How Does Terry Crowley Continue To Fly Under the Radar?

[El Gordo]

I understand that a lot of us who aren't convinced that Crowley should have the job are partially basing it on our gut, but it's not like we developed this gut reaction only from 7 games. There are a lot of years to look at.

In any event, re: what to do, this is a matter for the manager and the GM. If they're truly ignoring or flat out refusing to do what the coaches say then they should be handled directly (private talk, benching, whatever). The inmates cannot run the asylum. Unlike you, I actually think Crowley's the issue, but I think we know where that discussion will go with you and I, so I'm not really interesting in further engagement in the topic.

Either way, I just hope this team is showing signs of coming together for 2011 by the end of this summer. If we're not, I fully support a total overhaul of our coaching staff.

Here's your basic problem. You attribute an attitude to me I actually don't have. I don't know if Crowley is a problem or not. I would like to hear knowledgeable evidence for or against him. I don't need to hear about people's guts, mine is plenty big enough. I said IF someone could give me specific evidence of what Crowley should be doing etc. I would take their criticism seriously. So far what I've heard is, he should make the hitting better, make them hit the ball to move the runner, he isn't improving their pitch recognition, and he should make them take more pitches. I'm not impressed with this level of analysis.

[LookinUp]

Forgive me but just what observations have you made? I went back over the thread but I couldn't find them. That is beyond the observation that the hitting's bad the last 6 games, Crowleys the coach, it must be his fault, lets look at OPS and see if that tells us something. It doesn't make me feel better about myself, I'm just tired of people taking the attidude that this is message board, therefore you must take anything I say seriously, even though I don't know what I'm talking about and I can barely express myself.

I haven't written every observation in this thread. This is one of many over many years, but whatever. I'll attempt to summarize. Over the years, I've observed:

1. A team that frequently gets dominated by below average starters.

2. A team that bails out a pitcher who's on the ropes by swinging early in the count, often at balls.

3. A team with no hitter who consistently and purposefully goes the other way.

4. A team with a low OBP.

5. A team that is prone to slumps (both individually and as a team).

6. A team that frequently hits at or below expectations in the aggregate.

7. A couple of individual success stories, but very few sustained success stories (Pie, maybe Atkins, but too soon)

8. Very few upside surprises (players where it all comes together at the ML level)

9. No focus on situational hitting (e.g., hitting to the right side with a runner on second base and nobody out)

10. No focus on - or ability to - bunt.

This is what comes to mind off the top of my head. Others can add, agree or disagree. And all of this, of course, has to be put in the context of the talent on the team. I'm not supportive of crucifying the guy, particularly if he really isn't the problem.

Either way, this is not a 7-game observation. It's an observation of many teams, players, managers and one hitting coach. Whether this meets the legal definition of circumstantial evidence is better left to the lawyers on the board. But, if you're interested: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circumstantial_evidence

[Lucky Jim]

I haven't written every observation in this thread. This is one of many over many years, but whatever. I'll attempt to summarize. Over the years, I've observed:

1. A team that frequently gets dominated by below average starters.

2. A team that bails out a pitcher who's on the ropes by swinging early in the count, often at balls.

3. A team with no hitter who consistently and purposefully goes the other way.

4. A team with a low OBP.

5. A team that is prone to slumps (both individually and as a team).

6. A team that frequently hits at or below expectations in the aggregate.

7. A couple of individual success stories, but very few sustained success stories (Pie, maybe Atkins, but too soon)

8. Very few upside surprises (players where it all comes together at the ML level)

9. No focus on situational hitting (e.g., hitting to the right side with a runner on second base and nobody out)

10. No focus on - or ability to - bunt.

This is what comes to mind off the top of my head. Others can add, agree or disagree. And all of this, of course, has to be put in the context of the talent on the team. I'm not supportive of crucifying the guy, particularly if he really isn't the problem.

Either way, this is not a 7-game observation. It's an observation of many teams, players, managers and one hitting coach. Whether this meets the legal definition of circumstantial evidence is better left to the lawyers on the board. But, if you're interested: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circumstantial_evidence

Right. So now you need to control for other teams rates of doing those things, the level of competition for each team, and the park factors (at least). Once you've done that, you can really start fine-tuning your regression analysis and maybe even start to approach something like a causal relationship. You're on the right path. Let us know when you figure all that out.

[LookinUp]

Right. So now you need to control for other teams rates of doing those things, the level of competition for each team, and the park factors (at least). Once you've done that, you can really start fine-tuning your regression analysis and maybe even start to approach something like a causal relationship. You're on the right path. Let us know when you figure all that out.

LOL. Absurd.

This isn't about being better than the average team. It's about playing good baseball. If 90% of people don't, but you're just like them, does that mean we should settle for what we have?

And, as a fan, can't I want something better for my team w/o hiring a stats shop to break down every permutation of data in a sport with a billion permutations?

The position so many on this site are taking is ludicrous...that if you can't demonstrate how he's specificly causing the problems then you should just shut up. That's wrong. My threshold is good enough versus not good enough. Period and end of story. We're not good enough and we haven't been for a long time. There's no positive separation of our expected talent level and actual results and there hasn't been for a decade while he's the coach. There's no compelling danger associated with trying something new. If we end up with a new average hitting coach, what have we lost?

I want the O's to be ready to compete in 2011. I've been very patient in supporting the slow rebuild. I think the talent is about 85% there. But even I have my limits. I give this staff most of 2010 to start fielding a team that looks like a real potential contender. If they don't, I go all Trea on them.

[Lucky Jim]

I hope you don't really believe these are the criteria for evaluation, right? The evaluation criteria should be fairly obvious. Take a look at the hitters who have had other pitching coaches before and after Terry Crowley. If he is as bad as you and other seem to believe, it should be very easy to find a large group of hitters that either regressed under him or improved after leaving him.

I can provide a list of hitters to start with (some players are in both cats):

Crowley first, others second

Gibbons, Matos, Tejada, Bigbie, Hairston, Jose Bautista, Byrnes, Palmeiro, Surhoff, Chris Gomez, Ramon Hernandez, Corey Patterson, Millar, Conine, Huff, Payton

others first, Crowley second

Scott, Tejada, Byrnes, Javy Lopez, Sosa, Palmeiro, Surhoff, Chris Gomez, Ramon Hernandez, Corey Patterson, Pie, Millar, Conine, Huff, Payton

Now, add in guys that came through our minors and projected to be X and became either better or worse than X

A lot of the names above, Markakis, Roberts

This is a pretty good list. Find the correlations, allow for aging, and you should be able to find that Crowley is bad if your hypothesis is correct. I'll tell you that I've done this informally a few times and I keep coming back to that fact that he makes hitters better much more often than he makes them worse. Maybe I'm all wet. Do the analysis and tell me what you see.

If someone does this analysis and can provide data that supports that Crowley is making hitters worse, I'll be their biggest supporter. The stuff I'm seeing in this thread is mostly frustration and a "feeling" that he is a problem w/o any actual analysis involved. It really feels like a witchhunt to me.

My 2 cents...

I don't think that really does it, myself, because it doesn't regress for aging, parks, competition, etc. A straight up comparison is only going to be relevant if there is an enormous difference that overwhelms any confounding factors.

[Lucky Jim]

LOL. Absurd.

This isn't about being better than the average team. It's about playing good baseball. If 90% of people don't, but you're just like them, does that mean we should settle for what we have?

And, as a fan, can't I want something better for my team w/o hiring a stats shop to break down every permutation of data in a sport with a billion permutations?

The position so many on this site are taking is ludicrous...that if you can't demonstrate how he's specificly causing the problems then you should just shut up. That's wrong. My threshold is good enough versus not good enough. Period and end of story. We're not good enough and we haven't been for a long time. There's no positive separation of our expected talent level and actual results and there hasn't been for a decade while he's the coach. There's no compelling danger associated with trying something new. If we end up with a new average hitting coach, what have we lost?

I want the O's to be ready to compete in 2011. I've been very patient in supporting the slow rebuild. I think the talent is about 85% there. But even I have my limits. I give this staff most of 2010 to start fielding a team that looks like a real potential contender. If they don't, I go all Trea on them.

That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about identifying Crowley's effect on hitters by eliminating statistical noise. That statistical noise will be: competition, park effect, aging trends, etc. Without regressing for that noise, you don't have any decent evidence of a causal relationship.

[Slappy]

Just focusing on OBP, supposedly the most important offensive statistic according to the scientists, during Crowley's current tenure with the club:

1999: .353 (5th)

2000: .341 (10th)

2001: .319 (13th)

2002: .309 (13th)

2003: .323 (11th)

2004: .345 (4th)

2005: .327 (8th)

2006: .339 (8th)

2007: .333 (9th)

2008: .333 (8th)

2009: .332 (8th)

Lower half of the AL 9 of 11 years. I realize it is not all on Crowley, but he is one constant over that period. To say he has nothing to do with it seems unlikely.

[LookinUp]

I hope you don't really believe these are the criteria for evaluation, right? The evaluation criteria should be fairly obvious. Take a look at the hitters who have had other pitching coaches before and after Terry Crowley. If he is as bad as you and other seem to believe, it should be very easy to find a large group of hitters that either regressed under him or improved after leaving him.

I can provide a list of hitters to start with (some players are in both cats):

Crowley first, others second

Gibbons, Matos, Tejada, Bigbie, Hairston, Jose Bautista, Byrnes, Palmeiro, Surhoff, Chris Gomez, Ramon Hernandez, Corey Patterson, Millar, Conine, Huff, Payton

others first, Crowley second

Scott, Tejada, Byrnes, Javy Lopez, Sosa, Palmeiro, Surhoff, Chris Gomez, Ramon Hernandez, Corey Patterson, Pie, Millar, Conine, Huff, Payton

Now, add in guys that came through our minors and projected to be X and became either better or worse than X

A lot of the names above, Markakis, Roberts

This is a pretty good list. Find the correlations, allow for aging, and you should be able to find that Crowley is bad if your hypothesis is correct. I'll tell you that I've done this informally a few times and I keep coming back to that fact that he makes hitters better much more often than he makes them worse. Maybe I'm all wet. Do the analysis and tell me what you see.

If someone does this analysis and can provide data that supports that Crowley is making hitters worse, I'll be their biggest supporter. The stuff I'm seeing in this thread is mostly frustration and a "feeling" that he is a problem w/o any actual analysis involved. It really feels like a witchhunt to me.

My 2 cents...

I actually suggested something like this earlier in the thread. I agree that some legit statistical analysis would be useful to see. I'm not personally going to be able to pull that off though.

[LookinUp]

That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about identifying Crowley's effect on hitters by eliminating statistical noise. That statistical noise will be: competition, park effect, aging trends, etc. Without regressing for that noise, you don't have any decent evidence of a causal relationship.

What if the causal relationship proves he's average, or slightly better than average when compared to the league as a whole? If so, that means at least 10 teams are doing this better than us. Is that good enough, considering only 8 make the playoffs?

[Lucky Jim]

What if the causal relationship proves he's average, or slightly better than average when compared to the league as a whole? If so, that means at least 10 teams are doing this better than us. Is that good enough, considering only 8 make the playoffs?

I think an average hitting coach would be tolerable, depending of course on the actual causal effect you isolated. The key is drafting and signing well.

The key to laying off a slider off the outside corner isn't "patience." It's pitch recognition and bat speed. Our line-ups for years have been full of players with moderate-to-poor bat speed who were often in a decline period, and young players who showed poor pitch recognition to begin with. Populating your line-up with these two types of players isn't going to do wonders for any final numbers.

How much Crowley can do with that is questionable.

[Lucky Jim]

I didn't specifically mention these things, but this is what I meant by adjust for age, etc... I agree that you have adjust for leagues and parks as well as age.

EDIT: ah, I see my "etc." didn't actually get typed. No wonder you didn't see it. LOL

Eh. To be fair, I somehow read right over that "allow for aging" part - probably my haste to rebut LookinUp.

[flashjordnk]

Just focusing on OBP, supposedly the most important offensive statistic according to the scientists, during Crowley's current tenure with the club:

1999: .353 (5th)

2000: .341 (10th)

2001: .319 (13th)

2002: .309 (13th)

2003: .323 (11th)

2004: .345 (4th)

2005: .327 (8th)

2006: .339 (8th)

2007: .333 (9th)

2008: .333 (8th)

2009: .332 (8th)

Lower half of the AL 9 of 11 years. I realize it is not all on Crowley, but he is one constant over that period. To say he has nothing to do with it seems unlikely.

Isn't this just an example of correlation instead of causation.

If I told you during those 11 years the Orioles drank gaterade, but during the previous ten they drank powerade and actually had a higher average obp would you really believe that it's because of the drink. You can't just say that because a constant exists, he has anything to do with the results. You get it right when you say it seems unlikely, but goes unproven. A little evidence to back up your statement might really make it meaningful. Otherwise it's just you making the same hypothesis without any support as everyone else on this board.

[FR500]

The best argument in favor of firing Crowley, IMO, is he's been here forever. We've stunk mostly. Make him a roving instructor or something. It's a changing of the guard, however symbolic that may be. It's time for changes. The status quo f'ing stinks.

I agree 110% with this. Although all the managers and most of the players love "Teflon Crow", he has been the hitting instructor forever... 14 years or so and they have been below .500 for 14 years... hummm. Definitely time for a change! I'm tired of hearing the one success story a year and rarely having .300+ players; i.e. last year = 0. When the manager goes (hopefully soon), ALL the coaches should go as well. Sweep.

[o'sman458202233]

I honestly have a feeling if Trembley gets canned, so does Crowley, and Kranitz for that matter. Probably going to be a complete coaching overhaul, just my guess.

[baltosravens218]

Yeah, Crowley should be fired, we should try to get a great hitting coach that makes every team crush the ball, like...

O wait, I don't know a single hitting coach without looking them up. Maybe it is the players that make a difference. I don't think hitting coaches make hardly any difference, but I do think there are some out there that are better ones, and I think Crowley is one of the few. Players continually praise him.