WIth Pujols to Angels, there may be opportunity for the Rays... Seems like a Davis (or Niemann) for Mark Trumbo deal (maybe with other moving parts) might make some sense...especially if the Halos have trouble signing CJ Wilson because of the $$$ commitment to Albert...hmm... Trumbo made $414K last year...

Kendrys Morales now becomes another spare part for the Angels, damaged but valuable...but at $3M, not as good a fit for the Rays...

...always opportunities in other team's deals...

Ed note: We thought this fanpost deserved front page access. Some known information, but also some new points.

When Bill Foster digs in his heels in St. Petersburg with the Rays, he’s asking for trouble. What we’ve got here is a train wreck coming, and the engineer in the locomotive won’t put on the breaks before it jumps the tracks. Foster is saying it’s got to be a new stadium in St. Pete or nothing. Well, then it will be nothing, because the reality is that St. Pete is not the future in the Tampa Bay area. That’s obvious to every sane person, probably even to the mayor, but viewed through his narrow political lens of short-term economics (and thus re-election), you can almost understand where he’s coming from.

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I'll come clean--I'm a huge Rays fan, so I'll make no bones about the outcome I'd like to see.  That said, this Game 5 here is pretty much what baseball is all about, and I'll be glued to the TV like the rest of you, ignoring my wife, looking for the right seating position and pre-inning rituals that will ensure success.  But you've got quite a group there... Between Young, Hamilton, Vlad, etc...quite a team, a lot to fear, a lot to respect.  And of course Lee.

As confident I am about Price in particular, and the Rays in general--and there's no team that can mix and match like them (essentially a half dozen or more players can almost interchangeably play SS, 2B and RF)--it's all going to come down to a break here or there... But no one can question the resolve of either guy on the mound.  A classic.

I know the Rangers history and importance of winning a series as a starting point for taking it to another level.  And of course I know the Rays (short) history, and the unbelievable way Maddon et al have turned around a decomposing franchise in just a few years.  There's a lot on the table for both sides...we all get that.

So here's wishing you all the best...  But go Rays...

And--oh yeah--we can all agree that the Yankees ought to be burned at the stake.  One by one.  One of these teams will get the chance...

At the end of the 2006 season, I posted my analysis (on another site) about how many wins a manager is worth to a team.  At that time, Maddon was under fire from many for regressing to 61 wins from the previous season's 66.  It's worth posting again, considering what we've seen in 2007-09.  Here it is:

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How Many Wins is a Manager Worth?

October 2006

One of the most difficult things to measure in baseball is the effect a manager has on his team.  How many wins is a good manager worth?  Or how many losses?  The literature is thin.  James Click’s piece (“Is Joe Torre a Hall of Fame Manager?”) in Baseball Between the Numbers cranks and crunches a lot of numbers, but ultimately concludes it’s too hard to figure out—there are too many factors out of the manager’s control.

So I thought I’d try a different approach to the problem.  Rather than try to definitively determine the impact of a manager, I thought it would be useful to figure out the greatest possible impact, which would allow me to at least define the reasonable outside envelope of potential success.  To do this, I started by examining what might be considered the cream of the managerial crop, which I defined to be those managers who have had a career that has lasted at least 10 seasons in the Majors.  This 10-year span does not have to be with one team—few managers have ever lasted that long in one place—but at least this group by sheer longevity has the perception of competence by their prospective employers.  They also had the ability to survive in the game, in some cases, building their stature even with losing teams.

From 1903 through 2006, there have been 445 managers in Major League Baseball (http://www.thebaseballcube.com/managers/index.shtml).  Of this group, few last long.  Only 75 (17% of the 445) have had careers that have lasted at least 10 years.  Some current managers, like Mike Scioscia, appear to be well on their way to 10 or more years, but the fact is that managers burn out, are drummed out, or simply fade away as yesterday’s replaceable field general long before they reach that milestone.  So it’s worth focusing on the characteristics of this group if we’re looking to figure out what makes for a successful field manager, and how they might help their team in terms of wins.

The first thing to note about this elite group, their collective career winning percentage is .520.  That suggests the collective winning percentage of the other 83% of all-time managers is only .480.  That is, most managers end their career with a losing record.  It is typical to lose a lot, unusual to sustain success.  Of all the managers with at least 10 years under their belt, only one—Joe McCarthy—NEVER had a losing season.  That unique achievement is remarkable, even considering he mostly managed excellent Cub, Yankee and Red Sox teams.  It’s also telling that even Joe McCarthy managed three teams (not just one), in spite of his sustained success.  Very few managers have lasted an entire career with one team, Connie Mack being the ultimate example in his 48 years with the Philadelphia A’s. 

I surmised that in order to measure the most successful managers (i.e., those with the greatest W/L effect on their team), it would be useful to first examine those whose stints had lasted at least 5 years with a single team.  Since 1903, there have been only 94 such instances, the longest of which were Mack (48), McGraw (30), Alston (23) and Lasorda (20).  As a separate study, I also looked at all stints of at least 3 years, to see if the effect on their team would be any different.  I hypothesized that this group would have a lesser effect on their teams, on average.  Retrosheet.org provided the necessary data.

The major findings:

1. On average, managers that lasted at least 5-years with their team were worth 7.7 games (on average) to their team.  This was calculated by looking at the team’s winning percentage in the 5 years previous to their arrival, and comparing it to the first five years of their stint with the team.  This percentage was then normalized to a 162-game schedule, accounting for those who managed before the modern season length, or to account for strike years.   On average, these managers took over teams with a previous 5-year W/L % of .485, and they produced a record of .533.
2. There is tremendous variation among this group of managers in terms of their success relative to the teams they took over.  The most dramatic examples of improvement were John McGraw, Davey Johnson, and Danny Murtaugh, all of who took over terrible teams (Giants, Mets, Pirates), and saw their teams improve by over 30 games per year on average in their first 5 years compared to the previous 5.
3. At the other end, Ralph Houk (Tigers and the Yankees in his second tour) and Joe Torre (Mets), saw their teams actually decline by 14 to 16 games in an average year under the first five years of their tenure, as compared to the previous 5 years.  Torre’s failure with the Mets is especially noteworthy considering his later success with the Yankees, where in his first five years, his teams were on average 13 games better than the 1991-95 Yankees that preceded him.
4. Among managers that lasted a minimum of three years (and there are many), the effect on the team is less pronounced, but generally similar.    This group on average improved his team’s fortunes by about 5.1 games annually in that three-year period compared to the previous three (improvement from .484 to .516).
5. Again, there is tremendous variation among this group.  The ranged from McGraw (+44 games), to Fred Hutchinson of the 1952-54 Tigers, where his teams were 25 games worse each year than the 1949-51 Tigers.  No surprise that he didn’t last a fourth year, and somewhat shocking that he even lasted three.  Actually, it’s interesting that 25% of all managers with at least a 3-year stint group actually saw their teams regress compared to the previous 3 years before their arrival.
6. With an average of +5.1 games and a standard deviation of 11 games (a huge variation), this suggests that a “normal” expected range for all managers lasting at least three years with a single team is anywhere from a 16-game improvement to a 6-game regression.  This fact alone suggests it’s very difficult to generalize about the W/L effects of a manager.  At the same time, it suggests that factors beyond the control of the manager are often major culprits in their “failure”, and are recognized as such by ownership, which is why such managers remained as long as they did in their roles.
7. In general, managers who managed long stints for multiple teams were most successful in their earlier assignments.  Chuck Dressen (Reds, Dodgers, Senators, and Tigers) saw improvement with the first two, regression with the last two.  Leo Durocher (Dodgers, Giants, Cubs) followed the same pattern.  Others like these two included Lou Boudreau, Mike Hargrove, Felipe Alou, Whitey Herzog, Davey Johnson, Al Lopez, John McNamara, Branch Rickey, Buck Rodgers, Buck Schowalter, Casey Stengel, and Dick Williams.  There are, however, some notable exceptions, including Sparky Anderson, Bobby Cox, and Bill McKechnie, who either improved over time, or consistently sustained success.
8. Some specific examples are enlightening, others unexpected.  Both Walt Alston and Tommy Lasorda oversaw teams that regressed in their first three years (and five years, for that matter) compared to the previous periods of the same duration before their arrival (3 to 5 games).  This regression nearly cost Alston his job early in his career, but it also has to be remembered that both took over relatively successful programs, and expectations were high.  Both were very successful in the long run.  Bobby Cox improved the Braves in 1978-81 by 7 games, but did even better with the Jays and Braves later (+26 games in each case!).  Tony LaRussa had great success with the A’s (+20 games), but only marginal success (+1 to 3 games) with the White Sox and Cardinals).
9. What about Lou Piniella?  Right about average.  Regressed by about 5 games with the Yankees, but saw a similar magnitude of relative success with the Mariners, Reds, and even the Rays.
10. Many managers showed great success with one team, but failure with another (Torre is maybe the best example, but others like him include Fregosi, McKeon, Mauch, Tanner and Dick Williams).  This suggests that the “fit” is just as important as the manager’s inherent skills in determining success.
11. And what does this all say for Maddon?  He inherited a team that had gone .412 in the previous three years (average 66 wins per year), considerably worse than the average team that is taken over by a new manager (.484, or 78 wins).  Thus, among managerial stints with similar starting points (those with previous three-year records ranging +/-.025 from .412, or .387 to .437), the average three-year improvement was 14 games, but there is a huge standard deviation of 12 games.  Thus, it is reasonable to expect anywhere from a 2 to 26 game improvement as “normal” in this group.  Anything more would be called “above normal”, anything less “below normal”.  In his first year, Maddon won 61 games, or 5 less than the average for the previous three years.  If Maddon can average anywhere from 69 to 80 wins over a three-year period, this would be considered “normal” within expectations.  That would essentially mean at least 75 wins per year in 2007 and 2008.

Obviously this study is imperfect, full of assumptions.  But the basic assumption is to measure success based on those managers with the greatest longevity in the game, who by definition are the survivors, even if their individual records do not always reflect their success or stature in the game.  By comparing Maddon to this group is to compare him against the elite managers in the game from a historical perspective.  And yet by this high standard, if he can manage 75 wins this year and next, he will be holding his own within reasonable expectations against this elite company.  Anything less, and the debate is open.  But you can’t “know” anything until well into the 2008 season.

That’s putting the matter in perspective.

Maddon is taking a lot of heat for the bases loaded intentional walk to Josh Hamilton, and to be honest, it is statistically difficult to support the move, as pointed out by several on this forum.  Chances are you’re better off pitching to Hamilton.  Maddon no doubt knew that too.  That’s why it hasn’t been done in the AL since 1901, and it took Barry Bonds to inspire the move in the NL in 1998.

Yet I support the thinking behind the decision.  It was a gamble, but a logical one—and I would have supported it even if it didn’t work.  The key here is to think like a manager of people, not numbers.  Let’s say that Balfour pitches to Hamilton, and he hits a grand slam (an admittedly unlikely outcome).  Obviously demoralizing, and even though the game is only tied, the momentum would have shifted—maybe for good.   Similarly, if Hamilton doubles or some other negative outcome, Balfour is pulled, and the momentum has still shifted.  Balfour is demoralized for blowing it in his role.  And if the Rays lose, everybody blames the pitching staff for failing—and right at the end of an otherwise very successful road trip. A lot of hard work down the drain.

What Maddon actually did was to take the responsibility for winning or losing the game on his own shoulders.  If the move works (which it did), then no harm no foul.  Maddon looks goofy, but the Rays win.  And if it doesn’t work?  Maddon is vilified in the press, and becomes the lighting rod for criticism.  Not his players.  He knows he can handle the media storm better than his players and feels comfortable with that.  But in the pennant drive, he needs to keep his untested players from folding.

And that, I suspect, figured greatly into what he was doing.

It’s the kind of move you’d only expect from someone with a career background in player development, who’s thinking a few steps ahead to get the most from his players in the long run.

This week we all saw two remarkable (historic?) baseball events.  I actually was in the stands for the first—the Angels no-hitting the Dodgers, but losing.  That one seemed to come from nowhere, sneak up like an October Indian summer day, a bolt of dry lightning in the backyard.  The crowd was stunned more than anything else: did that really just happen?

But the other event was different.  The Tampa Bay Rays, with the best record in baseball at the season’s halfway point?  After winning just 66 a year ago?  Remarkable of course, but unlike the odd events in Dodger Stadium that came from nowhere, this one has come from…well, from Somewhere.

It’s worthwhile assessing why, and how, and where the path leads next.

First off, remarkable as the Rays season has been, the main significance of it isn’t whether they actually win the division, or make the playoffs—it’s that expectations about the team have changed.  ESPN actually is taking them more seriously—reluctantly maybe—but winning forces the media’s hand.  More knowledgeable people already knew better, of course.  Other teams took notice long before the media, but somehow it all seemed like a fluke…but not anymore, not with the legitimacy of magazine covers and nationally televised games.  But most critically, the expectations about the team have changed from within.  Players who are on the club are excited, they act like a real team.  And players who aren’t on the Rays are beginning to wonder what it would be like to be part of the team.  And that really is the key to sustainability.

This was no bolt of lightning, but the result of a methodical plan.  And like any plan, it needs constant re-evaluation.  The key wrinkle it seems to me is that it’s happened faster than management expected.  Instead of flying under the radar for another year, the goals have changed.  Do the Rays make a big trade before the deadline?  Is it necessary?  These are not questions that management expected to have to seriously contemplate this year.  That was a 2009 “problem”, according to plan.

But it is indeed a problem today, the “good kind”, in the words typically found in corporate management quarterly reports.

What to do?

First, perspective:  We would be getting way in front of our skis to suggest that the Rays can be expected to win the AL East, let alone beyond that.  Not impossible of course, but an unfair expectation, and one that must be downplayed delicately from within, or risk possible implosion.  And yet, the very fact that it is conceivable just raises the stakes, and could affect player performance.  This is not just rarified air, this is outer space.  Hard to breathe in space, I’m told.

And so the monster that is being built in Tampa Bay is something like Frankenstein, or nuclear power—an incomplete work of genius.  It’s critical to stay with the plan, and avoid rash deviations—short-term expediencies at the expense of long-term sustainability—as the technology is being refined, and the fully operational battle station (in the prescient words of Darth Vader) is unleashed on Major League Baseball.

So there remains much work to be done.  But let’s assess the reasons why we are here at all.  Of course it is the players who must play the game, but let’s really put this in perspective:  this is the triumph of patient (and shrewd) planning, management, teaching, and execution.  Specifically, here are the reasons:

1. There Was a Plan.  On this forum, it is instructive to review BobR’s analysis since 2005.  While the crazies of the world had been calling for Maddon, Friedman, et al’s heads during downtimes, chiding Maddon in particular for Pollyannaism, it is clear now that all they have been taking the long view, and have shown remarkable cohesion in sticking with a plan in the face of withering criticism.  BobR has nailed this observation consistently for years, and he was part of a lonely minority view…which is now taking on more adherents, some reluctantly, others enthusiastically, but in any case, it all seems obvious now.  It takes remarkable patience, management teamwork, and confidence to be able to pull this off when all advice points the other way, and kudos to both Friedman and Maddon for doing this.

1. Change in Attitude.  This was Maddon’s mantra from Day 1, and it remains a top priority at all times.  His patience, teaching style, his ability and willingness to shield players from the glare of the media, and confidence have been crucial.  He’s the only manager out there confident enough to talk about Springsteen, wine and bicycling without worrying about his baseball image.  He’s got a perspective that positively rubs off on players, and one need not go further than comb through a roster of who he coached in the past to get but one single story: the guy is a leader.

1. There’s Captain on the Ship.  You can’t blame the captain of the Titanic for hitting the iceberg, but you have to blame him for not being prepared in the event it happened.  Along with the change in attitude, that is Maddon’s key contribution to the success of the team.  Now you have players singing the same tune, saying the same things in public, working toward the same goal.  Failure is tolerated—even expected—because these are teaching moments.  Leadership is everything, and a young group with a respected leader is a sustainable combination.  And if the ship hits an iceberg, you can bet there’s a contingency plan, or at least a few extra lifeboats.

1. Getting the Most from Players.  Nobody is having a truly breakout year, with the possible exception of Navarro.  But even Navarro’s year is the product of patience, attitude, and leadership.  The guy always had some potential, but it took some patience for this to be realized. 

1. Players Are Coaches Too.  The intangible effects of Percival, Floyd and Hinske cannot be overstated.  They’ve changed the equation, of course, and in effect are more properly considered an expanded coaching staff.  And they have made a young, talented team even more effective.  They will be critical down the stretch. 

1. Pitching and Defense.  It’s a new world when you learn to play defense, and the Rays are Exhibit #1.  As for pitching, is it really a remarkable turnaround, or more accurately the product of experience, teaching, attitude, coaching, and finding the proper roles?  For all the team’s success, Garza and Shields have been up and down, Jackson hit or miss, and no one can quite figure out why Sonnanstine has been so clutch.  And yet the proof is in the pudding.   The maturing of J. P. Howell is huge, and the congealing effect of Percival is evident everywhere.  Key consideration:  what about Jim Hickey?  Give the man credit here, and give the front office credit for staying with him after a lesser group would have canned him after the off-season drunk driving incident.

1. Statistics Lie.  The best indicator of all that the team is on the right track.   Where is Carlos Pena?  Where is Crawford?    Where are the .300 seasons?  The big numbers at the plate?  If you went purely on stats, you’d panic.  But their leadership and contributions are there, and critical in the making of players like Upton and Longoria.  It is a team game, and the only statistic that matters in the end is the one in the Win column.  That’s a message that is clearly taught, and understood, by these players.

There are other reasons of course, luck being one of them.  But the overall theme here is that it’s been mostly the triumph of a Plan, not the sum of individual efforts.

The mid-season report card has to be an A+, particularly on the part of Maddon and Friedman.  But it’s the players who have shown the mettle to compete, and the ability to execute. Remarkable efforts all around.

Now comes the hard part:  THE SECOND HALF.  This should be exciting, but another story to be told another day.  Hopefully in October…

Although I live in California, I had the rare chance to be in Durham this weekend, thanks to a side trip from visiting my brother who lives in Greenville, NC.  Today the Bulls beat Scranton 2-0, in a multi-pitcher 2-hit shutout.  On its face, that sounds great.  But it wasn't all rosy...still, positive overall.

Admittedly just an outsider's snapshot, but here's what I saw.

First the positives:

1.  The Experience.  Durham has an outstanding park, and watching a game here is a real treat.  I'd never been there before, and it reminds me a lot of a smaller Camden Yards, with a brickyard feel adjacent to old industry, in this case, the tobacco industry.  The Lucky Strike smokestack loomed over the field, with an artificial water feature below.  (I loved the irony of the No Smoking signs near the restaurants, just under the big smokestack.)  The park itself is really among the better game experiences I've had; in California, only Raley Field in Sacramento is comparable at the minor league level.  If you haven't been to Durham, you've got to go.

2.  Team Patience at the Plate.  The Bulls worked several 3-ball counts, and drew quite a few walks.  Signs of decent coaching.

3.  John Rodriguez.  The Bulls only managed 6 hits, but the most impressive of these was by Rodriguez.  He showed particular poise on an 0-2 count, poking a tough slider of the plate the other way into left--most impressive moment of the game.  Even when he stuck out looking later on a close pitch, he looked like he had his head in the game doing it.  Sounds odd, but he gave that impression.  He looks like he has a plan at the plate.

4.  Gimenez' Defense.  Solid behind the plate, seemed to call a good game, arm accurate and strong--threw out 2 base runners.

5.  Pitching Toughness.  Several Bulls pitchers had to work out of jams, and showed
 poise under pressure.

6.  Wool-E-Bull.  Gotta love the bull.

Now the downsides:

1.  Joel Guzman. Guzman looked lost out there, both offensively and defensively  In the field, he fumbled but recovered on a couple routine grounders.  He also had a judgment lapse--opting to tag a runner coming into third when it was an easy force out.  At the plate, he tended to flail an/or guess wrong--like he doesn't have a clear plan what to do.  Just the opposite of Rodriguez.

2.  Jon Weber.  He's overmatched by a half decent fastball, and can't adjust to offspeed stuff.

3.  Kevin Lynn.  No control, walked several, and many 3-ball counts ended his game early.  The upside--he only gave up one hit.

4.  Grant Balfour.  Pitched well-enough, but made a pretty bone-head balk that my 5-year-old nephew in the stands was able to call.  Made up for it with a strong save.

Overall, the team seemed to show good patience at the plate, was aggressive on the basepaths (2 steals, 2 bang-bang plays at the plate), and showed poise under pressure in the field.  I don't think Guzman has a future.  I'm impressed with Rodriguez's approach to the game.  And, without a doubt, this is one of your better ballpark experiences, whether Major or Minor League...