Joe Orr Road Rod wrote:
I don't think a baseball manager means a damn thing.
in the big multi-/season picture, yeah, you're right. statheads will preach the pythag W/L and the deviation usually isn't too severe. however, where managers make a difference is in the playoffs. you're going to want to roll with a guy who's making good decisions 2/3 times or whatever... and to the extent that you can argue that the big aggregate picture of baseball playoffs = lots of "good" managers dumb decisions, just like "average" managers can ride a team to a world championship, true, but in the case of a winding down playoff series where outs on both sides of the ball are at a premium, having a manager who's proven deft and adroit at making proactive moves to maximize his team's chances of success = meaning a damn thing.
obviously the game of baseball is brilliant because it always manages to level itself out and in the end even the best team in the history of baseball lost something like 40-50 games, and why most "playoff teams" have only won something like 10-20 more games than they lost out of a 162 game season, indeed, the perpetual ebb-n-flow of the game is why we're such fans of it (and why roto fantasy baseball is the don of all fantasy sports.... it just rolls like that) but yeah man, the world series is at 3 games to 2 right now.... this is the kind of situation where i'd say having the best damn manager possible makes all the difference in the world.... and even tho the moves they make aren't some kind of esoteric genius that we cannot possibly understand, akin to how many cocksure brits talk down to us americans about "the beautiful game" --- nonetheless, i think having a cunning manager right now as opposed to a rah rah guy who "gets the most out of his players" is a definite advantage because when the season's down to 1 or 2 games left, every single decision is magnified by such a factor that if your #1 goal is TO WIN CHAMPIONSHIPS BECAUSE THAT IS THE ONLY REASON YOU PLAY PROFESSIONAL SPORTS </bernstein> then if you've set yourself up properly to be in a world series, it'd definitely behoove you to have a guy managing who knows the "feel" of the game better than to go with the book and bring in maness to face jonny gomes, who would have been dusted by the pitcher who got pulled.
c'est la vie.
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Curious Hair wrote:
Les Grobstein's huge hog is proof that God has a sense of humor, isn't it?