IST: Pirates vs Cubs

[Diehardfan]

Just amazing how many people think they are managers. What makes any of you think you know more than a guy who is averaging nearly 100 wins a year since he stepped foot in Chicago? These guys are MLB managers because they have huge amounts of info at their fingertips....you guys play it like it's a video game where players always do what they're supposed to do. Sorry, in real life it don't work that way. You have to play percentages which Maddon does religiously because players don't always respond to what you're asking them to do. They're human....imagine that.

For all of you who were screaming "Why is he pulling Kyle with only 86 pitches?".....here's his reasoning which BTW Hendricks himself agreed with.

https://www.nbcsports.com/chicago/cubs/joe-maddon-thinking-kyle-hendricks-pinch-hit-tommy-la-stella-brian-duensing-pittsburgh-pirates-explanation

 

[brett05]

Hyperbole.



But he hasn't. Which is sort of the inescapable point here. Baez has tremendous potential value. His actual value as a ballplayer is dramatically short of that.



Sure, you don't do that if it's the 1970's and you're building your lineup like a 1970's manager with a head full of sub-optimal baseball ideas. But it isn't. The #1 hitter gets more PAs than any other spot in the lineup; putting your best hitter #1 is not bad baseball. If you don't want to bat him #1, you bat him #2, which is the spot that gets the next most PAs in the lineup. You certainly don't bat him #3, because that spot gets fewer PAs than either the #1, #2, or #4 spots. Unless you want to give your best hitters fewer PAs, which is a "strategy" of a kind, I guess...

Yes, always good to give your power guys fewer opportunities to put numbers on the board. Joe is only correct about that about a week or two a year.
:smh:

 

[brett05]

Just amazing how many people think they are managers. What makes any of you think you know more than a guy who is averaging nearly 100 wins a year since he stepped foot in Chicago? These guys are MLB managers because they have huge amounts of info at their fingertips....you guys play it like it's a video game where players always do what they're supposed to do. Sorry, in real life it don't work that way. You have to play percentages which Maddon does religiously because players don't always respond to what you're asking them to do. They're human....imagine that.

For all of you who were screaming "Why is he pulling Kyle with only 86 pitches?".....here's his reasoning which BTW Hendricks himself agreed with.

https://www.nbcsports.com/chicago/cubs/joe-maddon-thinking-kyle-hendricks-pinch-hit-tommy-la-stella-brian-duensing-pittsburgh-pirates-explanation

From that quote we know something about Kyle...9 out of 10 it works...LOL

 

[fatbeard]

Yes, always good to give your power guys fewer opportunities to put numbers on the board. Joe is only correct about that about a week or two a year.
:smh:

The #3 hitter either bats fewer times or bats with fewer men on base than the #1, #2, or #4 hitters. You are arguing with objective data, and it's silly. Is that you, Dusty?

 

[brett05]

The #3 hitter either bats fewer times or bats with fewer men on base than the #1, #2, or #4 hitters. You are arguing with objective data, and it's silly. Is that you, Dusty?

I am not a Hall of Fame manager. The #1 hitter has less rbi chances, especially true in the National League.

 

[fatbeard]

I am not a Hall of Fame manager. The #1 hitter has less rbi chances, especially true in the National League.

Yes, and batting Bryant #1 would be a legitimate gripe, except for the fact that it's only happened twice in his 513 career games, and even then it was done for a specific temporary reason.

Bitching for the sake of bitching.

 

[brett05]

Glad you admit you are wrong.

 

[anotheridiot]

Hyperbole.



But he hasn't. Which is sort of the inescapable point here. Baez has tremendous potential value. His actual value as a ballplayer is dramatically short of that.



Sure, you don't do that if it's the 1970's and you're building your lineup like a 1970's manager with a head full of sub-optimal baseball ideas. But it isn't. The #1 hitter gets more PAs than any other spot in the lineup; putting your best hitter #1 is not bad baseball. If you don't want to bat him #1, you bat him #2, which is the spot that gets the next most PAs in the lineup. You certainly don't bat him #3, because that spot gets fewer PAs than either the #1, #2, or #4 spots. Unless you want to give your best hitters fewer PAs, which is a "strategy" of a kind, I guess...

in 2017, KB was 7th in MVP voting. The 6 above him, Stanton, Votto, Goldschmidt, Arenado, Blackmon, Rendon had 100 or more RBI's. KB had 73 moving up most of the year to the 2 hole. You lead him off all year he might get 50. That is the definition of takingMost of the Value out of the Player. BY the way, Javy is on pace to strike out as much as Joey Votto did last year.

Bring up the 1970's, fine, get out your square rule and abacus and make it seem like baseball was not played for 100 years before sybermetrics and now its impossible to win without them and managers that ignore stats are extinct. You put KB on top, you won two ball games, then, change things. Keeping players off balance is one thing if they are getting to the park and realizing where they are playing or where they are hitting. That does not happen, its a text sent the night before. No matter how great MAddon might seem as a manager, he just never will understand what players in MLB really feel since he never made it higher than A ball.

 

[brett05]

anotheridiot, I am going to waffle over to the manager's side of things. I disagree with the notion that you have to play the game at the highest level to understand aspects of the game.

 

[fatbeard]

Glad you admit you are wrong.

It's not my fault you're still bitter over your "clutch" 2016 Rangers, so please stop taking it out on me.

No matter how great MAddon might seem as a manager, he just never will understand what players in MLB really feel since he never made it higher than A ball.

Never go full Special person.

 

[TC in Mississippi]

in 2017, KB was 7th in MVP voting. The 6 above him, Stanton, Votto, Goldschmidt, Arenado, Blackmon, Rendon had 100 or more RBI's. KB had 73 moving up most of the year to the 2 hole. You lead him off all year he might get 50. That is the definition of takingMost of the Value out of the Player. BY the way, Javy is on pace to strike out as much as Joey Votto did last year.

You've left out something really important here. Bryant was tied for 3rd in WAR and should have been higher in the voting that he was. To me it should have been Votto (whose 165 wRC+ was simply incredible), Stanton, Blackmon and Bryant. RBI is a essentially a team stat and if you're using it to assign value you're dead wrong. The fact that he was behind Arenado and Goldschmidt despite being an entire win better in WAR is just absurd.

Bring up the 1970's, fine, get out your square rule and abacus and make it seem like baseball was not played for 100 years before sybermetrics and now its impossible to win without them and managers that ignore stats are extinct. You put KB on top, you won two ball games, then, change things. Keeping players off balance is one thing if they are getting to the park and realizing where they are playing or where they are hitting. That does not happen, its a text sent the night before. No matter how great MAddon might seem as a manager, he just never will understand what players in MLB really feel since he never made it higher than A ball.

Maddon experiments early in the year with a championship level team because this team could get to 90 wins if they were sleepwalking. He tries things to see where all the parts fit. By mid July the lineup will stabilize, for the most part, and the experiments will stop. He's clearly been using leadoff to get guys to hone their approach while struggling. I'm fine with that even if I don't think Javy was an ideal candidate for that approach yesterday. Frankly I would have started the year with Bryant at leadoff based on what we knew of the personnel. On the days that Zobrist doesn't leadoff it should be Bryant. On the days that he does he should bat 2nd, but I'm OK with 3rd. Oddly enough while I don't love defensive metrics they're pretty sound for infield play and Bryants WAR isn't going to be any different if he hits 25 fewer RBI.

 

[brett05]

It's not my fault you're still bitter over your "clutch" 2016 Rangers, so please stop taking it out on me.

Nothing I said about the Rangers can be shown to be wrong.

 

[brett05]

You've left out something really important here. Bryant was tied for 3rd in WAR and should have been higher in the voting that he was. To me it should have been Votto (whose 165 wRC+ was simply incredible), Stanton, Blackmon and Bryant. RBI is a essentially a team stat and if you're using it to assign value you're dead wrong. The fact that he was behind Arenado and Goldschmidt despite being an entire win better in WAR is just absurd.



Maddon experiments early in the year with a championship level team because this team could get to 90 wins if they were sleepwalking. He tries things to see where all the parts fit. By mid July the lineup will stabilize, for the most part, and the experiments will stop. He's clearly been using leadoff to get guys to hone their approach while struggling. I'm fine with that even if I don't think Javy was an ideal candidate for that approach yesterday. Frankly I would have started the year with Bryant at leadoff based on what we knew of the personnel. On the days that Zobrist doesn't leadoff it should be Bryant. On the days that he does he should bat 2nd, but I'm OK with 3rd. Oddly enough while I don't love defensive metrics they're pretty sound for infield play and Bryants WAR isn't going to be any different if he hits 25 fewer RBI.

Wasn't Bryant's WAR skewed because of the positions he played? It's the biggest gripe I have with WAR.

 

[chibears55]

anotheridiot, I am going to waffle over to the manager's side of things. I disagree with the notion that you have to play the game at the highest level to understand aspects of the game.

I agree..
Also I'm tired of hearing about how he won 300 games and 3 NLCS and WS.
Last i checked he didn't pitch an inning or hit a ball those 3 years..

He makes lineups and pitching decisions...
His pitching decisions almost cost them a WS title


This year he fussing around with his lineup more then usual and it showing it downfall with inconsistencies in the offense...

He also not getting the most out of his starters and using his bullpen more then he should...
He keeps this up, the pen will be useless once again come the postseason

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G935A using Tapatalk

 

[TC in Mississippi]

Wasn't Bryant's WAR skewed because of the positions he played? It's the biggest gripe I have with WAR.

A little, but he did play the vast majority of his games at 3B last year which is a position where I think the defensive metrics are fairly accurate. Bryant's 2016 WAR was partly due to him playing multiple positions. I don't love WAR, it should be part of an evaluation of a player not the entire thing, but it's useful as a thumbnail sketch. For instance Bryant's WAR and Votto's WAR were identical but Votto's wRC+ was 165 to Bryant's 146 and 1B is not treated kindly by the Def stat.

 

[fatbeard]

Nothing I said about the Rangers can be shown to be wrong.

Weak.

Even for you.

 

[brett05]

Weak.

Even for you.

and yet 100% true

 

[beckdawg]

Wasn't Bryant's WAR skewed because of the positions he played? It's the biggest gripe I have with WAR.

I don't see why you have this gripe. You'd certainly agree a SS is more valuable than a LF no? Like wise you'd agree C and CF are harder to find i'm sure. The point of having a positional component in WAR(least fWAR not entirely sure how bWAR works) is that you account for that added value. Take Happ for example. If he plays 2B solely he's a someone interesting offensive first 2B but there's a lot of those. The fact he can actually play CF makes him more valuable. However, he also gets dinged on his WAR because his UZR/150 is -3.3. It's a double edged sword in that regard.

 

[Diehardfan]

I agree..
Also I'm tired of hearing about how he won 300 games and 3 NLCS and WS.
Last i checked he didn't pitch an inning or hit a ball those 3 years..

He makes lineups and pitching decisions...
His pitching decisions almost cost them a WS title


This year he fussing around with his lineup more then usual and it showing it downfall with inconsistencies in the offense...

He also not getting the most out of his starters and using his bullpen more then he should...
He keeps this up, the pen will be useless once again come the postseason

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G935A using Tapatalk

It's a double edged sword....Maddon has also not walked a batter, struck out, failed to drive in runs or made any physical errors. WTF do you want? In his last 11 years as a manager, he's had exactly ONE losing season. He was hand picked by Theo and Jed and he's done pretty much what they wanted him to do. You act like he's managing "Team Perfect"...he is not. This is not a perfect team, it's a good team but there are holes he has to work around.

And PLEASE, spare everyone your burnt out bullpen crap.....these aren't 10 year olds out there. They are grown men whose only job is to play a kids game and if they can't get themselves into good enough shape to finish a season, especially when you consider how little they pitch per outing...then they are in the wrong line of work. They aren't banging heads like football and hockey players...they don't hit, run bases....all they do is throw a fucking baseball. And they're burnt out? Are you kidding me?

 

[chibears55]

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