@oldcrow1945 said:Bean, you and I on the same page on a lot of stuff but not on Eric Wedge.
I like Eric personally. I think he seems like a really good guy. But I'm not a fan of his managerial skills.
I can't really disagree with much of your post. I'm not in death watch mode so much, but I understand and agree with many of the criticisms.
As for his lineup changes, I don't have the numbers from last year but he led baseball in 2003 with 145 different lineups. That number has shrunk a bit recently as he was in the mid-teens from 2004-2007: 114, 111, 111, 117.
Not that those numbers mean much, as discussed in this article:
There's a very slight relationship in which teams that use fewer lineups tend to win more games. As you can see from the scatter chart, it's not very strong, and explains only a portion of variance. Of course, the cause and effect are important to consider: teams that are healthy and winning have less incentive to voluntarily change lineups, since what they are doing is working. It's the teams who are losing who might as well try something different, from changing the batting order to taking a look at some prospects. Injuries will force any team to adapt. Mostly, though, strong teams lead to using fewer lineups, not vice versa.
http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article....&mode=login
I do consider lineup construction to be the barometer of a manager and I find it unconscionable to have Tony Graffanino's name near the lineup card. That's on the organization as much as it is Wedge. The organization is guilty of giving Wedge the option and he's guilty of using it. Shame on both of them.
That said, I'll defend Wedge a bit on his ever changing lineups - he's used nine of 'em this year: This team has the somewhat unique makeup of one of their best hitters having the ability to catch and one of their other best hitters having the same ability. That's a pretty cool problem that'll explain several different lineups. Won't begin to explain away the Graffanino nonsense, but I think it's a fair explanation for multiple lineups in general.
Just FWIW, here's a neat article from last year that deals with the ever evolving strategies of field managers:
Baseball Dares to Be Different
No Longer Hidebound, Team Managers Toss Their Own Rule Books
By DARREN EVERSON
Aside from when they take umbrage with an umpire, baseball managers are obedient, orthodox people. For years, they've all basically managed the same way, arranging their hitters and deploying their pitchers in strict adherence to accepted practice. Even those nose-to-nose spats scream conformity.
But a number of major-league managers have been more creative this season, making moves that challenge the sport's sacred status quo. Pitchers -- generally the weakest hitters on National League teams -- are often batting before stronger-hitting position players in the Milwaukee Brewers' and St. Louis Cardinals' lineups. Three teams, influenced by nasty pregame weather reports, have used relievers as starting pitchers. And on the Atlanta Braves, the pitchers aren't always pitchers.
[The Texas Rangers' Ron Washington, Atlanta Braves' Bobby Cox and St. Louis Cardinals' Tony La Russa.]
Managers of Invention: From left to right, the Texas Rangers' Ron Washington, Atlanta Braves' Bobby Cox and St. Louis Cardinals' Tony La Russa.
When Chris Resop, a Braves relief pitcher, was warming up in the bullpen during an April 3 game against the Pittsburgh Pirates, the coaches asked when he had last played the outfield. "I said a few years ago in the minors. And that's where they left it," Mr. Resop says. "I had no idea why they asked."
Braves manager Bobby Cox was desperate, and he was plotting an ingenious plan. He was nearly out of right-handed pitchers, and players can't re-enter a game after they've been removed. If Mr. Resop, a righty, could play the outfield, that would allow Mr. Cox to replace him on the mound temporarily -- and use a lefty specialist to pitch to Adam LaRoche -- without losing him entirely. So after Mr. Resop pitched to three batters in the top of the 10th inning, Mr. Cox had him go to left field. When Mr. Resop returned to the pitcher's mound one batter later, it marked the first time a pitcher had pitched, played the field and pitched again in the same game since Jeff Nelson of the Seattle Mariners in 1993, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.
Though Mr. LaRoche struck out, Mr. Resop allowed a go-ahead single after he returned to pitch. The Braves went on to lose, 4-3. But Mr. Resop says he still thinks it was a wise move, not to mention a fun one. ("I was ready to throw somebody out at home," he says.) Teams around the league took note. "We talked about what Bobby did," says Doug Melvin, the Brewers general manager. "We said, 'We've got to keep that in mind.' We thought about what pitchers of ours could do that. David Riske [a Brewers reliever] used to play shortstop."
Thanks to Mr. Cox's tenure and standing in the game (he ranks fourth on the all-time managerial win list) he has more latitude than most managers to try new things. But baseball has long discouraged such outside-the-box thinking, and the manager who makes an unusual move has to answer to second-guessing fans and reporters if it backfires.
"A blunder by a manager is a move that is A) unconventional, doesn't work and C) occurs at a moment of focus in the game," says Bill James, senior baseball-operations adviser with the Boston Red Sox. "If you put those three things together, you have a blunder. As long as you do what's conventional, you won't be accused of a blunder."
In recent years, however, the sport has grown more accepting of alternative views, and particularly of the statistics-based analysis pioneered by Mr. James. In addition, a new breed of owners who made their money in media or on Wall Street -- arenas where unorthodox ideas and strategies are more central to success -- has embraced forward-thinking, chance-taking front-office staff.
[illustration]
Second-year skipper Ron Washington, whose Texas Rangers had been pounded for years by Los Angeles Angels star outfielder Vladimir Guerrero, continues to employ a novel defense against him: the "infield shift," in which three infielders play on the left side of the diamond, preying on Mr. Guerrero's tendency to hit in that direction.
The shift has been around for decades -- it was used famously against Ted Williams, the Boston Red Sox Hall of Fame outfielder, and teams commonly use it today against David Ortiz, Jim Thome and other sluggers. The difference is that those are all left-handed hitters. Shifting against lefties is easier because, by shifting toward right field, the infielders have a reasonably short throw to first base. Conversely, right-handed hitters like Mr. Guerrero almost never face a shift.
It's worked for the Rangers, relatively speaking. Before Mr. Washington's arrival, Mr. Guerrero hit .431 with 20 home runs as an Angel against Texas, averaging a homer every 10.6 at-bats. Since Mr. Washington took over, Mr. Guerrero is hitting a still-robust .333, but with just one home run total in 84 at-bats. "Maybe, if nothing else, it gets in his head a little bit," says Jamey Newburg, author of The Newberg Report, a Rangers blog and annual book.
An Angels spokesman says Mr. Guerrero isn't focused solely on home runs, and that he has gotten base hits by hitting away from the shift. Mr. Guerrero is "somebody who's not affected by things," he says.
New York Yankees manager Joe Girardi, in his first month leading the club, let the weather forecast dictate his choice of starting pitchers in an April 9 game against the Kansas City Royals. He figured the game might be shortened due to rain, and didn't want to risk wasting Ian Kennedy, his scheduled starter.
Mr. Girardi made the unusual decision to start a relief pitcher instead -- in this case Brian Bruney. (The teams played through the rain, and the Yankees lost, 4-0 -- although Mr. Bruney held the Royals scoreless in his two innings. Mr. Kennedy came into the game in the sixth.) The San Francisco Giants and Los Angeles Dodgers used the same strategy in a game against each other on April 2.
In defiance of longstanding National League tradition to hit pitchers ninth and last, the Brewers this season began to hit their pitchers eighth, in front of catcher Jason Kendall on the days he plays. The decision was based on mathematics. The team -- whose principal owner, Mark Attanasio, is an investment banker who bought the club before the 2005 season -- computed that the move could bring an additional 30 runs scored over the course of the season, says Mr. Melvin, the Milwaukee general manager. Management figured Mr. Kendall's skill at getting on base would give the hitters at the top of the order more baserunners to drive in. Tony La Russa, manager of the St. Louis Cardinals, has been doing this as well.
No matter what the math says, though, whenever their weak-hitting pitchers come to the plate in a key, run-scoring situation, the Brewers invite dissent with their unconventional move. "I must say: I've got a wary eye toward the pitcher batting eighth," says Jim Powell, a Brewers announcer. "What the statistics can't show you is it undermines your No. 7 batter." The reason, he says, is opposing teams will pitch around the No. 7 batter, knowing the punchless pitcher is next.
But if Mr. Melvin had his way, the Brewers organization might be even more progressive. He has another counterintuitive idea: using relievers to start the game, and delaying the "starting" pitcher's entrance until the third inning or so. The thinking is that starters are typically among a team's best pitchers, yet nowadays they often pitch only through the fifth or sixth inning, well before many games are decided. By having them pitch later, they'd be around for the higher-leverage innings.
The idea would need to be tested first in the minor leagues, Mr. Melvin says. The only problem, it appears, is that it's too unconventional. "I can't get anybody to do it," he says.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120907935062743195.html
Beanpot
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