Dickerson not happy
in [Cincinnati Reds]
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From: John Kasupski on 2 Mar 2010 15:17 On Tue, 2 Mar 2010 10:41:48 -0800 (PST), RJA <agentvaughn(a)gmail.com> wrote: >I don't believe that Walt Jocketty doesn't consider OBP at the top of >the order to be important. Dusty Baker on the other hand played a >couple guys with sub .300 OBPs in the leadoff spot so we know the >answer there. Sure about that? Don't forget why Jocketty left St. Louis in the first place. >> That method of judgement is totally invalid. Not all managers have computers on >> their desks and spend a lot of time looking at spreadsheets and percentages. >> Just because they probably wouldn't last any longer than I would in a room with >> Bill James doesn't mean they haven't been successful managers nevertheless. > >You're suggesting that managers don't need to look at percentages? Well...read my reply to Tom Dunne elsewhere in this thread. What I'm saying is that those percentages may not make as much difference as people seem to think. >> Dusty Baker's accomplishments as a major league manager include three Manager of >> the Year awards, 1,314 wins, three division titles, and a National League >> pennant. There is more than one way to skin a cat. > >How much has he accomplished without a rhoid raging masher carrying >the team? He had one in both of his previous stops. Those guys made >up for a lot of boneheaded decisions. What? You really want to go that route? It's arguable that a couple of decades worth of satistical data is invalid and that the conclusions that analysts have drawn from interpreting that data are therefore highly suspect. You're not helping your own argument any by going there. I mean, what about those Oakland teams that some people hold up as justification of the whole stathead way of looking at thing? McGwire, Canseco, both Giambis, Tejada, those dudes were all juiced, how do we know they didn't make up for a lot of boneheaded personnel decisions on the part of Sandy Alderson/Billy Beane? I guess you can snatch that GENIUS hat off Tony LaRussa's head and grind it into the dugout floor with your heel, too. Then get him a hat with the logo of BALCO or some other manufacturer of PEDs to take its place And the Yankees' resurgence in the late 90's apparently wasn't the result of Dave Cashman's discovery of sabermetrics after all...simply a "natural" consequence of having juicers Clemens, Pettite, Giambi, A-Rod around. Oh, yeah - Theo Epstein, another darling of the stathead crowd...where would his BoSox have been in 2004 without juicers David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez, and how many other BoSox of that era escaped being implicated by the Mitchell Report only because George Mitchell happens to be on the BoSox' Board of Directors? Yeah, dude...if you're going to bring steroids into the equation (pun fully intended), then you may as well not even mention statistics at all because nobody knows what's valid from the Steroids Era and what isn't. JK
From: RJA on 2 Mar 2010 15:41 On Mar 2, 2:31 pm, John Kasupski <w2...(a)spamfilter.verizon.net> wrote: > On Tue, 2 Mar 2010 09:02:39 -0800 (PST), tom dunne <dunn...(a)gmail.com> wrote: > >In truth, I think Dusty makes his decisions largely as a combination > >of what's traditionally done and whatever his intuition says on the > >matter. He really doesn't care about numbers (for good or ill), and > >it's only when reporters ask him about his decisions that he attempts > >to rationalize with stats. That's why we hear about leadoff homers > >and cleanup steals, because those sorts of concrete answers get > >reporters off his back, even when they don't make good baseball sense. > > Thank you! You've just helped me to finally clarify in my mind what I've been > trying to verbalize for a week now. > > Dusty Baker is an old school manager who relies partially on traditional > baseball convention, and partially on instinct. I suppose that's to be expected > considering he learned while playing under old-school managers such as Walter > Alston, Tommy LaSorda, Frank Robinson, Danny Ozark, who managed the same way. > > And this post will not be an anti-stahead rant either...but basically, Baker is > being criticized for not being something that he's not (a statistically oriented > manager). The problem I have with that criticism is that it assumes that the > traditional old-school method of managing is invalid, and I don't feel as if > that's been established. Leyland is a traditional manager and he had the Tigers > in the World Series the year after they went 71-91. McKeon epitomizes old school > managing and look what happened after he showed up in the Marlins' clubhouse in > 2003...that team was 16-22 when he got there. > > I think that perhaps what many observers fail to consider is that while saber is > looking at the results of hundreds or thousands of games, the fact is that > baseball isn't played that way. It is played one pitch at a time, one inning at > a time, one game at a time. I thnk this is therefore how an old school manager > thinks about things..They really don't care about VORP, OBP, OPS, or whatever. > What they care about, really, is runs. Not runs over the course of the entire > season or several seasons - just runs scored and runs allowed in tonight's game. We all care about runs! The point is still that guys who have a better chance of reaching base should bat ahead of guys with a good chance of driving them in. That's how runs are maximized. The fact that it's spread out over hundreds of games just makes those odds more reliable on any given day because the samples are larger. A guy with a .400 OBP over 350 games is someone who you can look at and say "that guy has a good shot to make something happen tonight." A guy with a . 400 OBP over 10 games is a maybe. It would be one thing if you apply a hot hand rationale to it, that player A who isn't normally a good hitter has been hot, so I think I'll move him up because he may help us more tonight, but that's not something that Baker does. Baker plays the cold hand waiting for him to get hot.
From: RJA on 2 Mar 2010 15:59 On Mar 2, 3:17 pm, John Kasupski <w2...(a)spamfilter.verizon.net> wrote: > On Tue, 2 Mar 2010 10:41:48 -0800 (PST), RJA <agentvau...(a)gmail.com> wrote: > >I don't believe that Walt Jocketty doesn't consider OBP at the top of > >the order to be important. Dusty Baker on the other hand played a > >couple guys with sub .300 OBPs in the leadoff spot so we know the > >answer there. > > Sure about that? Don't forget why Jocketty left St. Louis in the first place. Yes I'm sure because I've heard him in radio interviews. He at least mentions the concept at the top of the order and knows what it stands for, unlike Baker. > >> That method of judgement is totally invalid. Not all managers have computers on > >> their desks and spend a lot of time looking at spreadsheets and percentages. > >> Just because they probably wouldn't last any longer than I would in a room with > >> Bill James doesn't mean they haven't been successful managers nevertheless. > > >You're suggesting that managers don't need to look at percentages? > > Well...read my reply to Tom Dunne elsewhere in this thread. What I'm saying is > that those percentages may not make as much difference as people seem to think. And that's wrong, because the larger the track record, the more likely the track record evidences it self on a given night. On the percentages tied to wins, I would need to see a source. > >> Dusty Baker's accomplishments as a major league manager include three Manager of > >> the Year awards, 1,314 wins, three division titles, and a National League > >> pennant. There is more than one way to skin a cat. > > >How much has he accomplished without a rhoid raging masher carrying > >the team? He had one in both of his previous stops. Those guys made > >up for a lot of boneheaded decisions. > > What? You really want to go that route? It's arguable that a couple of decades > worth of satistical data is invalid and that the conclusions that analysts have > drawn from interpreting that data are therefore highly suspect. You're not > helping your own argument any by going there. Yeah, generally that may be true, but I can tell you this..........you can get a lot more out of the Reds lineup than Baker has done and will do in 2010. Phillips batting cleanup against right handers with no regard for his bad numbers against them is one example. It would be fine against lefties. If Dickerson plays, it's looking like he'll be batting 7th or 8th while he's one of the better Reds at getting on base. If we had Barry Bonds or Sammy Sosa in their prime, the lineup would likely meet ends and you wouldn't have to worry about maximization techniques. However, we don't have them and we need a manager who can get the most out of the team, especially when we struggled to score runs in 2009.
From: John Kasupski on 2 Mar 2010 16:18 On Tue, 2 Mar 2010 11:32:10 -0800 (PST), tom dunne <dunnetg(a)gmail.com> wrote: >> Dusty Baker's accomplishments as a major league manager include three Manager of >> the Year awards, 1,314 wins, three division titles, and a National League >> pennant. There is more than one way to skin a cat. > >Too bad he hasn't accomplished any of that in Cincinnati. No argument on that! :-) >He's just >come off his 4th consecutive losing season, spread over two teams, so >something's obviously not working right. I'm sure you'll recall that this team was a major mess when he inherited it. As for the Cubs...well, they're the Cubs. I think that job has chewed up and spit out a lot of good guys - Leo Durocher, Don Baylor, Don Zimmer... >I always thought it odd that >the Giants let him go right after the World Series - anyone know what >that was about? I'd say that it was simply a matter of Dusty standing on the ledge and the Cubs waving $14 million at him to jump. During spring training in 2001, with Baker still recovering from prostrate surgery, Giants' team president Peter Magowan made the statement that the Giants had all the pieces in place. Baker reportedly perceived that as a slight that put undo pressure on him, especially considering his medical condition, and the result was strained relations between Baker and Magowan. There were rumors before the WS that the Cubs were interested in Baker, and Seattle was also reportedly interested in him. One article I found on the web further stated that Baker had been telling friends since August that he was ready to leave Frisco: http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-92557539.html JK
From: HTP on 2 Mar 2010 17:28
On Mar 2, 12:17 pm, John Kasupski <w2...(a)spamfilter.verizon.net> wrote: > > I mean, what about those Oakland teams that some people hold up as justification > of the whole stathead way of looking at thing? McGwire, Canseco, both Giambis, > Tejada, those dudes were all juiced, how do we know they didn't make up for a > lot of boneheaded personnel decisions on the part of Sandy Alderson/Billy Beane? > > And the Yankees' resurgence in the late 90's apparently wasn't the result of > Dave Cashman's discovery of sabermetrics after all...simply a "natural" > consequence of having juicers Clemens, Pettite, Giambi, A-Rod around. Now its personal... Giambi was late to the party and never won a series with the Yankees. ARod arrived in what... 2003 or 2004? the Yankees "resurgence" (because i say they never went away) was mainly Jeter, Posada, Bernie Williams, and Mariano, all home-grown, and as of yet, rhoid-free talent. > > Oh, yeah - Theo Epstein, another darling of the stathead crowd...where would his > BoSox have been in 2004 without juicers David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez, and how > many other BoSox of that era escaped being implicated by the Mitchell Report > only because George Mitchell happens to be on the BoSox' Board of Directors? You tell me. Who looked like they were juicing John? And what team rightly should have won the AL East in 2004? The Blue Jays? > > Yeah, dude...if you're going to bring steroids into the equation (pun fully > intended), then you may as well not even mention statistics at all because > nobody knows what's valid from the Steroids Era and what isn't. I think that if the exact truth ever came out, you'd find that there were players from every team at one time or another, including the reds, that were juicing. If there was any effect on the game, it probably ends up a wash. most of the players caught doping seem to be minor league pitchers of no discernable ability. To pretend that guys like McGwire, Bonds, Clemens, and Giambi owe thier careers to chemistry is silly. These guys were likely drawing scouts at 15. The Mitchell report list Hal Morris as a user. Case closed. Rhoids aint helping anyone hit homeruns. Lets move on. |