Brewers (Peralta) vs Pirates (TBD): 9/6/23, 11:35am

[tmwiese55]

3 hours ago, Sugarrayray said:

Let’s put it this way. If many brewers fans knew putting Elvis in today was a terrible idea since he really struggles own no rest, why didn’t Craig? If Rowdy is the slowest guy in the league and the sure thing you can not do in that situation is hit in to a double play, why put him in for a fast guy? If Rowdy was having a solid year, it may be worth the risk. It wasn’t. That’s Craig’s job to know. If Craig can’t see putting rookie in the 4th spot of a slumping lineup isn’t a great play, that’s tough. He’s still on balance a top five manager in the league in my eyes. But these are SIMPLE things.

Everyone of us here could come up with a number of reasons on all those things.   And none of them give any evidence to being checked out, not caring, coasting, etc.

He decided to value certain things over others to day that you valued differently. That is fair and exactly what a site here is all about. But throwing out terms and things like you were basically accusing him of not caring/trying, etc is espn hot take garbage that Stephen A would say.    Keep in mind we also don't know all the background info.  

Moreover, only pointing them out when they go wrong while ignoring all the times they go right (which obviously for Craig is way way above the normal) is basic hindsight 20/20 and confirmation bias.  There's plenty of times where I've gone 'IDK if I'd have yanked him now' or 'if I'd have brought that guy in' then it goes perfectly fine and I forget about it.  Then when it goes wrong I can't go "see I knew it, it was obvious, this guy is checked out"

 

Bottom line, I know darn well he and his assistants have thought and dug way deeper on this stuff than all of us. Getting something wrong in a game that is all about failure (where its impossible to get everything right) and with so much variance as baseball is almost assuredly not due to a lack of care and effort. Especially when it's a team performing well above what their roster should

[Sugarrayray]

3 hours ago, HarveysWBs said:

Google Dunning-Kruger effect.  Then check the mirror.

If you think this thing is simple, that should be a big red flag.  

Ahhh. Now I get it. This is a no criticize Craig zone. Thanks for the heads up.

[Sugarrayray]

2 hours ago, tmwiese55 said:

Everyone of us here could come up with a number of reasons on all those things.   And none of them give any evidence to being checked out, not caring, coasting, etc.

He decided to value certain things over others to day that you valued differently. That is fair and exactly what a site here is all about. But throwing out terms and things like you were basically accusing him of not caring/trying, etc is espn hot take garbage that Stephen A would say.    Keep in mind we also don't know all the background info.  

Moreover, only pointing them out when they go wrong while ignoring all the times they go right (which obviously for Craig is way way above the normal) is basic hindsight 20/20 and confirmation bias.  There's plenty of times where I've gone 'IDK if I'd have yanked him now' or 'if I'd have brought that guy in' then it goes perfectly fine and I forget about it.  Then when it goes wrong I can't go "see I knew it, it was obvious, this guy is checked out"

 

Bottom line, I know darn well he and his assistants have thought and dug way deeper on this stuff than all of us. Getting something wrong in a game that is all about failure (where its impossible to get everything right) and with so much variance as baseball is almost assuredly not due to a lack of care and effort. Especially when it's a team performing well above what their roster should

Like I said earlier, pointing out negative things during a win is excessively negative. During a loss in which the manager is largely a culprit is more appropriate.

I know the easy consensus is to say the Brewers are outperforming their talent, probably because they don’t spend much money. But the reality is, for years almost every single position player has performed to almost the least of their ability offensively. Multiple GMs and hitting coaches have been here during that time. I think the Brewers are a very talented team. If Adames, Yelich, Tellez, even Taylor and several more actually played somewhere close to their talent level, the Brewers would be a downright fantastic team. It’s the coaches job to squeeze every bit of excellence out of his players.
 

Lastly, as I said earlier, the “coasting” references I made were mostly due to the fact that in a game where the home plate ump actually seems like he’s enjoying screwing your team, crickets from Craig. He’s never been a huge, gesticulating argue with the ump kind of guy, and that’s fine. But in times past he would definitely give the ump a piece of his mind, especially on that laughable final call. 

Coupling that with the fact that he hasn’t re-upped his contract makes me think his mind is elsewhere compared to former years. I hope he’s back next year. Sincerely. But I just don’t understand why everyone else can be criticized but him.

 

[rondoman]

Dodgers starting pitching is absolute trash.

Nobody should fear the Dodgers.

The Dodgers postseason rotation options:

Clayton Kershaw: Shoulder injury affecting velocity and command

Lance Lynn: 10.80 ERA in last three starts

Bobby Miller: Rookie

Ryan Pepiot: Rookie

Emmet Sheehan: Rookie

Ryan Yarbrough: Piggyback

Walker Bueher: Coming back from Tommy John

 

[BruisedCrew]

1 hour ago, rondoman said:

Dodgers starting pitching is absolute trash.

Nobody should fear the Dodgers.

The Dodgers postseason rotation options:

Clayton Kershaw: Shoulder injury affecting velocity and command

Lance Lynn: 10.80 ERA in last three starts

Bobby Miller: Rookie

Ryan Pepiot: Rookie

Emmet Sheehan: Rookie

Ryan Yarbrough: Piggyback

Walker Bueher: Coming back from Tommy John

 

What about a team that scored a total of 3 runs on10 hits in games started by Miller, Kershaw, and Lynn?

[SF70]

2 hours ago, BruisedCrew said:

What about a team that scored a total of 3 runs on10 hits in games started by Miller, Kershaw, and Lynn?

I think the world already knows the Brewers offense is devoid of power and thus pretty weak. 

The LAD are in serious trouble with their rotation, any baseball fan can see that and they are in danger of a quick exit from the postseason. 

[mtsportsfan]

3 hours ago, rondoman said:

Dodgers starting pitching is absolute trash.

Nobody should fear the Dodgers.

The Dodgers postseason rotation options:

Clayton Kershaw: Shoulder injury affecting velocity and command

Lance Lynn: 10.80 ERA in last three starts

Bobby Miller: Rookie

Ryan Pepiot: Rookie

Emmet Sheehan: Rookie

Ryan Yarbrough: Piggyback

Walker Bueher: Coming back from Tommy John

 

The thing is , there pitchers can give up 4 or 5 runs and their offense can over come that ours generally won't !

[BruisedCrew]

38 minutes ago, SF70 said:

I think the world already knows the Brewers offense is devoid of power and thus pretty weak. 

The LAD are in serious trouble with their rotation, any baseball fan can see that and they are in danger of a quick exit from the postseason. 

The Dodgers first playoff opponent will likely be either the Phillies, Cubs, or Brewers. Those teams all have weaknesses of their own. Sure, the Dodgers could get knocked out in that round, but with their lineup they’ll be favored against whoever they play. 

[tmwiese55]

10 hours ago, Sugarrayray said:

Like I said earlier, pointing out negative things during a win is excessively negative. During a loss in which the manager is largely a culprit is more appropriate.

I know the easy consensus is to say the Brewers are outperforming their talent, probably because they don’t spend much money. But the reality is, for years almost every single position player has performed to almost the least of their ability offensively. Multiple GMs and hitting coaches have been here during that time. I think the Brewers are a very talented team. If Adames, Yelich, Tellez, even Taylor and several more actually played somewhere close to their talent level, the Brewers would be a downright fantastic team. It’s the coaches job to squeeze every bit of excellence out of his players.
 

Lastly, as I said earlier, the “coasting” references I made were mostly due to the fact that in a game where the home plate ump actually seems like he’s enjoying screwing your team, crickets from Craig. He’s never been a huge, gesticulating argue with the ump kind of guy, and that’s fine. But in times past he would definitely give the ump a piece of his mind, especially on that laughable final call. 

Coupling that with the fact that he hasn’t re-upped his contract makes me think his mind is elsewhere compared to former years. I hope he’s back next year. Sincerely. But I just don’t understand why everyone else can be criticized but him.

 

Once again.  No one said he can't be criticized.  Can certainly breakdown choices and why one thinks this or that should have been done.   It's the manager is checked out, doesn't care type stuff, and then you also included mentions of being 'terrible' and so many bad decisions you're miffed by them.    That is beyond nitpicking something here or there, which of course anyone can and its baseball so they're gonna get plenty wrong.    You're backtracking a bit which is fine but there's a big difference between I would've valued speed here vs power or I'd have used the heavier K pitcher vs groundball in this instance, you know baseball stuff.    Versus being, " consistently terrible, chronically bad decisions, mailing it in, no hearbeat, checked out".  Those are your words and that is way beyond what one of the best managers in the game with a team overperforming is called for. And IDK why you're now saying you'd want guy making terrible and chronically bad decisions back.  Breakdown a move based on data/baseball info instead of hot take tough guy stuff as if you watching on tv can make a judgment on their emotions/psychology is espn hot take stuff. 

Taylor is a blah prospect. Tellez was a AAAA guy we got off the scrapheap who they've gotten more out of than his last team.  Adames was a flop in TB that had a hot 2 months for us and has been blah since as a hitter. Then its more scrapheap and rookies for his O roster.  That is a trash O roster.  Yelich of course is an underperformer but I really don't know what CC can do about management giving him that contract.     But I would assume CC has at least some say in roster building and we're going on 4 years of the O being trash without him and the rest of management improving it. Certainly fair to criticize there and I do. But to play armchair psychologist watching on TV accusing people of not caring and being lazy isn't the way. Leave that for Stephen A

[HarveysWBs]

14 hours ago, Sugarrayray said:

Ahhh. Now I get it. This is a no criticize Craig zone. Thanks for the heads up.

No, I don't think you get what I'm saying at all, and I'll take responsibility for that.  My reply to you was flippant, so I should expect a flippant and superficial response in turn, so allow me to elaborate.  Nowhere in my reply did I defend Counsell, nor did I in any way state that he is infallible and above reproach--that would be a foolish position to take.  It is quite obvious that his decision regarding relievers in yesterday's game did not work, and I think all of us as Brewers fans would at least agree on that.  

But here's the rub:  we can all see when the results are good or bad, however, those results are only the public-facing tail end of a long chain of processes that are largely or entirely hidden from our view.  So what we often do as fans (and I include myself in this category as much as you or anyone else) is extrapolate backwards from result to an evaluation of process.  

Leaving aside the issue of bad processes sometimes leading to good results and vice-versa, let's get into the real problem we face, which is that we as fans do not see the process.  We watch the games, look at box scores and stats, and get on here and enjoy armchair managing, which is all good fun (at least, we all like to argue so much I assume it is fun for us, but maybe I shouldnt assume).

However, you and I don't talk to the players every day and get a read on their mindset, energy, confidence, or body language.  For instance, how does each player in the bullpen react to their usage:  do they prefer defined roles, or a "fireman" approach?  I have no idea, but I'm willing to bet Counsell does.

We don't have an army of analysts and statisticians poring over datapoints that put each of our players and their opponsents under the rigorous microscope of cutting edge data analytics.  How do Elvis Peguero's arm slot, arsenal, and spin rates play against the batted ball profiles and swing paths of Joe, Delay, Bae, Reynolds, and Hayes?  I have no clue, but I bet someone in the organization does, and I can imagine that he or she is feeding Counsell actionable intelligence on bullpen decisions.

The truth is, though, I have no idea what Counsell's  or any other manager's decision-making process really looks like.  The popular, but by no means universally accepted, benchmark is 10,000 hours of experience as championed by Malcolm Gladwell.  Forgive me for another assumption, but I suspect neither you or anyone else on here has logged that kind of time, and I know I haven't logged even hour #1.  This is why I took umbrage with your characterization of the situation as a "SIMPLE" decision for a manager to make, and cited the Dunning-Kruger effect in response. Dunning and Kruger's study suggests a common logical fallacy, which is that once we start to know something about a topic, we naturally tend to overestimate our overall understanding of that topic.

In light of this, when someone is in a position that is elite and selective enough that only a few hundred people in the world are probably capable of filling that role at any given moment, and this person makes a choice that I don't understand or I would have done differently, I have two ways I can try to explain this.  On the one hand, I could assume the expert blew it with a bad process and I would have a better decision-making process.  This is theoretically possible, but highly unlikely, as suggested by the Dunning-Kruger effect.  Alternatively, I could try to puzzle out the process that person actually used to make their choice, and all the information and variables that informed or affected that choice.  This sounds like a far more interesting conversation to have, to me at least, though a two-day old IGT is almost certainly not the place to have it.

So, here's where I'm at:  I know that the bullpen call didn't work.  I have no idea what the process was like that led to that choice or how it compares to other managers' processes.  And, most apropos to your post, while Counsell's process may very well have been flawed, I'm reasonably certain that the decision was far more complicated than it looks on TV.

[Sugarrayray]

tmweise55

I haven’t watched ESPN since I was a kid. Specifically because of those stupid hot takes. That’s not what these are. There are very few constantly good baseball managers in my opinion. I think Craigary tends to be in the top 5 or so most years. I’m very happy to have him.

I’m not backtracking. I suppose I should have explained better. It appears to me lately that Counsell seems less sharp, focused, creative, and energized to be the manager of this team as he has in the past. I think he made several loud mistakes yesterday, and recently, that are indicative of him not being at the top of his game, and seeming to be losing the fire that one needs to be consistently focused over such and extremely long and grueling season. I said that encourages me towards the thinking that he’s inclined to not sign an extension with the Brewers after the season. Could be wrong of course :)

I also think that if someone can’t see the lack of his making any changes or adjustments to his way of managing (which is generally good) over some recent seasons, they must have a blind spot. He manages in a way that allows very few of his players to get in a rhythm offensively. He has his “guys” in a way that has become outrageous at times. I still think he’s better than so many managers. 

Alas, I wish he could adapt more instead of stubbornly pitch Elvis Peguero, and then end up using Hoby Milner anyways when he would be so much safer a choice in the seventh inning. I wistfully long for the days that when an ump (I rarely complain about umps because I know it’s so much harder than most people seem to think it is from personal experience at much lower levels) seems to be actively trying to make your team lose a game, a day when the ump calls a strike three that will probably one of the top worst calls to end a game this season, I long for the day that a Counsell would get of his ass and show a little emotion and fire in front of his guys when they seem to be a bit listless. 
 

That is all. You are free to disagree and point out his other many and varied great qualities. Taking a shot at someone for being like Stephen Smith after they have actually watched every game this season and forgot more about sports than that attention seeking charlatan will ever know, is a fragile and low brow way to show disagreement.

[treego14]

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