If you didn’t see this yesterday, here is a very insightful comment from Vinny’s Ghost:
“The baseball playoffs are like choosing the 100-meter finalist in the Olympics from marathon runners.”
That actually sums it up, Vinny! That is a very good analogy. However, if this format sticks, then the Dodgers, along with the Braves and the Orioles, are going to have to adjust. The Dodgers sat out for a week after clinching the title halfway through September. The Braves clinched four days earlier than the Dodgers, but sitting out the Wild Card Week did both teams in. Both items will be back strong next year, and both teams will come up with a way to circumvent that problem. Of that, I am confident.
To me, the format is grossly unfair to teams that have spent the money to win, like the Dodgers and the Braves. The Diamondbacks have some good players because they tanked for several years and drafted at the top of the draft. Baltimore also won 100 games this year because they tanked for years.
More Bruce Bochy
I have seen no less than a dozen articles or blogs today that say, “Bruce Bochy Going Back to World Series, Bruce Bochy Does it Again, Bruce Bochy is Back,” and yadda, yadda, yadda. Bruce is a good manager because he has to be around as long as he has. You don’t last 26 years without being good. He has also been to and won the World Series… a lot! But this begs the question: Is Texas going to the World Series because of Bochy, or is Bochy going because of Texas? I think Bruce Bochy and Dave Roberts are two very similar guys in their management style. They are players’ managers, and both are noted for their clubhouse harmony. They are cordial, even keel, and players love to play for them. Bochy has had the bad luck of being on some bad teams, while Roberts has generally had very good teams to manage.
However, there are some people who just have a knack for being in the right place at the right time… or even the wrong place at the wrong time. For example, former American park ranger Roy C. Sullivan, holds the record for The Most Lightning Strikes Survived. Born in 1912, Roy worked as a Park Ranger in Shenandoah National Park in his native Virginia. He was hit by lightning an amazing seven times – and survived every time! Bruce Bochy has been the beneficiary of a few lightning strikes. I could list them, but I am not going to belabor the point.
Red Auerbach, Phil Jackson, Joe Torre, Sparky Anderson, Tony LaRussa, and many other managers and coaches who are Hall-of-Fame Caliber also got there because they had great players. Was it the players that made them great or them that made the players great? Maybe both! It’s the classic chicken or the egg debate. At any rate, when players perform, like Seager and Garcia, the manager looks smarter than hell. When they don’t perform, like Betts and Freeman, they look dumber than a bag of hammers. When I see headlines giving Bochy the glory, it makes me mad – the Rangers Players delivered and that discredits them. Just my two cents.
A few years ago, a writer named Neil Paine wrote an article entitled “Most Managers Are Headed to the Hall of Mediocrity.“ In it, he wrote this:
Criticizing baseball managers is a pastime as American as baseball itself. Players make their share of gaffes, but few mistakes are dissected with as much scrutiny as those made by the men in the dugout, especially during the postseason. Whether it’s his faulty in-game tactical choices or just the vague sense that he’s lost control of the clubhouse, the manager is an easy target. (As the old saying goes, you can’t fire the players.)
— Neil Paine
Yet sabermetrics tells us that most dugout decisions barely have any effect on the outcome of the game. Furthermore, if we look at effects on player performance, it’s evident that hardly any manager can distinguish himself from his counterparts. Based on my analysis, 95 percent of all managers are worth somewhere between -2 and +2 wins per 162 games. Last year alone, 21 batters and seven pitchers were worth more to their teams than nearly every manager of the last 112 years.
It’s a fascinating read, and there are lots of other similar articles like it on the web. Paine ends with this:
As is always the case with calculations like these, it’s too simplistic to look at the small range of talent and conclude that Major League managers don’t matter. These findings do, however, help to underscore the brutal inefficiency of the manager market.
— Neil Paine
The hirings and firings, the manager merry-go-round every offseason, the relentless second-guessing — all are relatively pointless. You can’t prove that your team’s manager is any better or worse than average. Come to peace with that, and go back to worrying about the players.
Well, we can’t fire Mookie and Freddie – we can only hope that they are so ashamed that they come out next offseason and atone for the 2022 and 2023 debacles. We can also hope that MLB changes the format, and they will… the only question is when? Eric brought up the issue of expansion yesterday, and that will likely happen in the next three years. Hopefully, they will have two leagues with four divisions of four teams, and the division winner will play for the right to go to the World Series. On the other hand, I think Rob Manfred is fully capable of screwing it up.
It’s too bad that the World Series won’t have any of the major teams this year because I know that a lot of people who did not like to watch baseball are suddenly starting to again. The new rules have sparked renewed interest because they have increased the pace of play, shortened games, and created more action. It’s a downer that the Series will be between two teams who really should not be there, and I say that with all due respect. I will watch every out and play that I can. I love the new style of play, and I love baseball. I just love the Dodgers more!
One Final Note…
It seems to me that many of you are down on the Dodgers Farm System right about now. As I have mentioned, the Dodgers have drafted at the bottom of the rounds each year for the past ten years or so. This means that we can’t expect anything but an occasional superstar out of that. However, the system is loaded with role-players and players who will be very good and even an occasional All-Star. Bobby Miller has the opportunity to be a Superstar. Ryan Pepiot can be a nice #3 or #4 starter. Will Smith is an All-Star. Emmet Sheehan has the upside of a #2, and then there are a plethora of players down on the farms who inspire a lot of hope, including Miguel Vargas, Michael Busch, and Jonny DeLuca – all of whom will have opportunities next season. Could some be traded? Sure, but let me remind you that progress is not linear.
Adolis Garcia was a late bloomer, and baseball is full of players who failed on their first, second, and even third callups, only to thrive later. Here’s a list of players to watch (I’ll talk about them later in the offseason). Other than the aforementioned prospects, here are guys you need to look at:
- Kyle Hurt
- Landon Knack
- Gavin Stone
- Andy Pages
- Nick Frasso
- Yenier Fernandez
- Ronan Kopp
- Hunter Feduccia
- Diego Cartaya
- Dalton Rushing
- Justin Wroblesk
- River Ryan
- Austin Gauthier
- Jorbit Vivas
- Jake Pilarski
- Jake Gelof
- Thayron Liranzo
- Josue De Paula
- Wilman Diaz
- Kendall George
- Joendry Vargas
- Maddux Bruns
- Damon Keith
- Jose Ramos
- Jarod Karros
- Peyton Martin
- Rayne Doncon
There are others, too, but the younger you go, the harder they are to project.
Notice:
Bear aka/Michael Norris, is going to take some time off. He will get back to us when he can. Godspeed, Old Bear!
Discussion (27)
Disagree, not disagreeable
You can go to each traded deadline since AF took over, and here are your results. Agree or disagree, he made moves every time not always the ones fans wanted. 2015: Made the three-team trade with the Braves and Marlins that netted Arroyo, Avilan, Wood, Peraza and Johnson from the Braves, Latos and Morse from the Marlins. One major league player went the other way, Paco Rodriguez and the Cuban, Hector Olivera. The next day he traded Morse to the Pirates for a minor league outfielder. Just before September 1st he picked up Utley and Ruggiano. 2016: Bud Norris from the Braves at the end of June, no deals at the deadline. He did pick up Josh Fields, Jesse Chavez, Rich Hill and Josh Reddick at the beginning of August and then traded Ellis to the Phillies for Ruiz prior to the Sept 1 deadline. 2017: Picked up Darvish, Cingrani and Watson. Picked up Floro and Granderson before the Sept 1 cutoff. 2018: Picked up Machado, Axford and Dozier. Picked up Freese and Madson Aug 31st. 2019: maybe his worst deadline. Picked up Gyorko and Kolarek. 2020: Pandemic year did heavy lifting in February with the Betts trade and getting Graterol and Raley from the Twins. They signed Jake McGee as a free agent just prior to the start of the season in July and traded Stripling to the Jays for Kendell Williams, who is still in the farm system. 2021: Signed Pujols as a free agent in July. Traded for Scherzer and Turner. 2022: Traded Pollock for Kimbrel in April. Purchased Trayce Thompson in June, Picked up Chris Martin and Joey Gallo at the deadline. 2023: Brought in Lynn, Rosario, Kelly, Yarbrough. Hernandez at or before the deadline, signed Brasier as a free agent in May, Wong in August. Marisnick in July. So it isn’t like they haven’t tried to improve the team. You take what you believe will make you better. They knew what they were getting with each player they obtained. Lynn, Kelly Yarbrough and Hernandez all improved after they came to LA. Rosario stayed about the same.
Playoffs should go like this
#1 seed a three game series and home field advantage for all three games against the number #6 seed
#2 seed plays the number #5 seed in a 5 game series with higher seed getting three home games
#3 seed plays #4 seed in a five game series and #3 seed gets the home field advantage
Next round
It goes to a seven game series
Then final round
Goes to also a seven game series
Then world series goes to seven game series
This way then you don’t have the top two teams sitting out a week to play a game
You still can have a wildcard one game playoff game to see who gets that #5 seed and #6 seed have that game the last week of the season with the four teams playing each other and then the playoffs start that next Tuesday. So the teams like 1, 2, 3, 4, seeds go by division winners and the 4 seed the best of the next the next foie teams would be those playing teams to get the 5th and 6th seed. This way no team is waiting a week and the winner with best record only plays threw game series tahta how they should redo baseball playoffs.
Bottom line, they lost. We can sit here and analyze it all day long, blame AF, blame Roberts, blame Freddie and Mookie for being nice guys instead of assholes. It won’t change a thing.
Mark I saw your reply to me up above about cherry picking! You do it all the time but that’s fine. So who is your inside source? Fess up or shut up. Your statement doesn’t mean shit. I could say I am the Easter bunny on Easter and Santa clause on Xmas but do you think anyone would believe it? Weak shit do better
The marathon/sprint analogy is fun, but also off the mark.
Here’s an adage that seems appropriate: It’s not how you start, but how you finish.
The Dodgers’ horrible finishes these last two seasons have been painful. Is the “playoff layoff” a factor? Could be. But the Astros got through the first round. Is it a “crapshoot”? That sounds like an excuse more than a reason. The game is rife with chance, like the scorching line drive that finds a glove for a double play being so worse than a bloop that somehow falls in between three defenders. That’s baseball.
The Dodger management can only control what it can control. Over the past two seasons, I would argue that management did NOT finish the season well.
To start with 2022, I’ve written before about how the 111-win team finished the season with an abysmal bench, featuring the struggling rookie Miguel Vargas and slumping Joey Gallo. AF failed to fortify the bench by trading for Brandon Drury, who was having a career year. The Pads got him instead. They got Hader too. The Padres finished strong, and the Dodgers finished weak.
As for 2023, this team was snake-bit even before the Snakes devoured them. A lot of injuries and the Julio mess. This time, AF made a much stronger effort in the trade season to fortify the team–but it included the spectacular whiff on Eduardo Rodriguez. I’ve read that AF has since expressed some misgivings that he wasn’t more aggressive at the trade bazaar, but he shied from specifics. Does he regret not offering more to get Montgomery? (Was an Arenado-Montgomery blockbuster a possibility?) Should the Dodgers have sweetened the pot to persuade Rodriguez to come? I don’t think we’ll find out.
But perhaps AF walks away from this failure with the intention to be more aggressive.
So maybe he’ll deal from the prospect capital to fortify the rotation with Burnes or Cease or Glasnow or….
I can’t knock the Dodgers GM. The offense scored runs and had the same BA as last year. The starters who seemed adequate in the spring all blew their arms out, failed or allegedly beat their spouse and didn’t compete in the playoffs. The mistake was not having Bauer on the roster. Chalk that up to political correctness.
I don’t blame Roberts but he sure doesn’t help. This was one of his better years. The DH takes away about half of his stupid game losing moves. Around the All Star break Roberts was consistent with his lineups and putting Betts in the infield was an inspired move.
The players manager still has a team that doesn’t hustle and makes too many mental errors. Watching balls bounce off the wall for a single. Not running out a grounder. Oh. Cody didn’t mean anything by that. Running the wrong way on a home run.
His worst fault now is the pitching staff. One day it’s resting the starter for October. My favorite this year was pulling a guy pitching a no hitter after 68 pitches. Then he has to rest the bullpen so he will leave a starter to get shelled for 8 runs. Let’s not forget his coup de grace, leaving a pitcher in the last game, all hands on deck, in for 4 home runs. He is a much better manager than years ago but he won’t help the Dodgers win. They will have to overcome him.
Betts and Freeman seem to be low character, poor judgement types. Betts soiled himself kneeling for the National anthem.
Freeman hired an agent to get him the most money. If he wanted to stay in Atlanta he could have done that without an agent. Then ,instead of manning up and saying he wanted to make the most money doing his job, he started crying and making up stories about his mean agent making him leave Atlanta. I was happy not seeing him cry this year.
Speaking of the excessive days off the Division winners had to endure while the Wildcard round is decided, I read an interesting idea for attempting to stay somewhat competitive. I can’t recall where I read it, maybe the Athletic?
While I believe the wildcard teams should not be rewarded with days of, all should be eliminated and no travel days off. Travel and play the next day, just like the regular season. Also, despite Fox being pissed, I’d schedule the Wildcard series to be completed in 2 days. The second day would be a doubleheader, if necessary. The Devision Series starts the next day.
Back to the article I mention, the plan is to use to winning teams of the 4 Independent Leagues to play “real” games during the break against the 4 MLB Division winners during the break before the Division Series’. The Independent Leagues are just done and the players and organizations would likely jump at the change for the opportunity to show their wares. Invite fans, scouts, sell concessions at treat it like a real game.
Assuming the format is NOT changed this might be a better way to stay somewhat competitive during the layoff. It sounds better then playing yourself in inter squad games.
Might be worth looking into.
Mark how is it you know Friedman likes flaherty, did he tell you that or you heard him say publicly I’m not aware of because otherwise it’s not a fact, it’s a opinion or a rumor that may or not be true. I rest my case lol
I agree with Friedman in it being a whole organization failure from above him and all the way down. Even with the allotted money he was given think he could have done a better job with it. Think whoever decision it was to start clay in game one blew it and Lynn in game three only because he was best could come up with at deadline and some decisions Roberts made could have been better, could go on and on why it happened and much more than the three stars not showing up. Why is it mookie and Freddie stunk it up so bad I wonder. The five day layoff is part of it but think there’s more to it than that. None of us has the answers. Myself just hoping Friedman and his crew come up with better strategies that starts with starting pitching. I love clay but do wish he retires. For me it hurts to see him get rocked like that. And Mark in my humble opinion if Friedman was truly playing chess as opposed to checkers we wouldn’t have gotten bounced so easily last couple years.
The Diamondbacks had 23 players on their 2022 roster who were not on their 2023 roster.
Now, I am going to count the Dodgers.
Friedman and Roberts should be paying you for being their blogging defense attorney. We all deal with losing differently Im learning
Because what they state are not facts? I gues I am partial to fact, not fiction.
Myself I was wondering if player churn is a issue. After some thought see it as modern baseball and every team has it. You sure have a way of twisting comments around mark and I hate to tell ya your opinion doesn’t make it fact same as the rest of us. I personally think Friedman has been has been playing a lot of checkers lately but that’s just my opinion and it’s perfectly ok if all don’t agree
If we have learned anything from Friedman is that he does not limit himself to free agency. In fact, his biggest acquisitions have come via trade. Based on precedence alone, I would venture to say that a trade for a front-line type pitcher is forthcoming.
… and Player Churn? Look at every team. It’s a fact of life. The Rangers are almost a new team as are the D-Backs. Come on, man! Think!
I am going to suggest that no pitchers on the market this year can consistently give the Dodgers 6-7 innings. Not Snell and not Montgomery. The ones who can are rare.
Cole can, but Verlander, Scherzer, and Evoladi can’t. Bobby Miller might be a pitcher like Cole. We shall see. Sheehan has an opportunity, as does Pepiot.
Friedman buys undervalued players because he is not an idiot!
Many, if not most, of the big Free Agent Signings, like Carlos Rodon (whom most of you begged for), and others are even worse signings. Most of you are playing checkers (without all your marbles), while AF is playing chess.
Managers and head coaches are important; however, they are only as good as the talent on the field. You can be the best motivator, hitting or pitching instructor but if the player pool is limited in talent, there is only so much that a manager or coach can accomplish.
Obviously, you want a capable manager leading/steering the team, but it is unreasonable to expect the coaching staff to extract production from players with nonexistent or diminishing (aging) skillsets. To blame Roberts and the coaching staff for Kershaw’s, Lynn’s and the rookie poor performances in the playoffs seems counterintuitive.
The LAD lacked the pitching and that is the primary reason why they got bounced by the DBacks. The fact AZ beat the Phils, who had some of the best starters in the NL, should tell you all you need to know regarding the type of pitching that is needed to take down that talented AZ team. We simply had no chance at beating them without starting pitching equal or better than the Phillies.
Unless a new manager can give us 6-7 innings of shutout baseball in the playoffs, I don’t see how firing Roberts fixes our pitching woes. The ebb and flow of the game dictates that offenses are going to hit their rough spots, but the two factors that teams cannot afford to struggle with in the playoffs is pitching and defense.
Interesting stuff. Never really thought about player churn and how much that could affect a team. We do have a completely different lineup every year. I’m on the side that managers, head coaches make a big difference and that players feed off their leadership at the same time even the very best of them can’t take a team with little talent very far so come on Friedman get doc the most quality to elite starters can get your hands on in offseason and at deadline knowing for certain some won’t make it from the beginning of year thru playoffs
I think the Dodger medical staff needs to be looked at. Now we find Peralta was hurt. Does that explain his last 2-3 months of struggles. What about our starting pitchers. Way too many injuries.
I do not like the Dodger platoon system. I just think your starters should be out there every day. Have one good utility infielder like Kike and a good 4th outfielder who can play all 3 outfield position. Give your starters one day off each week. You need to put your best players out there every day.
From a game plan perspective, the one professional sport that requires the least amount of in-game strategy is baseball. Most of the prep work occurs prior to games; i.e. scouting pitchers, hitters and the analyzing of the subsequent data. With most of the data being crunched by statisticians, dissected and developed into in game strategy by front offices, the role of a manager has never more irrelevant than it is today; hence, limiting the role to execution of pre-established game plans and the managing of egos. While I do not want to undermine the importance of having a good leader in the clubhouse, in terms of Xs and Os, a manager’s impact in the overall performance of the team has effectively diminished. I see that as a good thing!
In my opinion, a manager should be replaced when the individual: a) is unable to manage players and b) unable to execute pre-established in-game strategies. If you feel a manager needs to be fired due to the strategy itself, your problem should be with the front office, not the manager who is simply the executioner of said game plan. Personally, I feel the LAD front office needs to tweak their strategy to find success in the playoffs.
The LAD clearly lack front line pitching. When Lynn and Kershaw are your only two experienced starters, no one should be surprised about the outcome. As others have alluded, the unexpected loss of May and Urias during the season were too great to overcome. This offseason the LAD have to find at minimum another front line starter to go along with Buehler, assuming Walker “Striker” Buehler returns to his old form. In the playoffs, pitching supersedes hitting. No pitching will always lead to an early exit.
While some are hoping that the firing of Roberts and a potential Ohtani acquisition will resolve our playoff woes. Must I remind you what has been behind the Angels inability to make the playoffs despite having the two best players in the game on their roster. The main cuprit is lack of frontline pitching!
A really good manager certainly can make a difference. Those Kobe/Shaq teams didn’t win anything until Phil got to LA. And certainly sometimes it’s a match between manager and players. But you have to notice that certain guys are successful wherever they go.
And you do have to ask the question – why is it that the Dodgers win the Division 10 years in the last 11 (and 106 games in the year that they didn’t) and somehow have 1 Series victory to show for it? If it’s all a “crapshoot”, then random chance says that they should have won more than that. But it’s not just a crapshoot – talent matters too, and you can’t deny that the Dodgers have had more talent in the past decade than most teams.
So why don’t they win more than they do?
And since every team that makes the post-season has the same challenge (to win 11 games), why is it that some teams are more successful in negotiating this than others? Is it the way the team is managed? The way they prepare for the post-season? Do they have players who “choke”? Are they constructed for the marathon and not the sprint?
Billy Beane famously said in 2002 after his As were bounced out of the post-season “My shit doesn’t work in the playoffs. My job is to get us to the playoffs. What happens after that is F—- luck.” But that wasn’t true. There have been some theories about that. Here are some:
“While the A’s can creatively assemble winning teams in the regular season — taking advantage of scrap heap castoffs and plateauing players to hide their weaknesses against unfavorable matchups — the playoffs blunt those edges.” [Jon Terbush, The Week]
“In the postseason, however, Beane’s A’s cannot feast on the bottom dwellers of the league. It becomes more difficult, from a Darwinian perspective, to take advantage of others’ weaknesses when facing only the top teams and the top players. In the playoffs, teams shorten their bullpens and use only their best starting pitchers — pitchers who typically don’t walk a lot of hitters, thus minimizing the advantage the A’s gain from their emphasis on patience at the plate. [Elysian Fields Quarterly]”
In an article in 538 evaluating Billy Beane’s legacy in 2020, one of the biggest problems the underperforming post-season A’s suffered was roster churn. Here’s what they said:
“For all players who departed a franchise, average length of tenure with the club and age in season of departure, weighted by wins above replacement (WAR) with the club, 1998-2020.”
In fact, the A’s were 6th in position player churn and 1st in pitcher churn in that 23 year period. The Dodgers were 4th in position player churn and 7th in pitcher churn, and I expect that Kershaw’s 16 year tenure and WAR is a big reason that they didn’t rate higher.
It makes you wonder if the Dodgers’ constant roster churn has something to do with their impotence in the post-season.
Finally, a thought about the role of chance. Baseball writer Ben Lindbergh put it this way: “Plus, a poker game may be a closer comp than a coin flip; the role of chance is important, but there is some skill involved.”
Or put another way, why have Dodgers teams that have won over 100 games been bounced in the NLDS in 2019, 2022 and 2023?
OldBear
Thank you for your comments and insight regarding my post from yesterday, particularly reference Snell/Boras. After losing two chances in a row for a World Series, I don’t think politically AF can afford to not take a shot at Otani. I don’t want Chapman, so I think they have to go after Montgomery and Yamamoto. I think Kershaw is done and they need a left hander and one other SP. My concern with your answer is if you move Betts to the infield early in the season, that leaves 3 players vying for one position (Lux, Vargas, and Busch). I think they need a chance to prove themselves. If they succeed and you still want to move Betts in, you have at least increased their trade value. If they don’t succeed, you have an in-house alternative. I’d rather use the first part of the season to experiment and work out the kinks rather than obsess with winning 100 games.
As more and more info comes out, I do very question very much both Roberts lineup construction in playoffs and his/ Friedman’s roster construction for playoffs. Peralta needing surgery since Allstar break, no home runs/ sub .260 obp . He probably should not have been on postseason roster, should have been replaced at trade deadline, and most assuredly shouldn’t have been in lineup. That does go on manager.
I agree with almost everything you stated Mark, other than I think a manager can affect a playoff game much more with good or poor decisions. Also the statement Dave Roberts generally had very good teams. I would say always. Your point the other day about Dodger farm system lacking the big superstar now due to draft position opened my eyes. Pretty astute observation, that had been a gripe of mine.
right on spot david! torre vastly overrated! i call him checkbook joe!
Sure Joe Torre had all those losing years as manager of the Mets and then so-so years after that. Then suddenly he is a genius and hall of famer with those NY Yankee teams.
After watching 150+ Dodgers games during the season I check out once they are eliminated.
I wont watch a single pitch of the World Series.
Will be bittersweet for me seeing Seager hoist the trophy again in the same park we won it all…..
Looking forward to 24….