The blame game

by jonk on May 31, 2007 3:09 AM EDT in News

Emotions do funny things with the human mind. We often get easily wrapped up in whatever we are doing and allow our devotion to bias what we are looking at. It is the cornerstone of human nature and the backbone of religion, politics and baseball. We draw conclusions and then make the facts fit them, wrap them up all nice and neat and store them to use later when presented with contrary evidence. Life it much easier when you already have the answers, and nobody wants to be caught with their pants down, do they?

What does this have to do with blame? Absolutely everything. When things don't go right, fingers start pointing. It wasn't MY political decision, it wasn't MY religion doctrine, it wasn't MY baseball instinct that failed us. It was HIS! point point double point

So, after another excrutiating loss (when 40% of your losses are by 1 run, it feels like they are all excrutiating), fingers are extended and we need to have a scape goat. Who would have thunk that the Department of Justice would be a microcosm of life? Right now, everyone is pointing and Michael Bourn. It's his fault, right?

Unfortunately for Mike, he made the LAST mistake, and that tends to be the one that people focus on. It is easier to ignore all the other mistakes during the game when your mistake ends up being the final out. Sure, it wasn't a big mistake and probably wouldn't happen again if you replayed that AB 100 times, but, blame doesn't care about odds. Blame cares about focus.

And now the focus is on you Bourn. Should you have stolen second? Maybe, maybe not. The end result didn't matter since Howard had a pitch to hit and smoked it. Odds are you would have gotten doubled off of first there instead of second had you not stolen. Should you have been running on a 3-2 pitch there? Probably not since you should be able to score anyway and being at third means much less with 2 outs. Does that mean this is all your fault? Absolutely not. We don't even know if you would have scored even if Howard had walked OR you not have gotten doubled off.

Where does the blame lie then? How about the rest of the team who couldn't put up one run in the previous 8 innings. 1 run in those prior 24 outs and we may not be talking about this right now. Yeah, Johnson was good, but his era isn't 0.00. Blame looks for instances, but truely having knowledge knows that it isn't an instance that lost the game, it was everything put together. But does that make us feel better? No way. Pointing at Michael Bourn makes us feel better. It is all his fault.

Ah, it's like we never lost the game now...

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Re: The blame game

You're right, of course. But as I read about the end of the game last night--I'd turned it off in disgust an inning or two earlier--I started thinking about all the dumbassed things the Phillies have done to lose games this year. Bad baserunning was at the top of the list. We lost a game in Florida last week because Steve Smith sent Bourn home with no outs, and he was out at the plate by 15 feet. Victorino's attempted steal of third in the second game of the season against the Braves. Other bad decisions by Smith. And so on.

Manuel of course has made his share of dumb decisions as well, and I'm not talking about not PHing for Garcia in the first game of the Arizona series (that was a tough call, arguable either way). Bringing the infield in for the second inning with Micah Owings on the mound for Arizona is just the most recent.

I don't follow any other team as closely as I do the Phils, so I can't say this for sure--but it certainly seems like the Phillies play as dumb as they do hard, and that this has been the case for the entirety of Manuel's tenure.

by dajafi on May 31, 2007 10:55 AM EDT reply actions

Re: The blame game

what is the point of charlie manuel?

I think just as a rule of thumb, no loss will ever be michael borne's fault.

by char6587 on May 31, 2007 12:55 PM EDT reply actions

Re: The blame game

Manuel's not a total disaster as manager. On balance, I think he's better than Bowa. His strengths, as I see them:

He really knows hitting. With a very few exceptions (Helms comes to mind), his position guys have fared better under Manuel than for other teams/other managers. He might well be the difference between Ryan Howard, Superstar, and Ryan Howard, AAAA Guy Who Can Hit a Meatball 500 Feet But Doesn't Do Jack Unless the Pitcher Screws Up.
The players don't quit on him. David Cohen's piece from this morning (right above this one on the TGP main page) shows that the Phils have the best late-game offense in the big leagues. That's probably not a coincidence.
He hasn't generally burnt out pitchers' arms. There's some concern that he's overused, or is overusing, Hamels, but even there, it's arguable--no starts over 117 pitches this year.

Balanced against that, he's tactically almost clueless, and he doesn't handle the press well.

There are certainly better managers, but it would take some amalgam of Casey Stengel, Gene Mauch and Davey Johnson to get this Phillies team playing all that much better than they are.

by dajafi on May 31, 2007 1:04 PM EDT up reply actions

Re: The blame game

If I'm dividing up blame, it looks like this

Gillick: 60%
Manuel: 20%
Players: 20%

Your team starts at the top. Gillick is responsible for putting the players on the team. Maybe Chuck gets some say in who gets kept and who doesn't, but the common theme around baseball is that the GM makes the major roster decisions, and some managers have more input than others. I'd think Charlie would have more input once the season started, because he watches the guys play every day, while Gillick is appraising art in Toronto. But in the offseason, the GM is the guy who shapes the roster.

So, if you're the manager, and you are dealt a tough hand with the talent available, what do you? Now, I do blame Manuel for some of his in game management. His decisions on when to send runners, when to sacrifice and when to take out the starter are often times questionable at best. However, he generally seems to understand the value of going station to station and not giving up outs. His coaches, however, don't seem to have any idea. Isn't the 3rd base coach's biggest responsibility to know the outfielders, know his runners, and make the right choice? On a perfect play, sure, you forgive him, but when you're getting guys thrown out by 15 feet, something is up.

Manuel's bullpen management is sub par, but this comes back to the hand he was dealt. He has no confidence in anyone other than Madson, Myers, and Geary. Condrey and Hernandez are redundant, Hernandez at least has decent stuff and has thrown strikes, so why not keep him and jettison Condrey? The Phillies have a bunch of guys just like Condrey sitting in Ottawa and Reading, if you really need another arm, then bring one of those guys up. Having 7 relievers is a complete waste if you have no intention of using them. It's no wonder our pitchers aren't pulled in the 5th inning with the bases loaded and one out....do you have any confidence our bullpen can shut the other team down for 4 innings?

Then, at the bottom of the line, it's simply on the players. The GM puts the guys on the team, the manager puts them in the position, and they ultimately have to execute. When they execute, Manuel is a genius, and when they fail, he's a goat. Bottom line is, certain guys haven't been pulling their weight, and more importantly, they haven't been consistent. Burrell's average has been anywhere from .304 on April 27 to .236 in the span of a month. Rollins has tailed off in May, Utley has been awful against lefties this season, Howard has been hurt/ineffective for much of the season. Garcia and Eaton were awful for a month, both look better now, but Moyer is regressing. Gordon is on the shelf, Myers is now hurt. Really, a lot of things have gone wrong, some uncontrollable, some maybe more controllable, but maybe not.

All in all, everyone gets the blame. Maybe, though, WE are the ones to blame, for thinking this team, as constructed, was more than a .500 team.

by FTN414 on May 31, 2007 1:23 PM EDT reply actions

Re: The blame game

This is a great article followed by superb comments. I agree that blaming Bourn for last night's loss is pretty silly. They lost it as a team from Manuel on down.

Manuel has strengths as a manager but you have to think his handling of pitcher is his biggest weakness. You can blame Gillick but the guys in the pen are a direct result of sabermetric philosophy: collect a bunch of live arms and pick out the one's who will do the best and use them wisely and you've got a good bullpen. Don't spend the big bucks here.

Most other teams have guys in thier pen who are about as nondescript as the Phils hurlers. Paronto and Yates and Sele and Smith and Feliciano and a bunch of Marlin guys and on and on.

But the Mets, for example, get very fine performances out of, say a Darren Oliver or a Feliciano. And Manuel never does. He didn't in Cleveland either.

I think the Phils have been a hard fighting comeback team for the last several years. I would love to see them hire a manger who can continue to get the old schoo try out of his players but who also gets better pitching maybe even better fudamentals out of them. I think that could make all the difference in the world. There is a lot of precedent for this in baseball history.

by smitty @ The Good Phight on May 31, 2007 5:35 PM EDT reply actions

Re: The blame game

I disagree that the Phillies bullpen is a construction born out of sabermetric thinking. The philosophy there isn't just "throw a bunch of guys at the wall and see if it sticks", it's centered around more important things like

Guys with good K:B ratios, but not necessarily great ERA's
Guys with good strikeout numbers and groundball tendencies.

People like Clay Condrey and Alfonseca don't fit into that mold. Rosario is a scout's dream, because he throws real hard, but it's arrow straight and his secondary pitches are below average, I wouldn't say that's a sabermetric kind of guy. A guy like Yoel Hernandez might be an underrated commodity, but a guy like Alfonseca isn't. He doesn't miss bats, and he has spotty control, there's nothing sabermetric about that.

The bigger problem is the Catch 22 in the bullpen. Young guys like Rosario and Castro need to pitch in key situations to gain experience, but the manager doesn't trust them in key situations. The result is 3/4 of the bullpen sitting around for 4 days between outings and then being thrust into emergency situations. IF you're going to use the same 4 relievers every night, you may as well only carry those 4 guys and 1 long man, there's no need for 2 more guys who will never pitch. Zagurski was good in his first two outings, but hasn't been heard from since. If he pitches Friday, it will be the first time in 4 days.

Manuel is anti-sabermetric in how he uses his pen, and the guys out there really don't seem to fit the bill. Cheap doesn't equal smart if the guys don't have solid peripherals.

by FTN414 on May 31, 2007 5:45 PM EDT reply actions

Re: The blame game

Good points James but:

Compared to other teams pens, the guys the Phillies have are comparable at least. Darren Oliver and guys like that don't really fit the bill of what you describe.
The few relievers who actually do have really good K:BB rates and groundball tendencies are the stars and and are not readily available and cheap.
Rosario's problem isn't so much the straightness of his pitches but rather him not knowing at all where it is going. The only way to improve in my view is to get work which Charlie won't give him. And he still might not be good but then again he might.
The execution is the thing. The Phils bullpen guys could get the job done most of the time if handled properly I think. (I'd get rid of Condrey right now cuz he ain't so good -- but Geary and Madson have been good before and Zagurski looks good and Smith might be back and Myers and Gordon could come back and they have some talent in there). The other teams have a lot of guys who don't havbe great K:BB rates and groundball tendencies but they get better performances out of them than the Phils do. and this has been going on for a while now.

by smitty @ The Good Phight on May 31, 2007 6:05 PM EDT up reply actions

Manuel/Dubee

I wonder how much of this can be laid at Manuel's feet, and how much at Dubee's. In contrast to what Manuel (and I guess Milt Thompson) has gotten out of the hitters improvement-wise, I'm not sure any of our pitchers can be said to have taken big steps forward since Myers from 2004 to 2005. Hamels came up and was dominating pretty quickly, sure, but it would have been tough to screw up that kind of talent.

I honestly have no idea whether or not Dubee is doing, or has done, a good job. It just seems like maybe we're letting him somewhat off the hook--even considering that ultimately it's on Manuel and Gillick to fire a coach who isn't contributing.

by dajafi on Jun 1, 2007 1:52 AM EDT up reply actions

Re: Manuel/Dubee

I always look at manager/pitching coach combinations. Cox/Mazzone, LaRussa/Duncan, Martin/Fowler, that kind of thing. It's a little difficult for us to tell who does what and how much one guy or the other influences pitcher's performances.

Manuel has not had a good pitching staff in any of his years as a manager. Part of his problem may be he doesn't know what a good pitching coach looks like. It's hard to say.

by smitty @ The Good Phight on Jun 1, 2007 3:01 PM EDT up reply actions