Judge The Performance, Not The Character
The Mariners just had a miserable week, capped off by a listless weekend that saw them shutout on back to back days. As is usually the case when a bad team plays even worse than usual, speculation begins as to the motivation of the players. For instance, here’s a message on twitter via Bob Nightengale of USA Today:
The Mariners are playing like a team trying to get its manager fired. Wakamatsu’s future clearly in doubt.
Whether Wak’s future is actually in doubt is a question for another day. I want to deal with his first sentence.
Playing like a team that is trying to get its manager fired? Because they got shutout by Francisco Liriano, who as we noted before the game, has the best xFIP in all of baseball? No, I’m sure he’ll say it wasn’t just about this one game, but the entire recent performance of the team, but let’s be honest, he doesn’t send that message out if the Mariners would have run up five or six runs against the Twins ace.
But, that didn’t happen, and so writers now play the character assassination game that is so popular in news rooms around the country. Rather than simply sticking with the fact that this offense isn’t good and they faced a guy who should get Cy Young votes, we get questions about their motives, with an underlying insinuation that the team could do have hit better today if they wanted to.
It’s B.S. Know why Liriano shutout the Mariners? Because the team started Russ Branyan and Casey Kotchman as their #4 and #5 hitters against a pitcher who entered the game with a 1.08 FIP (that is not a typo) against left-handed hitters. Those two, not surprisingly, struck out in five of their six trips to the plate while Liriano was in the game. You put two left-handed bats (both of whom have had significant trouble with LHPs in their career) in the middle of a line-up against a guy who no lefty in baseball can touch and you’re going to lose.
In addition to those two, of course, the Mariners started Ichiro and Michael Saunders, also left-handed hitters. Those four essentially comprise the four best bats on the Mariners roster right now, so you can’t blame Wak for putting them in the line-up. It’s not like he has great right-handed hitting alternatives for when the team goes up against a high quality lefty. Of the five righties he started today, only two have major league bats (Figgins and Gutierrez), and both are struggling right now. Josh Wilson, Matt Tuiasosopo, and Rob Johnson are all Triple-A caliber hitters. It would have been a massive upset if any of them could have produced any offense today.
This wasn’t hard to see coming. A great LHP against a team that can’t hit, and especially can’t hit lefties, in a park that has played very pitcher friendly to date? The Mariners weren’t going to score today no matter who was managing. It wasn’t evidence of a lack of motivation. It was evidence that the pitcher was talented and the hitters weren’t.
But, that’s not an interesting story, and so it doesn’t get written. Instead, we get speculation about what the players might be doing to try and sabotage their manager, tea-leaf reading about the interpretation of some comment that was or wasn’t made in a way that some journalist thinks it should have been made, and the results of echo chamber conversations where a bunch of people who all think the same reinforce each other’s biases and then try to pass their opinions off as news.
Ignore all of it. None of it actually contains any kind of insight that you should care about.
The Mariners hitters stink. They’ve run into some really good pitchers lately. The result has been ugly. These are facts – stick to those. Leave the uninformed speculation about the players trying to get their managers fired to everyone else. It’s not worthy of discussion.
Comments
48 Responses to “Judge The Performance, Not The Character”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Based on the title, really expected this post to be about Lueke. But really excellent post. Some writers (I’m looking at you, person whose blog is no longer linked on the right side of this page) seem really hung up on this Wakamatsu job thing.
If anyone’s bothered to notice anything I’ve typed in the comments here – you know I’m a fan of Michael Saunders. I hope for big things from him in the future. But man, the fact that he’s, right now, one of the “four best bats on the Mariners roster” is not a positive statement by any stretch of the imagination.
Speaking of that blog that is no longer linked on the right side of this page, if I hear one more person whining about bringing Lou back, or hiring Tony LaRussa (as if) I am going to fall upon the splintered fragment of my Ichiro bat.
First-time poster, and this is the reason why. Thanks, Dave, for an insightful post, that, as usual, clarifies rather than sensationalizes.
Hah, me too.
I was just thinking this as I read. If I hadn’t read the same thing from the Seattle media for the last couple of managers that did eventually get the axe, it might be interesting.
Wak may need to go, but it shouldn’t be because that’s what it says on page 45 of the Baseball Writer of America handbook.
It’s the type of knee-jerk ‘journalism’ that has so permeated mainstream media types that I no longer watch any of it. ESPN is as guilty of it as these so-called ‘reporters’ trying anything to make a splash.
It used to be as a reporter you’d have a story, have it checked, have the facts verified, then you’d run it. In today’s 24 hour news cycle, of twitter, or instant reporting, you have everyone reporting everything, journalistic standards be damned. These mainstream folks are so desperate for viewers/readers they’ll print anything that comes to mind.
The Mariners played inspired baseball — or at least got some good results — against Boston, so the effort to get Wak fired would have started when they went to Chicago to play the hottest team in baseball. It’s all pretty silly.
It’s not anything to take notice of if this team gets 2-hit or shut out back to back. They’re just that bad.
It’s just the media’s revenge for jumping on to the bandwagon at the beginning of the season and now they’re trying to burn all their bridges.
Me 3! I was sure it was about Lueke. And frankly, if he keeps throwing like he has, I will completely forget about his past.
On a bright note, Saunders has an OPS over .900 and K/BB ratio of 4/4. Only 13 games, but the K’s are way down. I think we are watching a pretty good player develop. I love his work habits and his desire to learn all he can. He is a blue collar guy, as our broadcaster with the hat would say. He is also a great looking young ballplayer, as our broadcaster who sports the beautiful blazers would say.
Very nice post…Thanks for saying what needed to be said.
A lot of the press, when needing a story, will just be lazy and commit fundamental attribution error.
[Stop writing in all caps.]
[Stop judging character. It’s what the whole post is about.]
So you argue Waks trying to get himself fired by sending out that line-up? I think my tea leaves said your a hypocrite. Maybe you and the players got together before the game!
To take it a bit further . . .
If one wants to speculate that there is a kind of informal cabal of players who are trying to get Wak fired, then one has to be able to point at something.
For example, a reporter might want to tell us which of the players in the lineup deliberately refused to get hits against Liriano. Looking at the pitch F/X data, perhaps one could ascertain that certain batters are lunging at pitches that they normally would not.
All very iffy, given the profusely demonstrated capacity of the lineup not to hit anyone at any time.
Given his lineup selection against Liriano, it would make just as much sense to say that Wak is trying to make the Mariners fire him.
However, his lineup selection today made very little more (or less) sense than it usually does.
I believe this sort of reportage happens not so much because writers want to stir things up, but because they, like we, are disappointed in the way things are turning out.
However, the upshot is that they are fostering bad feelings where none should exist.
My advice to those reporters: either render us some data or give us an attributable quote. Otherwise, shut up.
Please excuse my ignorance. Generally speaking, is there autocorrelation in the sequence of a player’s at bats? cheers
For what it’s worth, I don’t interpret what he wrote as saying that the players are literally trying to get him fired… I read it as him saying that their level of play is going to result in him getting fired.
Apparently Dave didn’t notice the word “like” in Nightengale’s quote, or more specifically, “playing like a team.”
Had Nightengale written “The Mariners are trying to get its manager fired.” then the righteous indignation would make sense. But he didn’t. He wrote a simile, that they’re like a team deliberately losing, not that they are a team deliberately losing.
He did not write that the players have made a pact to only score two runs a game until Wak is fired. Although honestly, if that were true and the Mariners were tanking, it would be the most hopeful thing that has happened this season.
Ummm…so your point is that if the Mariners played well, then Nightengale wouldn’t be writing about how poorly they’re playing, and this proves…something?
illdonk, you may think you’re disagreeing with Dave – but the way I read Dave’s post, he wasn’t saying what you apparently think he’s saying.
Nightengale is just one of the infinite bloviating dickheads who cover baseball. At the most basic of levels, the argument can’t pass the sniff test for any reasonably intelligent third grader.
–Players won’t ‘give their all’ because that might scuttle a manager they don’t like.
–Those players perform on one of the poorest teams in baseball.
–Thus, the ‘logic’ is that a new manager will come in (one with no pre-existing ‘belief systems’) and look at this rag tag bunch of losers and say, ‘yep, these are the guys I want to go with’.
Performing poorly hurts the player far more than the manager.
In fairness to the unnamed blogger mentioned in these comments, he speculated whether Wak’s job was in jeopardy. He never argued it should be. Frankly, it’s possible Wak will be fired. It wouldn’t be the first dumb firing of a manager and it wouldn’t be the first dumb move this organization’s made. Still, I assume and hope he’ll keep his job for the reasons Dave lists.
Great post Dave! I am getting sick of the media starting to throw around the is Wak safe or is he gonna get canned talk. Firing Wak is just what the organization doesn’t need. We need stability and firing Wak after a year and a half would be the wrong move. He is a good baseball guy and is still learning the ropes of being a manager. Sure he has made his share of mistakes and has had some interesting situations arise this year(Bradley, Griffey, lil Figgins), but he can’t be to blame when Jack Z built a team that was relying on a flawed offense which has ultimately killed this team’s chances of even being competitive. Wak can’t help he has to run out a lineup without any middle of the order bats and with an infield that can’t hit.
Most sportswriters treat the spaces between a fact or quote like a hammock and they wrap themselves up in a fuzzy little blankie of morality plays and posturing about journalistic integrity as they take a season long nap contently sucking their thumb.
They need clicks and it distorts the reality that they tell. Obtuse is the new integrity of journalism.
The more interesting question to me is whether Wak deserves to be retained or let go. The team has underperformed, sure, but I’m not sure God could have won with this lineup of non-hitters. I’m also increasingly sure that Figgins is an egomaniac or at least has anger issues, and is going to be in local sports headlines any time we’re losing and he’s not hitting (so, for the foreseeable future).
The flaw in the original post is the assumption that the author was referring to just this one game when making his observation or if, in fact, he had formed that opinion after observing the last week …. errr, the last month ….. errr, the last two months …. errr, the whole season …. errr, the whole season plus spring training.
First of all, as others have said already he said “like a team” trying to get him fired, not that he has anonymous sources of some type of underground resistance movement. Let’s get off the high horse for a minute and realize that.
Second, maybe instead of focusing on them rolling over against Liriano it would be better to examine them rolling over against Slowey and his weak 4.51 xFIP or Gavin Floyd and his good but not great 3.71 xFIP or John Danks and his rather pedestrian 4.06 xFIP.
What does it add up to? A group that is playing “like a team” that wants to get its manager fired. Maybe he and Figgins can have another public brawl and the winner gets to stay…
This is one of the most embarrassing teams I’ve ever had the displeasure of watching. If we are going to blame everything on the lack of talent in the lineup, maybe we should start questioning Jack Z. I know he’s had the difficult job of cleaning up the crap Bavasi left, but so far Kotchman, Bradley and Figgins have been busts.
My biggest problem with Wak is that he seems to be the second coming of Bob Melvin, time to go out and get a coach who can light a fire under someone’s backside.
I have a buddy who works in the M’s clubhouse and he’s mentioned that he’s heard muttering around that makes it very clear that many, not all, but many of the players don’t want to play for Wak. Now that doesn’t mean they’re failing purposely to get him fired, but more for the fact that they’ve lost moral, obviously, and as such don’t have their heads in the game nor the intent to really pull out of it. They’ll go out and go through the motions, but there wont be any much heart behind it. THAT seems a definite, especially after watching them for the entire season. Brain dead base running, horrific batting averages, defensive lapses, frustration in the dugout… all symptoms of losing the will to win. I wish I could chose to lose the will to win and still get paid a crazy amount of money. Such is the world.
Wouldn’t surprise me if Wak gets the ax after a lackluster 100-loss season.
An easy sentiment to express (and many of us have) but it’s hard to light a fire when all you’ve got is wet wood — and the good ship Mariner has been under water since May.
This is one of the most embarrassing teams I’ve ever had the displeasure of watching. If we are going to blame everything on the lack of talent in the lineup, maybe we should start questioning Jack Z.
I’d say that ANY 100 loss season isn’t your best work… but that doesn’t mean we should be looking for a new GM anytime soon.
I want to see how the organization deals with falling flat on their face (and to see if they learn from it) before I start leading any pitchfork and torch brigade. One of the problems I had with Bavasi is he never got any better at his job, even after running into failures that should have obviously caused him to go “hmm, what am I doing wrong here?”. Let’s see where we are in 2011-2012 once Zduriencik realizes that whatever it was he did in 2010, it wasn’t close to getting the job done.
It’s an ignorant comment anyway you look at it. Players may dog it for a manager, but never at the plate. I’ve been watching baseball since Dizzy Dean and Peewee Reese were doing the play by play on the game of the week, and players are always going to put out an effort at the plate.
If players are going to just go through the motions its going to be on the basepaths and on defense. I didn’t see the whole game, but what I did see was a committed defense at least.
Most sportswriters treat the spaces between a fact or quote like a hammock and they wrap themselves up in a fuzzy little blankie of morality plays and posturing about journalistic integrity as they take a season long nap contently sucking their thumb.
They need clicks and it distorts the reality that they tell. Obtuse is the new integrity of journalism.
Whatever he said, I agree with it.
My question: Who made the decisions to leave camp with the personnel they did? Was Wak told to keep certain players?
Lincoln and Armstrong. What has this team done since 2001? Why are they still here? Exactly how hot do their seats have to get before they go?
Wouldn’t surprise me either, but while I haven’t been overly impressed with Wak this season, he isn’t the problem. I think the fault lies with Jack and the players, in that order. There weren’t enough bats in the lineup, and those that were there didn’t perform up to their capability. Simple as that. And nothing Wakamatsu is going to do is going to significantly change that, because he doesn’t have any pieces to plug in for the pieces that aren’t working.
When Kotchman didn’t hit, Carp, Sweeney and Tui were the only other options at first. When Figgins didn’t hit, there is no choice except to let him work his way out of it. When Lopez was the worst hitter in baseball, you only had Tui or Josh Wilson to put in instead. When Bradley didn’t hit the alternative was Griffey and Sweeney.
About the only thing you can blame on Wak was sticking with RRS for so long, and his use of Sean White.
Many who want to ax Jack Z. are forgetting that this team was brought on to “hopefully” compete this year. Jack started the season stating that they were still the #3 team in the division and they’d have to prove otherwise. He wasn’t telling everyone to go out and purchase your World Series tickets 6 months ahead of time. Looking at the team, I knew they could be successful, BUT, many things would have to go the M’s way, and if they didn’t it would be ugly.
All of the moves Jack made had and still has relevance. He never gave up a lot for anyone. Figgins was a good signing, everyone believed it, and it isn’t Jack’s fault that he has fallen to such a career low in pretty much everything. Cliff Lee was a great deal, giving up 3 nobody’s, and in return having a great pitcher who unfortunately didn’t work out in the short or long term, but getting Smoak and 3 players better than the other 3 originally traded. This is a massively better outcome than having Phillipe Aumont and the other 2 whoevers. Kotchman was traded for Bill Hall, Bradley was traded for Silva and some cash (Who knew Silva would remember how to pitch? Miss Cleo couldn’t have predicted that.), Sweeney and Byrnes were brought on with league minimum salaries. Guys who were successful in spring training didn’t pan out THIS year like Tui and Moore and Sweeney. Jack made all the right moves to create a competitive team without giving up the future… unfortunately, just because they are good moves on paper doesn’t mean it was guarantee to pan out. Players still needed to perform.
The snowball effect of this season can be debated on what started the fall, but the fact is when guys started off slow and losing became a normality, the pressure to pull out of it and the negativity that comes with losing added to create hostility, frustration, and even worse in lack of performance by nearly every player. Players started to force the issue, thus losing their fundamentals and slipping farther and farther down. Ryan Rowland-Smith is our Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde this year. He is a completely different pitcher from last year, and no one could have predicted that. The GM can’t predict how the players will play and can only go with path they seem to be on. Figgins has been consistent with hitting most of his career, Rowland-Smith seemed like he turned the corner in a good way last year, Bradley just two years ago led the league in OBP and at the time was a much better option than Silva since we already had a starting rotation in place, Lopez was coming off a good season last year and seemed to be getting better, Guti was projected to be better this year as well, Griffey was figured to get minimal playing time and be more of a clubhouse plus, which was believed that he wanted that role, League was figured to use his pitch that was swung on a missed the most last year… on and on and on. Almost every player on this team is so far from his predicted path from last year. What can you do?
This team is rebuilding, which is evident with the moves the Jack has made. By 2012, this team will be competing for the division, and not because of guys like Jose Lopez or Jack Wilson or Milton Bradley, but because of guys like Ackley, Pineda, Saunders, Smoak, Felix, Vargas, Moore, and so on. If you can’t buy a championship like NY can, you must grow one. That is the reality of this organization.
Other than Saunders who did Wak leave behind that would have helped the club? You can argue that Griffey and Sweeney shouldn’t have been on the team, but that doesn’t answer the question of who would have replaced them that would have made any difference at all. There just wasn’t anybody else to plug in that would have made a difference.
I for one, am certainly not arguing that.
Well, judging by performance and not by character, Wakamatsu should go. If not now, then in the offseason.
The list of grievances from the blogosphere around his lineup decisions, bullpen management and in-game strategy overall should be more than enough.
Roster-wise, it’s true that he was given chicken shit and asked to make chicken salad. But that only goes so far to excuse how he’s managed the team this year. Time for a change.
Watching Mariner opponents and channel surfing other games recently there are an astounding number of ex-Mariners flourishing on other teams. Facing Garcia in Chicago with Thornton and Putz mopping up was hilarious. Beltre hitting .333 for Boston and Soriano lights out as Tampa Bay’s closer is even more depressing. There’s something terribly wrong with the Mariner’s organization to squander so much talent while at the same time bringing out the worst in free agents like Figgins.
Watching Mariner opponents and channel surfing other games recently there are an astounding number of ex-Mariners flourishing on other teams.
Adam Jones: .740 OPS in Baltimore.
Freddy Garcia blew his arm out and was RESIGNED by Chicago, after going through a couple of teams.
Matt Thornton had a few mediocre years in the majors and blossomed elsewhere- kind of like how David Aardsma turned out.
Beltre wasn’t going to resign here.
And yeah, we totally got ripped off by trading JJ Putz, what with only getting a starting CF (Death to Flying Things) and backend starter (Vargas) plus prospects for a guy who was mostly injured last year for the Mets.
WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR LETTING RA DICKEY GO?????
Actually the one I really regret letting go is Shin Soo Choo. Damn. That was a mistake.
I try not to listen to speculative stuff like “the players are trying to get the manager fired” because I know that it’s a guess at best.
The problem I keep having is that it’s easy to believe bad things about a bad team. I know writers have no way of knowing what players are really thinking, and that they can’t truly know something like that. But on face value it really looks like it could be true.
It would certainly be easier not to believe this stuff if the team wouldn’t stink so bad every day.
Tango has a wonderful blog post today about how much luck factors into baseball results. The M’s have had a lot of breaks not go their way; that’s not an excuse, but it is in part an explanation. As Dave has said a number of times, who guessed before the season that Figgins, Bradley, Lopez and Kotchman would all just stink up the joint as hitters all at the same time? Losing snowballs like winning does, except it’s easier to keep up a losing streak than a winning streak.
I walked into a restaurant at lunch and there was a sports section open on the counter telling about how the M’s had lost 4-0 and had only two hits. It wasn’t yesterday’s game, it was July 21. There’s not a whole lot new to write about with this team; it stinks.
It may be hard to distinguish between a 76 win team and an 86 win team, if Tango is to be believed, but how hard is it to distinguish between an 85 win team (’09 M’s) and a possible 60 to 65 team win (’10 M’s)?
Seems pretty easy, with or without the quantum mechanics of the sabre crew for support.
You should eat lunch at a place that cleans more often.
My question: Who made the decisions to leave camp with the personnel they did? Was Wak told to keep certain players?
Other than Saunders who did Wak leave behind that would have helped the club? You can argue that Griffey and Sweeney shouldn’t have been on the team, but that doesn’t answer the question of who would have replaced them that would have made any difference at all. There just wasn’t anybody else to plug in that would have made a difference.
********
This is where we disagree. No Sweeney. No Griffey. Use Bradley as DH. this allows for a lefthanded reliever. don’t have Byrnes. Use Langerhans. Josh Wilson as your utility man. No Tui. or… make Lopez the utility man and use a replacement 3b (Tui?). Put Figgins at 3rd. Keep Lopez at 2nd/figgins at third. Don’t switch them around at all. We had 2/4 of an infield learning new positions.
All these things could have been done that made a difference.
On Z, Kelly Johnson was available. So was Vlad. Laynce Nix would have been better than Sweeney.