Or honestly fix Davey.
From last night's post-game presser Davey trotted out the old very thoroughly debunked idea that you don't use your closer on the road in the 9th in a tie game. The idea is "well what if you need a save later?" which completely ignores the reality that you need to get to the point you need a save. YOU CAN'T SAVE A GAME YOU ALREADY LOST! The math all works out - you want to constantly put your best pitcher out there if you can. Obviously rest and match-ups all come into consideration but that's the basic truth.
There are good arguments that managers have a limited effect and it's hard to judge good vs bad when it's the roster construction that matters most in baseball. It's far less a place where a good coach can "take his'un and beat your'un and take your'un and beat his'un" That being said, if all that we can do is take a look at the record and judge on vibes, I ask : when have the vibes around this team been any good since 2019? Maybe last year they were passable?
The old school policing. The general lack of ever taking blame? Are we just waiting around to hope the mix of players hits right again, and Rizzo limits him bullpen options again, so that he can maybe get a team back to the promised land.
I know winning percentage is a bad stat to use but also "lowest winning percentage of a manager to win a World Series" has to account for something. "Every single one of those ones with better winning percentages must have just had better teams" doesn't follow, at least to me.
And if winning percentage doesn't matter why does winning a series? That's mostly the team, right? Like you have to pick a side and either say these things matter just a little and the last 5+ seasons are telling one story or these things don't matter at all and who cares who manages and in that case just fire the guy.
The way I see it the only arguments for keeping him are "who cares?" or a carefully constructed house of cards where winning the Series 6 years ago counts more today than the 5 seasons that followed because of reasons and we also have to generally ignore half of that season and various questionable strategic decisions and the fact he seemed to be given a purposely limited roster in order to quell his worst impulses and all the obvious luck it takes to win short series?
Go ahead make your arguments if they aren't these. I'd love to hear them. I was done with this guy after 2022. Nothing since has proven me wrong. Maybe you have the secret argument.
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ReplyDeleteDavey is awful and there really is no way around that. It's terrible that he's been left to manage this young team because... of 2019? What's Davey's contract? Maybe he gave them a cut rate deal
ReplyDeleteHe really needs to go. He's abysmal. And 2019 was a long time ago--and involved a lot of luck.
ReplyDeleteOwnership & Rizzo must really, really like the guy. Teams generally don't underperform for years on end without managerial turnover.
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ReplyDeleteSorry if I made you angry enough to make a new post. And "not using your best reliever late in a tie game" _IS_ a valid reason to dislike the manager, that's for sure.
ReplyDeleteI just feel like 'their record sucks, it must be the manager's fault' is poor logic. You know the roster is crap, and Dave Roberts, Ron Washington, or you name today's most-respected managers can't make chicken salad out of chicken shit.
It''ts hard to argue with the lack of Dave's success over these past 5+ years. Roster constuction is poor due to the lack of spending by ownership. Since Ted's passing Mark Lerner does not want to spend the money to make the team competitiveas he wants to sell the team and he is just waiting for the right offer. Yet Tampa Bay, Milwaukee and now the Athletics are winning with a small payroll. Really the entire coaching staff needs go, especially the the pitching and hitting coaches with the exception of Doolittle. That doesn't make the team much better because management has to spend, but such a move would be a positive development.
ReplyDeleteHarper's going by winning percentage. There was a manager who, in the first 15 years of his management career, went 894-1003, for a .471 percentage. Then in the next 6 years, he went 487-322. Did he become a better manager? His winning percentage sure says so. Alas, that's not the difference. The difference is that in after a career .471 winning percentage, he got hired to manage the 1996 Yankees.
ReplyDeleteThe argument for Davey is that he keeps the troops relatively happy when it is August and everybody is feeling beat-up and cranky. Is it true? Significant? I dunno. But the same can be said of in-game decisions.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure there's a coherent argument in favor of keeping DM, but I don't find the arguments to fire him that persuasive either.
ReplyDeleteWe went through it during the offseason, and after the team beat their projection the last two seasons, I don't think the data is one-sided enough to reject the hypothesis that DM is an average manager.
There's just so much variance in baseball, and we have so little visibility into the effect of the manager and the coaches -- all this ends up scanning to me as drafting a narrative that fits the noise.
Maybe that's part of what you meant by "who cares", but I want to make the distinction that I'm saying "almost no managers make an observable difference and DM is fine, who cares" and not "this team sucks anyway, so who cares if the manager is good."
Did the expected wins factor in Davey’s incompetence? If so, outperforming that might just be luck.
DeleteDm makes observable mistakes and seems to make his special contributions in secret, in the clubhouse. Not a great recipe for fan support. As an entertainer, he's not for me, but when pressed to prove he's worse than below average I throw my hands up. You can't fire him without expecting a few extra wins from the replacement.
ReplyDeleteI feel like the "worst win percentage after a WS" stat is more a reflection of Davey's unending job security and the indifference of the front office to making changes.
ReplyDeleteHow many managers in the current era kept their job after missing the playoffs for six straight years? Hell, what about six straight losing seasons?
Bud Black would be one, but he's been fired. I don't see the accountability from anywhere in the front office.
@Anon - I think SMS has made my point well. DM might be bad, but your idea of accountability is firing the astronaut on a rocket that blew up. The rocket blew up - you can fire the guy for "accountability", because he's ultimately the guy to blame, but the real blame goes to the guy who said the rocket was safe. But that guy's the owner, so you can't fire him. Instead, you're just firing someone to make a point. That's fine, but are you really improving anything, or just making yourself feel better by punishing someone?
ReplyDeleteThis is anderiffick (cant make the sign in as work)- A horrible analysis Harper.
ReplyDeleteThe 2019 team was a Wild Card team that, as you have pointed out in previous posts, could have become kindred to Madden's Raiders if a few things did not break their way.
2020 was a year without Strass and Rendon. ALSO the beginning of Pat Corbin is the WORST pitcher in baseball for the next four years.
2021 was a year that had potential. They were 2 out at the All-Star break. After that, Strass was not coming back, Castro was suspended and Turner got Covid.
After that the sell-off started and the WORLD SERIES team was no more.
I'm with @billyhacker. I know it's easy to Monday Morning Quarterback, but there are multiple times each week I find myself yelling at the television (or radio) BEFORE SOMETHING HAPPENS to helplessly try to convince the universe to stop Davey from making a mistake that is quite obvious to even me, a person farther away from being an MLB manager than about any other human on Earth. And more often than not, the stupid thing blows up in the Nats' faces. At some point this isn't randomness or luck, but incompetence.
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