman for dumping Peralta without getting A-Rod in return...

well i don't watch royals games, but that pena dude is darn near as good as everett with the glove. which is nice because now the AL can get a chance to see what good defense actually looks like.

of course, the kid he won't get no respect when it come to GG cuz he hits worsen adam everett and a guy who don't hit 300 can't win no defensive award you know

and a guy who don't hit 300 can't win no defensive award you know

Except catchers? And Omar Vizquel? And Orlando Hudson? And Vernon Wells? I could keep going.

I'm teasing. I hear what you're saying. It should be clear to everyone that there is no way that Everett is even in the league if he doesn't play incredible defense.

Peralta is in a slump. The guy was pretty solid last year, and I'm not going to condemn him because he's off to a poor start through 11 innings this year. Its not like there are a lot of good options in the Royals pen.

I find it hard to believe this is the game that set you off on Buddy. I didn't find any of his moves last night particularly objectable. He's certainly had 5-6 other games this year where he's made much, much worse moves.

The Royals announced Dotel and Bale are out til mid-May so we have to live with these spare parts for awhile longer. Any thoughts on Elarton or Hudson moving to the pen when they return?

I've wanted Bell gone for like a year or so.

The guy just doesn't know how to manage pitching.

He is mismanaging Gobble, for example.

Granted, picking up Octavio DL Dotel will screw things up in the bullpen.

Along with Riske Bottalico and all.

Wrong. Sam Perlozzo is worse.

Joe Maddon blows the goat as well.

Who's the worst MLB manager in history in terms of underachieving his pythag?

In six full seasons (not counting 2002 when he was fired after 22 games, or 2005 when he was hired mid-seasno) Buddy is 22 games worse than his pythag. He has never done better than his pythag in a given year. His worst was 2001 when his pythag was 82-80 and he finished 73-89.

Guess what, bad teams underperform their Pythag. And I doubt it has much connection to managerial skill anyway.

I have some evidence it does.

And everyone thinks their team's manager is an idiot.

Yeah, I said something about that in two threads in the last 24 hours. But Royals fans have reason to think that. Going by the first link, either Buddy Bell or Don Baylor is the worst manager of the last 50 years. (That link's only through 2001, so Bell might have caught Baylor).

Who's the worst MLB manager in history in terms of underachieving his pythag?

Through 2001, list #6 in the first link has them. Bucky Harris & Jimmie Wilson are blowing evryone away. Harris at least has the excuse of managing 30 years to compile his stuff. Wilson stunk by any/all standards.

Joe Maddon blows the goat as well.

I feel vindicated. (End of article & post #1 in the thread). Not as bad as Bell, but I wouldn't say that about anyone after only one year.

Who's the worst MLB manager in history in terms of underachieving his pythag?

Dunno, but Jimy Williams was pretty consistently bad, if I remember correctly...

*checks*

(For years in which he was fired, I calculated Pythaogrean Projections myself, using 2 as the relevant exponent. Otherwise, I used bb-ref's numbers, which use 1.83 as the exponent).

-----

Jimy Williams:

Blue Jays
1986: -2
1987: -4
1988: -3
1989: -4 in 36 games before being fired

Red Sox
1997: -2
1998: -2
1999: +2 !!! (this is the year he won Manager of the Year)
2000: -1
2001: -1 in 118 games before being fired

Astros
2002: -3
2003: -7
2004: -2 in 48 games

Over the course of roughly 10.25 seasons, Williams teams were a total of -29 games. In only one season, Williams's team won more than its projection.

-----

Meanwhile, here are Bell's numbers...

Tigers:
1996: -3
1997: -1
1998: -2 in 137 games

Rockies:
2000: -5
2001: -9
2002: -1 in 22 games

Royals:
2005: +1 in 112 games
2006: -1
2007: -1 so far, after 19 games

So, let's see, after 6.75 seasons (roughly), his teams are -22. That's worse than Jimy Williams, I'd say.

-----

For curiosity's sake, here's Casey Stengel's record...

Dodgers:
1934: -1
1935: -1
1936: -1

Beaves:
1938: +8
1939: -3
1940: +1
1941: -1
1942: 0
1943: +8 in 117 games

(Apparently in 1943, the Braves replaced Stengel at the start of the season with Bob Coleman, changed their mind partway through and bringing Stengel back, then re-replaced him the next year with Bob Coleman again. Was this a Billy Martin kind of thing? Was it for health reasons? Anyone know?)

Yankees:
1949: +2
1950: +2
1951: +4
1952: 0
1953: -2
1954: +2
1955: -1
1956: -1
1957: 0
1958: -4
1959: -2
1960: +8

Mets:
1962: -10
1963: +1
1964: -6
1965: +2 after 95 games

That puts Stengle at +5 after more than 24 seasons.

Peralta is in a slump. The guy was pretty solid last year, and I'm not going to condemn him because he's off to a poor start through 11 innings this year.

Agreed. In fact, I'd say it's largely Buddy Bell's fault that (A) he gets thrown into so many games so often and (B) in high pressure situations. Until he regains form, I'd recommend using him as a mop up guy even if there's the occaisional tense appearance, but I'd also pitch him much less.

Its not like there are a lot of good options in the Royals pen.

There's Gobble, who has been doing pretty well. Wellemeyer's still up and is more of a longer reliever (this was in the fifth inning), although I'd prefer using him as the moppiest of mop up guys. But more than that, there's the guy who was scheduled to start that day and had only pitched twice so far in the season. Bell, in his typical maddening timing, went ahead and pitched the "correct" reliever second, who immediately send the Twins down 1-2-3 after Peralta had blown the game open.

I find it hard to believe this is the game that set you off on Buddy. I didn't find any of his moves last night particularly objectable. He's certainly had 5-6 other games this year where he's made much, much worse moves.

I think it was the result of all of those moves. Plus it was rainy and late, and I was cranky. :)

"Buddy Bell is the worst manager in MLB history—no hyperbole or exaggeration"

Lloyd McClendon once had the second batter of the game drop down a sac bunt in Coors Field.

Anyone think there's a Coors Field Curse that just ruins managers?

Let' see, you're completely losing your mind over your manager's bullpen usage? If you're anyone but Steve Allen you're stealing my bit.

I'm unsure whether or not this is an insult, but I was mad either way so I suppose "froth" is an accurate enough term. I tried to keep it off the rug, though.

In either event, IDWT is a great blog and you should check it out (I don't think I've linked to anything over there in awhile, and I try to do that since I have no sidebar to call my own!)

Also, while we're linking other stuff, Craig Brown over at Royals Authority has another interesting graphically based post up. This time, in a post about John Buck, he noticed some of the same stuff I did in the batters progress report -- namely that he's popping the ball up and it's really affecting his game, etc. But it's much more than that -- go check out the post for a far better "check in" with Buck than I gave.