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The Future Forty 3/19/09
Evaluating Defense Evaluating Pitcher Talent
Evaluating Managers
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Here’s hoping
A highly scientific study for your consideration
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Twittah
“Mac, we need to throw someone off the 25-man. What’s your preference?”
“Vidro.”
“Not, say, Cairo?”
“Heck no. I need two pinch-runners on the roster.”
“Even though Cairo’s not particularly fast.”
“He’s okay.”
“And you’ve only used him… ten times this season as an in-game replacement. You pinch-ran with him what, five times?”
“Way more than that.”
“April 11th? The 24th, 25th? The 29th? What am I missing?”
“Uhhhh…”
“Yeah, you’re fired.”
#49 – yeah, I’m kinda new around here so avoiding presumptiveness by over-communicating.
Yeah, if that’s how the conversations actually go, it definitely strengthens the case for tossing Johnny Mac.
The idea of having someone to pinch run so that Willie doesn’t have to be “wasted” in that role still makes me collapse into laughter every time I think about it, too.
36
Angie would be a big improvement
Well…she’d be big at least.
34
I loved the celebrity manager idea fwiw.
It makes about as much sense as Parrish and White did last year.
Maybe the novel idea of multiple pinch runners when you’re down by 4-5 in the ninth is merely an underrated and unexplored concept to date.
(Eyes rolling)
#49 – yeah, I’m kinda new around here so avoiding presumptiveness by over-communicating.
Not your fault. I wasn’t trying to be snarky, I promise. I’ve seen most of the baseball movies dozens of times (Sandlot is my favorite) so I always assume everyone else has too. That’s my bad.
two words: Billy Heywood
I think Derek hits upon an important part of this discussion with his (we can only hope) fictional conversation between the FO and Mac. Yes, Bavasi deserves the blame for poor roster construction, but McLaren continues to show poor judgement in working with what he’s got. And I agree that there’s almost no way Bavasi makes roster moves willy-nilly without at least consulting his field manager.
30 – It was one of the games where Mac had been tossed. Riggleman was managing the team at that point.
I’d rather see Mel interim manage for the rest of the year.
Lou and Cirillo & Martin (though thwarted by Boston when he asked for Everett back in ’01)
Rather than assuming that otherwise intelligent people are behaving completely irrationally, I suggest there is a rationale for the roster decisions made. From that perspective, I see the following logic.
The team knows that many key players have offensive limitations Рthey were particularly aware of that with Iba̱ez and Wilkerson, and probably Sexson as well. Because they also believed the team was a contender (and perhaps still believe that), the most important role for the bend would be to protect leads late in the game, i.e. defensive substitution was more important than offensive support. Accordingly, the key bench requirement was players who could serve as late-inning substitutes; these players did not necessarily need to be offensive threats because the team would more often be needing to protect leads. They also saw those players coming into the game as pinchrunners after one of the offensive players completed an at bat. Bloomquist and Cairo fit those roles.
Following this logic, Cairo and Bloomquist have seen limited usage simply because the team has so seldom had leads to protect late in the game. Or the team has too often been too far behind in late innings to use a pinchrunner for one of the other guys. Furthermore the players for whom pinchrunners would be inserted have not been on base consistently in late innings. Thus, although Cairo has not seen much playing time, that isn’t because Cairo doesn’t belong; it’s a simple consequence of the team’s funk.
I suggest the team still sees themselves as contenders and still believes that original roster construction strategy is appropriate for this club. Alternatively, even if they have doubts about the initial roster construction, they are stuck with those assessments since the entire roster can’t be overturned. Either way, following this logic the only chance for this club to make a splash is for the regulars to begin playing as envisioned at the start of the season. When (if) the team rights itself and begins playing as the FO believes it is capable of playing, McLaren will be able to deploy Bloomquist and Cairo as envisioned and the parts will mesh appropriately.
*****
I’m not saying I agree with this, but I offer it as a rationale for decisions that have been made. And whether or not you agree with these thoughts, you should consider that it’s far more likely the team is following a roster construction strategy they believe makes sense than it is to assume they are acting totally irrationally.
That’s an outstanding comment, Steve.
#62: Proofreading is not one my skills. First sentence of the second paragraph obviously should be: “The team knows that many key players have
offensivedefensive limitations.” Also in the same paragraph: …the most important role for thebendbench would be to protect leads late in the game…#63: Tx, Derek.
speaking of “here’s hoping”
I would like to see Mac go, but I have to agree with everyone who thinks he is not going to make that much of a diffrence. I can think of a few instances where he did a lousy job managing Felix and some of the other starters, and his batting order is laughable most of the time, but Bavasi must go. I can’t see this team winning with Lou or Sparky Anderson or Bucky Dent. I would vote for Angie if it was a democracy though. I can see some spark there.
The problem is that the team Bavasi has paid $110 million for isn’t very good. We all know that. Him going is the one that will make the biggest change. We need a change in the “theory of good baseball” in Seattle.
Come to think of it though, I wouldn’t mind seeing Mac go though, because I don’t think I am all that aware of him being there in the first place. I can’t remeber another M’s manager with so little personality. Maybe Melvin, but he was always scared for his job at least.
And how ’bout Ty Pennington for GM? Sure, he’s never run a baseball team before…but at the rate that he and his crew build houses, he could completely rebuild this team in about a week! 🙂
If Ty Pennington got the job, we would have the coolest clubhouse ever!
Damn…I watched a couple of Silver Bullet games when they were on ESPN years ago, but totally missed Angie’s “Tonya Harding” moment!
BTW…am I the only one who thought it was pretty f’in sad that the Silver Bullets wound up being made to look like a promotional gimmick rather than the flagship team for a women’s professional baseball league like they should have been?
68: How true — only Greyhound would have to loan him a convoy of buses to line the streets around “the Safe” for when he welcomes the fans back to meet their “new” team! 🙂
Maybe he could build us a big pirate ship for center field with canons. And a Motor cross track for the moose and his quad, and a retirement home for all the vetrans that come here to die. Oh Ty, you make fantasy fun….
I always thought Mark McLemore would make a good manager one day. What is he doing now? (I know he’s in Texas but don’t know what he does)
As far as the original graph, I though of McGovern’s “1000%” support of Eagleton before he dumped him off the ticket in 1972. I’m assuming most people aren’t old enough/weren’t born yet/aren’t political junkies enough to remember that.
I know he does some broadcast work — and coincidently this just popped up today ….
lol… c’mon now you made that up.
Even recognizing the abomination that Cairo on the roster is, and Cairo batting second, I’m not convinced that Cairo, en masse, represents a more serious error than Sexson, the Bedard trade, or the Soriano/Ramirez trade. The problem with Bavasi isn’t his inexplicable mismanagement of the #24 and #25 spots on the roster, but his terrible management of spots on the roster much higher up than that.