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Over the past decade a collision of traditionally opposing forces – baseball coming from one side, nerds from the other – has produced a new understanding of our nation’s pastime. Sabermetrics, the study of baseball statistics, have changed the way players are valued. Moneyball, a book written about Oakland A’s general manager Billy Beane, has inspired entire organizations to rethink their executive philosophies. Nerds with computers have altered the sport, and since I consider myself a nerd with a computer, I’m perfectly qualified to make a contribution to the revolution.
Despite all the advancements in the evaluation of baseball performance, nobody has yet come up with a way to grade managers. Or at least I don’t think anyone has. I must warn you, I haven’t researched this very thoroughly.
Only subjective evaluations of a manager’s worth currently exist. Wins and losses are often accepted as valid measurements, but all Major League managers must compete with different payrolls, different talent, and different front offices. Give me the Yankees’ roster and I’ll manage the club to ninety wins. Give me the Devil Rays’ roster and I’ll get four hundred losses.
Most fans develop their opinions of a manager through a less-than-objective process that includes the team’s record, words written and spoken about the manager in the papers and on the radio, and several key gametime decisions that either worked well or backfired. Then there are all the miscellaneous and arbitrary factors that affect a fan’s judgment – personally I think Terry Francona, the Red Sox manager, looks like a turtle. That probably makes me like him less. But I’ve been told that I look like a duck so maybe I should sympathize with Terry. Whatever. Clearly, wrong managerial assessments are easy to make.
A manager’s success on a play-by-play basis is essentially a function of luck. The decision process is far too complex to be guided by statistics and trends. To show this I’ll look at one situation specifically:
It’s the eighth inning of a Red Sox game, the Sox are hitting, there are two outs, and the bases are loaded. Trot Nixon, a left-handed batter, is ready to step up to the plate. The opposing team brings in a left-handed pitcher to face Trot. Now Francona has to make a decision. Does he leave Trot, one of his best hitters, in the game, or does he pinch-hit for him with a right-hander, Jay Payton?
What’s going on in Francona’s mind? First, he’s thinking about dinner – he could get take-out Mexican food on the way home from Fenway, but he ate Mexican two nights ago. Maybe he should get Chinese. Second, he’s thinking about Trot Nixon’s career batting average against left-handed pitchers. And Jay Payton’s career average against left-handed pitchers. But perhaps he should be thinking about on-base percentage. After all, with the bases loaded, a walk scores a run. Then again, if he wants to score more than one run, slugging percentage might be the most helpful statistic.
Of course, there are still more factors that Francona has to take into account. Maybe Payton hits much better with the bases loaded. Maybe Nixon has more success with two outs. Maybe one of them has caught fire and is hitting the ball hard no matter who’s throwing it.
And there’s more: what if the opposing pitcher allows more home runs to left-handed batters but walks more right-handed batters? What if the wind is blowing out? What if David Ortiz just farted in the dugout and it’s impossible to think straight?
Francona makes his decision and then it’s up to either Nixon or Payton to make him look good. If Francona chooses Nixon and Nixon strikes out, does that mean Francona screwed up? Not necessarily. A manager’s job is often to minimize risk or maximize potential rewards, but there are no 100% certainties in baseball.
A manager must think like a champion poker player. To some extent, he knows the percentages. He knows how often pocket sevens will win him the pot. But there are zillions of other factors that go into a winning poker hand. If poker were purely a game of luck, professional players would be living under highway overpasses. If baseball were purely a game of luck, the Yankees wouldn’t be good every year.
So how do you evaluate a manager if so much of his job seems to be luck? We have to second-guess him. Almost everyone in the sports world agrees that Grady Little made the wrong decision when he allowed Pedro Martinez to stay in the game during the 2003 American League Championship Series against the Yankees. The Yankees made Pedro and Little pay and the Red Sox lost (causing a cloud to move in over New England and stay through January). Needless to say, the Sox front office fired Little.
But what if Pedro had weaseled out of the inning? Would we discuss the move by Little? Probably not. If the Sox had gone on to win the game and then the World Series, would Little still be managing the Red Sox? Probably. Is it fair to judge a manager based on one bad decision, albeit an important one? Probably not.
But I say that it IS fair to grade a manager if you take into account ALL his decisions, compiled over an entire year. Everyone knows what it’s like to watch a game and think to yourself, “Man, I wouldn’t be doing this if I were the manager.” For example, if Francona chose to bring in Ted Dansen as a closer, I would think Francona was crazy. And if Dansen pitched a hitless inning of relief, I would still think Francona was crazy. But I would have to say that Francona’s move was successful.
A manager’s decisions should be judged by their success, not by the reasoning process that led to the decision. Here’s what I’ll do for the rest of the Red Sox season: every game I watch, I’ll keep a register of Francona’s decisions. If his move pays off, he gets a smiley face. If his move doesn’t pay off, I draw a frowny face. I’ll also write down what I would have done. If Francona and I disagree, then I’ll assume that the opposite result would have occurred had Francona followed my advice. This way, by the end of the season, I’ll know if I would have been a better manager for the Boston Red Sox than Terry Francona.
Some details:
- I judge when a decision has to be made. Decisions can be made before the game. For example, if I see that Kevin Millar is in the starting lineup, I can call this a bad decision. If Millar has a good game, Francona gets a smiley face and I get a frowny face. If Millar has a bad game, Francona and I switch faces.
- Letting Edgar Renteria bat in the bottom of the first inning with one out does not qualify as a decision. Sometimes the manager just has to let his players play, and I won’t penalize or reward Francona for those moments.
- Is it fair to assume the opposite result would have occurred had Francona acted differently? Of course not. But the long season will take care of the inherent unfairness. For example, both Nixon or Payton will have a better chance at failure than success. So just assigning Francona a “positive” or “negative” grade doesn’t accurately gauge his decision. He’s more likely to get a frowny face than a smiley face. But when he makes a pitching decision or tells a runner to steal a base, the odds are in his favor. By the end of the season, neither he nor I will have an advantage.
- My theory will not actually say whether or not Francona is a good manager. It will only tell us whether or not he made better decisions than I did. In order to weigh his worth against other Major League managers, his colleagues would have to be placed under the same scrutiny. Furthermore, smaller decisions that Francona makes such as a fielder’s position will be hard to grade. This isn’t an exact science, but I think it’s the best science that’s out there right now.
Finally, my theory needs a name. I’ll call it the Adam White Managerial Assessment Thory just so that Peter Gammons will have to say my name when he talks about it on Baseball Tonight.
And just in case any general managers out there are looking for an assistant: Yes, I’m available.
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