Start No. 11: Vs. Minnesota Twins
Innings: 5
Earned runs allowed: 3.
Strikeouts: 3
Walks: 2
Homers: 0
Decision: None (4-6 — first no decision of the year)
Number of pitches: 111
Number of strikes: 72
BABIP: .389 (7 of 18)
Season BABIP: .295
So, we were talking a little ball before the Royals ninth consecutive loss on Tuesday* and we were trying to name the best manager in baseball.
*OK, what do I do? Put off my sabbatical and keep going out to the yard until the Royals win a game? That seems very risky. That’s how I got stuck chasing around the Royals through their 19-game losing streak in 2005. I really thought coming into the year that these Royals were not a candidate for those energy-sapping long losing streaks because most nights they send out a pretty good starting pitcher, and they have a pretty good bullpen with a dominating closer. One of the little details I overlooked in my formula — you actually have to score runs to win games. These Royals have virtually no way of scoring runs. They can’t hit the ball out, and they can’t run, and they draw the fewest walks in the American League, and they’re Larry, Curly AND Moe on the bases. The Royals have scored five runs the last three games, and here is how:
Sunday’s game: Zero runs.
Monday’s game: Two runs score when — Alex Gordon is hit by a pitch; Jose Guillen is hit by a pitch; Billy Butler’s double play grounder is misplayed; Mark Teahen’s double play grounder is misplayed worse; wild pitch; Miguel Olivo hits a sacrifice fly.
Tuesday’s game: Three runs score when — Alex Gordon is hit by a pitch (that’s how all Royals rallies begin now), Miguel Olivo singles, Mark Teahen slices a fly ball down the left field line and Twins outfielder Delmon Young decides to do a belly flop for reasons that can only be clear in his head. Teahen rounds the bases for an inside-the-parker.
In other words … the Royals have not actually EARNED a run in quite a long time. When you’re hitting that badly, it’s awfully hard to break a losing streak. I just don’t know. I really do have a book to write.
Sorry. Back to our discussion about the best manager in baseball. I mentioned Bobby Cox. It seems hard to argue with 2,283 victories and five pennants and a career .561 winning percentage and all that. And yet (this being Kansas City) someone immediately brought up 1985, when Cox was thoroughly outmanaged by Dick Howser in playoffs. At this point, Cox’s long and detailed history of playoff and World Series woes was rehashed … fair or not it’s tough to be considered numero uno when you go 1 for 5 in the World Series.
There’s Joe Torre, of course, and it’s tough to argue with what HE did in New York. He won four World Series, two more pennants, won 100 or more four times, made the playoffs every year … and yet, all during that time there were people chirping in the background (not all of them Steinbrenners) that he was simply a likable caretaker whose greatest feat was managing to keep baseball’s most expensive team from exploding. After all, someone said, Torre wasn’t exactly a sensation with the Mets, Braves or Cardinals the previous 20 years. Are you the best when you get dealt a full house every year?*
*People often talk about just how hard it is to keep all those egos in check when you’re the Yankees manager — and sure, I can see that. It is hard. I give a lot of credit to Torre. But still, it’s hard in a “Boy, I’m Buddy Bell and I’d sure like to try it” sort of way. To keep the poker analogy going, winning with the Yankees is hard in the same way that keeping a good poker face when you have a full house is hard.
Someone brought up Mike Scoscia, and he has led the California Angels to five playoff appearances and a World Series championship. He certainly moves his runners more than any manager in the American League. I don’t hear people talk about him very much — this too could be a huge point in his favor. To be honest, nobody at the table even seemed interested enough in him to discuss it.
There’s Terry Francona, of course, with his two World Series titles, but again there are those who say he’s a prince of circumstance — after all he didn’t look like much of a genius those four straight losing seasons in Philadelphia, did he? The Red Sox were a 95-win team when he took over. And we all know how many things had to go right in 2004 for Francona not to have a Very Grady playoffs that year.
Tony La Russa, of course, has his fans, and he has won a lot of games and a couple of World Series — it’s a Hall of Fame career. Without naming names, some people at the table don’t like his over-managing much. … Jim Leyland sometimes gets mentioned in these discussions. He has a career losing record, and it ended badly for him in various cities … Lots of people inside baseball like Eric Wedge, but you don’t have to look far to find dissenters. … So that leaves us with, um, Lou Piniella? No, he has plenty of critics. Bob Geren? I don’t think so. Bob Melvin? Can I hear a Dusty Baker?
I think the conclusion we came to is that there is no best manager in baseball, or at least no one manager we could agree upon. And I think that’s the human reaction to baseball. Generally speaking: The more we watch managers at work, the less impressed we are with them. I think there are at least four reasons for this:
1. Even the best managers will lose 60 to 70 times every season, and sometimes more. Think about this for a second … that’s a LOT of losses. I’ll give you an example … Vince Lombardi is probably viewed as the best coach in NFL history. Do you know how many games Lombardi lost in his entire head coaching career? Thirty-four. Yep. That’s it. Casey Stengel lost 34 games less than four months into his New York Yankees managing career. Bobby Cox lost 34 games in a nine week stretch last year. It’s easy for fans to fall in love with someone who almost never loses, like Pete Carroll at USC or Roy Williams and North Carolina. It’s harder to be in awe of a manager who piles up hundreds and then thousands of losses, no matter how many playoff appearances the teams make.
2. Baseball seems to me a sport where people will rarely notice or appreciate GOOD managing, certainly not as often as they will notice and appreciate BAD managing. In football, for instance, if someone designs a great offense gameplan, or if the defense seems to be one step ahead, yeah, you might leave the stadium talking about how well coached the team was (especially if it was the OTHER team). In baseball, though, if a team goes out there and plays a clean game, the manager uses pitchers wisely, the lineup scores a few runs, I suspect most people do not leave the park thinking about how well managed the game was. There are exceptions, of course. A well-time hit and run, a good pinch-hitting move, a well-maneuvered righty-lefty match-up will occasionally get people to offer a nod to the Skipper. But that stuff flops as often as it works (more often, actually — see No. 3), and anyway that’s not the key to winning and losing games long term.
3. Baseball is the easiest second-guess game on earth because most of the time offensive moves don’t work. Pinch hitters make outs a vast majority of the time. Hit and runs don’t work most of the time. You don’t want to oversimplify things but this year, players are getting on-base 33.1 percent of the time — meaning that 66.9 percent of the time they’re not getting on base. That means about two-thirds of the time you can look at a manager’s pinch hit move (or, especially, non pinch-hit move), a botched hit-and-run, a sacrifice that doesn’t pay off, whatever and say, “I wouldn’t have done that.” And the beautiful part is that second-guesses work ONE HUNDRED precent of the time.
4. And that leads to the biggest point of all which is this … to me the best managers to me are the ones who YOU HARDLY EVER NOTICE as your watching a game. I mean, you can notice them when they come out to argue with umpires, when they kick dirt, when they give great quotes to the newspaper (please?), when they inspire an uninspired team, when they get in a players face after a non-hustle play. I like that stuff as much as anyone, I guess. No, I mean, I think the best managers are like the best conservatives — they believe in small government. They don’t intentionally walk a lot, they don’t sacrifice a lot, they don’t play lineup roulette, they don’t replace pitcher after pitcher until they find the one guy who can’t get anyone out, they don’t make a lot of nonsensical moves based on hunches or small sample sizes. I’m fine with any manager doing some of this stuff — I mean, I don’t want the manager to get BORED in the dugout — but all in all I think a good manager doesn’t give the impression that he’s a good manager. You only notice at the end of the year that the team has won a lot of games.
And that brings me, finally, to Ron Gardenhire. I wrote the other day that I think Gardy is the best manager in baseball, and I’ve heard from more than few Twins fans who want to know when precisely I lost my mind. So let me say this: I don’t follow the Twins closely, and I certainly bow to the local knowledge of the excellent Star-Tribune, Pioneer Press, and the fine sports bloggers like Aaron Gleeman and Seth Stohs. Those people know a billion times more about Gardy and the Twins than I do. If they think Gardy is a disaster, they’re probably right. I’m only viewing it from afar.
BUT from my vantage point, this is what I see:
– Gardy’s teams consistently outperform their runs scored vs. runs allowed Pythagorean record.
You know that Bill James came up with a nifty little formula that shows, pretty closely, what a team’s expected won-loss record should be based on runs scored and runs allowed. Well, in Gardy’s time in Minnesota his teams have won 22 more games than expected. I don’t know how much this has to do with managing (maybe none of it) but … I’m throwing it out there.
– Gardy’s teams win more than their share of one-run games.
In his time with the Twins, Gardy has won about 56% of the one-run games. Again, I don’t know how much this has to do with managing (maybe none of it). I’m throwing it out there.
– Gardy’s teams seem to get better as the year goes along.
In his four championship years, the Twins played .606 ball after July 1. Again … read it as you like. Maybe he doesn’t have them ready to come out of spring training if you want to look at it that way. But I like a guy whose team improves as the year goes along.
– Gardy’s teams tend to avoid big losing streaks.
He might, as many have pointed out, have absolutely nothing to do with this either. But … just throw it into the pile.
– Gardy’s teams have won four division championships in seven years with what seems from the outside to be pretty modest talent.
Here are Ron Gardenhire’s regular No. 3 hitters in his four championship years:
2002: Doug Mientkiewicz.
2003: Doug Mientkiewicz and Corey Koskie.
2004: Lew Ford (and a little Dougie Baseball … and some Torii Hunter).
2006: Joe Mauer (nice … but Michael Cuddyer hit cleanup)
Now, you could argue here that it was Gardy who did put those guys into those slots … but my point is that he obviously wanted to have a good hitter at No. 3. And after much study … these were his best options. That’s the kind of team he has had to manage. His four championship teams finished 9th, 6th, 10th and 8th in runs scored.
Pitching? We all know about Johan Santana and his impact, but the first year Gardy’s team won the Central, they won 94 games and the best starter was Rick Reed. The next year, Brad Radke, Kyle Lohse, Kenny Rogers, Joe Mays and Rick Reed all started more games than Santana — and Radke’s 4.49 ERA was the lowest of that bunch.
The next year, Santana emerged, and Joe Nathan was unhittable, but even so he was throwing a Kyle Lohse and Terry Mullholand out there pretty often. Anyway, the Twins finished 10th in the American league in runs scored. TENTH! They still won 92 games.
Now, see, to an outsider, that stuff’s pretty amazing. I’ve seen quite a bit of Twins baseball, being in Kansas City, and I’m never impressed by the talent — the pitchers generally don’t throw hard enough to strike out anybody (again, excepting Santana and Joe Nathan), the lineup generally doesn’t get on base much or generate much power, but man that Twins team really does scrap out enough hits to score a few runs and they play good defense and they throw strikes and they beat you by a run or two more.
This year’s team feels different because Santana is gone and Mauer and Morneau make up a very legit 3-4 (though it’s worth mentioning that Mauer does not have a home run this year), and Carlos Gomez is just an interesting player (he’s probably the fastest guy in the game, he has some power, he never walks, he’s 22 …). Still, it’s hardly an intimidating group. And yet here they are again, playing just above .500, in contention, with the hot months ahead. That’s what I see from afar. I couldn’t tell you if Gardy makes horrendous in-game decisions (or makes no in-game decisions) or if players have actually underachieved under him of if he’s just lucked into most of his success. Like I say, I yield to the experts on that one.
All I do know is that as someone who has consistently watch the Royals play down to their talent (and, on rare occasions, even below their meager talent) I’ve looked at the standings many times over the last six or seven years, and I’ve asked myself, “How in the hell are the Twins doing it?” That’s why I think Gardy’s the best.
* * *
Quick Banny thought: He was nibbling a lot on Tuesday, and he conceded after the game that he was doing that because he felt like he needed to throw shutout innings. I do believe a bad offense can take a pitcher — especially a thinking pitcher — right out of his rhythm and make him try to be too fine.
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40 Comments, Comment or Ping
Chris Bush
Time for “the column,” Joe.
May 28th, 2008
skott
i didn’t even see you mention willie randolph…
i’d like to say that after watching Francona for a few years now, he’s a pretty good manager. no matter the players, he gets the most of out them.
he’s great w/ the guys at the end of the bench and great with the guys who are huge stars. look how much chemistry there is in the sox clubhouse - Ortiz loves him as much as Alex Cora loves him.
He’s good w/ managing the game but capital G Great w/ managing the chaos that is Boston baseball.
May 28th, 2008
Creston
““How in the hell are the Twins doing it?” That’s why I think Gardy’s the best.”
Well, during a lot of the timeframe you mentioned, the AL Central was the dregs of the Major League. It helps if you have the Kansas City Royals and the 187 loss Detroit Tigers and the at-the-time inept Cleveland Indians in your division, and you get to face each of them 19 times, no?
(I really should look up their record against those teams, because someone is going to do it, and point out to me that the Twins only won 43% of their games against these teams or something, but I’m lazy, so I’m not going to do it.)
I don’t disagree with your argument. However, you can make many of the same points for Torre. Or Cox. Or LaRussa.
In their divisional playoff games against the Yankees, Gardenhire consistently panicked and made crazy moves. Johan Santana was going to pitch games one and five, and go for 16 scoreless innings. Everyone knew this.
Yet when the Twins were down 2-1, suddenly he put Santana in there on short rest because he believed that “You can’t get to a game five if you don’t win game four.”
Which is true. However, if you’re down 2-1, there is no difference in importance in winning game four or game five. What does it matter if you lose in 4 or 5 games? You need to win two. So you have to plan to win two. Gardenhire didn’t. He started Santana on short rest in game 4, Santana threw a short game, so instead of using him for 16 innings, he used him for 12, and they lost the series.
They are just moments, but together with the idiocy of having Punto and Tyner bat, you can’t tell me you think that Gardenhire is good at strategery.
And seriously, that’s what a good manager is supposed to be good at. Strategery. (Bobby Cox sucks at it too.)
For all of Torre’s flaws in his previous teams, and how he was lucky to have great teams, etc, he did do very well in the strategery department during his time in NY. LaRussa ain’t bad at it either. (though his insistence to bat the pitcher 8th and boldly proclaiming it works while ignoring every other circumstance that’s leading to possible fluctuations is driving me INSANE.)
May 28th, 2008
Cody
I’m a pretty big Twins fan, and there’s one thing you forgot about Gardenhire. While he’s been very good at having the team win, he always does something that makes me take a double take and ask why?
First:
210 .291 .271
150 games 472 ABs
Mr. Nick Punto.
(He often times batted lead-off too.)
Second:
In the two whole we have:
.286 .331 .355, not bad numbers but from LF and RF
It’s Jason Tyner.
I can’t disagree with how he’s made the team win, but there are certain things I don’t understand about how he builds his lineups and has to put certain people in the lineup (Punto, Monroe, Tyner, Batista are what come to mind)
May 28th, 2008
Ryan
I think a bad offense gets every pitcher inside his head (especially as bad as the Royals is.) The starters begin to press too much. A bad bullpen will do the same thing.
How many times this week have you looked on your computer at the box score, seen the other team put up a four-spot early, and knew the game is over. The Royals probably feel the same way. It’s gotta be messing with everyone’s psyche, which means they’re going to underperform even more.
Hillman’s man challenge this year is going to have to be trying to break that psyche. I believe he told his Japanese management that it would take him two years to do it with the losing franchise he went to work for. We’ll see what he can do with the Royals.
He’s got to get them into thinking one pitch at a time, focusing on fundamental baseball both physically and mentally. We really won’t see if he’s able to turn it around for another 2-3 seasons. That being said, I don’t know how much yelling at the ballplayers during the game is going to help. (And believe me, I love to throw out a few quips.) I’m pretty sure the players know when they’re sucking it up.
May 28th, 2008
guy incognito
joe, in regards to the pythag and one-run comments, that success, as is true with torre’s yankee teams, can probably be attributed to a good bullpen and a lights-out closer more than any particular strategy on gardenhire’s part.
gardy gets credit for apparently making the right decisions in terms of relievers, but having pitchers like nathan, neshek, and in the past, rincon, crain, and romero makes those decisions a whole lot easier. not to mention that pitchers like radke and santana (and when he was on, silva) reduced the need for middle relievers.
May 28th, 2008
Brent
One reason you seldom notice good managers is because there are so few of them out there. They all seem to want to follow “the formula” so that they can’t be second guessed.
Bunting (giving away outs) every time there is a runner on first with 1 out.
Saving your top relief pitcher for the 9th inning only in spite of having runners on 2nd and 3rd with no body out in the 7th with a 1 run lead (a stratagy that LaRusa gets Jeterated for developing).
Etc.
I do agree with you on Gardnehire though and the “how are they doing it”. Every, single, year. He’s maybe not the best in baseball (I’d probably take Scoscia — although honestly, they have the 3rd highest payroll in baseball, so it’s not as if the cupboard is bare).
It’s much easier to pick the worst manager in baseball…how does Dusty Baker continue to get work?
May 28th, 2008
Mike
Outperforming pythag W-L can come from a number of areas besides luck. One of them is having very polar relief pitching. With Nathan and Neshek, they have two very good relievers to keep close games where they’re ahead, close. And with crappy other relievers, when it’s time to eat innings, those guys eat them and spill runs all over the floor.
Plus, I’ve got to believe that bunting and “small ball” help you win close games… and we all have heard that Minnesota stresses that everyone knows how to bunt, guys go the opposite way, etc.
BUT… you can probably see where I’m going here. If having David Ortiz swing for contact, and be a competent bunter, helps you in close games and helps you outperform your pythag W-L… is that really a good thing? Uh-uh. Having him mash the hell out of the ball and making it a 4-run ballgame instead of a 2-run ballgame is what you really want.
I submit Francona as the best manager. He’s a tremendous clubhouse guy (I would likely last about a month managing that team before I benched Manny for not hustling). And he’s smart enough to take advice from Theo Epstein about things like how often to bunt, stolen base rates, etc. (my speculation, I should say, is that he’s open to that kind of advice). I think Theo and Francona have a great relationship in that regard, as far as I can tell. Francona isn’t simply a sabermetric puppet, but I think he’s willing to learn things, and I think Theo is willing to let him have some flexibility with sac attempts and lineup orders that might not be the most mathematically ideal.
May 28th, 2008
Oddibe Kerfeld
Speaking of managers, (or at least former managers) how did Bob Brenly end up calling games for the Cubs on WGN? Does he have any ties at all to the Cubs? I must be missing something. Is he from the Chicago area? His being with them seems odd to me. Also, I recently read that WGN is rebranding themselves and may jettison all Chicago programming like the Cubs and the WGN News to become like another TBS or USA network. On Memorial Day they rolled out their creepy new staring eyes logo and the slogan of “WGN America - TV you can’t ignore.” Has anyon seen this? Its creepy.
May 28th, 2008
Moss
If you like Gardy so much, how about a trade — the Twins get their choice of position players off the Royals’ roster, and the Royals get Gardy??
May 28th, 2008
Kyle
I submit that a “Good Manager” is the same phantom as “Clutch Hitting”.
Like Joe says, the game of baseball is designed around offensive failure, the vast majority of times offense just won’t succeed. So a Good Manager doesn’t actually do anything, other than try not to muck that up.
Managers may do good things, like a hitter may get a clutch hit, but in and of itself, “Good Managing” is not a repeatable skill.
May 28th, 2008
Wayne Tollison
I think B-P does a good job of separating the good managers from the bad ones. They look at number of bunts/hit-and-runs attempted, number of times the starter threw more than 100 pitches (more than 120), number of IBB’s issued, and how much they beat the W-L pyth.
May 28th, 2008
SBG
From 2002-04, the Twins were the best team in the most atrocious division in baseball.
Here I outlined how the Twins benefited from playing that easy schedule and what happened in 2005 when the schedule wasn’t so easy.
In 2006, the Twins caught lightning in a bottle, had the Cy Young Award winner (Santana) and a guy demonstrably better than him (Liriano) for half the season. They got career years from Punto, Cuddyer, Mauer, Morneau, Bartlett, Hunter (just about). That season was a fluke. Enjoyable for Twins fans, but a fluke.
Yep, they won four titles and I enjoyed them, but let’s not get crazy about that one fact. Look at the level of competition that they had. They won those first three almost by default.
May 28th, 2008
Rhubarb_Runner
A good manager does not put up with (CONSTANTLY) his baserunners sliding headfirst into 1st base. To the point where players spend time on the DL.
A good manager knows how to properly platoon his players, in particular in a way where his best hitter can rest against a tough lefty.
Gardy has been more than helped by a tremendous relief staff over his years. Maybe he should get some credit for that, and what many of us consider(ed) his best trait was his excellent handling of his relievers. This, too, has waned in the past two years. Some of us were not surprised by Sideshow Pat Neshek’s injury, given how his arm was punished over the last 1-1/2 months of last season.
And no, it’s not worth mentioning that Joe Mauer has no HRs this year. It’s worth mentioning that Delmon Young has no HRs this, though.
May 28th, 2008
Brandon
Joe, I’d say even calling Gardy “average” would be an exaggeration. He doesn’t utilize his bullpen to its fullest potential, doesn’t read into pitcher/hitter matchups and has too long favored veterans over the talented prospects handed to him by the front office. But mostly, it’s his “gut feeling” mentality over statistical reasoning that bugs me. In every other walk of life, ignoring research in favor of hunches would likely be a fireable offense. In baseball? You’re lovingly referred to as old school.
Here’s a question: do you know any manager who is well-liked by smart baseball minds who actually watch him every day? Or does every manager fall into the loved-by-some/hated-by-some category?
May 28th, 2008
Jason
Re: Cox, I have a lot of respect for him, because he clearly does a great job at managing some of the day to day aspects of the game. I mean, there’s got to be something to be said for being so respected by the players who play the game…that said, he infuriates me to watch. Every game that goes beyond 12 innings is a no mans land, because we’ve used all 25 men on the roster by the 11th inning. It’s like he thinks we can just call Rome for a 12th inning replacement if we run out of guys.
May 28th, 2008
Creston
I’m going to happily steal someone else’s work in yet another attempt to show why Gardenhire is not a good manager.
Take it away, Aaron Gleeman.
http://www.aarongleeman.com/2008_05_25_baseballblog
_archive.html#7088839157869832525
(I don’t want to make the page go weird, so paste the second line at the end of the first line)
Ron Gardenhire refuses to use his best reliever, Joe Nathan, in anything but save situations, and will only let him pitch based on the dictum of those save situations. That’s really, really, really dumb ™ managing.
May 28th, 2008
Josh
Maybe not quite yet, but very soon: Manny Acta!
May 28th, 2008
Creston
I <3 SBG. Thanks for doing all the work on showing that the Twins benefited a ton from playing the truly inept AL Central during their championship years.
Sorry Joe, we’re just not buying it! (Your idea about Gardy, I mean. We promise to buy your new book! What’s it about again?)
May 28th, 2008
Devon
I was thinking Gardenhire too. His teams do seem like their overachieving consistently. Although, I’m pretty impressed with Guillen in Chicago and curious to see how Hillman will develop KC.
May 28th, 2008
Nick N.
Thanks for writing this up Joe, very interesting to get your viewpoint on the topic. I’d personally rate Gardenhire as a pretty middle-of-the-road manager; he’s done a good job with this team during his tenure but he’s been gifted with some great pitching during that span (which can be more attributed to the front office) as well as a typically weak division. Still, even with the sub par competition, he deserves credit for making a winner out of a middle-market team that plays in one of the worst stadiums in baseball.
There are a lot of traits about Gardenhire that I don’t like, the disparity in his handling of young players and veterans chief among them. Still, he runs a good bullpen (the prototypical closer usage is something nearly every manager is guilty of; hard to hold that against him), gets along well with the players and generally does enough to keep the team winning ballgames at a healthy rate.
May 28th, 2008
Justyo
My two cents. Today’s baseball teams have so many coaches and specialists - batting coach, fielding coaches, advisors, trainers, scouts and so many high tech tools, video camera’s and statistics - and for the most part ballplayers who reach the majors have had at least 10 years of growing up in the game through the various levels (unlike other sports where kids with only a few years of playing experience can reach the pros) - that “Managing” a major league baseball team is much MORE about juggling young male, multi-millionaire celebrities and egos than any kind of special knowledge or ability to “teach” or ‘manage’ the game.
Give me an ex-player who can lead and inspire rampant competitive ego’s over a ‘brilliant’ X and O’ baseball guy any day.
Gardy played a few years in the hotbed of New York, puts out a unified team every night that fights hard and sticks together and wins. What’s not to like.
I also like Francona, Torre and Scoscia.
May 28th, 2008
Paul White
I’d have been willing to let your argument for Gardenhire stand unchallenged, Joe, but then you said something that struck me as over-playing your hand.
“In his time with the Twins, Gardy has won about 56% of the one-run games.”
Gardenhire has won 55% of ALL of the games he’s managed. A 1% bump in one-run games isn’t particularly noteworthy. Francona has won 51.2% of all his games, and 52.2% of his one-run games. Big whoop.
May 28th, 2008
Tim Lacy
As a dual Cubs-Royals fan, I’ve become a big Lou Piniella fan this year. But critics aside, I admired him back in, 1990 was it, when he did some great things with that Reds team.
I think Hillman will come around. Turning around a losing franchise is no one-year proposition. He and Moore will do it—I have to believe it.
I’m not as familiar with Gardenhire as I should be. The points about competition, made above, are persuasive. But you have to be able to take advantage of that, and he’s done so—on a shoestring budget with some chump change.
Ultimately, I think it’s between Cox and Sciosia (how do you spell his last name, anyway?). Both do A LOT with medium-to-good talent. That means they’re operating somewhere between Gardenhire and Torre (in the Yankee days). Both managers are balancing the ego massager/disciplinarian/teacher roles. I guess I’ll go with Cox for the track record. - TL
May 28th, 2008
Drake33
Familiarity breeds contempt. Us Twins fans generally have that selective memory and remember the dumb stuff that Gardenhire does, and forget all of the good managerial stuff that he does.
Personally, I would break Gardenhire’s performance down to two sub-categories. He is an excellent Player Manager. He protects and motivates his team every year. However, I think he is a mediocre strategist, and it feels like he simply manages by the book. The Twins announcers state when the ‘hit and run’ is on before it happens, and are correct ~90% of the time.
His teams do win, and I think there is some measure that should be attributed to Gardenhire’s management. But it feels like he should be doing better.
May 28th, 2008
schooner
I’m very much of the belief that a good manager stays out of the way.
As a Jays fan I saw Cito Gaston win 4 divisions and two World Series by trusting in a very good starting line up and managing his pitching well. Y
He had a couple of bad years as the team broke up but how he never got another job is beyond me. He would be perfect for a veteran team that just needs a steady hand.
May 28th, 2008
Julio
Great post, but the follow up question to Bannister was if he noticed that there was a 20-30 MPH wind blowing IN last night. That was the perfect time to get a little more of the plate and let the Twins hit themselves into outs. When he challenged hitters, they hit the ball hard, but not a single flyball had a chance to hurt him (except when Guillen kept turning the wrong way, but I think Bannister was out of the game at that point).
For a smart guy, I don’t think Bannister pitched with much of a game plan last night and it cost him and taxed the bullpen.
May 28th, 2008
Mike Williams
I’m sure Gardenhire is a fine manager, but I’m going to attribute the Minnesota success, in large part, to their minor league system.
EVERY GUY they call up plays fundamentally sound, almost without exception. EVERY PITCHER throws strikes, almost without exception.
I’ve read before that one of their tenants is to keep their minor leaguers in the minors for perhaps a bit longer AFTER they already deem them to be ready for the majors. No wonder their rookies always seem to hit the ground running! This is a great philosophy for a low revenue team to follow - you only get 6 relatively cheap seasons out of a player; why not make those his age 24-29 or 25-30 seasons, rather than his age 21-26 or 22-27 seasons? Remember, most players peak years are 26-31 or 32.
May 28th, 2008
Cosmic Charlie
Bob Melvin gets only a passing mention? I was a Yankee fan for most of my life, but I live in New Mexico now and the D-backs are the only team I can watch on a regular basis. Melvin couples brilliant and bold strategy with an awesome ability to get the most out of young players. He won a well-deserved Manager of the Year last year when the D-backs famously outplayed their Pythag by 11 games and had the best record in the NL despite being outscored! He took over the D-backs after a 111-loss season in ‘04, and in 3+ seasons since they have played .553 in 1-run games (.507 overall). He doesn’t get a lot of national recognition because he doesn’t have a roster loaded with stars (he doesn’t have even one except for Webb) and yet he wins. He’s not afraid to think outside “the book” either, by pinch-hitting Owings (even with a bench full of position players), using his best relievers (Qualls and Pena, last year Lyon and Pena) in high-leverage situations in the 7th and 8th, and hitting his best hitters 1-2-3 instead of 3-4-5 to maximize their PA’s instead of just trying to set a table in the first. Seriously, check out the D-backs sometime. In a couple years, Bob Melvin will be regarded as the best manager in baseball.
May 28th, 2008
JeffSol
It seems to me that in reviewing manager performance, people have a great tendency to focus on the little things, like tactics, and understimate the big things, like getting the most out of players through motivation, keeping them healthy, putting player sin positions to succeed, knowing when a young player is ready or an old player has lost it. As an aside, the insitence on calling decisions about when/who to pinch hit, which reliever to use, whether or not to bunt strategy is one of my pet peeves — these are not strategic decisions, they are tactical ones. Strategic decisions are things like is offense or defense more important at SS, what is the usage pattern for the bullpen in general, should we keep a 12 reliever or another pinch hitter on the roster.
In any case, the exceeding pythagorean method has a major problem, which Bill James pointed out when he introduced it — a manager succeeds not in spite of the production of his players, but through the production of his players. If Bobby Cox can keep his starters unusally healthy through an unorthodox training program, this can save dozens of runs a year instead of having to use marginal starters — but it will all show up in the runs scored/runs allowed ratio, so this idea of beating pythagorean becomes meaningless.
I’m a lifelong Met fan, and to me, as painful as it is to say it, it’s absolutely no contest — the answer is Cox. His record of keeping startes healthy is phenomenal. He’s won with diffeerent kinds of teams. In Toronto, with limited offensive talent, he cobbled together platon arrangements that helped him win. Yes, he got outmanaged by Howser in one series, but I just don’t weight that so much. And 1 for 5 in WS — hell, that could just be random luck — sample size folks. Cox teams consistently play to or beyond expectations, his record developing young talent, as well as judging it (not many prospects traded away amount to much) is strong, and his record with pitchers is unmatched. How many times has Cox come up with an effective closer out of thin air or revived the career of a medicore veteran starter picked up off the scrap heap? Torre’s record with the Yankees is strong, but his record, over his career, developing yoong players with anything other than overwhelming talent, is abysmal. If I owned a team, Cox would be at the top of the list to manage it.
May 28th, 2008
B
There are a number of reasons that evaluating a manager is difficult.
#1 baseball is probably the easiest sport to second guess. Every night you can say “I wouldn’t have ——– in the 7th” if a particular move didn’t work out. That’s why most rabid fans think their own manager sucks, they spend much more time analyzing each move than the national media.
#2 and most important (in my humble opinion) is that a manager has to be evaluated over such a long period of time. A “crucial” win this week doesn’t mean anything if the bullpen is completely out of gas down the stretch because the manager (see: Torre, Baker) burned out his staff along the way.
I’m a Red Sox fan and feel that the best things Francona did last year were sticking with Pedroia during his absolutely abysmal start and keeping the arms fresh for the playoffs. One of the knocks on Beckett in the Cy Young debate was that Sabathia had thrown so many more innings during the season. How’d that wrk out for C.C. in the ALCS?
Resting players, managing egos, and riding out inevitable player slumps aren’t as obvious or exciting as pinch hitting, moving runners, and making the right call to the ‘pen, but in a championship season can make the difference.
May 28th, 2008
Daniel
I think Scioscia deserves some consideration for this. Yeah, the Angels have had a high payroll the last few years, but he has done well in all the “managing” areas. The Angels are always at the top of the league in baserunning (although their SB % is down this year) including going from 1st - 3rd. He manages his bullpen well - of course he hasn’t broken from the stereotypical closer usage, but he will use K-Rod in a tie game. He does a good job of using his good relievers in high leverage situations.
He bunts a lot in late inning situations when it’s warranted (e.g. last night, runners on 1st and second, no outs, bunting them over to second and third increased their win expectancy; not all bunts are bad). Cox has done it longer and with more sustained success, so I would probably give him the nod, but Scioscia’s a close second.
May 28th, 2008
Dusty
As a Phoenician, I agree with the above arguments for Melvin. He has the D-Backs winning and playing better than almost any team in the league with hardly any stars (Upton will be and Jackson is playing better this year, but I wouldn’t call them stars just yet).
Earlier this year when Owings pinch-hit a 2-run hr to help the D-Backs complete an 8-7 comeback win over the Astros, I almost lost my mind.
Also, is there an rss feed for the comments on this blog?
May 28th, 2008
Drake33
Joe,
As a Twins fan. I have mixed emotions right now. I’m glad I get another Posnaski Post tomorrow, but I feel kindof bad for tonight.
May 28th, 2008
Andy Sonnanstine's Scruffy Beard
“In every other walk of life, ignoring research in favor of hunches would likely be a fireable offense.”
Or get you the Presidency.
I’m amused reading all of anti-Gardenhire venom from the Twins fans. Engaging in revisionist history about your 4 division titles in 5 years being “not all that impressive” or “just because we had an easy schedule” seems ludicrous to me seeing as how from 1993-2000 your team was so pathetic that MLB wanted to contract it. I suppose it’s true that every town (or state- hi, Minnesota) thinks that its manager is the worst in baseball. Listening to the Chicago media take off on Lou Pinella after last year’s division title and the previous four years of Dusty Baker is laughable.
May 29th, 2008
Brian Gunn
I appreciate Joe’s attempts to defend Gardenhire as the Best Manager in Baseball ™, but I can’t shake the feeling that we’re still in the Dark Ages when it comes to assessing managers. So much of the work they do is behind closed doors (both figuratively and literally), and virtually all attempts to quantitatively measure their performance (i.e., record in one-run games, actual record vs. Pythagorean record, etc.) are fraught with limitations, confusions, qualifications, and so on. While it’s fun to size up our favorite skippers, it seems to me that manager evaluation remains an unanswered Hilbert Question, and much closer to, say, art criticism than science.
May 29th, 2008
Culpurple
Creston… Brandon… Rhubarb…
Everyone else in their boat are adrift in a sea of confusion. Anyone who can’t admire what Gardy has done with a budget team through the ups and downs of a division’s perceived strength/weakness is just kidding themselves.
Throw all the stats out you want, this guy wins with whatever you give him. Give him a little more to work with, he wins a little more. This year, the pitching and defense hasn’t been up to “Twins Standards” and he is still winning.
And I don’t mind his “gut feelings”, because the guy has baseball instincts.
As pointed out elsewhere here, a lot of a managers decisions don’t work out on a game-to-game basis. But it’s how you manage the personalities on your team that matters. Get the most out of what you’ve got. And play the game the right way. Twins baseball.
May 29th, 2008
Creston
“But it’s how you manage the personalities on your team that matters. ”
Fine. Then Joe Torre or Terry Francona is the best manager in baseball. End of story.
Or do they suddenly not count because they have a big payroll?
May 29th, 2008
Rhubarb_Runner
“I suppose it’s true that every town (or state- hi, Minnesota) thinks that its manager is the worst in baseball.”
I don’t think anyone here was saying Gardy is the worst in baseball. But he’s not the best.
May 29th, 2008
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