Impressions of Roenicke so far (part 3)

[RockCoCougars]

I'm just saying that the additions didn't add 19 wins alone. If that was the case, any 100 loss team could go out and get two 'stud pitchers', (both of whom struggled a bit...mainly Greinke) and become a .500 team. Not to mention, I would think that adding 'marginal wins' to a 77 win team would be much more difficult than a 67 win team.

 

Bottom line, Macha's teams had more talent than the end results show. In particular, his 'non-Pirates' record was brutal. This year's team exceeded almost everyone's expectations with McGehee playing like crap, Greinke, Weeks, Saito and Gomez missing a month or more and Yo/Marcum book ending bad starts/finishes to the year. You have to take you hats off to that.

[Baldkin]

I'm just saying that the additions didn't add 19 wins alone. If that was the case, any 100 loss team could go out and get two 'stud pitchers', (both of whom struggled a bit...mainly Greinke) and become a .500 team. Not to mention, I would think that adding 'marginal wins' to a 77 win team would be much more difficult than a 67 win team.

 

Bottom line, Macha's teams had more talent than the end results show. In particular, his 'non-Pirates' record was brutal. This year's team exceeded almost everyone's expectations with McGehee playing like crap, Greinke, Weeks, Saito and Gomez missing a month or more and Yo/Marcum book ending bad starts/finishes to the year. You have to take you hats off to that.

Well, the Brewers went 24-6 vs the Pirates and Astros this season

combined. I honestly don't know how you can say last season's talent was

anywhere near this seasons. This year Loe was their 5th or 6th best

bullpen option, last year he was their second -- and Macha used him to

have the best season of his career. This year Wolf was their 4th starter

(and had a much better season) and last year he was their #2.

 

Their pythag record last year was 76-86, so they got one extra win. This

year, it was 90-72, so they got quite lucky in getting 6 extra wins.

 

Oh, and also, Macha pulled his non-performing vets from their jobs, like, say, putting a rookie in to close for the all time saves leader, when better (or simply alternative) options presented themselves. RRR stuck with his all season long. Heck, he even tried to stick with Wil Nieves.

[MNBrew]

Right. Two stud starters replaced all the starts of Suppan/Parra/Davis/Bush. Gallardo, Wolf, & Narveson were all in the 2010 rotation. That was my point.

Which is basically like saying "Yeah, they signed Albert Pujols, but they were the same team otherwise".

Huh? Obviously the stud starters made a difference, but my original point was that while that's a big difference, there was more to our being a better team than just that.

 

Macha on many levels was a worse manager, or at least a worse manager for the Brewers than Roenicke. "Quality of life" matters significantly. I'm not suggesting any extent to which it translated onto the field. But it still matters. Macha's clubhouse had a very negative atmosphere, at least as far as how his players felt about life under him. Roenicke understands how to deal with people a ton better. . . . "Quality of life" is something all of us in real life also value in many ways, routinely paying more for it in lots of ways. Roenicke gets that element and it shows because of how he relates to and treats his players. As a result, he has the respect of his players. He was still a rookie manager and made certain mistakes due to that lesser experience as the head guy, but he's clearly positioned himself to earn a much longer "shelf life" than Macha and that will grow even larger if in the future he's proven that he's learned from those mistakes.

[Raw Biz]

Right. Two stud starters replaced all the starts of Suppan/Parra/Davis/Bush. Gallardo, Wolf, & Narveson were all in the 2010 rotation. That was my point.

Which is basically like saying "Yeah, they signed Albert Pujols, but they were the same team otherwise".

Huh? Obviously the stud starters made a difference, but my original point was that while that's a big difference, there was more to our being a better team than just that.

 

Macha on many levels was a worse manager, or at least a worse manager for the Brewers than Roenicke. "Quality of life" matters significantly. I'm not suggesting any extent to which it translated onto the field. But it still matters. Macha's clubhouse had a very negative atmosphere, at least as far as how his players felt about life under him.

People keep bringing this up and I still say that they were unhappy because they were losing and not the other way around. If they had the team they had this year with Macha, I believe they would have been happy because that extra talent would have allowed them to win more games. Winning = happiness.

I'm not saying I liked Macha or wanted to keep him. But I also don't think Roenicke is a good manager or at least he wasn't this year and I just don't like people attributing the team's success this year to him. They won because of the talent on the field, despite a lot of the dumb decisions made by their manager.

 

[BCZF]

I like pickles

[TheCrew]

TheCrew wrote:

Not trying to say Betancourt was an all-star - but he was far from the teams biggest problems the last few weeks.

That is the kind of thinking that leads to signing a pitcher for 4 years/$42m.

Signing a pitcher for 4 years/$42 million isn't a problem. Signing Jeff Suppan is.

 

How my saying Betancourt played ok in the 2nd half and wasn't a major problem on this team has anything to do with that................. gonna have to explain that one.

[RightFieldCoder]

Suppan played OK in the second half and had a great postseason. We decided he was good.

 

Betancourt had a OK second half and a good postseason. Do we think the hot streak or his career is more indicative of future performance.

[madtowndrunkard]

There are actually people on this board who think our 2010 team had just as much talent as this team? Really? I thought this was a place for knowledgeable fans?

 

Not only did we have the 2nd worst rotation in MLB, our bullpen was a mess most of last year. How Macha's team managed to win as many games as they did is beyond me. Was Macha a good manager? He obviously had serious issues with in the locker room, but on game day he was probably the best manager the brewers have had in decades. Problem is you need to be able to get along with your co workers and employees. Otherwise the whole thing will not work for long. I don't know the facts but I got the impression that both Prince and Braun told Melvin if Macha comes back they won't be playing in Milwaukee for long.

 

Having 2 new SP's and Yo improving was huge. Not to mention we got a solid season from Wolf and Narv. ...also with very few injuries. Our bullpen was dramatically better. Our bench was dramatically better. Would Macha have won more games or gone further then Ron this year? I'd say Yes...but there is no way to know that. Long term though I think we are better off with RR. Hopefully he proves me right.

 

RR is a players coach. The players love him but he's got plenty to learn when it comes to managing a game. A good manager learns from his mistakes. Hopefully RR is a good manager. Right now I dont think you can say if he is or isn't. I thought RR was fairly average most of the year...I also thought he did a fairly poor job of managing the playoffs. You have to manage differently come playoff time. There is no excuse for allowing Marcum to put us down 4-0 before we even got to hit. Reminded me very much of Dale Sveum running Suppan out there to get shelled by the Phillies in 2008. There was no excuse to gamble on Kotsay in CF. I mean seriously? I'm wondering how RR's assistants didn't say "RON ARE YOU NUTS?" Insisting on using McGehee as a pinch hitter was a little silly imo.... that's were you go to Kotsay. McGehee was done. As for Betencourt...there was really nothing RR could do about him....he was really all we had...and he was hot at the plate in the playoffs. RR better work on fundamentals and focus. I think RR let this team lose focus and things got a little out of hand with the talking and celebrating. That's on Ron...I hope he learned from it.

 

What I would like to know is how our team lost focus in the final 2 games of the NLCS. That one baffles me. RR wasn't the only one that choked IMO.

[Ennder]

Managing the players is the #1 job of the manager, the on field stuff is really secondary to be honest. Macha was ok with the on field stuff but so bad at the player management that I doubt he ever gets a new job. Roenicke is in his first year managing so I would hope his in game stuff gets better with time, having managed through the post season once can only help as well, having his team not play the worst baseball of their season during them will help too of course.

[joepepsi]

I'm just saying that the additions didn't add 19 wins alone. If that was the case, any 100 loss team could go out and get two 'stud pitchers', (both of whom struggled a bit...mainly Greinke) and become a .500 team. Not to mention, I would think that adding 'marginal wins' to a 77 win team would be much more difficult than a 67 win team.

The 2010 pitching staff gave up 804 runs. The 2011 staff, 638. That's a difference of 166 runs! If you follow the guideline that 10 runs=1win, then the difference in runs from 2010 to 2011 is equal to 16.6 wins. So, yeah, I'd say the addition of Greinke and Marcum + improved bullpen + slightly better seasons by Yo, Wolf, and Narveson, do account for the additional 19 wins.

[SconnieKid]

That's a difference of 166 runs! If you follow the guideline that 10 runs=1win, then the difference in runs from 2010 to 2011 is equal to 10.6 wins.

You might want to look into that remedial math class...

 

I think the runs/win can differ year to year. I think Fangraphs had it at ~9.4 this year. So that is really 17.5 wins, or about 90% of the difference in those teams.

 

[RockCoCougars]

There are actually people on this board who think our 2010 team had just as much talent as this team? Really? I thought this was a place for knowledgeable fans?

 

Not me. They were definitely a mid 80 game-ish winning team though.

 

He obviously had serious issues with in the locker room, but on game day he was probably the best manager the brewers have had in decades.

 

If by decades, we are talking 20 years, I beg to differ. I'd take Garner in a heartbeat, Trebelhorn too. Yost is a tougher call, but I'd give him the edge as well. The only full time manager 'worse' than Macha in the last 20 years in my view was Lopes. Macha reminded me a lot of Buck Rodgers, in that the players hated him, and a lot of people forget that the pitching on the '81 and '82 Brewers was pretty awful as well.

[fondybrewfan]

Its pretty simple. Every current manager of every current MLB team is the worst manager ever (Unless you win the WS). It just isn't as simple as just looking at stats to run a baseball team and I don't pretend to know all the nuinances of the job. Thats why I tend to give managers the benefit of the doubt in most cases. When a manager has good players he tends to win games; when he has bad players he tends to lose games. Obviously different managers have different styles but I don't think MLB managers have a monstrous effect on the outcome over the course of a season; it all comes down to the players/health/schedule/etc. INdividual games maybe the influence is a little higher; I am just not convinced that a different manager would have somehow gotten the Brewers 3 more wins over the course of the year or would have prevented the collapse in the NLCS. No matter who the manager is, fans are going to have issues with them because it is virtually impossible to manage a baseball team how a fan wants it managed.

 

On the other hand, I believe NFL coaches have by far a bigger role in there team's success/failure.

[SconnieKid]

Managers in baseball have very little influence in win totals. They can't add more than a few wins over the course of a season. They can, however, have a negative impact.

[1992casey]

Managers can certainly have a huge negative impact by being really truly incredibly bizarre. Nobody's going to fit that description, though.

 

Back when Yost was managing, some of our statheads said a swing of five or six games was huge and that Ned was reaching the negative six win level when he was fired in 2008.

[JohnBriggs12]

Managers in baseball have very little influence in win totals. They can't add more than a few wins over the course of a season. They can, however, have a negative impact.

Just the term "manager" as opposed to coach implies less control of what goes on. A knowledgeable baseball fan could "manage" a baseball game probably as well as an experienced major league manager. Much of the manager's job is like that of a manager in any business. It's setting an atmosphere conducive to getting the most out of those working for you.

[Thurston Fluff]

Their pythag record last year was 76-86, so they got one extra win. This year, it was 90-72, so they got quite lucky in getting 6 extra wins.

 

So you used pythag to show Macha was one win above his projections thus was not a bad manager but Ron's six wins above is luck? The arguments against Ron are always based on numbers. If you manage by the numbers you will end up with those numbers. Macha did and he was pretty darn close to his projections. Ron didn't and he got well above the projection relative to what Macha did. To call that luck seems a bit disingenuous. I'm sorry it doesn't fit your preconceived notions of what makes a successful manager but it's kind of obvious it doesn't. Couldn't it possibly be some trait Ron had that Macha didn't that helped the team exceed their cumulative ability to a greater degree than Macha did?

[joepepsi]

That's a difference of 166 runs! If you follow the guideline that 10 runs=1win, then the difference in runs from 2010 to 2011 is equal to 10.6 wins.

You might want to look into that remedial math class...

 

I think the runs/win can differ year to year. I think Fangraphs had it at ~9.4 this year. So that is really 17.5 wins, or about 90% of the difference in those teams.

Oops. typo on my part. Fixed it. Thanks for making the argument stronger!

[SconnieKid]

Thats a lot to put on pythag. All that really does is take run differential and spit out a win EV. Which is pretty dumb. It gives runs in 16 run games the same weight as runs in 0-0 games. There are better models out there for EV Wins.

[Thurston Fluff]

Thats a lot to put on pythag. All that really does is take run differential and spit out a win EV. Which is pretty dumb. It gives runs in 16 run games the same weight as runs in 0-0 games. There are better models out there for EV Wins.

 

I used the one supplied by another in support of his argument. Feel free to use anyone you want that shows Ron was below expectations while Macha above them.

[1992casey]

Pythag and similar formulas can be helpful, but none of them can be used as an end-all argument to demonstrate the positive or negative effect of the manager. They're fine as starting points and pieces of the puzzle, but one needs to look for additional information before drawing any conclusions.

[TooLiveBrew]

Managers can certainly have a huge negative impact by being really truly incredibly bizarre. Nobody's going to fit that description, though.

 

Back when Yost was managing, some of our statheads said a swing of five or six games was huge and that Ned was reaching the negative six win level when he was fired in 2008.

Those were dark times. I shuddered in remembrance.

[TheCrew]

Suppan played OK in the second half and had a great postseason. We decided he was good.

 

Betancourt had a OK second half and a good postseason. Do we think the hot streak or his career is more indicative of future performance.

and where I said we should pick up his option or sign him to an extension?

[Baldkin]

Their pythag record last year was 76-86, so they got one extra win. This year, it was 90-72, so they got quite lucky in getting 6 extra wins.

 

So you used pythag to show Macha was one win above his projections thus was not a bad manager but Ron's six wins above is luck? The arguments against Ron are always based on numbers. If you manage by the numbers you will end up with those numbers. Macha did and he was pretty darn close to his projections. Ron didn't and he got well above the projection relative to what Macha did. To call that luck seems a bit disingenuous. I'm sorry it doesn't fit your preconceived notions of what makes a successful manager but it's kind of obvious it doesn't. Couldn't it possibly be some trait Ron had that Macha didn't that helped the team exceed their cumulative ability to a greater degree than Macha did?

Good job of cherry picking one sentence and ignoring the larger point I was making. They got lucky this year, if you really believe that is some sort of "Magical Skill" RRR has, I expect it to be duplicated for as long as he is a manager. Also, 2nd, and 3rd order winning percentages show the team overperformed by a solid 4 wins.

[danzig6767]

Their pythag record last year was 76-86, so they got one extra win. This year, it was 90-72, so they got quite lucky in getting 6 extra wins.

 

So you used pythag to show Macha was one win above his projections thus was not a bad manager but Ron's six wins above is luck? The arguments against Ron are always based on numbers. If you manage by the numbers you will end up with those numbers. Macha did and he was pretty darn close to his projections. Ron didn't and he got well above the projection relative to what Macha did. To call that luck seems a bit disingenuous. I'm sorry it doesn't fit your preconceived notions of what makes a successful manager but it's kind of obvious it doesn't. Couldn't it possibly be some trait Ron had that Macha didn't that helped the team exceed their cumulative ability to a greater degree than Macha did?

Good job of cherry picking one sentence and ignoring the larger point I was making. They got lucky this year, if you really believe that is some sort of "Magical Skill" RRR has, I expect it to be duplicated for as long as he is a manager. Also, 2nd, and 3rd order winning percentages show the team overperformed by a solid 4 wins.

We had a great back end of the pen and thus won lots of close 1-2 run games, probably higher than the norm.