Best manager in the game

[EagleNYC]

Bobby Cox is the only manager on the field today who deserves to be mentioned in the same breath with Connie Mack or John McGraw. I would take Billy Southworth, Bill McKechnie, Joe McCarthy or Joe Cronin over most every one of these bums today with their laptops and law degrees.

Casey Stengel remains the most overrated manager in baseball history.

So they're good because they're old and relied on certain adages that have proven to be flat out wrong over by the people with laptops and law degrees. Great.

Managing a baseball team is not the same as making a mechanical drawing. The new data analysis is far more significant for general managers in evaluating a player than for in-game strategy. Are we going to re-hash the "don't bunt! EVER!!!" argument? Or the "this guy is awesome because he can walk with runners on 1st and 3rd and not drive in the run" argument? Steals? Putting on a hit and run? Hogwash!

You're missing the point if you don't think managers should be knowledgeably about baseball probabilities.

No, I'm assailing the arrogance of those that proclaim it as sacred knowledge, to the detriment of over 100 years of collected wisdom. They are not mutually exclusive. A shrewd manager should harness both, and eschew that which doesn't work (like the bunting prohibition).

The other issue is that, as refined as the SABR crew has gotten, they refuse to acknowledge that 1) their metrics fail to measure things that are measurable (is the guy a good bunter? is the runner fast and able? is the score late and close? Do they have a strikeout pitcher on the mound? Then why aren't we bunting? - To a lesser extent, the comedy of fielding metrics) and 2) there are things that can't be measured. Yes, there is such a thing as a clutch hitter. The mental aspect of baseball is profound.

Baseball is not blackjack.

Actually, this years Red Sox team could be a great test case for the bunt/never bunt case, because I envision them with plenty of 1 and 2 run games in the 8th and 9th innings. We'll see what happens.

[twballgame9]

Bobby Cox is the only manager on the field today who deserves to be mentioned in the same breath with Connie Mack or John McGraw. I would take Billy Southworth, Bill McKechnie, Joe McCarthy or Joe Cronin over most every one of these bums today with their laptops and law degrees.

Casey Stengel remains the most overrated manager in baseball history.

So they're good because they're old and relied on certain adages that have proven to be flat out wrong over by the people with laptops and law degrees. Great.

Too easy.

Hunt bigger game, campion, you have progressed beyond the small fish of Moneyball inferiority.

[flyingelvii]

Bobby Cox is the only manager on the field today who deserves to be mentioned in the same breath with Connie Mack or John McGraw. I would take Billy Southworth, Bill McKechnie, Joe McCarthy or Joe Cronin over most every one of these bums today with their laptops and law degrees.

Casey Stengel remains the most overrated manager in baseball history.

So they're good because they're old and relied on certain adages that have proven to be flat out wrong over by the people with laptops and law degrees. Great.

Managing a baseball team is not the same as making a mechanical drawing. The new data analysis is far more significant for general managers in evaluating a player than for in-game strategy. Are we going to re-hash the "don't bunt! EVER!!!" argument? Or the "this guy is awesome because he can walk with runners on 1st and 3rd and not drive in the run" argument? Steals? Putting on a hit and run? Hogwash!

You're missing the point if you don't think managers should be knowledgeably about baseball probabilities.

No, I'm assailing the arrogance of those that proclaim it as sacred knowledge, to the detriment of over 100 years of collected wisdom. They are not mutually exclusive. A shrewd manager should harness both, and eschew that which doesn't work (like the bunting prohibition).

The other issue is that, as refined as the SABR crew has gotten, they refuse to acknowledge that 1) their metrics fail to measure things that are measurable (is the guy a good bunter? is the runner fast and able? is the score late and close? Do they have a strikeout pitcher on the mound? Then why aren't we bunting? - To a lesser extent, the comedy of fielding metrics) and 2) there are things that can't be measured. Yes, there is such a thing as a clutch hitter. The mental aspect of baseball is profound.

Baseball is not blackjack.

Actually, this years Red Sox team could be a great test case for the bunt/never bunt case, because I envision them with plenty of 1 and 2 run games in the 8th and 9th innings. We'll see what happens.

I didn't claim that the computers and stuff are the be all, end all. They are extremely useful in determining the usefulness of a player like Adam Dunn but they don't pick up certain intricacies due to the fact that people are playing the game. To completely eschew statistics that actually tell a better picture of how good a player is is just dumb.

But yes, TW, I think that robots should just play the game because statistics tell us everything we need to know about everything baseball related. There is no gray area AT ALL. People who don't accept certain numbers to some degree, and I'm not talking about complex stuff like WARP or VORP, stuff like OBP, SLG, BABIP, and ERA+, confuse me.

[EaglesTalon]

my answer:

[EagleNYC]

So they're good because they're old and relied on certain adages that have proven to be flat out wrong over by the people with laptops and law degrees. Great.

Re: the "be all, end all" part, I was feeding off the line above. You aside, I've run into quite a few initiates of the "never bunt" philosophy and find them as perplexing as you do the SABR no-nothings.

[twballgame9]

So they're good because they're old and relied on certain adages that have proven to be flat out wrong over by the people with laptops and law degrees. Great.

Re: the "be all, end all" part, I was feeding off the line above. You aside, I've run into quite a few initiates of the "never bunt" philosophy and find them as perplexing as you do the SABR no-nothings.

They don't say "never bunt." They say "never bunt before the 8th inning because prior to that you have plenty of ABs to score runs, and statistically speaking you score more runs over the long haul if you don't bunt, and you should never play for one run until late."

There is some truth to this. There is also some truth to the idea that if you bunt runners into scoring position in the third inning with Tim Lincecum on the mound and then score them 80% of the time with an out, you have just given yourself a greater chance to win than if you take the 30% chance you will drive them home with a hit and score multiple runs. The same does not hold true with Tim Wakefield on the mound, where you then play to the statistics.

There is truth in everything the SABRMETRICIANS say regarding the game of baseball. The problem is that these stats can only tell you the what, they never explain the why. And the why of scoring runs and preventing the scoring of runs is a lot more complicated than trends and patterns over a period of time.

[BCEagle74]

Ron Washington has been a coke head diversity affirmative action loser his whole life.

He stopped when he knew his $1M was in jeopardy and they tested him and he told them he was a ONE TIME USER!!

Yeah, and Tiger only fucked those porn stars and waitresses and whores ONE TIME in 4 years.

How the fuck do you not give up coke when they start to tests managers and you ahve a budding uoung star team and you get $1M a year.

Rangers miss the playoffs, Washington and his parking garage nostrils are in rehab and then broke in 2 months.

[flyingelvii]

So they're good because they're old and relied on certain adages that have proven to be flat out wrong over by the people with laptops and law degrees. Great.

Re: the "be all, end all" part, I was feeding off the line above. You aside, I've run into quite a few initiates of the "never bunt" philosophy and find them as perplexing as you do the SABR no-nothings.

They don't say "never bunt." They say "never bunt before the 8th inning because prior to that you have plenty of ABs to score runs, and statistically speaking you score more runs over the long haul if you don't bunt, and you should never play for one run until late."

There is some truth to this. There is also some truth to the idea that if you bunt runners into scoring position in the third inning with Tim Lincecum on the mound and then score them 80% of the time with an out, you have just given yourself a greater chance to win than if you take the 30% chance you will drive them home with a hit and score multiple runs. The same does not hold true with Tim Wakefield on the mound, where you then play to the statistics.

There is truth in everything the SABRMETRICIANS say regarding the game of baseball. The problem is that these stats can only tell you the what, they never explain the why. And the why of scoring runs and preventing the scoring of runs is a lot more complicated than trends and patterns over a period of time.

And this is why people, and not computers or robots, manage baseball teams as I said before. The game is intricate.