Thurston Fluff

I thought they've been incredibly lucky all postseason. They made their own luck. AS much as I hate them they won by outplaying everyone. That despite the manager doing everything he could to sabotage the run. Things like running out of pinch hitters before extra innings even started and not having the right pitchers warmed up n the bullpen or over managing in general. They won because that is a flat out great offense that was playing well at the right time. The bunt was popped up but since Beltre was charging, it went over his head. Just pointing out more than one manager keeps the bunt on when they know corners are going to crash in? In the RRR thread that was treated as something only in idiot would do. Then again I thought TLR was less than stellar in the series.

If a guy hits a monster shot it almost seems natural to pause and watch. I sometimes see both teams step to the edge of the dugout on those. I saw Will Mo Pena hit one of those at Miller park once that I would have been surprised if he didn't watch it. Nobody around me had a problem with him watching that one for a second before he trotted the bases. It's more a natural reaction than any sort of showmanship. I'm not a fan of guys who have a HR act they do after every one. Pujols is one of those.

I just realized I forgot to help my special needs sister set up her fantasy football team last week. To make things worse she played against me with half her team on a bye week and I crushed her. There goes my good brother award for the year.

Better defense and the Brewers win at least one of those 3 games. The Cards offense is very good, The Brewer rotation was disappointing, but it was Brewer defense that kept the series from going to game 7. The same could be said of Texas in game 3. One blown call and a couple defensive miscues and the flood gates opened.

I can't believe Larussa pulled Motte in the 9th for Rhodes. How can you call a guy your closer and then pull him the first time he gets in a little trouble. I'll take Motte's 99mph over Rhodes junk any day. I can believe it. His M.O. is to over manage. If it was a bad decision to pull his pitcher there it was a bad decision to have an early hook in the NLCS. His (and our) players just made him look smarter against us. Personally, like most decisions a manager makes in any game, I think it was a decision that is neither good nor bad. Only the results are.

How can you arbitrarily assign it to Ron's people skills? The same way you arbitrarily assigned it to luck I guess. Seriously though I think so because every indication is Ron was better than Macha at communicating. All the players I ever heard talk about it say that it is an important asset and Ron is better at it than Macha. Then Ron went out and did better vs projections than Macha did. When combining results vs projections and the importance players say it has I think there is at least some evidence to back up my belief. Perhaps now you can explain to me why you just wrote it off as luck. Maybe even add why your approach is better with as much evidence as I provided. Then shouldn't every single manager with above average people skills outperform their teams run-performance on the season? Run performance not necessarily. Overall team play I would think so yes. You seem to be suggesting that isn't the case but why do you suggest such? If you know it isn't true show me why. Or, it just happened to Ron because he was perfect in the perfect situation in the perfect season? This would be that magic you keep speaking of. I don't believe in magic. I believe Ron is a good communicator and communication in the number one asset a manager needs to be successful over time. I believe it is more important than game time moves or who plays were. That is simply my belief. It was based on what people in the game say as well as anecdotal evidence from life experiences in general and watching baseball since the early 80's in specific. That my belief also fits how the season panned out only reenforces that maybe I am not off base. I don't think that makes players better than they physically are capable of be mind you. That would be magic. Only that it helps them to relax and play their best longer. How about we meet half way. Lets accept maybe there are many ways to run a team. Maybe there isn't a superior way every manager can follow and be better than any other approach. I think every manager has to use his specific skill set to his advantage. So it may be the case that some mangers would be better suited to manage like Macha did while others would not. I am perfectly willing to accept Macha got his team to meet expectations. I also think the way he did it was best for him. Had he tried to act like Ron he would have been phoney and that would have hurt more than it helped IMHO. I just think you should accept Ron did as well if not better by following another route.

I think he meant the team overachieved as a whole not individuals. Some may call that luck and that may be the case but I'm not as sure about that. It might also be the players were used in a way that allowed them to contribute more to the whole. Or it could be the players are simply better than we expected.

Good job of cherry picking one sentence and ignoring the larger point I was making. They got lucky this year, if you really believe that is some sort of "Magical Skill" RRR has, I expect it to be duplicated for as long as he is a manager. It was two sentences that made up a whole paragraph. Usually a paragraph is an entire thought thus I addressed it as such. The rest of that post was dedicated to defending Macha on pulling players sooner and such which had nothing to do with projected vs actual wins. My point is you assigned the difference between expected and actual wins to luck. That ignores a whole lot of other possibilities. Like he actually did something that helped the whole exceed it's parts. Maybe even that the order of traits that are important to the team's productivity might not be what you thought. It might just be communication skills are far more valuable to wins than choosing who pitches in the 7th or who pinch hits or who plays center. Also to say it's a magical skill insinuates that, like magic, it is non existent. I would say the skill Ron has that Macha doesn't is people skills. What you call magic I call communication. Little things like telling the player the day before when he is sitting or playing or giving the pen defined roles then giving them enough time to show if they can handle such a role. You may disagree that those are important which is fine. But please at least give some thought to other possibilities instead of just writing them off because they don't fit your view. As far as the -he should be able to repeat that exceeding of projections- part I don't get the point you are trying to make. It seems like you are saying since he might not succeed to this level sometime in the future it's wrong to think what he did this season was ability based. That makes no sense to me at all. Shouldn't you wait to see if he does fail before writing it off as wrong or pure luck? But when you see that the Cards a different team next year (with Wainwright back, and a full season of bullpen that cost them ~11 games more than ours did) they are already behind the 8-ball. Maybe we should wait until at least after the free agency period starts before we assume St Louis will have a better team than they do now and we will have a worse one. Last I checked they have a first baseman and shortstop in the same situation as we do.

Thats a lot to put on pythag. All that really does is take run differential and spit out a win EV. Which is pretty dumb. It gives runs in 16 run games the same weight as runs in 0-0 games. There are better models out there for EV Wins. I used the one supplied by another in support of his argument. Feel free to use anyone you want that shows Ron was below expectations while Macha above them.

Their pythag record last year was 76-86, so they got one extra win. This year, it was 90-72, so they got quite lucky in getting 6 extra wins. So you used pythag to show Macha was one win above his projections thus was not a bad manager but Ron's six wins above is luck? The arguments against Ron are always based on numbers. If you manage by the numbers you will end up with those numbers. Macha did and he was pretty darn close to his projections. Ron didn't and he got well above the projection relative to what Macha did. To call that luck seems a bit disingenuous. I'm sorry it doesn't fit your preconceived notions of what makes a successful manager but it's kind of obvious it doesn't. Couldn't it possibly be some trait Ron had that Macha didn't that helped the team exceed their cumulative ability to a greater degree than Macha did?

This has been your complaint for a week and I think you are just dead wrong on it. Actually I think it was the first time I mentioned it. RWA12 mentioned it as did TheCrew probably a couple others. It's easy to lose who said what so no big deal especially since I think they are more right about that play than you. We'll have to agree to disagree.

Starting Kotsay in CF. You've pretty much made my point. There are multiple things that went wrong but you focused on the manager instead of Greinke not striking out a single batter or Braun and Fielder failing to drive in Kotsay or Braun not backing up the play Kotsay missed in the field. Hell you made an excuse for Braun failing to back it up on that play in another thread.

Sure Braun could have done a better job of backing up the play but like I already said, he probably thought it was an easy play for any CF and didn't think he really needed to. He probably thought? What's wrong with admitting that he screwed up and should have been backing up that play like he was supposed to?

Why does everyone assume that they just melted under the spotlight and pressure? My comment was on their performance not a judgement on why they performed that way. Simple fact is they did not pitch well and that above all else was why we are now watching the Cards in the WS. All I'm saying is since we knew we would have to win despite our defense it seems silly to blame our defense now. Whatever the reason Marcum and Greinke failed miserably and that was not expected. When our sports teams fail, we search for a way to vent the inevitable frustration that it results in. Part of the venting process involves assessing blame to the individual players. It's more emotionally satisfying to blame an athlete's poor performance on a character flaw than luck or fatigue, so invariably that is what the fan determines caused the poor performance. You summed up my feelings on why I think so many people blame the manager for everything and anything. It's the easiest most visible target and you don't have to be mad at your favorite player in the process. That and there is no way one can be proven wrong when blaming the manager. SO it's easy prey.

This team was built with the understanding that defense was weak. As the 96 wins shows that doesn't mean the team can't win. I don't know what good it does to blame the defense now. It's like blaming the water for being wet when the boat inexplicably springs a leak. Why not blame the areas that were supposed to be good but weren't? Greinke and Marcum wetting themselves really were more an issue with me. That wasn't expected.

The media would love it but do you really think anyone here would have cared less about winning the World Series without it?

I never really found those sort of things entertaining but if the team does it I'm not all bent out of shape about it either. I can see how that sort of thing can help a team stay loose, focused or whatever. If it does by all means keep it up. If not then why bother? As long as they don't justify it by saying it's for the fans entertainment. People pay to see the actual games not sideshow antics.

I'm sorry but TLR didn't have much better starting pitching than we did this series and somehow he found a way to win, so please don't tell me that RR didn't have any options. You don't think their top ranked offense might have been an advantage for LaRussa? Ranked number one in OBP, runs, RBI, Slugging and hits might help make a manager a bit don't you think?

Also, wOBA does include SB/CS so that probably gives Gomez a decent boost, endaround said better offensive player, not hitter. Good point. However what Ron was looking for wasn't a base stealer. He was looking to get men on in front of Braun and Fielder which has been a severe problem in this series. Thus the decision to forgo Gomez's defense/offenseive skill set for Kotsay's on base advantage. Just like you could pinch hit with Kotsay you could pinch run with Gomez later if needed. What you can't do is pinch hit Kotsay every time Gomez comes to the plate. So that would give him a ~-33. I think the runs/War was like 9.6 this year. So we are literally talking needing the DIFFERENCE between the two of being a Braun/Fielder calibur hitter. These are inexact figures as it includes fielding metrics and some rough estimations but you get the idea. They might be inexact but it was at least an honest attempt. Thanks. I think you are getting to the extreme edge of the difference but at least I can go by something other than Kotsay should never play type of stuff.

You can't compare Gomez's numbers this year to Kotsay's since Gomez faced mostly RH relievers biasing everything against him. I compared what they did every single season they have been in the league and found each and every season Kotsay did better against RH pitchers. You are using a single season of part time play by both players. Isn't it generally accepted the larger sample size is likely to be the most accurate? But to your point about Gomez facing so many more tough RH relievers how did you arrive at that? He started out as the every day centerfielder then turned into a platoon guy who started against lefties. Kotsay was a pinch hitter for the better part of the season.

Since Kotsay isn't a better offensive player than Gomez there isn't anything to really discuss. What numbers are you looking at? His numbers against RHP this season are better. His career numbers against RH are better. His numbers for the last three seasons were better. Last I checked Carpenter was a RHP. If you hate Kotsay so much that you can't admit the obvious there is no point in going further.

Maybe somebody can help me here. Is there someplace I can look that shows me X amount of plays in the field made over the other guy adds Y amount to the win probability? Where is the evidence that shows a superior defender gives a team a better chance to win than a superior offensive player? There must be some sort of cutoff line when defense overtakes offense. It seems like criticizing someone for choosing offense over defense should come with some tangible evidence that shows it was wrong. Quite frankly the reverse is true as well which is why I won't judge until I know more. Specifically in this situation does GoGo's defense outweigh his career 244/293/339 against right handers? For comparison's sake Kotsay is 280/338/415 against right handers. Do those numbers represent a sizable enough of a gap to offset the defense? I've seen people say it does and some who say it doesn't but I haven't seen a lot of tangible evidence to show one way or the other. Or I just missed it. Given the number of pages that is very possible. If someone on this board has some type of study that shows how may plays a particular defender has to make above a superior offensive player in order to make up for his sub-par offense I'd love to see it. Then I might be able to make an informed assessment of the Kotsay decision.

The 2011 rosters don't show that at all, if the comparison is that the Brewers under Melvin did draft well. The number of home-grown players on the '11 rosters under Epstein v. Melvin is literally dead even. Epstein didn't have that much left after trading away five prospects. Four of which could or did play in the majors this season. Epstein is really good in the draft, they have traded away a lot of talent and they have a lot of home grown talent. The argument was that Boston traded a lot of their picks who didn't pan out for guys who did. Maybe that is wrong. I am not an expert on the subject. I was more or less going off what others said about his trades. For instance TLB said If he drafted so well then how did that happen? Wouldn't his drafted players have panned out if they were good? Or Rococougar's post that didn't get a lot of dissent. So which is it? Did he trade away a lot of talent that is now showing up by doing well on other teams or did he win the trades by getting better players than he gave up? I'm perfectly willing to admit I'm wrong. I'd just like to know who these good prospects are that he traded away.

I don't see a significant difference (using 2011 rosters), other than that the homegrown talent trended more towards pitching under Epstein in Boston. Look at what each team traded away as well as what they have on their roster now. He did a masterful job of trading his average at best draft picks for players who turned out better. He was not as good at actually drafting numbers of good players like Melvin did. I'm not making a judgment on his ability to put together a team as much as I am saying he didn't draft all that well. He was pretty good at selling what turned out to be junk draft picks for something useful but that is a separate issue from being able to draft a lot of quality in the first place.

Trading away prospects that don't pan out is certainly not an indictment of a GM's abilities or performance. If anything, it suggests superior talent evaluation, if you're repeatedly bringing in good production for prospects that don't wind up panning out. I meant his drafts haven't produced a huge number of players that are doing well in the majors. He is fine wiht assessing the value of his minor league players once in pro ball. You have to give a GM some time to develop their talent. He drafted Ellsbury, Pedroia, Bucholz, etc. He traded a can of beans for AGon. They developed Youk. He's been there as long as Melvin is here. Which organization did a better job of drafting and developing? The Brewers are winning with a lot more homegrown talent than the Sox did. Given your assertion that it takes time to draft and develop it only furthers my argument that drafting and developing isn't his strong suit. Otherwise his teams would be getting better about now instead of disintegrating.