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Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Is Willy Randolph to Blame for the Mets’ poor record and performance?
Joe Sheehan analyzes this question. I think it is premium content, but you don’t need to read the article.
Besides this ridiculous proposition:
Randolph isn’t a very good tactical manager, and it was his inability to manage a high-maintenance bullpen last year that cost the Mets games not in September, when no one was pitching well, but in May, June, and July, when some better choices in-game could have put the division away.
(It is ridiculous because, one, he or anyone else has no idea how good or bad Willie was at managing his bullpen, two, what does that even mean, three, he offers no evidence to support that claim, and I doubt there is any, and four, how many wins can a good or bad “managing” of a bullpen in “may, June, and July” be worth? .5 wins? 1 win? 1.5 wins? “Put the division away?” Please!)
Anyway, you don’t have to read the article, because I can tell you with some confidence, that despite my constant criticism of managers’ tactical strategies, we have no idea how much an over or under-achieving team is due to the manager. No idea. In case I am not being clear, I mean no idea. And I think we (analysts) should stop pretending that we do. Let’s leave that to the fans and the sports shock jocks.
One way I like to look at things like managers, chemistry, and other intangibles that we like to relate to a team or player under or over-performing is this: Let’s say that all managers were exactly equal in terms of their ability to have any influence on players and teams. Actually let’s assume that they had zero influence. What would a season look like in terms of players and teams over and under-performing? I think most of you know where I am going with this. Each season would pretty much look like it does now. Some teams (and players) will over-perform, others will under-perform. Some by a lot and some by a little or not at all. This is guaranteed (at least on the average) .
In fact, each year, on the average, 1-2 teams would win or lose almost 15 games more than they should given their talent, another 1-2 will do 10 games better or worse, etc. That is guaranteed (again, on the average). Guaranteed. And that is with a manager having exactly zero influence on the way the players perform, given their talent. In fact, that is without anything having any influence, positive or negative, on the players’ or team’s performance above or below their true talent.
So if that is the case in our hypothetical league with no manager influence whatsoever, how can we have any idea whether a manager deserves credit or blame for a team’s over or under-performance? We can’t. It’s that simple. One of these days, someone will quantify to some extent a manager’s contribution to a team’s WE from his in-game strategy decisions. That might turn out to be plus or minus 1-3 wins a year. And one of these years, someone might even give us some idea as to a manager’s influence on his team’s general performance (due to his leadership, etc.) given their talent, as long as we have maybe 10 years of manager data to work with, per manager. And even that is going to be sketchy.
Other than that, and at the risk of repeating myself too many times, we have no idea whether, if, or by how much any manager influences his team’s performance, and you will never catch me writing an article trying to figure out if some manager should be fired or not. Unless I get paid to write articles. Then you might catch me writing just about anything.