Baseball Primer's (I still call it that) evaluating managers

[UK1679666180]

Part III:

 

http://www.baseballthinkfactory.org/files/primate_studies/discussion/evaluating_managers_part_3/

 

Lou Piniella:

 

I can't believe he's as good as this system claims he is if for no other reason than I have too much respect for some of the other managers to think Piniella could dominate them so much. Then again, I think enough of this system that I have to think he's done a real wing-dinger of a job over the last couple years. As mentioned earlier, he's the best at orchestrating immediate dramatic improvement since the death of Billy Martin. His score of +49 wins here is off the charts. How the hell did he do that good? Well, the 2001 Mariners didn't hurt his mark. They're the biggest overachieving team under study here, at +29 games. They're also the biggest overachievers in the Birnbaum database. Take that away from him and he's "only" sixth best. That's not a fair comparison, however. Let's take everyone's best season away from them and see how they compare. Here's the top five without their best season:

 

 

1. Lou Piniella +20

2. Ron Gardenhire +17

3. Mike Scioscia +13

4. Ozzie Guilen +11

5. Bobby Cox +10

He's still the king, and only one man is within two-thirds of him. Piniella's aided by only having one negative year, a mere –3 in 2005. Guillen has no negative years, but he's only been around 3 years. Gardy has two. Granted, they're only –2, and –1, but he hasn't managed as much.

The Birnbaum database didn't like Piniella at all. In part two I explained why I disagreed. Anyone who can capture a ring with the 1990 Reds and win 116 wins in Seattle has to have something going for him. I'm amazed how much this system likes him, though.

 

Piniella scores +36 with Seattle and +13 with Tampa Bay. Maybe it's easier to exceed projections when you're supposed to win as few games as the Rays are always calculated at, but the other Tampa managers are a combined –19 wins. Perhaps he's not as good as he once was. The aging patterns info works against him, but he's earned the right to show if he still has it.

 

[CubColtPacer]

That's certainly a very interesting study. Obviously its rankings cannot be taken for gold (and the author basically admits that) but it does seem to show that Lou's teams have most always been at least a little better than projected. Of course, Dusty had the same thing, and his score apparently just got worse and worse with the Cubs. Still though, it's an interesting look at the different managers around the league, if with a decent amount of possibility of variability that would have to be considered.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

Any way to isolate his NL managing time?

[Fred Hornkohl]

Not very scientific, but what the hell.........

 

Tampa Bay Devilrays.........

                                     W     L    Pct
with Piniella ('03-'05)             200   285   .412
without Piniella ('98-'02 & '06)    379   591   .391