Article: So, What Exactly Makes Craig Counsell So Much Better Than David Ross?

[JHBulls]

7 minutes ago, Rcal10 said:

I think more than 1 thing can be true. People can love Ross for his Cubs history, think he was an ok manager and still like the move to Counsell. Basically that is where I am. I think he took too much heat for every move he made that didn’t work. But overall I thought he was fine. I just think Counsell is better. I also think his way of managing aligns more with Hoyer. I also feel by signing Counsell they have made a statement that 24’ matters. I think with Counsell as the manager they Cubs will be more aggressive in the off season. 

Same here. Upgrading is never a bad thing. 
 

Ross made mistakes and Counsell will make mistakes. That’s the human element of sport. But it’s an upgrade, so I like that part of it. 

[Hairyducked Idiot]

4 hours ago, Stratos said:

Have a link?

Bad bullpens also turn close leads into losses.  We saw it directly last year in April, May, and Sept.  Relievers are used based on the score and leverage, so overall pen ERA isn't as relevant as how well your top 4 or so pen arms can hold leads.  Winning by 4-3 or 8-3 is irrelevant, just like losing by 8-6 or 8-1.

Google is right there. People have been spilling pixels on this subject for at least 30 years that I can recall. You can find every one of your objections has already been asked and answered. The findings are still the same:

There is a very small effect where the very best bullpens tend to overperform their Pythagorean record by about 1-1.5 wins per year, and the same in the opposite direction for the very worst bullpens. It does not explain the vast majority of Pythagorean deviation, which appears to be random and not intrinsic to the teams regardless of the quality of their high-leverage relievers. (Note that this does not mean that good bullpens aren't worth more than 1.5 wins per season, it just means that the rest of the bullpen's value is already accounted for in run prevention rather than sequencing.)

People struggle with this concept because there's a lot of emotional baggage that comes with blowing leads.  Our cognitive biases hate losing things we felt we already had, and we remember negative emotional events more strongly.  So that time the bullpen blew a lead in the ninth will always stick out in our minds.  The time the same bullpen turned a comfortable 5-run lead into a two-run doesn't feel as important. But it has just as much of an effect on Pythagorean variance.

Since you brought up the April 2023 cubs specifically, here's some games that probably weren't the ones you were thinking of:

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/CHN/CHN202304120.shtml

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/CHN/CHN202304200.shtml

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/CHN/CHN202304220.shtml

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/CHN/CHN202304230.shtml

Bad bullpen performances in these games actually improved the Cubs' Pythagorean variance by turning potentially close losses into blowout losses.

Pythagorean variance just doesn't work the way it intuitively feels like it should, because our brains tend to fixate on certain scenarios and ignore others.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

10 hours ago, WhyCantWeWin said:

I think some of yall would take a bullet for Ross

Where has anyone in this thread expressed regret that Ross is gone?

[CubUgly]

19 hours ago, 1908_Cubs said:

I'm a very "analytical" person when it comes to baseball and I love using data every chance we get. I do think managers have some impact, but I don't think it's really that possible to attribute. 

I'm not the full blown analytics guy but I agree with you Re: managers DO have impact but that it's really difficult to calculate or attribute how much.  If it were not, we'd have WAR for managers you could bet but too many unknowns about what and how a manager might contribute more so than another, etc. 

So - what we have - and it happens here all the time, one of us - hell sometimes me....will criticize a move the manager makes..heck I guarantee I'll come on here and criticize something Counsel does.  Then inevitably you'll have the responses...."baseball is random...these are 50/50 decisions, coin flips, they know things we don't", etc. you all know the stock responses.

While I get it and to some degree agree with the premise, I also think the idea that the impact managers is insignificant and that with very few exceptions you can fit one in with another and you're not going to have much variance to be convenient and off base. 

If you want to argue that in this specific case that Counsel for Rossi has very little impact in a vacuum and that it's not upgrade, I'd disagree...I'd understand the take...but again, I'd disagree.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

2 hours ago, CubUgly said:

I'm not the full blown analytics guy but I agree with you Re: managers DO have impact but that it's really difficult to calculate or attribute how much.  If it were not, we'd have WAR for managers you could bet but too many unknowns about what and how a manager might contribute more so than another, etc. 

So - what we have - and it happens here all the time, one of us - hell sometimes me....will criticize a move the manager makes..heck I guarantee I'll come on here and criticize something Counsel does.  Then inevitably you'll have the responses...."baseball is random...these are 50/50 decisions, coin flips, they know things we don't", etc. you all know the stock responses.

While I get it and to some degree agree with the premise, I also think the idea that the impact managers is insignificant and that with very few exceptions you can fit one in with another and you're not going to have much variance to be convenient and off base. 

If you want to argue that in this specific case that Counsel for Rossi has very little impact in a vacuum and that it's not upgrade, I'd disagree...I'd understand the take...but again, I'd disagree.

Do you have any specific reason *why* you disagree? Or is it just a feeling?

[CubinNY]

52 minutes ago, Hairyducked Idiot said:

Do you have any specific reason *why* you disagree? Or is it just a feeling?

It is just the opposite of your feeling. 

[CubUgly]

2 hours ago, Hairyducked Idiot said:

Do you have any specific reason *why* you disagree? Or is it just a feeling?

I think it's a bit of both for me.  I could list multiple specifics in my mind and have here before,  but that leads to endless and futile back and forths splitting hairs - but a feeling from watching Rossi almost every game for 4 years and Counsel 19 times a year (until this past year 14) I just believe Counsel is better.  And I think if you would poll all baseball people most would too. 

Now to what degree, that would vary I'm sure just as it does here. 

[squally1313]

25 minutes ago, CubUgly said:

I think it's a bit of both for me.  I could list multiple specifics in my mind and have here before,  but that leads to endless and futile back and forths splitting hairs - but a feeling from watching Rossi almost every game for 4 years and Counsel 19 times a year (until this past year 14) I just believe Counsel is better.  And I think if you would poll all baseball people most would too. 

Now to what degree, that would vary I'm sure just as it does here. 

I could list specifics, but I'm not, but also it's just a feeling, but also most baseball people supposedly agree with me. Ipso facto. 

[Hairyducked Idiot]

1 hour ago, squally1313 said:

I could list specifics, but I'm not, but also it's just a feeling, but also most baseball people supposedly agree with me. Ipso facto. 

Those baseball people also value the difference at less than half a win per year in salary 

[Thusly Boned]

I don't hate Ross by any stretch, but I saw/heard things from him last year, particularly down the stretch, that I really didn't like.

The whole "going with who got us here" thing really smacked of the sort of dogmatic, old school loyalist ideology that I just can't stand. His seeming unwillingness not to use what was given him down the stretch was on clear display. There were a lot of red flags there.

The bullpen management stuff was in large part due to not having much to work with, but he still rode guys into the ground rather than take chances just play the hand he was dealt.

Counsell has a rep as a "player's manager" but also as being intelligent/analytical. Obviously we don't have the perspective of fans who watched every Brewer game over the last 10 years, but from what I've seen he almost always makes what seem like the best, most "obvious" decisions in the moment.

I don't trust Ross to do that, particularly after what I saw last year. I just feel more confident that Counsell will be a more pragmatic and analytical decision maker than Ross on a day to day basis, and really that is best anyone can hope for with a manager, imo. Obviously he's going to do things that piss us off, but that's just a given with any manager.

As far as assigning a measurable value to Counsell v. Ross, that's a unscientific endeavor. But I am pretty certain its at least a marginal upgrade, and as so many are fond of pointing out when it comes to players, it's not my money.

And if the "message" it sends helps us in the marketplace at all, it will have been worth it based on that alone, imo.

[Tim]

On 11/8/2023 at 10:30 AM, Cuzi said:

Acting like managers are equal and make very little impact on a team is a hilariously dumb take. They all need good players to win, but the best managers win with those players when they have them. Every sport has those legendary managers/coaches that have dominated their sport.

Joe Torre

Tony LaRussa

Terry Francona

Andy Reid

Phil Jackson

Pep Guardiola

If it was so easy to replicate, then Dave Roberts would have 3 or 4 rings by now instead of the 1 he has in a shortened season, because the Dodgers have had arguably the best team in baseball for a decade now.

holy survivor bias, batman

[Tim]

20 hours ago, JHBulls said:

I don’t find it surprising that there are Cubs fans who are pro-Ross and would be upset by this. This is a guy who hit a franchise changing home run in Game 7 and went on to win the World Series in large part because of that home run. If that never happened, this sacking would just be seen as just a former player getting sacked. Instead of the sacking of a Chicago Cubs hero.

I don't remember seeing anyone in this thread who is upset by this. Certainly all of the people on the past few pages aren't arguing against the move. The most negative emotion shown is "meh, whatever. I'm happy it looks like they'll be spending." The majority of those that seem "negative" are just arguing that the article is vastly overstating the impact of the move, guessing it is more like a half-win to a win better as opposed to a 10 win improvement.

[CubUgly]

3 hours ago, squally1313 said:

I could list specifics, but I'm not

Just been there done that before here, it ain't worth the time and effort and neither of will budge.  

[squally1313]

1 hour ago, XZero77 said:

 

The whole "going with who got us here" thing really smacked of the sort of dogmatic, old school loyalist ideology that I just can't stand. His seeming unwillingness not to use what was given him down the stretch was on clear display. There were a lot of red flags there.

 

Not to cherry pick here, but that comment got a ton of criticism at the time and seemingly still now. And I interpreted it, at the time, as pointing to the roster that had, up to 9/6 when he said it, beaten all preseason expectations, had us in a playoff spot (2nd wildcard), and had also pretty significantly underperformed their expected record. He said this and then they won the final three games of the Giants series. At that point in the year, I didn't see anything wrong with that approach.

[squally1313]

Just now, CubUgly said:

Just been there done that before here, it ain't worth the time and effort and neither of will budge.  

To be clear, that's a totally reasonable position. It just comes off a little weird when you're like 'I think you're wrong, and I think most people agree with me, but that's all I'm going to say, not because I can't defend my position, I just don't want to'

[JHBulls]

45 minutes ago, Tim said:

I don't remember seeing anyone in this thread who is upset by this. Certainly all of the people on the past few pages aren't arguing against the move. The most negative emotion shown is "meh, whatever. I'm happy it looks like they'll be spending." The majority of those that seem "negative" are just arguing that the article is vastly overstating the impact of the move, guessing it is more like a half-win to a win better as opposed to a 10 win improvement.

Sorry, was just thinking out loud. Nothing to do with this board specifically. 

[Thusly Boned]

14 minutes ago, squally1313 said:

Not to cherry pick here, but that comment got a ton of criticism at the time and seemingly still now. And I interpreted it, at the time, as pointing to the roster that had, up to 9/6 when he said it, beaten all preseason expectations, had us in a playoff spot (2nd wildcard), and had also pretty significantly underperformed their expected record. He said this and then they won the final three games of the Giants series. At that point in the year, I didn't see anything wrong with that approach.

That seems fair, but the problem is that his actions for the rest of the season seemed like adherence to that statement, well past the point where it made sense to. 

If he had adjusted when things were on their way down the drain, you could more justifiably frame it as criticism of a statement made out of context, but he didn't. Everything he did after saying that sure make it seem like that is just his ideology.

[squally1313]

4 minutes ago, XZero77 said:

That seems fair, but the problem is that his actions for the rest of the season seemed like adherence to that statement, well past the point where it made sense to. 

If he had adjusted when things were on their way down the drain, you could more justifiably frame it as criticism of a statement made out of context, but he didn't. Everything he did after saying that sure make it seem like that is just his ideology.

Maybe, but they were 7th in offensive fWAR in September. The pitching and specifically the bullpen kinda fell apart, and I don't really know if there were good options that he avoided in some sort of hard headed method. Like, I assume the complaints are bigger than 'he didn't use Luke Little enough'....but the offense was fine, and he threw Wicks into the rotation and kept him there. 

[Transmogrified Tiger]

The Ross quote can also be seen through the lens of not trying to put the weight of a playoff chase on a new call up's shoulders, it's baffling how many people have latched onto it.

 

I especially don't get how we can say that the playing time was poorly distributed with the benefit of hindsight.  PCA got stuffed in a locker by MLB pitchers and I think made more outs on the bases than he had hits + BB(plus Ross still went out of his way to play him).  Canario is just a guy and the alternatives hit perfectly fine.  Wicks was a rotation mainstay, Palencia never got more run than he did in September, and I guess Luke Little could've thrown a couple more innings?  So many people had a starting point in their thinking and because the team wasn't successful on the whole, no actual facts of the situation would change their perception past that starting point.

[CubUgly]

14 hours ago, squally1313 said:

To be clear, that's a totally reasonable position. It just comes off a little weird when you're like 'I think you're wrong, and I think most people agree with me, but that's all I'm going to say, not because I can't defend my position, I just don't want to'

And to be clear on my end I never said "you're wrong" or that anyone was wrong,  I said I would disagree.....I think that is a significant difference.    As to defending my position - we have all season, i'll make you a deal maybe during the holidays when nothing is going on for me and I have time for a 50 post discussion, we can discuss until one of us passes out.   

[Hairyducked Idiot]

18 hours ago, CubUgly said:

Just been there done that before here, it ain't worth the time and effort and neither of will budge.  

I explained a specific mathematical way to show that I'm wrong. I would absolutely budge if the right sort of evidence were produced.

Don't project your boomer "I believe what I like to believe regardless of evidence" tendences onto me.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

I suspect the angst won't be as intense next year because the team will probably be pretty good, but I don't expect Counsell to be any more willing than Ross to hand MLB playing time to every Coors@Iowa-inflated AAA slash line mid-tier prospect that fans are clamoring for.

[CubUgly]

10 minutes ago, Hairyducked Idiot said:

I explained a specific mathematical way to show that I'm wrong. I would absolutely budge if the right sort of evidence were produced.

Don't project your boomer "I believe what I like to believe regardless of evidence" tendences onto me.

OK HDI I'll make the same deal with you I made with squally - fair enough, or am I projecting again?