2019 Misc MLB News

[Baldkin]

How did Yost deal with La Russa's BS?

 

Didn't Yost bean a guy in like a one or two run game? I seem to recall something like that happening.

 

Edit: I think it was this game:

https://www.espn.com/mlb/news/story?id=3039761

 

With the Brewers trailing 3-2 in the eighth, McClung threw the

ball behind Pujols, clipping the Cardinals slugger on the right

elbow. St. Louis went on to score four runs in the inning and won

the game 7-3.

 

This was a September game in the middle of a pennant race mind you. Fireable offense, IMO.

 

Yes. He also once had Brian Shouse walk Ryan Howard to face Pat Burrell.

 

https://www.baseballprospectus.com/news/article/8077/prospectus-today-justice-in-milwaukee/

 

Think about this for a second. Yost had a 481 OPS pitcher facing a 697 OPS hitter. He elected to issue an intentional walk in that situation to allow an 817 OPS pitcher to face a 905 OPS hitter with an additional runner on base. That’s when you start looking around the roof of the stadium for snipers, because gunpoint is the only place where that kind of decision makes sense.

[Jopal78]

 

Hands down, our worst manager in recent history was Ken Macha. He lost his teams almost immediately, and his teams were huge underperformers. Yost did great at his job, which was to stand by the kids, let them play, and hold them accountable by teaching the game the right way. He was a great manager for a team with young, talented players just breaking into MLB. For a contending team with different aspirations, he may not have been good. But he was the first manager since Scrap Iron that I personally liked and wanted to see find success.

 

Here are Ken Macha's starting pitchers:

 

2009:

Looper

Gallardo

Suppan

Parra

Bush

 

2010:

Wolf

Gallardo

Bush

Narveson

Parra

 

But yeah, they totally underperformed playing nearly .500 ball for two seasons.

 

In 2010 Macha had SIX hitters with an OPS over .800 and a top of the rotation starter and the Cubs and Pirates combined to lose 192 games. Macha’s club still lost 85 games that year and he never got another sniff as a manager.

 

All I am saying is to manage 16 years in the major leagues you must be doing something right especially if you wanna couple pennants and a title

[homer]

I don't have time to look it up but the 2010 bullpen was horrific. That was the year Hoffman broke down. And who is this top of the rotation starter you speak of? Gallardo? He wasn't top ten in the NL in any meaningful stat.

 

Ned Yost stuck around because the Royals were loyal to a guy who sat there drinking 16 cups of coffee and watched a really good team win him a title (see also McCarthy Mike - not the coffee part, but the loyalty to a guy who won a title part). I mean if people want to give Yost credit for that go ahead but there are countless examples during his tenure where he got in the way of a victory with his ego and decision making.

[Outlander]

Former Brewers draft pick and farmhand Johnny Davis has finally made the majors. His contract was selected by Tampa Bay from AA. Amazing, considering he was playing in the Mexican League until August 29th.

 

https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2019/09/rays-select-johnny-davis.html

Not sure if anybody else noticed but Davis scored the winning run in a 5-4 walk off against the Red Sox Friday and was on base when a walk off home run was hit the following day to win 5-4 again. Great story for him.

[Jopal78]

I don't have time to look it up but the 2010 bullpen was horrific. That was the year Hoffman broke down. And who is this top of the rotation starter you speak of? Gallardo? He wasn't top ten in the NL in any meaningful stat.

 

Ned Yost stuck around because the Royals were loyal to a guy who sat there drinking 16 cups of coffee and watched a really good team win him a title (see also McCarthy Mike - not the coffee part, but the loyalty to a guy who won a title part). I mean if people want to give Yost credit for that go ahead but there are countless examples during his tenure where he got in the way of a victory with his ego and decision making.

 

Got it, you don’t like guy. Winning in baseball is hard to do, if you believe a manager hangs around for 16 years just due to loyalty, while actively hindering a team’s chances to win, you must think baseball front office executives are really stupid, or perhaps your dislike of Yost is coloring your judgment

[Ennder]

Macha was crotchety but I feel like he at least knew how to handle a bullpen.

 

Macha's in game managing was fine but he didn't seem to do a very good job off the field as the players just never seemed to warm up to him and he was horrible at handling the media. The job has a lot of requirements.

[stoutdude04]

I don't have time to look it up but the 2010 bullpen was horrific. That was the year Hoffman broke down. And who is this top of the rotation starter you speak of? Gallardo? He wasn't top ten in the NL in any meaningful stat.

 

Ned Yost stuck around because the Royals were loyal to a guy who sat there drinking 16 cups of coffee and watched a really good team win him a title (see also McCarthy Mike - not the coffee part, but the loyalty to a guy who won a title part). I mean if people want to give Yost credit for that go ahead but there are countless examples during his tenure where he got in the way of a victory with his ego and decision making.

 

Got it, you don’t like guy. Winning in baseball is hard to do, if you believe a manager hangs around for 16 years just due to loyalty, while actively hindering a team’s chances to win, you must think baseball front office executives are really stupid, or perhaps your dislike of Yost is coloring your judgment

 

I think this could very well be true.

 

Edit: I don't really mind Yost, but I really don't think he was a very good manager for a contending team. Didn't he bat Escobar lead off all year even though he had like, the worst batting line in the majors that year? I may be thinking of someone else.

[Zad Fnark]

How did Yost deal with La Russa's BS?

 

I just figured a fistfight between Yost and La Russa would have been fun to watch.

[homer]

I don't have time to look it up but the 2010 bullpen was horrific. That was the year Hoffman broke down. And who is this top of the rotation starter you speak of? Gallardo? He wasn't top ten in the NL in any meaningful stat.

 

Ned Yost stuck around because the Royals were loyal to a guy who sat there drinking 16 cups of coffee and watched a really good team win him a title (see also McCarthy Mike - not the coffee part, but the loyalty to a guy who won a title part). I mean if people want to give Yost credit for that go ahead but there are countless examples during his tenure where he got in the way of a victory with his ego and decision making.

 

Got it, you don’t like guy. Winning in baseball is hard to do, if you believe a manager hangs around for 16 years just due to loyalty, while actively hindering a team’s chances to win, you must think baseball front office executives are really stupid, or perhaps your dislike of Yost is coloring your judgment

 

 

I don't dislike him. He seems like a nice guy. I don't think he's a good in-game manager and have provided examples demonstrating that.

[stalton]

It's been touched on before, but the Cubs not only have the 3rd worst NL away record, but the 2nd best home record. Talk about splits. Far and away the worst split in the MLB. The team with the biggest reverse split? The Giants, who have actually have a winning record away from San Francisco.

[DuWayne Steurer]

I don't have time to look it up but the 2010 bullpen was horrific. That was the year Hoffman broke down. And who is this top of the rotation starter you speak of? Gallardo? He wasn't top ten in the NL in any meaningful stat.

 

Ned Yost stuck around because the Royals were loyal to a guy who sat there drinking 16 cups of coffee and watched a really good team win him a title (see also McCarthy Mike - not the coffee part, but the loyalty to a guy who won a title part). I mean if people want to give Yost credit for that go ahead but there are countless examples during his tenure where he got in the way of a victory with his ego and decision making.

 

Got it, you don’t like guy. Winning in baseball is hard to do, if you believe a manager hangs around for 16 years just due to loyalty, while actively hindering a team’s chances to win, you must think baseball front office executives are really stupid, or perhaps your dislike of Yost is coloring your judgment

 

As much as I argue that teams are generally smarter than fans, someone hired Dave Stewart to run their team

[DuWayne Steurer]

I don't have time to look it up but the 2010 bullpen was horrific. That was the year Hoffman broke down. And who is this top of the rotation starter you speak of? Gallardo? He wasn't top ten in the NL in any meaningful stat.

 

Ned Yost stuck around because the Royals were loyal to a guy who sat there drinking 16 cups of coffee and watched a really good team win him a title (see also McCarthy Mike - not the coffee part, but the loyalty to a guy who won a title part). I mean if people want to give Yost credit for that go ahead but there are countless examples during his tenure where he got in the way of a victory with his ego and decision making.

 

Got it, you don’t like guy. Winning in baseball is hard to do, if you believe a manager hangs around for 16 years just due to loyalty, while actively hindering a team’s chances to win, you must think baseball front office executives are really stupid, or perhaps your dislike of Yost is coloring your judgment

 

As much as I argue that teams are generally smarter than fans, someone hired Dave Stewart to run their team

[homer]

justin

@jayhaykid

Quite a last week+ for the Cubs...

 

playoff odds:

 

Sept. 16: 76.7%

Sept. 17: 63.6%

Sept. 18: 58.2%

Sept. 19: 41.0%

Sept. 20: 21.4%

Sept. 21: 9.4%

Sept. 22: 2.6%

Sept. 23: 2.1%

Sept. 24: 0.0%

[PeaveyFury]

That's nuts.

[Steve Manfred]

It's almost as if these playoff odd percentages aren't actually useful predictive descriptors of what's going to happen.

[sveumrules]

It's almost as if these playoff odd percentages aren't actually useful predictive descriptors of what's going to happen.

 

This FanGraphs article took a pretty in depth look at the Cards four game sweep of the Cubs...

 

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/the-cardinals-lay-waste-to-the-cubs-2019-season/

 

Key takeaway...

 

If you think a team dropping more than 50 percentage points in four games calls the playoff odds into question, consider that the Cubs odds of getting swept were 3.4%. The Brewers odds of winning four straight games at the same time was 12.5%. The odds of both happening at the same time are 0.4%, around one in 240. That’s what it took for the Cubs to enter the series with 58% playoff odds and leave it under 3%.

[homer]

It's almost as if these playoff odd percentages aren't actually useful predictive descriptors of what's going to happen.

 

Even a 76% chance of something happening mean's there's a 1 in 4 chance that it doesn't happen.

[tmwiese55]

Go back and look at the percents on say NYY, LAD, MN, ATL, etc. and they all held up. People take these things too seriously, it's just another bit of data trying to give a best guess on the chances of something happening. Not necessarily making a prediction on if it will.

[Ron Robinsons Beard]

They are projections, not predictions. I think people often get confused by those two terms.

 

That said, I fully expect Fangraphs to project the Brewers to finish behind the Cubs and Cardinals next season, and I predict that it'll piss me off.

[Fear The Chorizo]

It's almost as if these playoff odd percentages aren't actually useful predictive descriptors of what's going to happen.

 

This FanGraphs article took a pretty in depth look at the Cards four game sweep of the Cubs...

 

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/the-cardinals-lay-waste-to-the-cubs-2019-season/

 

Key takeaway...

 

If you think a team dropping more than 50 percentage points in four games calls the playoff odds into question, consider that the Cubs odds of getting swept were 3.4%. The Brewers odds of winning four straight games at the same time was 12.5%. The odds of both happening at the same time are 0.4%, around one in 240. That’s what it took for the Cubs to enter the series with 58% playoff odds and leave it under 3%.

 

Yup - pretty much indicates that percentages are reactive, particularly when you start looking at them in small sample sizes without factoring in how teams are playing at the end of a season. I've thought since early September that the Cubs looked to be on fumes and had a good chance of cratering down the stretch due to key injuries and starting pitching inconsistency aside from the roll Darvish has been on.

 

What it actually took for the Cubs to go from 58% playoff odds to basically doneso in 4 games was them losing 4 winnable games against their main competitor for the division (Cards) while the Brewers beat up on weaker competition and started that stretch only 1 game behind the Cubs in the standings...Cubs were basically losing 3 games in the standings to their postseason competitors with every loss to the Cards coupled with a Brewers win. This swing can happen frequently during the course of a season, but the playoff odds don't swing as wildly when there are still 100, 50, even 25 games left to play in a season.

 

Bottom line - when the math still gives a team a chance and there are head to head opportunities to rapidly climb or plummet the ladder in the standings at the end of the season, throw the playoff odd percentages out the window. For what Fangraphs used for 4 game sweep percentages, I'd argue the Brewers 12.5% odds of winning 4 games during that stretch was far too low based on how they were playing and who they were playing those games against...while the Cubs' odds of losing 4 home games to the Cards at 3.4% was also far too low considering the same things. I'd have put those two outcomes around 20% (Brewers win 4) and 10% (Cubs get swept over 4) - which still makes that outcome very unlikely, but much more possible than 0.4%. This time of year, I like looking at those playoff odd percentages AND the remaining schedule to see just how much control a team has of its own destiny - the Brewers had a very low chance of making even a wildcard berth just a few weeks ago, but their schedule and their competitor's remaining schedules gave them almost full control of its destiny despite a limited number of head to head matchups against teams they were chasing. Because of that, their playoff odds were reactive directly to their performance much more than projective. Cubs had the same situation, just to the opposite effect (almost a lock to done in the blink of a couple weeks).

[OldSchoolSnapper]

I still think those projections have serious flaws. The Brewers were at 5% at the division yesterday. If they beat the fading Reds twice after one STL loss they are one back with 3 left, against the Rockies while STL plays its most intense rival. I just have a hard time believing that was ever a 1/20 probability, it doesn't sounds that crazy.

[DuWayne Steurer]

A team wins 17 out of 19 games, and a bunch of people call projection systems flawed.

 

:/

 

Winning 17 of 19 is exactly why the percentage of something happening wasn't 0%, which is why it is a projection, not a prediction.

 

Let's run this back a hundred times and see how many times the Brewers win 17 out of 19, coupled with the Cubs dropping eight in a row.

[True Blue Brew Crew]

A team wins 17 out of 19 games, and a bunch of people call projection systems flawed.

 

:/

 

Winning 17 of 19 is exactly why the percentage of something happening wasn't 0%, which is why it is a projection, not a prediction.

 

Let's run this back a hundred times and see how many times the Brewers win 17 out of 19, coupled with the Cubs dropping eight in a row.

 

I don't know what to say other than "Like" or "And 1" or "Upvote". If only there was a button...

[tmwiese55]

Exactly. Think of this way in regards to a hail mary in football down 5 from the 50 yd line. Projections say the leading team is 98% to win, the hail mary hits and the game flips. That doesn't mean there was some massive flaw in the projections.

 

Or in an example that we saw. STL is up a couple runs in the top of the 9th bases loaded 2 outs and Braun has 2 strikes on him. Projections say STL is say 97% chance to win, Braun hits grand slam and it flips. Doesn't mean there is some massive flaw in the math. The longshot happened, it's part of the equation.

[Fear The Chorizo]

A team wins 17 out of 19 games, and a bunch of people call projection systems flawed.

 

:/

 

Winning 17 of 19 is exactly why the percentage of something happening wasn't 0%, which is why it is a projection, not a prediction.

 

Let's run this back a hundred times and see how many times the Brewers win 17 out of 19, coupled with the Cubs dropping eight in a row.

 

The issue IMO is the projections are used to make predictions, and when the counter argument is raised that there's a chance for a different outcome it gets poo-pooed because there's a 90% or whatever chance of that counter argument being wrong. Games are still played that swing the projections nightly, and those swings happen rapidly this time of year when multiple teams are within a handful of games in the standings. Projections for teams like the Yankees, Astros, Twins, etc making the postseason are very likely to hold up as predictive because they all had built up massive separation between them and the teams just outside the WC2 playoff spot. Despite the Brewers playing meh as a club from June through most of August, they remained just 3 games out of a playoff spot and 6 behind the division heading into September. Teams make 3 games up in the standings over a full month all the time. Setting their playoff odds at below 10% at that point was too low considering how close they were in the standings, particularly with upcoming games against the Cubs and Cards to make up ground quickly if they played well. Even if the Cubs didn't just lose 8 straight and buried themselves, the Brewers playing this well would actually have them in a stronger playoff position because they would have the central division lead at this point given that the Cards would have a few more losses and the Cubs/Cards would have been guaranteed 3 more losses between them with the final series of the season this weekend.