Khalil Greene surprises everyone; Albert Pujols surprises no one

disagrees

aka “Woody”

what can you criticize then? At the end of the season we can criticize game decisions?

I rarely disparage TLR for in game decisions, but like DanUP points out above, when you have a 13th pitcher that hasn’t thrown in 10 days, why in the hell is anyone else pitching in a game that the Cardinals will win 99% of the time? It’s patently RIDICULOUS to pitch your three best relievers in that game.

But you cannot assess the rightness or wrongness of his ways based on single decisions or single games.

Over the past month, I have rarely argued about in game decisions — I HAVE argued about how the roster management forces Tony to make in-game decisions that hurt the team. So we have to be able to argue about those decisions because Tony is the one keeping 13 pitchers on the roster in lieu of another right handed bench player.

TLR has proven that if you give him a healthy team that is talented enough to make the playoffs, he’ll get them there at a clip that is probably as good as most any other manager in the game.

I have no idea what the point of this statement is, other than to prove that we really aren’t lucky to have him at all. I would posit that any average manager given “a healthy team that is talented enough to make the playoffs” probably makes the playoffs as many times as TLR:

Example #1: Bob Brenly
Example #2: Larry Dierker
Example #3: Joe Torre
Example #4: Art Howe

I could go on all day — talent wins baseball games, managing plays a part, but not nearly as big a part as we seem to give TLR credit for. Why are we so "lucky to have him " if any average schmuck who knows how to make a double switch can get a team to the playoffs given a roster that is healthy and talented? That’s as big an oxymoron as I’ve seen from you.

I think what most of us don’t like is his consistency to make certain moves. Some of these things are fine (batting the pitcher 8th, 13 pitchers during long stretches, etc.) but some of them really irk me (never using that 13th pitcher, yanking Colby to shift Skip into the OF for “defense”, etc.) I usually make a criticism about Tony from a larger state than just a single game. In one game a move could work out great and yet I would still beleive it was the wrong move to make.

Especially part 2.

In part 1, would you consider corrections for random variance (eg high team BABIP or low HR-allowed rates)? Or is that encompassed by “ability to get the best of a team/players”?

that did an article on that exact thing last year sometime.

If you ask any statistically inclined fans what they think of their managers the responses will range from “Meh” to “He’s awful”. We focus on TLR, so we don’t see the warts on the other guys as clearly from 50,000 feet, but their fans sure see them. It’s one of those deals where all we expect them to do is what they should. There is no move that exceeds our expectation. There is just either doing what you are supposed to or not doing it, from a fans perspective.

If you look at the managers that we regard as HOF managers, often times, you can point to a string of great players that they had on their team. So the outstanding (and perhaps unanswerable) question is whether the manager makes the team or the team makes the manager? The answer likely lies somewhere in the middle.

Bobby Cox = overrated

He’s a pretty good manager when he has three hall-of-famers in their prime at the top of his rotation. Since they’ve gotten old/gone to other franchises, though, his Atlanta teams have been pretty bad, and far underachieved their Pythagorean records, even with Teixiera (for about a season), McCann and Jones.

Baseball-reference.com has him at 62nd with a baseline of 2 full seasons

I think that TLR would be doing more with a team like Houston or Pittsburg than their current managers are.

I dunno about Houston – they’ve had a lot of big holes for the last few years and managed to remain vaguely competitive. They finished ahead of the TLR-run Cardinals last year, with what I’d say was an inferior team…

You can’t blow your wad in the first two months

of course you can. But then the team becomes disloyal and and disillusioned. And she probably complains to her friends about you behind your back.

Hawksworth should have come in after WW to keep all of the overworked arms off the field.

But what if that same roster management keeps a SP or a bullpen arm just a little bit fresher, and that helps said arm in the postseason?

I agree with you that it can, but that would require TLR using the 13th pitcher in this fashion. As DanUp writes in the main post, TLR used his three most-worked arms in one of the most lopsided wins of the season before turning to the 13th pitcher. He could have done just as you posited, and I’ve have applauded him for it, but, instead, he inexplicably trots out K-Mac and Motte. This is indefensible, especially after K-Mac’s late-season meltdown last year.

DanUp noted that the three pitchers who worked the most innings so far this season also worked yesterday in a blowout win. If you’re keeping the 13th pitcher to keep the bullpen fresh, as you just said, than why isn’t Hawksworth coming in to pitch the entire rest of the game while giving Reyes, K-Mac, and Motte an extra day off?

You can’t have it both ways Sooner — at some point you have to criticize the manager or the front office because the roster moves just don’t make any sense.

Ryan Ludwick pinch-hitting was the right decision. Objectively. Even if Brendan Ryan gets a hit. Or, had TLR pinch-hit Ludwick and Ludwick committed an out, it still would have been the right decision. As you say, it’s a question of putting the team in the best position to win at the moment, before the action plays itself out and a result is reached. TLR objectively did not put his team in the best position to win when he pinch-hit Ryan over Ludwick in that situation. What’s more, Goold’s follow-up question showed that TLR was unprepared and did not have any information to back up his misplaced rationale. TLR stated that he wanted to avoid the double play, but, when confronted with the fact that Ludwick, being a flyball hitter, is one of the five hardest to double up batsmen in all of MLB, offered up something about his gut. Not only did he not put his team in the best position to win, he did so for reasons that should not be mistaken by a man who is reportedly incredibly prepared for every conceivable matchup and has copious stats (gasp!) in binders.

that doesn’t neccessarily mean Ludwick would have got the job done. You can’t assume that just because one decision in baseball didn’t work, that another one would have, there are far too many variables involved.

This is the beauty of paying attention to the process and making the correct decision. If you make the right decision based on what you have to work with at the time, you did what you were supposed to do. In baseball, hitters are more likely to fail than not. What you have to do is pick the guys who are LESS likely to fail. Take, for example, the 2007 All Star Game. Is Aaron Rowand more likely to fail than Albert Pujols? I think you know the answer. Now, if Rowand had hit a bomb and won the game, sure it would have “worked.” But that doesn’t make it the right decision.

I go back to the red baron’s rather crude analogy…the famous “Dick in a Toaster” Situation. You can shove your man meat into a toaster and not get burned, and in theory the decision worked. However, isn’t it patently moronic to stuff your dong into a toaster? Well, yes, in fact it is. Is choosing Brendan Ryan over Ryan Ludwick, particularly when he was swinging it well, a poor decision? I would say yes, b/c Ludwick all things equal Ludwick is a better hitter. The result, while important in determining the game, is ultimately second to the decision.

Would we begrudge someone 3000 strikeouts or 300 wins or 3000 hits in the same way you want to hammer TLR

I’m not sure who you’re talking about here, but it certainly isn’t me. I’m not hammering on him based on his 2500th win at all and I’ve been a defender of Tony in the past. I’m just fed up with the terrible roster management that has taken place this season and felt the need to speak up about it. I think you’ll find that most of us regulars here at VEB agree with my stance there. Relating this to his milestone is just a way of making me look like I have sour grapes — not a good start to your post.

I also don’t have it in for Sooner — he just wants to staunchly defend TLR by creating ghost information that we don’t have because he believes that all TLR’s decisions must be based on some sort of Machiavellian logic. I simply don’t buy it because he hasn’t proved that it’s been good for the Cardinals and he doesn’t seem to have any motivation to do so.

I happen to agree with Sooner and I don’t think every assertion needs to be backed up with sabermetrics.

Neither do I, actually. But to simply preach that we should trust him and that he’s above criticism is utterly ridiculous. My point here is that he’s essentially saying we can’t evaluate a manager based on single decisions, but on decisions as a whole over the course of a season — which means we should save the debate for October when we’re sitting at home since stupid roster management decisions and poor in-game pinch-hitting decisions have left us short of the playoffs. At that time he’ll simply blame Glaus’ injury or something else rather than taking a cold hard look at the fact that our “great” manager may have cost us some wins that left us short of the playoffs. He now wants to argue it later but will come back with the same argument again at that time, an argument that is devoid of facts and is focused on utter speculation of what might be the reasons why decisions were made. In Sooner’s mind, and in yours too it seems, TLR can only win ballgames — he can’t lose them. Considering that this goes against the grain of everything ever said about managers, well, you can see why I’m a skeptic. The man is not infallible, 2500 wins or not.

fourth, is the carrying of a 13th pitcher a TLR decision only? I thought this was an organization decision — perhaps I am wrong.

It’s been reported in various interviews with both Moz and Tony that carrying a 13th pitcher was a TLR/Duncan decision.

I can’t imagine that we would be better off without him.

This is the other statement I loathe. We aren’t arguing to replace the man, just criticizing him for what we view is terrible roster management and poor decision making. I don’t think anyone that has criticized him would want him run out of town, but i do think that a lot of us make very fair and well referenced arguments that lay out our position. To say that we want Tony gone is a gross misrepresentation of our core arguments: We’d simply like him to admit that carrying a 13th pitcher that you use 3 times in 6 weeks is a total waste of a roster spot when you have pitchers pinch hitting because of lack of position players, and then rectify the situation by going back to 12 pitchers.

I think Tony should be thankful that every other team in baseball passed over Albert Pujols for 12 rounds so we could take him in the ‘99 draft. Without him I feel like Tony’s tenure in St. Louis would be much, MUCH different.

Did you happen to catch Kruk and Singleton’s little spiel last night on BBTN about striking out? That show, which had already gone down the crapper, has now officially exited the sewage plant as well.

one one internet dollar.

“Please don’t be discovered as a PED user”

But, the BBWAA did not vote unanimously for Ruth, Mantle, Aaron, Morgan, Musial, Gibson, Robinson, Mays or Williams. An entity with this as their track record clearly operates in a mysterious way which we mere baseball fans will never understand. Surely, some of their membership will illuminate the reasons why they are not going to vote for Pujols when that day comes.

understand going in that a player is either a lock or borderline. I highly doubt that a writer would not vote for a borderline player because of the unanimous thing.

Also, It is theoritcally possible, although highly unlikely that a sure fire HOFer misses the cut because every writer takes it upon themselves to be the ‘no’ vote.

the confusion on my hangover.

before I read all the way down the comments

actually I prefer their Cristal (filtered version) to Weihenstephaner, although I prefer the “full fat” Weihenstephaner version to Franziskaner. They’re probably the two most common “good” hefes available readily in the shops here (we also get the Paulaner/Erdinger type stuff).

Also, Schneider-Weisse is excellent – I might even prefer that to Weihenstephaner. Bit more sweet, bit more body to it, little bit darker & more malty. It’s good stuff.

had a sixer of it last week.

Sometimes you have to physically reload the page to see all the current Rec’s