Sunday, May 19, 2013
Hochman: Dallas Green still tells it like it is
(www.philly.com)
New Green book looks to be a diamond Dallas page turner.
Read More...It is a good, lively book and it mirrors Green’s good, lively 6 decades in the game. He rips only three people, Bobby Valentine, Art Mahaffey and Gene Mauch.
“Valentine is a phony and that’s what I call him in the book,” Green grumbles, choosing to skip details of the possible backstabbing while Dallas managed the Mets.
He reveals that in the minors Mahaffey cared only about his numbers. “He didn’t root for other guys to win, because ...
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1 2 3 4 5 >I was astonished at the 20 inning debacle in 2010 where LaRussa was outmanaged by Jerry Manuel, of all people. That's like a contender losing to a journeyman. I haven't looked at TLR quite the same way since then.
It's entirely possible he's lost a step at the in-game stuff.
The man has only won thousands of games. Do folks get that? The word 'thousands'?
Like, that's a LOT.
Presumably at birth.
It might have something to do with his stint in the Cardinals front office.
Only to a hardcore statman who doesn't watch the game. John Jay's numbers are arguably as good as they are because TLR puts him into situations where he can succeed. When he became the everyday player he struggled and a big part of that is that Jay is not an everyday talent. TLR gets the most out of his players because he 'instinctively' knows how to work matchups, he keeps his players fresh etc. (and of course the excerpt from this article misses the little gem where MGL thinks it would have been a good move to replace Carpenter with a pinch hitter in the eighth, as if that was obvious, and as if the Cardinals bullpen hasn't blown something like 14 games with an opposing walk off--I wonder if MGL is going for the caricature of the mass thought process of how out of touch a stat geek is with the real world)
I think he was born that way. Not too surprised he's not working for the Cardinals anymore.
EDIT: Dammit, carbonated beverage of choice to Edmundo.
It's easy to dismiss the really small sample size matchup stats, and I usually do. (And it's not just TLR who uses them---a lot of managers do.) Something I've always wondered is whether the batter knowing the match up stat has some kind of psychological effect, perhaps enhancing his confidence. Or perhaps the batter gains a subconscious equivalent of "positive thinking," because he assumes that he should hit the pitcher well because he knows the manager chose him based on analysis (even if the analysis is actually flawed).
That's what I think too. And players themselves are convinced of this stuff. Some players they own, and some others own them.
1) Tony LaRussa is stupid
2) Anyone who's looked at the numbers can easily demonstrate that.
3) If you're not studying the numbers like I have you have no basis to have an opinion anyone should listen to.
::shown numbers that refute one of the points::
4) Those are the wrong numbers. There are right numbers, but it's late, and I don't have the time to look them up.
5) But you're still stupid.
Ah, that delightful human touch.
For those who don't want to RTFA, here's the relevant posts from the comments:
That last post sounds worse than Francessa trying to explain fungibility.
But why let an inconvenient fact get in the way of a glorious theory?
Yep. That's his job.
Is it really instinctive? Or is it because a good manager works hard to understand the strengths and weaknesses of his own players and his opponents?
So, LaRussa makes two decisions that MGL disagrees with, both decisions work out for LaRussa, and what transpired is proof that LaRussa is stupid?
MGL is dumber than 10 dogs.
Seriously, I've read that post many times and still don't know what he's trying to say other than "Yes, I know I said pick any 9 pitchers + Carpenter, but you need to pick other pitchers, ones that prove MY point, not yours."
And the poster didn't just cherry pick 9 guys to prove his point, he picked the top 10 in WAR from the last 5 years. What an #######.
I have no idea what's right or wrong based on some odd statistics, but I tended to agree with those chatters that I'd have preferred to have Pujols hit with runners on first and second (as it's unlikely that Manuel would have ordered the IBB to put an insurance run on third, especially with Pujols 0-3 against Halladay at that point) as opposed to having Berkman bat with the bases loaded. Then again, I'm assuming that Craig or whoever would have circumvented the % chance of a GIDP, for if that happened my non-move would have made me look like a real idiot. C'est la vie.
Is MGL really Pete Rose?
You know, if he'd been willing to put some serious scratch on that latter bet, even someone as risk averse as I am would have been willing to bet on the former. That would be a really nice hedge. Hell, if he offered the same terms I'd be willing to concede the first bet and just take the 500 clams.
Understood but unnecessary
Enjoy the series!
I'm asking because this blog entry of his is dripping sour grapejuice.
Wait - wait - seriously? You saw LaRussa manage this one game - one of 5,097 regular season games he's helmed in his career - in which he got outfoxed, and you take that as an indictment of his overall ability?
I can top that one. I once saw Johan Santana get outdueled by Darrell May. I guess I shouldn't ever look at Santana the same way since. Sure, he's got 338 other games he's pitched in, but then again that's only one-fifteenth LaRussa's sample size, and we can use one game to condemn him.
That's an interesting strategic dilemma. Would you rather have your best hitter come to the plate with runners on first and second and no outs, or your second and third best hitters come to the plate with the bags loaded and no outs? (And this assumes the sacrificer makes an out without any DP or advancing any runners).
I can see why people would oppose wasting an out to free up first with Pujols coming up, but given that Berkman and Holliday came right after . . . . hey, that gives you two chances at a bloop single bringing home a pair of runs, and with a pair of hitters quite capable of more than a bloop. (Technically Berkman and Holliday had better OPS+s this year than Pujols, but since coming back from his slow start it's gotta be Pujols. Besides, he is Pujols).
From what I know (which is very little), it was nothing like that. By all accounts, in person MGL comes off much better than online. I don't think he met LaRussa while working for them. Also, I don't think his work with them was intended to be anything lengthy. Just a consulting gig, from what I know. Note: I really don't know, especially about that last point, but that's always been the impression I'm under.
I think where you wrote no outs, you meant to write one out.
Of course with Pujols you do have to remember he led the league in double plays hit into, so there is always that to take into consideration.
It's the certainty that's the issue here, the need to denigrate anyone who feels otherwisr, and it is baffling. If you are sure about something, and think you've made a case that is ironclad, why then go to such great lengths to try and undermine someone else's opinion, or even their standing to have that opinion? ("If you won't bet $1000, you don't really think you could be right" is one such tactic.)
And better still is if the opinion is about something that will happen in the future, a projection. You don't need to pretend that someone's failure to bet you $1000 has proven you right. Actual events will do that.
But really, what is that need to move beyond stating an opinion and one's reasons for it, and moving into the land of denying the legitimacy of someone who feels otherwise? All that kind of certainty does for me, when I hear it, is to give me doubts about the argument itself.
And it's not a sabermetric problem. Far as I can tell, it is prevalent nearly everywhere. Doesn't do us much good when it happens, since it is part of the stereotype, but it is incredibly common generally, and seemingly less so among sabermetric types.
Of course with Pujols you do have to remember he led the league in double plays hit into, so there is always that to take into consideration.
Yeah, that second "no outs" should be one out. And man, Pujols does hit into a ton of GIDP. He's already in the top 50 all-time. Only two guys ahead of him have fewer PA than he does. One is Tony Pena, who hit into two more GIDP in 350ish less PA. The other is all-time slow guy Ernie Lombardi. Looking it up, among the top 100 GIDP guys ever, Pujols ranks 15th in GIDP/PA. And he's only go to slow up as he gets older.
Forget Bonds' HR record or Speaker's doubles record - only an injury will prevent Pujols from shattering Ripken's GIDP record.
Pujols vs Halladay: .125/.263/.188
Berkman, OTOH, homered off Halladay in game 1.
But isn't the comeback always that "actual events did not prove me wrong?" That is, my projection gave me an 89% chance of being right, so the mere detail that the 11% shot came through is meaningless. In such cases, you don't even need to do a post-mortem to see if the outcome would influence your future reasoning.
Which may sometimes be undeniably logical; it would be in roulette, for instance. But when I bet on a 3-5 favorite in a race and a 15-1 shot wins instead, I often go back over the race and the form charts in the expectation that there was something I should have seen and taken better account of. Baseball seems closer to racing than to roulette, to me.
That's a really good point. Unfortunately, it means an outcome where one failed to take certain things into account that made him wrong is indistinguishable from an outcome where the longshot came through.
But willingness to bet $1000 on it doesn't change that. It does, however, seek to create false certainty.
But in this case, the actual events are the 10 aces 9th inning performances which were, both individually except for Lincecum, and in the aggregate, superior to Motte. I looked up 2 more aces, Santana and Greinke. Santana, 6 IP, 0 ER, and Greinke, 16.1 IP, 5 ER, were also both better than Motte. So that's 11 out of 12, and a total of 277 IP at an ERA of 2.31. Apparently, it's MGL who needs to do research on ace pitchers in late innings and not just prevaricate Francessa style.
I criticize MGL a lot around here (in ways not unlike #13), but I won't bury him because he's just like a typical fan. OTOH, MGL might consider "just like a typical fan" to be the biggest insult ever.
Where I think MGL misses on this, if he does, is with the human element. LaRussa can see the demeanor of Punto, Jay, Schumacher, etc., in the clubhouse. He can see how much each person's small-sample experience is affecting their confidence. Now, whether there was anything there to see, I don't know; I wasn't there, and TLR isn't going to tell us one of his players was in the fetal position before lineups were announced. And, yeah, maybe Carpenter doesn't run; but TLR would know far better than I whether Carpenter would adopt a different attitude and approach to baserunning with the season on the line.
Small sample sizes matter, but not in a vacuum. If all you have is a small sample size, YOU have nothing. But that does not mean there is nothing of value to be had. The stats, when combined with the effect the experience represented in those stats has on the players involved, can be significant. Can the player overcome the experience? I don't know. Maybe TLR doesn't know. But he seems to be pretty good at this kind of thing.
James Shields
Matt Cain
Mark Buehrle
Roy Oswalt
Adam Wainwright
Jered Weaver
100.1 IP, 30 ER, 2.69 ERA.
So you are pretty much saying what common sense says, which is if a pitcher is able to make it to the ninth inning in todays game, then there is a pretty good chance he is "on" and will be effective in the ninth. I don't see any reason to think otherwise. If a pitcher doesn't have his stuff working, there is no reason to think he'll make it to the ninth inning or look like he deserves to go back out there, so anytime the pitcher looks like he deserves to pitch the ninth, apparently that seems like a good decision based upon the small numbers you have presented so far. Logic is a wonderful tool.
I wouldn't be shocked at all to see all starting pitchers over the past ten or so years putting up decent numbers relative to their career norm in the ninth(even allowing for walk offs)
That's a really good point. Unfortunately, it means an outcome where one failed to take certain things into account that made him wrong is indistinguishable from an outcome where the longshot came through.
But willingness to bet $1000 on it doesn't change that. It does, however, seek to create false certainty.
Just to elaborate on this a bit further, since I've passed the editing deadline- if you have reasoning that will allow you to be right 89 percent of the time, wrong 11 percent of the time, the passage of time will actually prove you right, since you'll be correct a vast majority of the time.
Don't tell that to MGL. 18 pitchers, 377 IP 2.76 ERA. But he wants you to look at other aces. I know it's anecdotal, but he's the one who brought up "research ace performance in the 9th inning."
In addition, LaRussa knows an awful lot about the batting skills of Punto and Jay, and the strengths and weaknesses thereof, and how they match up against the pitching skills of Roy Halladay, about which he also knows a great deal. He also knows a lot about the defensive differences between Punto and Schumaker and Jay at their various positions.
It's easy for someone like MGL to say, well, those batting averages against Halladay are a small sample size and therefore not relevant, because that's all he knows about the decision. LaRussa knows a lot more about the decision than just those batting averages.
Baseball is complicated.
All that said, though, Carpenter really is a pretty terrible hitter, and I can't imagine that letting him bat in the 8th rather than PH for him and using Motte/whoever is realistically the better choice for the Cardinals in terms of winning the game.
My recollection is that we found out a few months later that mgl wasn't consulting for the Cardinals anymore. I wondered if they found out about this and thought that paying someone to provide stats who doesn't have better quality control didn't make any sense.
A 31-day nightmare of endless hyperbole, pumped-up volume, and "rational" folks getting twisted around their toupees and exposing ugly patches of scalp for all to see. All linked here, all day and all of the night, like an endless chain of plumped-up Vienna sausages.
Then again, maybe MGL, like Repoz, gets paid by the page view over at Da Book. (Oops, I see that it's Dayn that posted this one. Ah well. BTW, congrats to Dayn and Brock, who just might not have send for the coach to take Cinderella home, in part due to TLR's lousy managing.)
Hoping for a 7-game NLCS, with Carpenter and Gallardo facing off in the finale. "Epic" ain't a bad word, at least for the possibilities here. Unlike a good bit of the commentary about it, baseball is giving us its best face right now, at just the right time.
And why does he like being called MGL?
My initials are the worst: BSM. No matter how you slice those initials, they come out sounding bad.
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