Manager Influence In OOTP_Subtitle_Ned Yost is the best manager in Baseball so far

[RchW]

OK I want to have some fun with this. I hope the mods won't move this to Talk Sports because my intent is to discuss Manager influence on game outcomes in real life while the playoffs and WS are played and apply what we learn to OOTPB. The reduced number of games makes it easier to make the case for and against the manager in each game played. We also have great manager matchups where highly respected even legendary managers are pitted against first timers, those who lack experience, and possibly some who are given little respect.

The matchups:

Yost vs Scioscia
Showalter vs Ausmus

Williams vs Bochy
Mattingly vs Matheney

It might be useful for those who reply to indicate briefly on their first post how they rate manager influence right now and what they want in OOTP. I'll make the scale 1-10 for convenience with 1 being no influence and 10 being huge.

I'll start on the next post.

[RchW]

OK I consider manager influence in baseball to be slight. My rating is 3 on the scale. My reasoning is that player performance overwhelms anything a manager does with some exceptions. I agree that a manager can lose a game through a bonehead move or lack of a positive move. Even when that occurs a HR or double the next inning can flip a loss into a win. Managers can win games but in my opinion they do that by not making mistakes. It's rare that a single move wins a game because in most cases it is obvious at the time.

My question to those who believe managing has more influence is this; does winning = good managing? If so that explains my subtitle for this thread.

[MarkInCincy]

IMO

A bad manager (i.e. Dusty Baker) can have more of a negative influence , say a 6 or 7 on your scale (which I equate to 6 or 7 losses) while I agree a good manger is a 3, maybe a 4.

The bad managers make what were the old school (pre-sabermetrics) choices when sacrificing, stealing, pinch hitting etc while the good managers generally follow the statistically (base out states and run expectancies, battin order construction) accepted strategies.

I watched Dusty manage about 100-120 games a season while he was with the Reds and there was at minimum 4-5 games a yr where his decisions cost the game and at least a dozen more where a HR, wild pitch, error saved his a$$

[RchW]

Originally Posted by MarkInCincy

IMO

A bad manager (i.e. Dusty Baker) can have more of a negative influence , say a 6 or 7 on your scale (which I equate to 6 or 7 losses) while I agree a good manger is a 3, maybe a 4.

The bad managers make what were the old school (pre-sabermetrics) choices when sacrificing, stealing, pinch hitting etc while the good managers generally follow the statistically (base out states and run expectancies, battin order construction) accepted strategies.

I watched Dusty manage about 100-120 games a season while he was with the Reds and there was at minimum 4-5 games a yr where his decisions cost the game and at least a dozen more where a HR, wild pitch, error saved his a$$

Good info.

How about the managers in the playoffs so far?

[MarkInCincy]

I have not watched a single pitch in the playoffs, so no idea

[BIG17EASY]

I think Buck Showalter's ability to manage the bullpen is a big asset for the Orioles. Granted, he has guys throwing the ball great in the pen, which makes it easier to make "smart" moves, but he's still widely considered a great manager of bullpens.

Conversely, Ned Yost almost lost the wild card game by going to Ventura -- a hard-throwing righty -- against Brandon Moss -- a lefty with power. He had lefties available for use, but instead decided to use a rookie starter, presumably because Ventura throws hard. Turned out to be a big mistake, but like you said at the beginning, a few big hits later in the game erased what appeared to be a crushing mistake by a manager.

Overall, my opinion is that a manager can swing a team's record probably as much as 5-6 games one way or the other over a full season. But in the playoffs, a manager might not make a move that truly affects the outcome of a single game. And I think if they do affect the outcome, it's more likely to be a mistake like the one Yost made (although his ultimately didn't affect the outcome) that costs his team a game than it is likely that they win a game.

[RchW]

Originally Posted by BIG17EASY

I think Buck Showalter's ability to manage the bullpen is a big asset for the Orioles. Granted, he has guys throwing the ball great in the pen, which makes it easier to make "smart" moves, but he's still widely considered a great manager of bullpens.

Conversely, Ned Yost almost lost the wild card game by going to Ventura -- a hard-throwing righty -- against Brandon Moss -- a lefty with power. He had lefties available for use, but instead decided to use a rookie starter, presumably because Ventura throws hard. Turned out to be a big mistake, but like you said at the beginning, a few big hits later in the game erased what appeared to be a crushing mistake by a manager.

Overall, my opinion is that a manager can swing a team's record probably as much as 5-6 games one way or the other over a full season. But in the playoffs, a manager might not make a move that truly affects the outcome of a single game. And I think if they do affect the outcome, it's more likely to be a mistake like the one Yost made (although his ultimately didn't affect the outcome) that costs his team a game than it is likely that they win a game.

This is what I'm trying to get at. Manager influence it seems to me is on a game by game basis. Matt Williams just made a move that backfired but if he had not and the Giants had scored he would have been on the same hot seat he is on now.

I still claim that winning must be the tie breaker. If you win your step by step managing cannot be considered bad.

[BIG17EASY]

Originally Posted by RchW

This is what I'm trying to get at. Manager influence it seems to me is on a game by game basis. Matt Williams just made a move that backfired but if he had not and the Giants had scored he would have been on the same hot seat he is on now.

I still claim that winning must be the tie breaker. If you win your step by step managing cannot be considered bad.

I agree for the most part. I think most of us can agree that Yost botched that bullpen move against the A's, but his team bailed him out. Yet now the Royals have won three straight extra-inning playoff games, so Yost can't have done a bad job, right?

The other thing to consider is, when is something a smart manager move and when is it a player just coming through? Does Buck Showalter get credit for bringing in Gausman yesterday when the Orioles were trailing? Or does Gausman get the credit for coming into a game and pitching his balls off? Or both? A whole lot of it is subjective rather than simply being a good or bad manager move. Managers can make decisions, but at the end of the day, the guys between the lines have to perform. Unless a manager is putting a player in a position where it's tough for him to succeed, like Yost did with Ventura, then it's hard to say who really gets the credit or the blame when things go well or go bad.

[fins up]

it is very hard to judge a manager or coach in any sport as quick as you would a player as a player you watch him for a little bit then you slap the arbitrary label on him as "good" or "bad" but it is very hard to do that with a manager or coach in any sport i truly believe that the only way to accurately judge a manager is long term success as there is not many accurate other ways to judge

[JMDurron]

I think that there are two kinds of managerial influence. On-field performance influence, and team chemistry/morale influence. I'd rate the first at a 2 out of 10, but the second closer to 6 out of 10. The manager's most important job is to keep the players working together towards the same goal, and not creating distractions or controversy themselves that might throw up barriers between the players and being in the best frame of mind to perform. Aside from bullpen moves, or really stupid defensive decisions (giving Delmon Young a glove, for example, or playing a lumbering 1B at SS for some reason), I think the on-field performance influence is negligible. I think it's mostly about managing player mental states and the interactions between the players, each other, and the media, and I don't think there's a way to model that very effectively. We tend to notice on-field incompetence by guys like Dusty Baker or Grady Little because they seemed to somehow get the player mentality/morale/chemistry stuff right enough to put them in positions to be screwed over by their own stupidity.

[RchW]

Originally Posted by fins up

it is very hard to judge a manager or coach in any sport as quick as you would a player as a player you watch him for a little bit then you slap the arbitrary label on him as "good" or "bad" but it is very hard to do that with a manager or coach in any sport i truly believe that the only way to accurately judge a manager is long term success as there is not many accurate other ways to judge

I agree. Only a long term assessment makes sense. When you look at most managers with long tenure you find very little evidence that they made bad teams good or good teams better.

[RchW]

Originally Posted by JMDurron

I think that there are two kinds of managerial influence. On-field performance influence, and team chemistry/morale influence. I'd rate the first at a 2 out of 10, but the second closer to 6 out of 10. The manager's most important job is to keep the players working together towards the same goal, and not creating distractions or controversy themselves that might throw up barriers between the players and being in the best frame of mind to perform. Aside from bullpen moves, or really stupid defensive decisions (giving Delmon Young a glove, for example, or playing a lumbering 1B at SS for some reason), I think the on-field performance influence is negligible. I think it's mostly about managing player mental states and the interactions between the players, each other, and the media, and I don't think there's a way to model that very effectively. We tend to notice on-field incompetence by guys like Dusty Baker or Grady Little because they seemed to somehow get the player mentality/morale/chemistry stuff right enough to put them in positions to be screwed over by their own stupidity.

Perfect timing. The legendary Showalter has him starting in LF today? This is exactly my point. Win or lose Showalter is much less likely to be criticized than Ned Yost for decisions we don't like.

The bottom line is that player performance will dictate the result today even if Young botches a play in the field.

[BIG17EASY]

Hard to say if it won the game, but Buck has to get credit for the intentional walk in the 9th. It takes giant BALLS to put the winning run on base intentionally.

[jaysdailydose]

The Tiger series is a great example of how making the wrong decision can kill you. Ausmus and his staff made a series of missteps that can be said to have lost the series.

Most of us in the Detroit area would not have pitched Joba at all in the postseason. Pitching Sanchez only two innings in Game 2 was the critical point of the series. Yes, the offense was horrible in Game 3...but Joba and Soria had already been gas cans in Game 1. Unless Sanchez came to him and specifically asks out of the game in that spot, there's just absolutely no defensible reason to remove him for Joba in that spot.

Also, his decisions with how he played his bench (the Rajai Davis situation) and his decisions with Carrera and Kelly were just horrific.

It was just a horrible decision to go with a rookie manager after Leyland retired. The job should have went to McClendon if nothing else. I would be absolutely fine with Ausmus being relieved of his duties -- and maybe it's time for Dombrowski to go, too.

A bad manager can definitely influence a game in a major way.

[harrumph]

Originally Posted by jaysdailydose

The Tiger series is a great example of how making the wrong decision can kill you. Ausmus and his staff made a series of missteps that can be said to have lost the series.

Most of us in the Detroit area would not have pitched Joba at all in the postseason. Pitching Sanchez only two innings in Game 2 was the critical point of the series. Yes, the offense was horrible in Game 3...but Joba and Soria had already been gas cans in Game 1. Unless Sanchez came to him and specifically asks out of the game in that spot, there's just absolutely no defensible reason to remove him for Joba in that spot.

Also, his decisions with how he played his bench (the Rajai Davis situation) and his decisions with Carrera and Kelly were just horrific.

It was just a horrible decision to go with a rookie manager after Leyland retired. The job should have went to McClendon if nothing else. I would be absolutely fine with Ausmus being relieved of his duties -- and maybe it's time for Dombrowski to go, too.

A bad manager can definitely influence a game in a major way.

Fellow Tigers fan, strongly disagree with everything you said.

Managers just don't have much influence on the way any one game pans out. Over the course of an entire season, a manager might be worth a couple wins, but in any one game, there's just way, way too much variance for his decisions to be decisive. In hindsight, it might look like this call was good or that call was bad, but in baseball, pretty much anything can happen at any time. There's no such thing as a sure thing.

Before the series, people were losing the minds worrying about how Ausmus was going to use the bullpen. He was too reliant on Chamberlain, way too loyal to Nathan, and he never used Soria, the best reliever in the pen! Well, he went to Soria in crucial situations in games 1 and 2, and Soria blew up the Tigers' entire season. Does that mean Ausmus made the wrong call? No. Does it mean Soria is a bad pitcher? No. Put any reliever into the game, odds are he'll get three outs before he gives up a run. Even a below-average pitcher (which Soria is not) against a great team (which, sorry, the Orioles are not) would have about a 2% chance of allowing four of five hitters to reach base. His meltdown in game 1 was just dumb luck.

In game 2, yeah, I'd have left Sanchez in for sure. But if he'd gotten shelled (which, in the big scheme of things, is about as likely as Chamberlain getting shelled—neither was very likely at all), I'd have looked like an idiot and people would've wanted my head for leaving a fragile pitcher still recovering from injury in the game when I had a bunch of well-rested arms in the bullpen.

The one thing in the series I just can't defend is sending Holaday up there to bunt in game 3. Figuring Castellanos was going to get walked one way or the other and seeing how incredibly weak the bench was at that point, I just don't think there's any world where a sac bunt is the right play there. Still, did it cost us the game? No, probably not. Bless his heart, but Bryan Holaday swinging away at 0-0 and Bryan Holaday swinging away at 0-2 really aren't that different.

To get a little bit back on topic: managers don't influence the game much. Going with this lineup over that one or this reliever over that one might change the team's odds of winning by a few percentage points—all those decisions over the course of an entire season might add up to a few wins, but in any one game, you're mostly just rolling the dice. What's more important is a manager's role in the clubhouse, how well he's liked by the players, whether they feel they're treated fairly, etc. Jim Leyland was not a good tactician. His lineups were terrible, he called for bunts way too often, the way he had the team run the bases gave me fits, etc. etc. I still loved the guy, and so did his players. That's what counts.

[jaysdailydose]

Neither was very likely at all?

Go look up Joba's numbers over the second half. Overworked in the first half, burnt out in the second half.

Soria wasn't close to the best reliever in our bullpen at any point in his tenure here. He was injured nearly immediately and hasn't regained form yet.

Just makes me think you didn't pay much attention at all to the season until the playoffs, really...

[kingtut313]

Originally Posted by harrumph

Fellow Tigers fan, strongly disagree with everything you said.

Managers just don't have much influence on the way any one game pans out. Over the course of an entire season, a manager might be worth a couple wins, but in any one game, there's just way, way too much variance for his decisions to be decisive. In hindsight, it might look like this call was good or that call was bad, but in baseball, pretty much anything can happen at any time. There's no such thing as a sure thing.

Before the series, people were losing the minds worrying about how Ausmus was going to use the bullpen. He was too reliant on Chamberlain, way too loyal to Nathan, and he never used Soria, the best reliever in the pen! Well, he went to Soria in crucial situations in games 1 and 2, and Soria blew up the Tigers' entire season. Does that mean Ausmus made the wrong call? No. Does it mean Soria is a bad pitcher? No. Put any reliever into the game, odds are he'll get three outs before he gives up a run. Even a below-average pitcher (which Soria is not) against a great team (which, sorry, the Orioles are not) would have about a 2% chance of allowing four of five hitters to reach base. His meltdown in game 1 was just dumb luck.

In game 2, yeah, I'd have left Sanchez in for sure. But if he'd gotten shelled (which, in the big scheme of things, is about as likely as Chamberlain getting shelled—neither was very likely at all), I'd have looked like an idiot and people would've wanted my head for leaving a fragile pitcher still recovering from injury in the game when I had a bunch of well-rested arms in the bullpen.

The one thing in the series I just can't defend is sending Holaday up there to bunt in game 3. Figuring Castellanos was going to get walked one way or the other and seeing how incredibly weak the bench was at that point, I just don't think there's any world where a sac bunt is the right play there. Still, did it cost us the game? No, probably not. Bless his heart, but Bryan Holaday swinging away at 0-0 and Bryan Holaday swinging away at 0-2 really aren't that different.

To get a little bit back on topic: managers don't influence the game much. Going with this lineup over that one or this reliever over that one might change the team's odds of winning by a few percentage points—all those decisions over the course of an entire season might add up to a few wins, but in any one game, you're mostly just rolling the dice. What's more important is a manager's role in the clubhouse, how well he's liked by the players, whether they feel they're treated fairly, etc. Jim Leyland was not a good tactician. His lineups were terrible, he called for bunts way too often, the way he had the team run the bases gave me fits, etc. etc. I still loved the guy, and so did his players. That's what counts.

fellow tigers fan, strongly disagree with everything you said

[harrumph]

Originally Posted by jaysdailydose

Just makes me think you didn't pay much attention at all to the season until the playoffs, really...

Seriously? You can't handle being politely disagreed with without playing the "I'm a real fan and you're not" card? Bring better arguments and leave the ad hominem crap at home next time.

Anyway, I guess I didn't make this clear, but I didn't mean that I thought Soria was the team's best reliever (that would be my boo Al Alburquerque, obvs); I was just repeating the narrative I kept hearing leading up the playoffs: "He uses Nathan and Chamberlain too much, he needs to give the ball to Soria!"

And yes, if you could replay that situation a thousand times, both Chamberlain and Sanchez would succeed almost every time (seriously, try it in OOTP). Sanchez is obviously a better pitcher, but just think about the math. If you put almost ANY major-league caliber pitcher into a game, he will most likely get three outs before he gives up a run. A really terrible reliever (like, say, Joe Nathan) might have an ERA above 4.50, and there you've got a guy who's likelier than not to give up a run, but even then, he's got a three-run cushion to work with! The odds of even an unreliable pitcher like Chamberlain blowing that lead are miniscule.

Again, that doesn't mean Ausmus made the right call. It just means that making the wrong call couldn't make a big difference. Dombrowski (who, despite his various missteps—and I will resent him forever for trading away Austin Jackson, a decision I think really, really hurt in this series and will help kill the team in the long run—is still one of the best GMs in baseball) gave Ausmus the worst bullpen, by far, of any team in the playoffs. And you can't polish a turd.

[jaysdailydose]

I couldn't care your level of fandom, I should have edited that I see it sounds bad. I'm saying all the data we were presented with (especially in the second half) said Joba was a gas can.

Especially in Game 2 after they'd already bashed his brains in the night before.

I actually like Soria but not in that spot where after Joba starts the inning and makes it even higher leverage.

And we agree a lot on Dombo... but I don't think it can be argued that Ausmus made at least two decisions in each game that a more experienced manager doesn't make.

[JMDurron]

For the record, while I feel for Tigers fans, there are few things that I find more satisfying than a heaping dose of Joba Failure.