Payton to get majority of starts in LF

[Frobby]

Bullpen...Injuries.

Bullpen, for sure -- or was it Wedge's use of his bullpen?

Injuries should not affect the relationship betwen run differential and wins.

[DrungoHazewood]

Say what you want about Wedge, but the Indians have used platoons well and continue to do so. Maybe he sucks at every other aspect of managing. So what?

They took Casey Blake, who was a 30-year-old journeyman without a position who'd been discarded by the Twins and Orioles and turned him into a guy who's hit 86 homers in four years. He had almost exactly a House/Knott/Dubois kind of resume, and they took him and wrung every ounce of value out of him. I love that.

[Fan4Life]

Wasn't there some blurb this offseason about Dellucci refusing to settle for platoon duty? I guess that got worked out.....

[DrungoHazewood]

Wasn't there some blurb this offseason about Dellucci refusing to settle for platoon duty? I guess that got worked out.....

Somebody probably nudged him and said "dude, your career OPS against lefties is .587." And he probably replied "oh... man, that totally sucks. Sure, I'll platoon."

[rolliefingers]

Somebody probably nudged him and said "dude, your career OPS against lefties is .587." And he probably replied "oh... man, that totally sucks. Sure, I'll platoon."

"Also, you just signed a contract worth a great deal of money. You can either demand to be traded, which marginal players rarely do, or you can sack up and deal with it and play for another contract once this one is done."

[nadecir]

Here is what I don't get: Mike Flanagan is, by all accounts, a very intelligent guy. He played for 10+ years on teams that thrived on good platoons. So why isn't he imposing this on his manager, or picking a manager who gets it?

Maybe because he really doesn't have the final decision making authority on the selection of Orioles manager?

[rolliefingers]

Bullpen, for sure -- or was it Wedge's use of his bullpen?

Injuries should not affect the relationship betwen run differential and wins.

Did you catch this quote from Clay Davenport, in Drungo's thread?

"We ran a chart in the Cleveland chapter in Baseball Prospectus 2007 highlighting how bad the Indians were in transition innings, when the pen takes over from the starter within an inning. They were next to last–-ahead of only the Orioles, whose relievers had a 19.9 WHIP when taking over for starter. No, I did not accidentally add a “1” to that, it really is nineteen point nine."

I don't know this to be a fact, but logic tells me that, given a certain roster of ostensibly ML-quality pitchers, it'd take a nearly superhuman effort on the part of a manager to get his bullpen to perform that badly. What I mean is: if you simply rotate pitchers in and out based solely on whether their arm is tired or not, a bullpen managed by a computer could produce a league-average bullpen.

To put it a third, perhaps clearer, way, I think the talent level of his bullpen was a bigger problem than how he used it.

[Frobby]

Did you catch this quote from Clay Davenport, in Drungo's thread?

"We ran a chart in the Cleveland chapter in Baseball Prospectus 2007 highlighting how bad the Indians were in transition innings, when the pen takes over from the starter within an inning. They were next to last–-ahead of only the Orioles, whose relievers had a 19.9 WHIP when taking over for starter. No, I did not accidentally add a “1” to that, it really is nineteen point nine."

I don't know this to be a fact, but logic tells me that, given a certain roster of ostensibly ML-quality pitchers, it'd take a nearly superhuman effort on the part of a manager to get his bullpen to perform that badly. What I mean is: if you simply rotate pitchers in and out based solely on whether their arm is tired or not, a bullpen managed by a computer could produce a league-average bullpen.

To put it a third, perhaps clearer, way, I think the talent level of his bullpen was a bigger problem than how he used it.

OK, but the Orioles bullpen performance in this regard was even worse, so why didn't they have a huge discrepancy between their run differential and their win total like Cleveland did?

[rolliefingers]

OK, but the Orioles bullpen performance in this regard was even worse, so why didn't they have a huge discrepancy between their run differential and their win total like Cleveland did?

Because the Orioles starting pitching was bad, and CLE's wasn't?

I'm not looking at numbers currently, so I might be wrong, but I think that's it.

[Frobby]

Are you trying to say that Wedge cost his team like 15-20 wins or something?

That seems unlikely. But Cleveland's pythagorean record was 89-73 and their actuall record was 78-84. That's an 11-game gap. Some of that is pure chance, but at least some of it could be due to poor decisions in close games. Cleveland was 29-40 in games decided by 1-2 runs, 49-44 in other games.

[Frobby]

I'm not trying to defend Wedge. I really have no opinion on him, although I like what the Indians have tried to do the last two years in regards to platoons. I thought I remember reading that there was a certain randomness from year to year as far as record in 1 run games but I'm not sure. Either way, I don't see how it reflects in any way on his willingness to use platoons.

I don't watch Cleveland play and I doubt I would recognize Wedge if he passed me on the street. I have no idea whether Cleveland's bad record last year despite the run differential is in any way his fault. But that is a very extreme difference, the biggest in the majors last year by far. No other team departed by its pythagorean record by more than 6 games, except Oakland (+8). So it can't be ruled out.

And I don't think it has anything to do with how Wedge uses platoons. I was only making a somewhat flip response to Drungo's "what would Eric Wedge do" crack. All in fun.

[ScottieBaseball]

Are you trying to say that Wedge cost his team like 15-20 wins or something?

Hehehe...I just logged on to check out this thread again and I thought you guys were talking about OUR Wedge.

My first reaction was, "Okay, whether I agree with Payton's contract and role is irrelevant now. There's no way anyone can blame Wedge for 15-20 O's losses last year. I don't even think he went to that many games for crying out loud!"

As you were.

[Guest rochester]

Say what you want about Wedge, but the Indians have used platoons well and continue to do so. Maybe he sucks at every other aspect of managing. So what?

Say What?!?!?!?:002_ssuprised:

[ScottieBaseball]

I'm becoming convinced that a platoon can work in today's MLB, but I think it will take participants who are clearly willing to accept their roles. Kudos to Eric Wedge for what he's done in Cleveland with guys like Blake and Broussard, and for bringing in a guy like Dellucci who (I believe) went public about his want for a starting gig.

I think somewhere in this discussion my feelings about what's right may have gone by the wayside. I believe if the Orioles sign guys like Jay Payton and Aubrey Huff and DON'T announce them as the new left fielder or first baseman, instead label them "a little bit of this, a little bit of that" guys, they should accept whatever role is determined for them. Maybe even if it was Perlozzo's intent to give Payton the majority of the starts in left field he should have kept it to himself?

Deep down inside, I still don't think heading to Minnesota with Jay Payton as our starting left fielder is a bad thing. Money aside, we're better off in LF than we were this time last year. I think Millar and Conine were expected to see a lot of time out there? Yikes.

[Moose Milligan]

Why is platoon a 4 letter word to the Orioles?

RZ made a great point....Why are we so worried about egos on a team that hasn't had a winning record since 1997?? Should we be worried about egos or wins??

SG talking about egos?

I'm rummaging around here for a dictionary to find the definition of irony....