The 5.5 Hole

A few weeks ago I wrote about my desire to find an objective way to evaluate managers. There has to be a better way than simply looking at wins and losses. I have neither the skill nor resources to work with advanced algorithms necessary for some of the managerial computer models. These simulations help rate managers just fine, but are well outside my realm of comprehension. What I'd like to do is rate a manager objectively by assigning point totals for success in specific categories and docking points for failures in other categories. The first category we'll explore is postseason wins.

Tony LaRussa is, perhaps, the best manager of his generation, maybe one of the best all-time. But I'll let every other site you read shower him with praise and thank him for 30+ years of baseball service. In this article he will simply be used as a tool in our experiment for rating managers. LaRussa has had his fair share of postseason success, so he makes a perfect example.

Tony LaRussa won 68 postseason games out of 123 postseason games managed. That equates to a postseason winning percentage of .553. For the sake of our evaluation we need the numbers expressed as ratios in order to keep our final managerial rating as a ratio expression. Doesn't a manager rating of .597 sound so much better than a rating of 1,457? Those are arbitrary numbers obviously, but I think the ratio is easier on the eyes.

Unfortunately even this statistic is skewed over the short-term. A manager with only one trip to the post season may have a record of 0-3 or 1-3 or 2-3 if knocked out in the division series. Therefore, the other evaluation categories will become increasingly important, and one may have to discredit certain stats based on a limited sample size.

Going forward, we will look at other categories to use in our manager evaluation with the eventual end goal of being able to rate any manager out there.

Anyone who has ever watched, listened to, or even heard of the game of baseball knows it's a sport driven by statistics. From Ty Cobb's hits to Cy Young's wins to Nolan Ryan's strikeouts to Babe Ruth's home runs, statistics have been as big a part of the game as the game itself. And statistics are constantly evolving. With the introduction of "sabermetrics" in the 1970's the world was introduced to the advanced metric, but the way we have evaluated the game has always been changing. So really, when walks were recognized as a stat, that was an advanced metric at the time. The same is true with saves and holds, or hit-by-pitch. The desire to find value in statistics is nothing new, but as technology grows and allows for deeper analysis, have we lost sight of the game itself?

Watching a baseball game is a wonderful thing. There is so much intensity and passion crammed into a few short moments in the game. If you blink you can miss it. A suicide squeeze or a stolen base can bring fans to their feet, but these are two big no-no's if we look at stats alone. A lot of us no longer see the player getting a jump from first and dashing madly to second. We no longer see the batter squaring around to bunt and angling his bat to poke the ball in just the right direction. Instead we see percentages and numbers churning out in the dust left behind the base stealer. We see calculations and probabilities littering the barrel of the bat during the bunt. And that's fine, but remember to enjoy the game itself.

I love advanced metrics. I am fascinated by the power of numbers in evaluating players and finding value that has previously gone undiscovered. But these stats are not the definitive answer to anything. They are an experiment in science. If Dave Roberts was guided by advanced metrics in the 2004 ALCS, he wouldn't have stole second and it's very likely the Red Sox would have been eliminated.

The point is this; baseball is a game. We are all fans. Sometimes it's fun to put down our excel spreadsheets and calculators and watch the game like we did as kids. Sometimes it's fun to let ourselves be amazed by what these athletes can do. They can hit balls farther than we'd ever dream, they can control a baseball like there's a string attached, and they can chase down balls in the outfield like a gazelle. Analyzing baseball by the numbers is wonderful, but every now and then we should evaluate a player by the way they look. Use the eye test. Don't get lost in the numbers and remember to love the game as a fan too.