Petition

[TyCobb]

You're so freaking ignorant. Your job is to get the BEST IDEA of what's going to happen next year. I know that no stat is 100% perfect. There are stats that give you a very good idea of what's going to happen though and it's far better to base decisions on the historically accurate stats than absolutely nothing.

I was 99.9% sure Bruce Chen would stink this season, Kevin Millwood would be a bad signing for the Rangers, Jon Garland would have a huge fall-off...

Last time I check Garland is ahve a pretty good season. 16-4 and an ERA that is dropping fast. How about Peavy. He had the 2nd best DIPS last season. NOw he has a 4.51 ERA. There are more too. Willis, BUrnett, Beckett, Patterson, Loaiza, Buehrle, and Randy Johnson. They all had top 20 DIPS in baseball. THey all are having bad seasons.

[bryanman8]

Wow, you think Jon Garland has had a huge fall off? He has been terrific since the AS break...

Millwood also is ranked 9th in IP and has 2 CG... I guess by your standards, he is a bad signing, but I believe they like what they have.

So has Esteban Loaiza, but I'll gladly still admit I overrated Oakland's signing of him.

Garland's ERA is about a full run higher than last year. That's a huge fall off.

Millwood was paid ace money, has a 4.64 ERA, and has 4 years left.

[Flosman]

I don't know if your whole thing is a reference to playing for one run late in the game...that I'm fine with. I'm not fine with the times when Fahey was hitting 2nd and he'd bunt in like the first inning, nor playing for one with your hottest hitter up in a tie ballgame in extra innings in Texas where it would result in your real best hitter having the bat taken out of his hands after him.

Bottom of the 9th, runner on 1st, no outs, tie game; sac bunting is fine.

That is the reference I am making and I agree with you generally about sac bunting. You saying your fine with it is inconsistant with your hyberbole filled apparent generalizations. The stats are tools, nothing more, they will not run a team. Properly used they will only help people make decisions that are statistically more likely to provide a favorable outcome. But even using them will make you wrong alot. For the most part Baseball is a zero sum game and the difference between good and bad is not really that great and extremely hard to predict in a Micro situation.

[PaulFolk]

I'm tired of seeing "Don't put Bruce Chen in our rotation for next year!" whenever his DIPS stinks. Yes, Bruce Chen really does stink (and anyone with any background in statistical analysis knew this all along), but calling for the guy's removal from our pitching plans is a ridiculous overreaction. From some of the reactions, you'd think Chen actually murdered a guy on the field.

Every pitcher in baseball will have poor peripherals at some point. Whether it's not striking out enough batters, walking too many, giving up too many homers, or whatever else, any pitcher in the bigs can be called for his removal from the rotation.

As other posters have mentioned, as long as Chen is doing a good job in the clubhouse and carries the respect of his coaches and teammates--which he does--then doing something like having an awful DIPS can be forgiven.

Bruce Chen this year: 93 IP, 6.68 ERA.

Delightful sarcasm here. Not to rehash the Chen argument, but any GM who had taken Chen out of the rotation before the season began, after he had the best ERA of any starter in '05, would have:

1. completely lost the respect of his players; and

2. probably lost his job, as dictated by reason #1

You simply don't show that kind of disloyalty to a player and expect to have any ground to stand on as a GM. These decisions don't exist in a vacuum. You have to be held accountable for your actions. (Are you still interning with a team? If so, you'll probably get a sense of this, if you haven't already.) I've never heard a GM say, "Sure, he had our best ERA last year, but I'm concerned about his DIPS, so we're not even going to give him a chance to crack our rotation this year." How do you think the team would react to that? Who would ever trust that front office again?

Peripherals or not, the Orioles had to at least give Chen a few starts to prove that last year was a fluke. Turns out it was, and he was yanked from the rotation. Fine. But if they hadn't at least given him a chance to build on his '05 success, they'd be alienating their team.

But what does any of this have to do with Sam Perlozzo? You're comparing apples and wildbeests.

I'm tired of your insistence that things that relate to clubhouse affairs and the dugout are more important than performance. That's your opinion. This is mine. Mine is meant to prevent things that are statistically detrimental, like sacrifice bunting and giving 93 innings to a pitcher with a DIPS over 5 last year. Yours is meant to prevent bad public relations and such. I disagree vehemently with yours, you disagree vehemently with mine, but can you please stop trying to pass mine off as ridiculous every time?.

I don't know what this "every time" stuff is, because I don't recall having any other arguments with you in the last few months. Not sure where this hostility is coming from.

And yes, of course this is my opinion. That's what this board is for-- sharing opinions. And in my opinion, calling for a manager's firing because he bunts too much seems like an overreaction, considering there are so many other, more important aspects of managing than how often you bunt.

Also, as far as Perlozzo goes, it's wrong to characterize my position as "clubhouse affairs are more important than performance." For a manager, earning the respect of his players and getting them to play hard and all that other off-field stuff is PART of "performance." In fact, it's the most essential part of a manager's job. As long as Perlozzo is succeeding in those aspects, does it really make sense to fire him for bunting too many times?

Change, or leave. Being a good clubhouse manager and a smart decision-maker are not exclusive from each-other. It's entirely possible to be both and keep people from all circles happy. Right now, he's not keeping my circle happy--at all.

Question-- is there any way to measure how Perlozzo's strategical decisions have affected the Orioles' performance? Is there any way to know what the team's record would be under a different manager? Which managers is Perlozzo better or worse than, from a strategic standpoint?

I don't think we can answer those questions. Like I said, every manager in the majors will make some decisions we disagree with. We come down hard on Perlozzo because he's the only manager we watch on an everyday basis, but I betcha we'd be complaining just as much about Joe Torre or Bobby Cox's in-game decisions if we saw them every day, too. It's the nature of the beast.

That's my point. The decisions a manager makes during a game can be second-guessed until the cows come home, but there's so much more to managing than just calling for a bunt or bringing in a relief pitcher. Firing a well-respected manager in his first full year like Perlozzo just because he called for a bunt at an inopportune time would be a backwards-thinking, overzealous way of doing things.

[AgentOrange]

So has Esteban Loaiza, but I'll gladly still admit I overrated Oakland's signing of him.

Garland's ERA is about a full run higher than last year. That's a huge fall off.

Millwood was paid ace money, has a 4.64 ERA, and has 4 years left.

ERA is a crappy stat and the opinion that a pitcher had a great season because of an ERA is quite franky wrong.

I mean where do you exactly stand with this argument? The bottom line is Garland is doing exactly what his team needs to do to win ball games. So what if he has a great Offense. When he is on the mound, they win ballgames. Until that changes, he has not fallen off.

[orioles119]

Garland's ERA is about a full run higher than last year. That's a huge fall off.

Since the ASB, Garland is 8-1 with a 2.95 ERA. That's why his ERA is dropping fast and it is NOT a "huge" fall off.

Millwood was paid ace money, has a 4.64 ERA, and has 4 years left.

Who would you consider Texas's ace? Padilla? Stats-wise he probably is, but you quantify more than stats to be considered an ace.

[bryanman8]

I'm confused about one thing. If ERA is a crappy statistic, why do you use it to show that Garland & Millwood are having worse seasons than last year?

I use DIPS to predict ERA. ERA's what we're really going for, but when there's a flukish ERA, you have to acknowledge that perhaps the pitcher didn't change but just his ERA did.

If one of these guys has a much better DIPS than ERA this year, perhaps I'm wrong, I haven't checked. Feel free to correct me if that's the case.

[TyCobb]

Saying that someone is ignorant is not name-calling. When he's screaming ridiculous things into my face with his continuous insistance that his complete distrust of stats is right, the 'freaking' slipped and looked pretty bad. For that, I apologize.

Last time I checked you can't scream in words. I am confused why I am ignorant. ERA pretty much tells you how effective that pitcher was for that season. YOu look at OBP and say that the most important thing for an offense is to score runs. Well the most important for pitching is to limit the offense of the other team. If Chen had the BEST ERA on the staff, he was the BEST pitcher on the staff. By the way I do look at stats, but I don't look at stats and say that is all I need to know. I actually watch the games. Stats are pretty much numbers to describe what is not possible(watching ever single second of that players season.) I feel bad for people that look at stats and since it indicities something they use it for everything. I wonder what is the variance on DIPS ERA and the ERA of the next season. I bet it would be more than a run. I could do a better job with out looking at anything but ERA.

[Flosman]

So has Esteban Loaiza, but I'll gladly still admit I overrated Oakland's signing of him.

Garland's ERA is about a full run higher than last year. That's a huge fall off.

Millwood was paid ace money, has a 4.64 ERA, and has 4 years left.

I thought ERA was not a good way to judge a pitcher?

[bryanman8]

Ok, since it's like 50 against 1, and some people have made my ears bleed, I'm going to bow out again. Need some backup to arrive.

[Ruzious]

I use DIPS to predict ERA. ERA's what we're really going for, but when there's a flukish ERA, you have to acknowledge that perhaps the pitcher didn't change but just his ERA did.

Except in Bruce Chen's case - where he has a lifetime ERA (including this year) in the mid 4's and a horrible ERA this year?

Btw, I thought ERA didn't matter.

ERA is a crappy stat and the opinion that a pitcher had a great season because of an ERA is quite franky wrong.

[orioles119]

I use DIPS to predict ERA. ERA's what we're really going for, but when there's a flukish ERA, you have to acknowledge that perhaps the pitcher didn't change but just his ERA did.

If one of these guys has a much better DIPS than ERA this year, perhaps I'm wrong, I haven't checked. Feel free to correct me if that's the case.

Sorry everyone. I'm a mathematical idiot.

[bryanman8]

Garland DIPs (if I did the math right according to Dreslough)...

2005 - 2.84 (through 221 IP)

2006 - 2.84 (through 173 IP)

Millwood DIPs...

2005 - 2.63 (through 192 IP)

2006 - 2.68 (through 176 1/3 IP)

Wow. You didn't.

[TyCobb]

Ok, since it's like 50 against 1, and some people have made my ears bleed, I'm going to bow out again. Need some backup to arrive.

You need an agrument. You can't agrue the FACTS.

[DrungoHazewood]

Baseball refuses to adapt.

And that's simply a fact of life. Baseball changes at a glacial pace. I had a long post in another thread about insisting on doing things by "the book" despite the book being written largely by people who've been dead for 75 years, and based on strategies that haven't applied for just as long.

You need to look at the game in that context. It might not make sense, but it's reality. It took 20+ years for Bill James to go from being thought of as a nutjob by 100% of the establishment, to him being thought of as a nutjob by 50% of the establishment. Scoreboards still don't show OBP or SLG. Pitchers still win Cy Young awards based on wins, and relievers get paid on how many saves they pile up. Most players, owners, coaches, fans, and writers still have only a tenuous grasp of techniques you and I think of as gospel.

In that environment it's sheer lunacy to expect someone like Flanagan to make highly controversial roster decisions solely based on things like DIPS ERA. I have every book Bill James has written in the past 20 years on my shelf at home, trust the numbers more than 99% of the people here, and I wouldn't have dumped Bruce Chen without giving him an extended look this season.