THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

I’m skeptical.  I remember when the Texas Rangers employed Craig Wright, the SABRmetric pioneer in advocating lighter workloads for young starting pitchers, and simultaneously Bobby Valentine worked a 24-year-old pitcher experiencing his first sustained success this hard: 
http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/gl.cgi?id=wittbo01&t=p&year=1988

It seems common to me that teams at some level know SABR principles but that they don’t really affect the actual decision making.

I think BV will say essentially anything to get what he wants.

I think he told Boston what they wanted to hear. I watch some of his broadcasts and he never mentions sabermetrics and many of his opinions are the exact opposite of a sabermetric conclusion.

Seriously, I think this guy is one of the best salesmen around. He told BOS what they wanted to hear in order to get one of the best/easiest jobs in baseball, so he can finally have some success in the playoffs and maybe get to a WS.

I have a feeling that he is going to work very closely with James, Tippett, and the rest of the Sox’ sabermetric department, and that we will see (or not see) things that we have never seen on a baseball field, other than fake noses and glasses…

I have a feeling that if ever implements sabermetric decision making it had better work right a way, or BV will be right back to the old stuff (or what he knows). If he’s going to lose his job, he’s going to lose it his way .... that’s been the BV hallmark card.

I would argue that Joe Maddon already does a fine job of correctly using sabermetric principles.  He incorporates information from Click, Kalk, Bloom, Neander et al. on a daily basis.  They bunt for base hits to keep defenses honest.  They do more with defensive information than probably any team in MLB as made apparent by shifts in the outfield, infield and often both.  They work counts and are unafraid to take walks as well as any team in baseball.  They’re willing to do unconventional things at any time even if those things haven’t worked in the past.  I don’t know much about Valentine other than he seems to like the limelight more than most, but I think you’re a bit off on your classification that he has the potential to be the FIRST manager to use these principles.  I’d love to hear your thoughts on Maddon and the Rays approach.

I think Joe Maddon has done some unsaved things that have worked out, adding to his genius image.

I always recall him IBB Cabrera on consecutive nights in close games to face a struggling Boesch.

One of those times was with a runner on 1B, pushing the tying run to 2B, and putting the go ahead runner on 1B. According to sabermetrics and base out states it was a poor decision and likely the result of Cabrera’s go ahead HR against them earlier in the season.

It seemed to be the traditional “anybody but him beats us”, line of thinking.

I thought Earl Weaver was one of the earliest saber managers, favoring OBP and defense over BA, no bunts and things of that nature.

I’m not sure we can look directly at team/player stats to detect saber friendly managers. StL was very good at walking in 2011, and TLR makes a lot of non-saber decisions.

I do think Maddon is smart and more saber than most, but I’m doubtful that we’ve seen a recent manager that is more saber than not.

I also think that guys like BV probably want to be a bigger part of the game than they should. I think that’ll be even more the case upon his return to MLB, y’know just to show the rest of the league that he’s been right all along.

I’ve heard some things said that BV is gonna be a great manager because he has a firm hand, and that’s not my perception of the guy. IMO, one of Franconas best attributes was that he did little more than chew gum. They didn’t steal, they didn’t bunt, etc.

I think BOS is going to make BV look good, but they’re a playoff team with or without him.

Well said, CC, and thanks for being polite with your phrasing when you could have not been.  The biggest iBB issue for Maddon was walking in a run against Josh Hamilton the year he won the MVP and looked like he was impossible to get out.  That worked out well, too.  The thing is that we can point to these “lucky” incidents, but we can also point to many more instances where they played the percentages and it didn’t work out.  The process is generally sound without getting into results, with the occasional mix of “from the gut”.  I will reiterate that I don’t think there is another team in MLB that uses defensive information as well nor as broadly as the Rays.  Thanks for answering my call for feedback and I hope others do the same.

Not a big fan of Joe Maddon.  See if you can find my article on the web about the PHI/TBA world series a few years ago.

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I’m afraid (as a Sox fan) you’re probably right.
It makes me wonder how a supposedly astute business person (Lucchino) could be so easily bamboozled, but my guess is that there’s affinity among blowhards.

But we shall see. That’s why we play the games

When I watched BV broadcasted games, I noticed that every player was awesome and every manager was wrong. My immediate impression was that every broadcast for BV was an interview or a chance for him to suck up to the players with praise and to show owners how their current manager was half as smart as BV.

I know I’ve said that before, but it really bothered me.

Boston will make the playoffs and BV has a good shot at MOY. Yippee.

I’m guessing it was this scathing read: http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/a-battle-between-two-very-poor-managers/

Your thoughts on the guy haven’t changed over the last three years?  Honest question, do you only watch him (or other managers) in the post-season?  Personally, I love that he’s willing to try something that’s unconventional even if it isn’t successful every time.  I’m probably biased by watching him manage close to a 1,000 games, but I don’t know of another manager in the game that squeezes water from a rock any better. 

Does he occasionally make you scratch your head?  Yes.  Do all manager?  Yes.  Is it an exciting and intellectual journey to reverse-engineer his moves to see what him, the stat boys, or management were thinking?  YES!  If a few platoon quibbles and getting one of the finest batsmen of his time to hit into the teeth of a shift are the best you can do then I think you have to do better.  With all due respect, of course. 

Lastly, I see in that article that you were residing in the Finger Lakes at that time.  I grew up there and currently live in Rochester so it’s really nice to see another bright mind up here.  Take care.

Jason, I don’t know whether I’ve changed my mind or not. He is a very bright guy, but he suffers from Tony LaRussa syndrome, which is, “I will show how bright I am by doing unconventional things (whether those unconventional things are correct or not).”

I watch maybe 10 TBA games a year (just a guess).

I don’t care whether something is successful or not. Much of the time that doesn’t even have any meaning with respect to the decision (like optimizing a lineup). That doesn’t even enter my mind. I don’t know why you would even mention that on this blog. And I don’t care whether something is conventional, unconventional, or whatever.  Either a strategy is right, wrong, or a flip of a coin. Sometimes strategies (like bunting, pitch outs, suicide squeezes, etc.) have to be varied randomly because of game theory. As well, sometimes a certain strategy can optimize win expectancy (WE) in the short run but cost something in the long run, so in-game WE is not necessarily the end-all.

Basically it is complicated and difficult to evaluate managers. So take anything I say with respect to managers with a large grain of salt (or ignore it - I would not be insulted), other than this: No manager in baseball comes anywhere close to optimizing in-game, roster, and lineup decisions.  So, to me, evaluating a manager is figuring out the lesser of all the evils. 

My speculation with regard to BV was hyperbolic (and very uncertain). I don’t think there will soon be a manager who all of a sudden manages like I would manage (optimally, using what we have learned from scientific analysis). I think it will be a gradual process such that eventually there will be one, but it will be the culmination of an evolution and not a revolution…

valentine always struck me as someone willing to listen to real evidence if it proves conventional wisdom wrong. or maybe his arguments with harold reynolds on corked bats/bat hardness from a decade back just stuck with me.

Thanks for taking the time to give a well thought out response, it’s much appreciated.  I can appreciate your comparison to LaRussa, especially when it comes to bullpen management.  I know that it’s difficult to quantitatively “grade” managers and that even if you were to build a nice model backed by solid data that you’d most likely find that managers play a very small (mostly negative) role on a runs basis. 

I just hope you aren’t still punishing Maddon because your first bite was lacking flavor.  I get your point about no manager being optimal, but isn’t that kind of the point here.  We’re looking for the guy that does the least damage.  One way to look at that is to see who went to battle with the gameplan that makes the most sense.  Maddon plays the L/R platoon split about as often, if not more, as any manager in the game.  The Rays seem like one of the few teams that actually use a line up for righties and a different one for lefties. 

All I can say is that I hope you view him in the future with an open-mind.  Thanks again, it’s truly a pleasure to read your brain droppings.