The Book Blog: Scouting Report on Managers?

[TooLiveBrew]

I debated putting this in the Macha thread, but felt it could be its own topic.

 

The Book blog got an email from a reader, suggesting a Fans' Scouting Report (like they do for defense) on managers:

 

 

"Have you ever considered a fans scouting report for managers? I know that mgl consistently hammers the point that we have very little ability to statistically judge the value of a manager, but all avid fans have their own ideas on the subject, no? We make those subjective judgments all the time.

A survey could include fan ratings on all sorts of individual managerial tendencies (How good is he at recognizing talent? How good is he at constructing an optimal lineup? How wisely does he employ the bunt, ace reliever, pinch hitter, platoon advantage? …). Hell, you could even ask how many wins a manager was worth relative to an "average" manager, or even an "optimal" manager during a given season. We may not trust the results, but it would at least be interesting (and, imo, better than the void we have now).

I am of the opinion that the wisdom of crowds is useful in addressing not only the questions for which we have a decent baseline for comparison (How good is a player defensively? Who will be the next president?), but also those for which we have almost no "authoritative" information (What will happen to unemployment in the next year? How will the Earth's temperature change in the next 10 years?). Moreover, answers for the latter type will by definition be more unbiased, if not more correct."

 

I, for one, think this is a really good idea. As the reader says, even if the results are off the first go-round, it's better than what we have now (which is basically nothing). When I saw the email that Tangotiger posted, my initial reaction was to get a bit excited. The Fans' Scouting Reports imo are quite good on defense, and I would imagine the same fans would be able to relatively accurately depict their teams' managers. This would be an incredibly valuable resource imo if the survey could be structured correctly, which is something both Tangotiger & mgl address in the first two response comments.

[TooLiveBrew]

Tangotiger:

 

Bill James wrote a pretty good book on managers. I think we should be able to come up with good questions, based on his book and whatever else comes to our minds, on the kind of questions that we'd like to have answered. And then, either using the data to quantify it, or ask readers about it via polls.

For example, does the manager prefer playing youngsters or veterans? How long does he stick with one, if he has a viable option in the other? (e.g., Torre: Pierre/Ethier,Kemp).

So, feel free to post whatever your thoughts are here. I don't know that I will do anything with this, but at the very least, we can brainstorm something, and somebody out there can surely do something with it.

 

 

Lichtman (mgl):

Since I would hate for managers to be "docked" for bunting too often and credited for rarely bunting, the question I would ask regarding sac bunting, is something like:

Is the manager unpredictable with regard to sac bunting? In other words, does he really keep the defense guessing in potential bunt situations (given the score, inning, and batter at the plate), or does the defense pretty much know what the batter is going to do in any one of those situations? Along the same lines, will he sometimes/never/often change from a bunt to swinging away, or vice-versa, in the same AB? Does he sometimes/often have an obviously poor bunter still sacrifice? Does he sometimes let his better hitting pitchers swing away in bunt situations, especially with 1 out, or are they virtually always bunting? All told, if the optimal strategy in a potential bunt situation is to almost never bunt with a slow runner and/or poor bunter at the plate, and to "mix it up" seemingly randomly with a fast runner/good bunter at the plate, both within the PA and from PA to PA, as well as to have your better hitting pitchers sometimes swing away especially with 1 out, how does your manager rate?

Or you can just keep it somewhat objective, or at least subjective in as many categories as possible, as you do with the fielder scouting reports, and ask fans to rate those things individually, such as:

1) Is he good at "mixing it up" to keep the defense guessing?

2) Does he sometimes bunt poor bunters because he is just "determined" to sac bunt?

3) Does he take into consideration the speed of the batter?

4) Does he take into consideration the handedness of the batter with a runner on second?

5) Does he sometimes let his better-hitting pitchers swing away, again, to the surprise of the defense?

6) Does he like to sac bunt early (not that that is necessarily a bad thing) or only late in a close game?

The problem with some or even all of these things is that we are asking the fans to subjectively rate something that should be objectively evaluated. For example, we can look ALL of these things up in the record.

So I am not sure things like the sac bunt or IBB or really any other "strategies" lend themselves to "fan scouting" unless we are just too lazy to look them up ourselves.

[Phenomenal Smith]

A 15 inning game can be played in less time than it takes to go through mgl's analysis of bunting.

[TooLiveBrew]

Well the whole point of this type of survey would be to craft it so it's thorough & doesn't leave out relevant factors for the sake of taking less time to read/do. If you like not thinking much about managerial strategy, that's fine -- stick with the old ways of analyzing managers. I think it's exciting that there are some really smart baseball analysts looking into this seriously.

[DougJones43]

I would relish the opportunity to fill out a scouting report like that on Ned Yost.

[twobrewers]

It might be an interesting read - nay, it would be an interesting read - but the fan's perspective is tied to wins and losses.

 

Winning managers would always rate higher than losing managers. While in fact, a poor manager might cause a team to win 95 games (instead of 100) - while a great manager might cause a team to win 75 games (instead of 60).

[DougJones43]

but the fan's perspective is tied to wins and losses...Winning managers would always rate higher than losing managers.

I don't know. Ned's approval rating on this site was lower last season than it ever was before, and that was when the team was like 20 games over .500.

[logan82]

The thing I see right away with sac bunting is we don't know whether the manager called it or the player initiated it. We sometimes don't ever find out. We have to assume the manager is to blame by failing to tell the player not to bunt.

 

I am not sure how many people remember it from last year, but I would like to see the stats behind the manager pictures the college professor from out east did last year. The pictures were cute and all, but I prefer stats.

[TooLiveBrew]

I know you aren't asking for it to be linked, logan, but I thought it'd be cool for people to see that missed it... or for those that didn't to re-visit it.

 

"Professor Puts a Face on the Performance of Baseball Managers"

 

Graphic of Chernoff Faces

[logan82]

Yup, that's it. I would rather see the statistics than a bunch of pictures for 4 year olds.

[TooLiveBrew]

One thing that you can see pretty easily even without the raw data is just how similar most MLB managers are.