Roch: Hitting Coach Terry Crowley is coming back

[Stotle]

I recall that he worked with Nick extensively on turning on the inside pitch when it seemed he was having trouble catching up to it, in 2006. I think the result was 10 HR's in August. I'm sure Long had plenty to do with Cano's improvement, but not so much because of the drills, which probably aren't that unique, but because of his ability to develop a rapport with Cano, who had a rep of being a bit of a head case, and getting him to work on the drills.

Everything we hear about Crowley suggests this is a strong suit of his as well.

How can that be a success of Crowley's if Nick's power has yet to develop? Cano's has steadily increased over the years, and with the last two years of focused has boomed from 19 to 29 HRs. That is significant.

Also, looks like at least one of the drills is unique, as Long developed it:

http://www.nj.com/yankees/index.ssf/2010/10/quarky_home_run_drill_nets_hug.html

[El Gordo]

I'm just responding to your dismissive attitude. I stated earlier in this thread what my thoughts were, and "hand wringing" could not be a genuine interpretation by anyone without an agenda.

I haven't called for anyone's head. But your attitude that no one has any right to question Crowley's performance because they can't list a bunch of available studs is not just disingenuous, it's insulting. I can look at a balance sheet and have an idea of how a company is running. If a department is underperforming it could be for a host of reasons. But I don't rule out replacing the manager of that department because I'm not immediately aware of better candidates in the marketplace.

Come on -- you are a smart guy and these posts of yours are mental jousts, not reasoned arguments. If you stance is simply you don't have enough info to take a stand, fine. But to act like there is no logical argument against keeping Crowley is the worst kind of ostrich head-burying there is. You can prove a point without being willfully ignorant.

My stance is that the evidence of OBP and P/PA is not enough to justify his dismissal. If I could see enough evidence to convince me that he is the problem, then I would more than consider firing him. I never said there is no logic to it, just that it is insufficient. My position is no different than Drungo's. If I were looking at that balance sheet I would find out why the dept., is under performing before I fired anyone. Just what do you believe my "agenda" to be?:laughlol:

[CompuCoach]

So, Cano credits Long's drills with helping him to develop his in-game power -- specific examples of things Long has told him and worked on with him that have helped him to turn into a 25+ HR bat in addition to being a plus hitter with on-base skills -- and you don't see how Long had anything to do with it?

I never said he had nothing to do with it. As a hitting coach on a major league baseball team whose job is to work with the players, of course he is going to have some influence on their performance. My argument is not that a hitting coach like Long doesn't contribute anything, it's that it is difficult to assess a marginal difference between what one hitting coach or another could do for a player.

Hitting coaches on major league baseball teams are a given. All players benefit from them to some degree. A team without a coach specifically dedicated to working with hitters is going to suffer. However, this is more about what hitting coach X brings that Y doesn't.

I'll ask again for just one example where an Orioles player has shown improvement and pointed to something specific Crowley has worked on with them. I'll also state again that this isn't evidence that Crowley is incompetent or should not keep his job -- that isn't my point.

If players have cited Crowley as a positive influence, is it really necessary for them to always articulate the specific aspects in which they were aided? That's up to their own disclosure. I don't think a lack of getting into specifics is itself necessarily indicative of a lack of substance.

Furthermore, the selection of a hitting coach is not entirely about the offensive performance of the team. It has a lot to do with the nature of their interpersonal skills, demeanor and relationships with the players and the other members of the staff; that determines how well they will all collectively work together. Some guys will be a good fit for a particular manager or team, and some won't. That's why I think it's important for the manager to be able to select his own coaches.

In this case, I'm pretty confident that Showalter wants to have Crowley back, and that is what lies behind the decision. If he has determined that their dynamic will be more successful than what there would be with the alternatives that are out there, then good for the both of them. That's also something that no one else could determine aside from the two men themselves. To me, how well the staff works together is probably more important than whatever marginal offering a "game changing" coach brings. And, to be honest, I haven't seen definitive proof that those sorts of guys aren't more often than not a product of good situations (Re: Mazzone).

[Stotle]

My stance is that the evidence of OBP and P/PA is not enough to justify his dismissal. If I could see enough evidence to convince me that he is the problem, then I would more than consider firing him. I never said there is no logic to it, just that it is insufficient. My position is no different than Drungo's. If I were looking at that balance sheet I would find out why the dept., is under performing before I fired anyone. Just what do you believe my "agenda" to be?:laughlol:

The fact that you can't be open to the idea that dismissing Crowley MIGHT be a prudent move shows bias. I think your agenda is projected intellectual elitism through presentation of a faux balanced approach that somehow excludes one possibility altogether. You may or may not have selected this position simply because it's the opposite of SportsGuy's opinion.

Bolded -- No, from your posts you'd rule out changing the department manager unless you can find incontrovertible evidence that he is the sole problem. Your starting point is that it isn't the department manager's fault because he's been around for awhile and no one has fired him yet. Also, your first move would obviously be to hire two employees with high OBP.

[Stotle]

I never said he had nothing to do with it. As a hitting coach on a major league baseball team whose job is to work with the players, of course he is going to have some influence on their performance. My argument is not that a hitting coach like Long doesn't contribute anything, it's that it is difficult to assess a marginal difference between what one hitting coach or another could do for a player.

Hitting coaches on major league baseball teams are a given. All players benefit from them to some degree. A team without a coach specifically dedicated to working with hitters is going to suffer. However, this is more about what hitting coach X brings that Y doesn't.

If players have cited Crowley as a positive influence, is it really necessary for them to always articulate the specific aspects in which they were aided? That's up to their own disclosure. I don't think a lack of getting into specifics is itself is necessarily indicative of a lack of substance.

Furthermore, the selection of a hitting coach is not entirely about the offensive performance of the team. It has a lot to do with the nature of their interpersonal skills, demeanor and relationships with the players and the other members of the staff; that determines how well they will all collectively work together. Some guys will be a good fit for a particular manager or team, and some won't. That's why I think it's important for the manager to be able to select his own coaches.

In this case, I'm pretty confident that Showalter wants to have Crowley back, and that is what lies behind the decision. If he has determined that their dynamic will be more successful than what there would be with the alternatives that are out there, then good for the both of them. To me, how well the staff works together is probably more important than whatever marginal offering a "game changing" coach brings. And, to be honest, I haven't seen definitive proof that those sorts of guys aren't more often than not a product of good situations (Re: Mazzone).

I agree with all of this as a reasonable stance. Thanks for posting it.

[El Gordo]

The fact that you can't be open to the idea that dismissing Crowley MIGHT be a prudent move shows bias. I think your agenda is projected intellectual elitism through presentation of a faux balanced approach that somehow excludes one possibility altogether. You may or may not have selected this position simply because it's the opposite of SportsGuy's opinion.

Bolded -- No, from your posts you'd rule out changing the department manager unless you can find incontrovertible evidence that he is the sole problem. Your starting point is that it isn't the department manager's fault because he's been around for awhile and no one has fired him yet. Also, your first move would obviously be to hire two employees with high OBP.

You have a fertile imagination. I am probably pushing some buttons of yours, that it is not my intention to do. You seem to attribute to me positions that I don't believe I am taking. I don't believe I said I needed incontrovetible evidence, just that the evidence submitted was insufficient. Of course dismissing firing Crowley might be prudent. But it might also be a disaster. If you were to bring in the wrong guy just to have a change of approach, and he turned out to be an Eddie Murray type who says" you come to me if you want help", he could turn all the young players off and things could get worse. Dismissing him just because it "might" be a good idea, seems kind of reckless to me. My problem with SG has little to do with his opinions (I actually agree with a number of them) it has to do with how he presents them.

[Stotle]

You have a fertile imagination. I am probably pushing some buttons of yours, that it is not my intention to do. You seem to attribute to me positions that I don't believe I am taking. I don't believe I said I needed incontrovetible evidence, just that the evidence submitted was insufficient. Of course dismissing firing Crowley might be prudent. But it might also be a disaster. If you were to bring in the wrong guy just to have a change of approach, and he turned out to be an Eddie Murray type who says" you come to me if you want help", he could turn all the young players off and things could get worse. Dismissing him just because it "might" be a good idea, seems kind of reckless to me. My problem with SG has little to do with his opinions (I actually agree with a number of them) it has to do with how he presents them.

That post was mostly tongue in cheek. I think your point about Long connecting with Cano and getting him to do the work is much, much more valid than not. I also think that your position is obviously reasonable and prudent. Most of the points you are making above I made in my original long post. I think this position is fine and valid. I also think there is a reasonable flip side to that position -- in particular, is it possible that a potential big breakthrough with a high ceiling player or two worth the risk of bringing in someone who may or may not mix as well as your current coach.

I think anyone who wants to argue either position has ample anecdotal evidence to make a decent case. I don't think anyone has the material to make a rock solid case. There should be room to kick around thoughts on the matter without one side calling out the other because "they don't have anywhere near enough info to have an opinion" or "they are blindly supporting AM or Buck and ignoring season after season of poor results."

As with many discussions on the board, the sweet spot of the convo is really interesting (to me at least) but it's tough to keep the convo there.

Any thoughts on what this article had to say?

http://www.nj.com/yankees/index.ssf/2010/10/quarky_home_run_drill_nets_hug.html

[El Gordo]

I never said he had nothing to do with it. As a hitting coach on a major league baseball team whose job is to work with the players, of course he is going to have some influence on their performance. My argument is not that a hitting coach like Long doesn't contribute anything, it's that it is difficult to assess a marginal difference between what one hitting coach or another could do for a player.

Hitting coaches on major league baseball teams are a given. All players benefit from them to some degree. A team without a coach specifically dedicated to working with hitters is going to suffer. However, this is more about what hitting coach X brings that Y doesn't.

If players have cited Crowley as a positive influence, is it really necessary for them to always articulate the specific aspects in which they were aided? That's up to their own disclosure. I don't think a lack of getting into specifics is itself necessarily indicative of a lack of substance.

Furthermore, the selection of a hitting coach is not entirely about the offensive performance of the team. It has a lot to do with the nature of their interpersonal skills, demeanor and relationships with the players and the other members of the staff; that determines how well they will all collectively work together. Some guys will be a good fit for a particular manager or team, and some won't. That's why I think it's important for the manager to be able to select his own coaches.

In this case, I'm pretty confident that Showalter wants to have Crowley back, and that is what lies behind the decision. If he has determined that their dynamic will be more successful than what there would be with the alternatives that are out there, then good for the both of them. That's also something that no one else could determine aside from the two men themselves. To me, how well the staff works together is probably more important than whatever marginal offering a "game changing" coach brings. And, to be honest, I haven't seen definitive proof that those sorts of guys aren't more often than not a product of good situations (Re: Mazzone).

:agree:What he said. Especially the bolded.:clap3:

[Stotle]

And yet, Nick is still fighting this.

So, if Crow gets credit for helping him, shouldn't he also get blame for Nick not sustaining this?

One interesting argument for keeping Crow, to me, which I don't see anyone mention on here is that we have circumstantial evidence that hitting coaches don't mean much with regards to player performance -- their salaries. I am not aware of a HUGE discrepancy in hitting coach salaries (obviously differences, but not what I understand to be a huge delta). If there were coaches whose methods had produced big results, I would expect them to be identified and sought after, ultimately earning more than their peers.

If there isn't a class of "elite" hitting coaches, based on salary, then maybe it's not worth getting rid of someone that meshes well in an organization.

I'm not saying I fully buy into this as the correct stance, but I think there is merit in considering it while kicking around the concept of critiquing the production of secondary coaches.

[commish]

1) Find the results of the Frobby study - do the historical PECOTA comps, and see how his players have done compared to what they "should" have done. Won't be perfect, but better than the complete absence of data we have now.

But barring that, we don't have anything. So we can't have an independent judgment that's based on anything besides subjective evidence. In some sense we are rubes - we don't know, we can't know without somebody doing some work. And even then we'll only kind of know.

I have to keep stressing - bad data is often worse than none at all.

To me, comparing PECOTA projections to actual performance as a way of measuring a hitting coach's performance would fall under "data that is worse than none at all." Still think there would be too many other (possibly more important) factors for it to be of use in that sense. As you've noted several times, this is just one of those areas of performance in which subjective data is more appropriate until we have access to more relevant objective measures.

Of course, the study would be interesting in its own right.

[SteveA]

Well, list me among those who are disappointed with the decision. This team has had an unprecedented stretch of losing, probably one of the dozen longest stretches of losing seasons in the history of baseball. And he's been there for all of it. Arguments over whether "the problem" is Crowley or the hitters are simplistic and childish... EVERYONE has contributed to this debacle. It's not a black or white question. But he has been here for the whole time, and he is 68 years old. We saw what a fresh start at the managerial position could do. Sometimes change for change sake can be a good idea.

I said that I wanted Buck to be able to name his own coaches, with no interference. If he truly did decide that Terry Crowley was the best available hitting coach in all of baseball and wanted him for the job -- then while I find the decision disappointing, I can at least get behind it because of Buck's track record, knowledge, and attention to detail lead me to believe he would not allow a weak link in a position as important as hitting coach. I just hope that we never ifnd out that this decision was not 100% Showalter's.

[CompuCoach]

One interesting argument for keeping Crow, to me, which I don't see anyone mention on here is that we have circumstantial evidence that hitting coaches don't mean much with regards to player performance -- their salaries. I am not aware of a HUGE discrepancy in hitting coach salaries (obviously differences, but not what I understand to be a huge delta). If there were coaches whose methods had produced big results, I would expect them to be identified and sought after, ultimately earning more than their peers.

If there isn't a class of "elite" hitting coaches, based on salary, then maybe it's not worth getting rid of someone that meshes well in an organization.

I'm not saying I fully buy into this as the correct stance, but I think there is merit in considering it while kicking around the concept of critiquing the production of secondary coaches.

This is something I also put stock in. The market would show, with respect to how much coaches are paid, what determination has been made as to their relative value.

Teams don't end up in bidding wars over the services of one particular coach or another, and without having looked up all of their respective salaries, I'd presume that there wouldn't nearly be the same kind of discrepancy that we see in the player market between the elite and the mediocre.

Either you take that to mean that coaches are more interchangeable and much easier to replace, or that MLB hasn't yet been enlightened as to how much their respective differences effect the product on the field. My intuition is to side with the former.

[DrungoHazewood]

One interesting argument for keeping Crow, to me, which I don't see anyone mention on here is that we have circumstantial evidence that hitting coaches don't mean much with regards to player performance -- their salaries. I am not aware of a HUGE discrepancy in hitting coach salaries (obviously differences, but not what I understand to be a huge delta). If there were coaches whose methods had produced big results, I would expect them to be identified and sought after, ultimately earning more than their peers.

If there isn't a class of "elite" hitting coaches, based on salary, then maybe it's not worth getting rid of someone that meshes well in an organization.

I'm not saying I fully buy into this as the correct stance, but I think there is merit in considering it while kicking around the concept of critiquing the production of secondary coaches.

I kind of alluded to this in one of my earlier posts with SG - that a hitting coach who could take a 650-run team and turn them into a 750-run team should be worth tens of millions of dollars a year. That's a 10-win difference. Picking up that level of production in free agency would cost you about $45M.

I also mentioned this in some of the fire the manager threads over the past year. Tony LaRussa is the highest-paid manager in history. And his annual salary is about what the O's have paid a guy in the Baez/Payton/Atkins range. The best hitting coaches of all time are paid less than mediocre pitchers coming off labrum surgery.

Baseball clearly thinks that almost all managers and coaches are fungible assets - above a fairly low minimum standard there's not much difference between any of them.

[SteveA]

Fair enough. My position is that I'd do a thorough independent review of the entire organization and only fix the parts that need fixing. It's hard enough to deal with that.

I don't necesssarily agree with that. I think we should hire the best available hitting coach in the nation. What is "available"? I would say anyone not currently a coach with a major league organization (I assume that any move from a minor league position to major league HC is a promotion and other teams would give permission to speak to anyone in their minors).

That's how Buck should be framing the question, with an opportunity to get the coaching staff he's going to go forward with for several years.

Framing the question as "should change be made" is shortsighted IMO. I said the same thing a year ago at this time, when we had no manager under contract, as Trembley's contract had ended at the end of the season. People were arguing about whether Trembley "deserved to be fired" or "had been given a fair chance". I said the ONLY question we should be asking is, since we currently have no manager under contract, who is the best available person for the managerial job. Period. Yes, of course, factoring in salary, demeands for organizational control, etc.

But framing the question as "should there be change or not", to me, is a formula that will lead to mediocrity. Buck should be looking for the best available man for the job. If he has decided that is Crowley, so be it. I just hope that he really did frame the question that way and really did come to that conclusion without any pressure from above.

[SteveA]

This is something I also put stock in. The market would show, with respect to how much coaches are paid, what determination has been made as to their relative value.

Teams don't end up in bidding wars over the services of one particular coach or another, and without having looked up all of their respective salaries, I'd presume that there wouldn't nearly be the same kind of discrepancy that we see in the player market between the elite and the mediocre.

Either you take that to mean that coaches are more interchangeable and much easier to replace, or that MLB hasn't yet been enlightened as to how much their respective differences effect the product on the field. My intuition is to side with the former.

Really? You think that the 30 baseball owners form a rational market? That in general, the contracts they give to free agents tend to be in line with a reasonable assesssment of the expected value of the players? I can certainly think of a lot of counterexamples.