Thurston Fluff

It'll be interesting to see the mechanics of it. Who calls for a replay? What type of evidence does it take to overturn the call? Who actually reviews the play? Is there a time limit on how long the review takes? There are way to many unanswered questions that need to be resolved before I can be on board with it or not.

Honestly, i think the guy could make alot more money in private business, but doesn't understand the benefits (both health insurance and other intangables) that make the public sector a great place to work. Wow benefits. Something that should go away everywhere so employees really understood what they actually made. I know a few guys in the ealry 90's that went to work for themselves. They were front runners in IT and could get a job anywhere in an emerging field. Everyone of them now works for someone else because of the benefits. I really don't think the pay is what makes a person underperform as much as it reveals the type of person they are. Some work hard and hope they get appreciated or, at the very least, improve their marketability elsewhere. Some go in operation shut down. How they act should give some information on their value to the company going forward. If you do pay less you may not be able to attract someone with experience who is better but at least you can find someone less experienced with the ability to improve.

I suspect with Ned's short leash, he may have less decision in this. If Melvin's philosophy of whose decision it is to hire coaches changed becuase he no longer trusts Yost then I think Yost would no longer be the manager. I suspect fan's view of Melvins relationship with Yost is vastly differant than reality. It would make no sense what so ever to tell the manager you still believe in his abilities then strip him of the ability to chose who works under him. Furthermore if Yost's job really is on the line, which I believe next year it is (and should be), then he should have the chance to chose those he's going to succeed of fail with. I just don't see how limiting his options now makes any sense. Especially in an area largely unrelated to his perceived weakness of game strategy.

Why would I hate LaRussa because of that? If that was the case I'd have to hate every manager in baseball since people have pointed out that he's the worst manager ever. My dislike for LaRussa is based on his being an over rated pompus jerk. I've disliked him long before Yost was our manager. As for the Leyland point I'm obviously off base. One thing I would like to point out though is he did take over a team that was an unknown commodity. There was no real way to know those young guys would com ein and do what they did as rookies. I think he does well with young teams and veteran ones. Which is my main point. But he did bail on teams as well. I still believe he's a better manager than LaRussa. But that's just my personal preference of managerial style.

If you're looking for a good hisory read relating to Rome try "Rome, The Biography of a City," by Christopher Hibbert. It goes through the entire history of the city up to modern day. Very few cities have as long and rich a history as Rome does. I have to agree The Zombie books are great reads.

We have two Hyndai Accents because of their reliability and economy. They are cheap to buy new have A 100,000 mile warranty, are inexpensive to drive and the first one was reliable enough for us to get another without hesitation. No break downs at all for either of them. I jsut read this in the local paper about govenment vehicles for sale. Might be worth looking into. http://www.postcrescent.com/includes/newspaper/data/property/surpluscars.shtml

What did those great players do in Detroit before he got there?

Actually that points to intelligence and experience. If a manager has a choice of where to go, he should go to a team that has the best chance to win. I don't blame him for leaving if he felt his reputation would take a hit by staying in a poor situation. By the same token it means his reputation should be of one who can do well with a certain type of team and unwilling to deal with certain situations. I don't believe he has proven himself to be one of the few managers who can do more than others with any type of team. He isn't in the same category as Jim Leyland IMO. He's more of a guy who does well with veteran teams and unwilling to stick it out with a small market team. Even one that helped him gain his reputation. Edit: I have to say that I am surprised nobody brought up the all-star game where Pujols sat on the bench. Not a big deal unless you live in Colorado. Another good example of an instance where the strategic genious of LaRussa can legitimately be questioned. He certainly didn't put the NL in the best postion to win with that decision. Which only strengthens my point that some of his mistakes go unnoticed by those of us who don't see him day in and day out.

Generally you gain 18 AB per season per lineup spot. So over the course of a whole season, a player batting one place out of their ideal lineup spot will make almost no impact. Add to that you are talking about a pitcher who will generally be pinch hit for after about 75% of the at bats and you are talking about maybe 13-14 AB over an entire season. Plus he generally did it when he had a pitcher with a higher BA than the position player. I don't think it's a big deal but if the best that can be said about it is it doesn't hurt why do it? I disagree that you could plug in some sort of computer model and say there is a benefit due to the small samples. I also think there is something to be said for the approach teams take in tight situations with the pitcehr coming up next. MAny times the pitcher works around the 8th man to get to the easier out in the pitcher. That makes the lineup turn over quicker ect. Even if the pitcher does have a better BA there are several problems with it. Batting average is not any more worthy of a stat in this regard as it is for any other hitter. There are better things to judge hitting ability like OPS. Second even the batting average is skewed because of the relativley few ab's a pitcher gets vs most other players. I know I've mentioned this a lot in the past but I think it's only an example of some questionable things we as outsiders don't see regularly. We see every move made by our managers through the years but only a small sampling of other managers moves. I also think the quality of his teams made up for mistakes that would have been amplified if the team wasn't good enough to overcome them. Just like a lot of managers who have teams that bail them out for questionable decisions. Put him with the Brewers circa 2003 I bet people would have thought he made a lot more mistakes than he did with the Cards.

It just goes to show the power of the sisterhood Hawing. As a woman it only took me three minutes to figure out and fix something, as a man, I never knew was wrong. I'll always secretly cherrish those fleeting moments being a part of the superior sex.

This is the guy that put Albert Pujols on his opening day roster after he had all of 14 AB's above A-Ball, and there's been lots of examples of him playing young players. He also bailed on Oakland when they went to rebuild mode. Albert Pujols got the opening day call because McGuire was not avialable. I don't think anyone would have stopped playing him after his start. granted he could have called up another player but he didn't have a choice of playing a veteran then. I'm also not sure he chose Pujols or if Jocketty did and he was smart enouigh to play him. IMO, no manager puts their players in a favorable situation more often than Tony La Russa, I would want him to manage a rebuilding team because of that. I bet Jason Marguis would dispute that after he was left in to get hammered several times in his contract year. Statistical models showed that given the talent on that team he made the smart choice so I don't see what the big deal is. Isn't that relying on something not suited to the task? Are statistical models accurate is such small samples? I find it hard to believe pitchers really are better hitters than offensive players regardless of what statistical model says a guy who gets all of 100 ab's a year are better than the alternative. Especially when the other guy gets considerably more ab's and whose job relies on it. The big deal isn't that he did it. It was that it was not putting his team in the best position to win. His arguement for doing it was weak as well. He felt it gave the team two leadoff hitters when the inning started off with the 9th man. Why that same reasoning wouldn't work better by having the same guy hitting 2nd thus having at least one inning garunteed to fall that way was not explained. I do not like LaRussa so my views on him are admittedly tainted but I also think he's one of the most over rated managers in baseball. He does fine with good talent but nothing special when he doesn't. That is something most managers can do.

never mind I found the edit button. I can feel the testosterone flow through me already.

I was looking at my profile for the first time since I created it. I'm not big on net profiles in general. Apparantly I'm female which is a surprise to me. I've been peeing in the wrong way my whole life. Is there some sort of way I can change that? If not I couldn't care less but for accuracy's sake it'd be nice.

"A World Lit Only by Fire," by William Manchester is another good historical book. It takes a look at the Midevil times up to the renaissance.

What GM wouldn't be on board with Tony LaRussa managing their team? Someone who feels he doesn't manage the game very well. Someone who feels the rest of baseball managers from all era's were right to put the pitcher in the 9 hole. One who feels a rebuilding team shouldn't be managed by someone who likes established veterans. Someone who likes to have good role models as a manager. Perhaps one who isn't arrested for drunk driving becuase he was asleep at the wheel at a stop light. Someone who felt the team underperformed this year. Someone who likes managers with an ego that can fit in the back of any ordinary sized semi-trailer. Someone who feels it sholdn't cost that much for a manager of a sub .500 baseball team. Someone who just doesn't like the guy and doesn't want to be forced to work with him. Someone who doesn't alienate former star players of the team. Ask Ozzie Smith what he thinks of LaRussa you might find him less than complimentary. At least he used to dislike him. Heard him on Rome a couple years back. He wasn't a fan. No doubt he has a great resume but personalities do matter. Cohesivness between manager and GM matter. Sometimes situations are as important, if not more so, to success as past perfromance.

Klem I don't think you're as far off as you might think. I know he wouldn't actually take over the job but it wouldn't surprise me if he was more or less the one making the final decisions. Barring the owner obviously.

Either that FTJ or LaRussa has a lot more say on who the GM is than most mangers do. He's seems like the type of guy who wants more control over player personell than most guys. I'm interested in the type of team they put together. LaRussa is a good manager with veterans and seems to like that type of team. The Cards look like they need an infusion of good young core of players moe than they need more veterans. Not sure how they go about keeping a guy like him happy and rebuild. Sounds to me like they end up trying to rebuild with free agents instead of building form within. I hope that's the case. Most teams that rebuild the first way don't fare as well as those that do so the second.

"1491" by Robert C. Mann is a great read. It's a non fiction look at life in the Americas pre Columbus. For pure fun "Peter and the Star Catchers" by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson is a childrens book that reads a lot like Harry Potter. I read it a few weeks back because it was the basis for Peter Pan. As a 40 something, that was part of my childhood thus the interest in how Neverland came to be. If you don't read it for yourself it would be something any kid interested in Harry Potter would like almost as much.

The first part seems to insinuate that baseball exploits foreign players. The second seems to show the real reason. Most players won't make it to the majors yet get a 7th round bonus. They sort of overlooked the fact that Cuban born refugee's routinely go to Latin American countries instead of the US so they are free agents and not subject to the draft. I guess they like being exploited. Since almost half of the players in the minors are foreign born it stands to reason the average bonuses would be lower. All the marginal players who get squat for a bonus is inevitably going to drag down the average bonus for the really talented players who actually get the big bonuses. If this is the type of analysis smart money does I guess I'll look for someone else's financial advice.

She probably looks better now.

LaRussa = huge ego. Steinbrenners = huge ego. Anyone else see a problem with this?

the bullpen was overused and became very inefficient Inefficiant yes. Over used? Check the numbers and you wll find that was not the case. They are middle of the pack in innings and no reliever was in the top 15 in innings or appearances. This is something that has become conventional wisdom simply by people repeating it so often. That does not make it true. The defense has contributed to the pitching cproblems but I don't think it's as simple as that. It doesn't account for all the times the fielders did their job and the pitcher still couldn't get anyone out. It certainly doesn't account for Turnbow's wildness or CoCo's inexplicable home/road splits. All the more reason to put Gwynn (who's bat I am not a fan of) in CF, Braun in LF and Hall, a middle IF type, at 3b If you wish to go the defense over offense route go with Nix. He's as good defensively and is much better offensively. I'm all about getting better defensively but not at the expense of offensive production. I think we'll find improvement defensively with Hall, Braun and Weeks simply through time. Braun and Weeks do not have a lot of professional baseball time in. It seems longer for Weeks since he's been on the team a couple years. This summer he was around 400 games of pro ball. Prince has more time in proball than Weeks. I think Hall and Hart are going to make a better than average tandum in right and center and left is not really all that important defensively. I do think Melvin would be better served to consider defense a little more prominantly in the future. If he has an achilles heal it's that.

It's the Yankees. They will alsways get more hype than others of equal stature because they get more noticed than their counterparts. 20 innings of success = 2 years of success in Milwaukee. The first thing I thought of when I saw the article was they aren't going to succeed with two meddling owners with equal say. How long before the fingers start pointing to the other guy when things go wrong? One guy feels a change is necessary the other doesn't, the bickering starts, feelings get hurt, employees take sides ect. I just don't see how two people decended from the same egomaniac are going to handle someone else with equal power. Dividing up the power might help but it still has it's pitfalls. If one thinks he's doing a better job than the other he's bound to feel like he's being inhibited by the other. Maybe that's why George originally wanted his son-in-law to take over.

Given the right makeup of a team I think Dusty could be a very good manager. He did well in SF with a veteran team. The Reds do not have that type of team. The Mets or Yanks would have been better.

Villy (you left him out - I know, he was in the rotation in Sept but for much of the year, in over 20IP, he was effective) Linebrink Wise (until the last 2 outings he was under 4) For heaven's sake what was their ERA at the end of the year? I don't see how you can count them since neither had an ERA under 4 on September 30th. As I said you can't subtract a couple bad outings to make your point. If you wish to count Wise because he had a couple bad outings then you should at least admit he was unreliable for quite some time. He was not just bad for two outings he was absolutley horrid the last month or so. To the point that he was so untrustworthy he was very limited in his use. Had Yost used him more the last month he would most certainly ahve had a higher ERA and it wouldn't have just been his last two outings that made his ERA jump over 4. When Villy got sent to AAA his ERA was over 4. If I'm not mistaken it went down when he came back up in the starter's role. No matter how you look the stats don't lie on this point. There is no way to say a person who has an ERA above 4 counts as below it. How much clearer can it get than that? Add to it the point I made was other managers used their guys the same if not more with better results. As you recall people were claiming Ned abused his pitchers and that is why they imploded. I showed quite clearly other pitchers did as much and more without falling apart as the season wore on. That was a myth perpetuated without basis by those who chose to bash Ned for something he clearly should not have been. The fact that Wise and Villy both tailed off to substandard results as the year went on only adds to the point that they were not good enough to do what should be expected of playoff caliber relievers to do. Since Ned should not be expected to win with pitchers who can't do what other teams pitchers are capable you can't blame him for how poorly they were in August and September. That was on the pitchers and the man who felt they were capable enough to do what the playoff teams relievers did.