Impressions of Roenicke 2012

[xisxisxis]

And what a horrible season it was! Our worst fears come to life in the form of a division championship.

 

Association does not prove causation. Google it and learn a bit. that's the great thing about the internet - information flows. you just need to open your mind to it, not stick your head in the ground and ignore it.....

[RobertR]

I'm not about to get riled up about Roenicke over things he might do at this point.

 

So we should give him the benefit of the doubt? When last year he repeatedly met our worst expectations of being clueless. i could see that making sense last year when we didn't know where actions related to words, but we have a full season plus of our worst fears often coming true to just etch-a-sketch away what he says.

 

If Roenicke repeats what he did with Kotsay last season, he'll deserve all the criticism and more for not learning. I've heard nothing from Roenicke so far though that indicates he views Ishikawa as anything more than the 24th-25th man on the roster. RR specifically talked about Ishikawa in the context of double-switches, not in being a starter. Someone comparable to Josh Wilson. And if Roenicke uses him that way, we shouldn't have an issue.

 

If Gamel hits I think Ishikawa being on the roster is a non-issue. Ishikawa isn't going to displace Hart or Braun, and if Gamel produces it will be obvious what the choice is. There is such a thing as reading too much into spring training comments.

 

Robert

[Oxy]

And what a horrible season it was! Our worst fears come to life in the form of a division championship.

 

Association does not prove causation. Google it and learn a bit. that's the great thing about the internet - information flows. you just need to open your mind to it, not stick your head in the ground and ignore it.....

 

Sorry for the snarky response, it is not what this board is about. But are you open to the possibility that what appears like a poor in-game decision or lineup decision by the numbers and on paper might actually have a valid unscientific reason behind it that may help the ballclub win games in the future? Or do you believe that "valid unscientific reason" is an oxymoron? If so, who is the one with the closed mind and their head in the ground?

 

I did some googling and found this-

 

http://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/2012/3/28/2908044/manager-wins-above-expectancy

 

It may belong more on the statistical analysis forum, but it is good stuff.

[thebruce44]

I'm not about to get riled up about Roenicke over things he might do at this point.

 

So we should give him the benefit of the doubt? When last year he repeatedly met our worst expectations of being clueless. i could see that making sense last year when we didn't know where actions related to words, but we have a full season plus of our worst fears often coming true to just etch-a-sketch away what he says.

 

Not to mention RR has proven to be super predictable.

[topper09er]

What were the questionable decisions RR has made that were good? Starting Fielder every game? Starting Greinke every 5 games? Should he get credit for that?

 

What were the questionable decisions he made that were bad?

Batting order, Gomez in the 2 hole last season: 38 GS, 170 PA, .235/.270/.399

 

Leash on Casey McGehee: 600 PA, .223/.280/.346. Aver ML player with 600 PAs had 363 baserunners and 64 RBI, McGehee had 438 baserunners but only 67 RBI. Horrible.

 

Shaun Marcum in the playoffs: 3 starts, 0-3, 9.2 IP, 16 ER, 5/5 BB/K

 

Mark Kotsay over usage: 255 PAs, -0.1 WAR.

 

Burning out Lucroy, letting Kottaras start against lefties.

 

Never played matchups with the bullpen, EVER. Just putting a guy in for an entire inning no matter who is due up, including Kameron Loe in the auto-8th inning for half the season.

[RobertR]

What were the questionable decisions RR has made that were good? Starting Fielder every game? Starting Greinke every 5 games? Should he get credit for that?

 

What were the questionable decisions he made that were bad?

Batting order, Gomez in the 2 hole last season: 38 GS, 170 PA, .235/.270/.399

 

Leash on Casey McGehee: 600 PA, .223/.280/.346. Aver ML player with 600 PAs had 363 baserunners and 64 RBI, McGehee had 438 baserunners but only 67 RBI. Horrible.

 

Shaun Marcum in the playoffs: 3 starts, 0-3, 9.2 IP, 16 ER, 5/5 BB/K

 

Mark Kotsay over usage: 255 PAs, -0.1 WAR.

 

Burning out Lucroy, letting Kottaras start against lefties.

 

Never played matchups with the bullpen, EVER. Just putting a guy in for an entire inning no matter who is due up, including Kameron Loe in the auto-8th inning for half the season.

 

 

While I'm in total agreement on the mismanagement of Kotsay (CF? really?), McGehee, and Gomez (it was totally forseeable that he would have a bad OBP, although settling into a platoon was a good move), and the overuse of Loe, I'm willing to be lenient towards his use of Marcum in the playoffs. At least the first two games. And it's not like Narveson, the other option, pitched well in the last game.

 

And there was nothing wrong with the bullpen once the Brewers acquired KRod and Hawkins and Saito were healthy. Playing matchups is overrated when the choices are between very good righties and marginal lefties. I fully agree that Loe was misused for the first half of the season, but I'd argue the bullpen problems stemmed from a lack of talent due to injuries and other issues rather than management issues.

 

Robert

[logan82]

And there was nothing wrong with the bullpen once the Brewers acquired KRod and Hawkins and Saito were healthy.

In other words once there was an overabundance of good relief pitchers and anybody could have managed it, he did well.

 

I'm willing to be lenient towards his use of Marcum in the playoffs. At least the first two games.

I really don't have a problem with any of the playoffs starts by Marcum, not the decision to start him anyway except in hindsight.

[RobertR]

And there was nothing wrong with the bullpen once the Brewers acquired KRod and Hawkins and Saito were healthy.

In other words once there was an overabundance of good relief pitchers and anybody could have managed it, he did well.

 

Sure, but that describes most managers. You give them good relief pitchers, they'll have a good bullpen.

 

Was the problem with the Brewers bullpen in the first half last year that Roenicke didn't play matchups or that their good relievers, other than Axford, were hurt? Yeah, Loe wasn't good, but when he had good relievers, Roenicke didn't overmanage and use three pitchers when he only needed one. There's value in that too.

 

And the Brewers plan was always to have good relievers to throw into those high leverage situation, not to mix and match with mediocrity. To an extent it's counterintuitive to claim that the Brewers would have had a better bullpen last year if they just had used their worst relief pitchers more.

 

Robert

[logan82]

Yeah, Loe wasn't good, but when he had good relievers, Roenicke didn't overmanage and use three pitchers when he only needed one. There's value in that too.

Unfortunately he only used one when he should have used 2 many times. In my opinion he over managed the lineups and position players and under managed the bullpen.

[TooLiveBrew]

Sure, but that describes most managers. You give them good relief pitchers, they'll have a good bullpen.

"A manager's job is simple. For one hundred sixty-two games you try not to screw up all that smart stuff your organization did last December." -- Earl Weaver

 

And this is one of many reasons why someone needs to create cyborg Earl Weaver.

[Thurston Fluff]

In other words once there was an overabundance of good relief pitchers and anybody could have managed it, he did well.

 

Good managers don't make bad players good. I know the argument is they can put them in the right place to succeed. There is only so much putting in the right situation one can do when those situations are few and far in between. There is also that little issue of what to do when there is no perfect person for the situation. How do put a player in the right situation when there are no right players for a situation? All in all expecting managers to wave a magic wand and find the perfect guy for each situation is like asking a player to get a homerun every at bat. The most you can hope for with any manager is to mitigate the damage caused by bad players. To me Loe was a good example of that. He was overused when his options were limited then not used as much when the options got better.

[RobertR]

Yeah, Loe wasn't good, but when he had good relievers, Roenicke didn't overmanage and use three pitchers when he only needed one. There's value in that too.

Unfortunately he only used one when he should have used 2 many times. In my opinion he over managed the lineups and position players and under managed the bullpen.

 

And there are plenty of managers that end up using 3 or 4 relievers when they only needed one. While I'm with you on the overuse and misuse of Loe for part of last year (although it must be pointed out Loe had a fine year), overall complaining about Roenicke's managing of the bullpen, when the Brewers had one of the most effective bullpens in the league, is reaching. The Brewers had a bullpen of effective relievers who could go one inning and Roenicke used those relievers effectively for one inning at a time. That's playing to the talents of the players. And to what the front office envisioned when they acquired those players.

 

Frankly, identifying what the relief pitchers are capable of and not overusing them matters a lot more than how often he plays a matchup for the sake of playing a matchup. Especially when the lefties the Brewers had available were a thoroughly mediocre to poor bunch last year.

 

Robert

[thebruce44]

Lets see how low we need to set our expectations until RR is a decent manager.

[Thurston Fluff]

Lets see how high we can set the bar to be considered good until there is no possibility that we can have a good manager. If you expect perfection you are never going to like anyone. I think it fair to say taking Greinke out after 7 and letting Veras finish were both great moves but nobody ever seems to remember the thousand good moves made. I guess when there are so many it's easier to remember the 10 bad ones.

[sveumrules]

If organizations truly valued a manager's contribution and thought they had a sizable impact on the outcome of individual games they would pay them more than back up infielders and middle relievers.

 

Outside of Maddon (who quite likely owes much of his success to the organization which employs him) I can't think of many managers I would rather have than RR just because almost all of them are exactly the same. If you watched all 162 games of any other team you would think their manager is terrible too because odds are he is making most of the same calls as RR does in the same situations.

 

Everyone was excited about Macha at first because he had the "Moneyball" background and was going to be willing to think outside the box. We all saw how that turned out, the team clearly didn't play for him.

 

As much as I disagree with RR's decisions a lot of times it does seem like the players still like him and are willing to play hard for him and this day and age of baseball I think that is all you can really ask for.

[ELCABALLO45]

I just hope everyone realizes that all managers do stuff like this.

 

Joe Maddon who a lot of people consider the best manager in baseball had probably one of the worse 4-5 hitting combination's in baseball history on opening day.

 

Batting 4th was Jeff Keppinger who was also the DH (Tony Gwynn Jr anyone?)

Batting 5th was Sean Rodriguez

 

Imagine if Gonzalez hit clean up and Gomez hit 5th what the reaction on this board would of been.

[logan82]

Frankly, identifying what the relief pitchers are capable of and not overusing them matters a lot more than how often he plays a matchup for the sake of playing a matchup. Especially when the lefties the Brewers had available were a thoroughly mediocre to poor bunch last year.

Playing matchups properly makes a reliever better. I don't think he identified what his releivers were capable of. That is the problem.

[KCBrewerfan34]

Roenicke is the best manager we've had in 20 years and most importantly he has the pulse of the players and they like him, he can help attract players (Ramirez) and help sign players. That's HUGE!!

 

GO BREW

[TooLiveBrew]

Lets see how low we need to set our expectations until RR is a decent manager.

...

Lets see how high we can set the bar to be considered good until there is no possibility that we can have a good manager.

 

Let's ruin an objective discussion of the team's manager by turning it into a party-line politics debate. If this thread is going to turn into blindly defending or blindly bashing Roenicke, then might as well lock it up now & try to start over.

[Oxy]

 

Everyone was excited about Macha at first because he had the "Moneyball" background and was going to be willing to think outside the box. We all saw how that turned out, the team clearly didn't play for him.

 

As much as I disagree with RR's decisions a lot of times it does seem like the players still like him and are willing to play hard for him and this day and age of baseball I think that is all you can really ask for.

 

Macha is an interesting case. In more ways than one, he WAS a cyborg version of Earl Weaver, and yet it obviously didn't work. The team underperformed under him. Perhaps he was just unlucky.

[TURBO]

I think it fair to say taking Greinke out after 7 and letting Veras finish were both great moves but nobody ever seems to remember the thousand good moves made.

 

That is because most of his good moves are nothing but common sense that every other manager in the league would accomplish. Hard to give credit to a guy for doing what should be done.

[3and2Fastball]

I like Ron Roenicke, mostly because the players like him and play hard for him.

[brettac1]

I hadn't been angered by RR this season until he decided to double switch Gamel out today.

[PrinceEatMeat]

Yeah, he could've just not done a double switch and only went with Estrada for one inning. Especially since it was only a 2 run game at the time, and it was only the 6th inning. I would've rather seen Estrada for the 6th, and then stronger pitchers for the last few innings to try to keep the game close.

[logan82]

or he could have gone with Loe for an inning and brought in Estrada after the lineup turned over.