Guillen, Cox named Managers of the Year

[vance_the_cubs_fan]

Ahhh plate patience.

 

435 walks for '05 Sox

 

499 walks for '04 Sox.

 

We should never let facts get in the way of a good argument.

[VVMattVV]

Ahhh plate patience.

 

435 walks for '05 Sox

 

499 walks for '04 Sox.

 

We should never let facts get in the way of a good argument.

 

Agreed. Lets just agree with whatever sportswriters/broadcasters say.

[bc2k]

Ahhh plate patience.

 

435 walks for '05 Sox

 

499 walks for '04 Sox.

 

My plate patience comment was in terms of the playoffs, but I can see how you thought I meant the regular season. Specifically, the big inning of Game 3 where they made Roy Oswalt throw ~50 pitches in one inning. But in the playoffs as a whole, the Sox's lineup 1-9 were more patient than in the regular season. Guys like Juan Uribe, who rarely walked in the regular season, were drawing a handful of walks in 12 games. The Sox fouled off lots of pitches too, always working the opposing starting pitcher. That's small ball.

 

 

Plate patience isn't simply defined by walks. Take Tadahito Iguchi, for example. All through the regular and post season, he was patient enough to take pitches--often strikes--early in the count to allow Scott Podsednik the opportunity to steal a base. Stats don't account for that. That's small ball.

 

Statistics also don't account for the unofficial sacrifices batter's make. There is no statistic showing a sacrifice where a batter intentionally grounds to the right side of the infield to advance a baserunner. Again, Tadahito Iguchi has performed this sacrifice dozens of times throughout the 2004 season. According to the statistics, it is recorded as an out, and his batting average is lowered. The stats do not note the ground out benefitting the team. That's small ball.

 

The numbers you and others use show the total team's statistics, but two men, Podsednik and Iguchi, greatly change the makeup of the team in a manner that at this point, is impossible to calculate on a stat sheet. I think this is where the confusion lies: Only two of the nine men in the lineup play much small ball, so one cannot qualify the entire lineup as a small ball team. That's where the season-long statistics of the entire lineup skew your perception of the team.

 

The Sox are really an all-ball team, meaning they beat teams playing for one run or playing for the big inning. But one cannot say that they don't play small ball or that small ball wasn't an important reason for winning the AL Central and the World Series.

[CubinNY]

Ahhh plate patience.

 

435 walks for '05 Sox

 

499 walks for '04 Sox.

 

My plate patience comment was in terms of the playoffs, but I can see how you thought I meant the regular season. Specifically, the big inning of Game 3 where they made Roy Oswalt throw ~50 pitches in one inning. But in the playoffs as a whole, the Sox's lineup 1-9 were more patient than in the regular season. Guys like Juan Uribe, who rarely walked in the regular season, were drawing a handful of walks in 12 games. The Sox fouled off lots of pitches too, always working the opposing starting pitcher. That's small ball.

 

 

Plate patience isn't simply defined by walks. Take Tadahito Iguchi, for example. All through the regular and post season, he was patient enough to take pitches--often strikes--early in the count to allow Scott Podsednik the opportunity to steal a base. Stats don't account for that. That's small ball.

 

Statistics also don't account for the unofficial sacrifices batter's make. There is no statistic showing a sacrifice where a batter intentionally grounds to the right side of the infield to advance a baserunner. Again, Tadahito Iguchi has performed this sacrifice dozens of times throughout the 2004 season. According to the statistics, it is recorded as an out, and his batting average is lowered. The stats do not note the ground out benefitting the team. That's small ball.

 

The numbers you and others use show the total team's statistics, but two men, Podsednik and Iguchi, greatly change the makeup of the team in a manner that at this point, is impossible to calculate on a stat sheet. I think this is where the confusion lies: Only two of the nine men in the lineup play much small ball, so one cannot qualify the entire lineup as a small ball team. That's where the season-long statistics of the entire lineup skew your perception of the team.

 

The Sox are really an all-ball team, meaning they beat teams playing for one run or playing for the big inning. But one cannot say that they don't play small ball or that small ball wasn't an important reason for winning the AL Central and the World Series.

 

I agree with you. But then again I was once abducted by Saskwatch.

[Diffusion]

My plate patience comment was in terms of the playoffs, but I can see how you thought I meant the regular season.

 

Isn't that lucky for your argument! Ooops, so I just made something up, or, more specifically, repeated the ESPN mantra, turns out it wasn't true, so now I'll just go and base it on one inning in one game in the playoffs, or maybe the playoffs as a whole, in which the White Sox played the grand total of 12 games.

 

But in the playoffs as a whole, the Sox's lineup 1-9 were more patient than in the regular season. Guys like Juan Uribe, who rarely walked in the regular season, were drawing a handful of walks in 12 games.

 

Except as a whole the White Sox drew 36 walks in 474 playoff PAs (or one walk every 13.2 trips to the plate). During the regular season they drew 435 walks in 6146 PAs (or one every 14.1 trips to the plate). Wait a minute, that means that they walked more often in the playoffs! Woohoo! Your argument is right! Er, hardly. Had the White Sox walked just 34 times in the playoffs, they'd have been right where they were at in the regular season. So you're basically arguing that 2 walks over 12 games means that the White Sox were more patient. Could it not just be that the opposing pitchers were just more wild? Or perhaps that the sample size is such a joke that it's not even worth considering those 2 walks as any kind of evidence that the White Sox were more patient in the playoffs? The difference is statistically insignificant.

 

The Sox fouled off lots of pitches too, always working the opposing starting pitcher. That's small ball.

 

Except that's also not true. The White saw 3.74 pitches per plate appearance in the playoffs. Meanwhile they saw 3.76 pitchers per plate appearance in the 2005 regular season. You'll never guess how many they saw in the 2004 regular season! Yes, 3.76. So the White Sox were exactly as good, or bad, at seeing loads of pitches per plate appearance and thus wearing all the pitchers down in 2005 as they in the playoffs and as they were the year before.

 

Plate patience isn't simply defined by walks. Take Tadahito Iguchi, for example. All through the regular and post season, he was patient enough to take pitches--often strikes--early in the count to allow Scott Podsednik the opportunity to steal a base. Stats don't account for that. That's small ball.

 

Stats do account for that. And the stats say that the White Sox were no different in taking pitches in the playoffs as they were in 2005 as they were in 2004. Stats also say that the White Sox walked a whole lot less in 2005 than they did in 2004. So does anything else define plate patience, or has your imagination run out of lies to dream up?

 

Statistics also don't account for the unofficial sacrifices batter's make. There is no statistic showing a sacrifice where a batter intentionally grounds to the right side of the infield to advance a baserunner. Again, Tadahito Iguchi has performed this sacrifice dozens of times throughout the 2004 season. According to the statistics, it is recorded as an out, and his batting average is lowered. The stats do not note the ground out benefitting the team. That's small ball.

 

So you're arguing that the difference between the 2004 and 2005 White Sox was that Tadahito Iguchi hit more balls to the second baseman? Big difference.

 

The numbers you and others use show the total team's statistics, but two men, Podsednik and Iguchi, greatly change the makeup of the team in a manner that at this point, is impossible to calculate on a stat sheet. I think this is where the confusion lies: Only two of the nine men in the lineup play much small ball, so one cannot qualify the entire lineup as a small ball team. That's where the season-long statistics of the entire lineup skew your perception of the team.

 

I dunno. I always got this impression that baseball was a team game, and that you required a number of members of the team to combine to score, you know, runs, and lots of them.

 

Strangely, the White Sox didn't score lots of them. They scored a lot less. 124 less than the year before. Yes, they scored more consistently, a standard deviation of 2.89 in 2005 as opposed to 3.73 in 2004, but does that compensate for 124 less runs? Highly debatable. What's not debatable is that their pitching improved from 2004 to 2005 enormously, and that was by far the biggest contributing factor to their success. By far.

[GlassCow]

What's wrong with Cox winning the award?

 

When you have an endless pool of minor league talent to fill your lineup holes with, it doesn't take a genius to win. His postseason managing, however, is atrocius.

 

I can accept Guillen more, simply because he really made no managerial mistakes the entire post season.

 

In the NL, I might have considered Frank Robinson or Ned Yost.

 

In the AL, Mike Scoscia (sp?) or Eric Wedge.

 

I can't understand this line of thinking. Call me crazy, but didn't Baker have a seemingly 'endless' pool of minor league talent to choose from when he got here? The difference is that Cox has the stones to actually play the rookies he is given. The guy has done a tremendous job down there, and in my mind this was by far his best season. He got his props, and deserved them.

[bc2k]

I think a lot of the points you're making are in defense of someone calling the White Sox a strictly small ball team. I'm not. I'm saying that small ball was a big reason why the Sox won the AL Central, in the playoffs and eventually the World Series. I also made the point that most of the lineup 1-9 doesn't play much small ball. So your macro statistics have merit. A more focused look shows that Podsednik and Iguchi did play a lot of small ball, and were a big reason for the team's success.

 

I also acknowledge that the pitching staff, not just the starters, was the biggest contributor to the team's success.

 

My plate patience comment was in terms of the playoffs, but I can see how you thought I meant the regular season.

 

Isn't that lucky for your argument! Ooops, so I just made something up, or, more specifically, repeated the ESPN mantra, turns out it wasn't true, so now I'll just go and base it on one inning in one game in the playoffs, or maybe the playoffs as a whole, in which the White Sox played the grand total of 12 games.

 

 

 

No, no. Please read my previous post again. I also gave examples of regular season small ball contributions.

 

 

Plate patience isn't simply defined by walks. Take Tadahito Iguchi, for example. All through the regular and post season, he was patient enough to take pitches--often strikes--early in the count to allow Scott Podsednik the opportunity to steal a base. Stats don't account for that. That's small ball.

 

Stats do account for that. And the stats say that the White Sox were no different in taking pitches in the playoffs as they were in 2005 as they were in 2004. Stats also say that the White Sox walked a whole lot less in 2005 than they did in 2004. So does anything else define plate patience, or has your imagination run out of lies to dream up?

 

Again, you're using the team average, when my example was specific to one player, Tadahito Iguchi. Your team stats certainly do not disprove my example.

 

Statistics also don't account for the unofficial sacrifices batter's make. There is no statistic showing a sacrifice where a batter intentionally grounds to the right side of the infield to advance a baserunner. Again, Tadahito Iguchi has performed this sacrifice dozens of times throughout the 2004 season. According to the statistics, it is recorded as an out, and his batting average is lowered. The stats do not note the ground out benefitting the team. That's small ball.

 

So you're arguing that the difference between the 2004 and 2005 White Sox was that Tadahito Iguchi hit more balls to the second baseman? Big difference.

 

Certainly not. That is just one example of the season-long small ball contributions of Tadahito Iguchi and Scott Podsednik.

 

The numbers you and others use show the total team's statistics, but two men, Podsednik and Iguchi, greatly change the makeup of the team in a manner that at this point, is impossible to calculate on a stat sheet. I think this is where the confusion lies: Only two of the nine men in the lineup play much small ball, so one cannot qualify the entire lineup as a small ball team. That's where the season-long statistics of the entire lineup skew your perception of the team.

 

I dunno. I always got this impression that baseball was a team game, and that you required a number of members of the team to combine to score, you know, runs, and lots of them.

 

Strangely, the White Sox didn't score lots of them. They scored a lot less. 124 less than the year before. Yes, they scored more consistently, a standard deviation of 2.89 in 2005 as opposed to 3.73 in 2004, but does that compensate for 124 less runs? Highly debatable. What's not debatable is that their pitching improved from 2004 to 2005 enormously, and that was by far the biggest contributing factor to their success. By far.

 

Of course it is a team game. The Sox couldn't have won it all without other players in the lineup playing big ball. The team was a diverse mix of hitters.

[Derwood]

What's wrong with Cox winning the award?

 

When you have an endless pool of minor league talent to fill your lineup holes with, it doesn't take a genius to win. His postseason managing, however, is atrocius.

 

I can accept Guillen more, simply because he really made no managerial mistakes the entire post season.

 

In the NL, I might have considered Frank Robinson or Ned Yost.

 

In the AL, Mike Scoscia (sp?) or Eric Wedge.

 

I can't understand this line of thinking. Call me crazy, but didn't Baker have a seemingly 'endless' pool of minor league talent to choose from when he got here? The difference is that Cox has the stones to actually play the rookies he is given. The guy has done a tremendous job down there, and in my mind this was by far his best season. He got his props, and deserved them.

 

When did the Cubs have legitimate major league ready prospects at 2 OF positions, SS, 1B and catcher all at the same time?

[Diffusion]

A more focused look shows that Podsednik and Iguchi did play a lot of small ball, and were a big reason for the team's success.

 

Except Podsednik hit .290/.351/.349, Iguchi .278/.342/.438. Between them they stole 74 bases, and were caught 28 times (73%, marginally above the breakeven point). Both played above average defence, though in Podsednik's case you're talking about LF, where defence doesn't matter hugely. For the pair of them to be "big reasons" for the team's success, all that "causing havoc on the bases" and "bunts/swinging bunts" stuff (and whatever else you haven't mentioned but have ready to go as an insurance policy when your other "plate patience" etc arguments are flamed) must have an enormous amount of value. Unfortunately there's absolutely nothing besides the ramblings of sportswriters/broadcasters to suggest that that's true. The truth is that Podsednik and Iguchi weren't big reasons, they were just serviceable parts that plugged positions that otherwise could have been holes. That has value, sure. Not that much though.

 

Of course it is a team game. The Sox couldn't have won it all without other players in the lineup playing big ball.

 

So now they couldn't have won it all without the big ball and they couldn't have won it all without the pitching, in your own words. Jeez, just how important then was all this smart-ball then that Iguchi and Podsednik played?

[USSoccer]

I would argue that Iguchi was a much more important piece than Podsednik .

 

The White Sox won because of pitching. Plain and simple. The had a setup guy in their pen go 3 months or soem ridiculous amount of time without giving up an earned run! Hermanson pitched out of his mind before he got hurt. Garland had a career year. Jenks came up an pitched really well. Konerko hit a lot of home runs.

 

The didn't win because of Ozzie Guillen, or "smartball", or Scott Podsednik stealing bases. They won because they got really good starting pitching. They won because the got lucky in 1 run games, partly because their bullpen was so good, partly because their SP was so good, and mostly because Cleveland got out to a crappy start. If the Indians don't start the year playing like crap, the White Sox might not have even made the playoffs.

[SouthSideRyan]

Diffusion pretty much covered all I wanted to say, only much better than I could've.

 

Only point I wanna add is that it was mentioned earlier about hitting to the other side of the field not showing up in the boxscore. Another thing that doesn't show up in the box score are botched bunts, either putting a guy down 0-2 or resulting in fielder's choice, DP, what have you.

 

It also doesn't show up on what Iguchi or Podsednik could have done had they not given up themselves by not even attempting to get a hit. It amazes me that broadcasters and Guillen will give Iguchi extra credit saying that his #s aren't as good as they should be because of how many times he gave himself up to move Podsednik over, and then in the next sentence talk about how this was a good thing. They are admitting that Iguchi could do better if given the chance to actually hit, thus helping his individual #s, thus helping the team; and yet they applaud his actions of giving away one of the precious few 27 outs so often.

[bc2k]

A more focused look shows that Podsednik and Iguchi did play a lot of small ball, and were a big reason for the team's success.

 

Except Podsednik hit .290/.351/.349, Iguchi .278/.342/.438. Between them they stole 74 bases, and were caught 28 times (73%, marginally above the breakeven point). Both played above average defence, though in Podsednik's case you're talking about LF, where defence doesn't matter hugely. For the pair of them to be "big reasons" for the team's success, all that "causing havoc on the bases" and "bunts/swinging bunts" stuff (and whatever else you haven't mentioned but have ready to go as an insurance policy when your other "plate patience" etc arguments are flamed) must have an enormous amount of value. Unfortunately there's absolutely nothing besides the ramblings of sportswriters/broadcasters to suggest that that's true. The truth is that Podsednik and Iguchi weren't big reasons, they were just serviceable parts that plugged positions that otherwise could have been holes. That has value, sure. Not that much though.

 

I don't want to keep this thread going forever, but I have to explain this. I've never put much value in the breaking point of stolen bases. On paper, one could find how much a player helps and hurts his team with stolen bases. In reality, the values are different because each stolen base attempt has different value based on the game situation. How important was Dave Roberts's steal of second in game 4 of the 2004 ALCS? According to the stat sheet, that steal was just as, but not more important than any other postseason stolen base. Granted, Scott Podsednik didn't have a stolen base attempt as valuable as that one, but on a team that won so many one-run games, I bet his 59 stolen bases had more tangible value than the stat sheet perceives.

 

In 2005, Scott Podsednik's stolen base effectiveness mirrored the success of his team. During the first four months of the season, when he was healthy and stealing a higher rate, the Sox won much more often than in the last two months of the season when he had an injured groin and stole at a lower rate.

 

Of course it is a team game. The Sox couldn't have won it all without other players in the lineup playing big ball.

 

So now they couldn't have won it all without the big ball and they couldn't have won it all without the pitching, in your own words. Jeez, just how important then was all this smart-ball then that Iguchi and Podsednik played?

 

The margin of the Sox winning the division and winning in the postseason was slim. Since it was so close, I don't think they could have won in the first or second season if not for all the contributions they received from their small ball hitters, big ball hitters, and most importantly, pitching. Their pitching, 1-13 is most responsible for the team's 2005 success. So back to my previous point, the Sox's 2004 Podsednik- and Iguchi-less offense combined with the 2005 pitching staff, doesn't have the success the 2005 team had.

[Diffusion]

Only point I wanna add is that it was mentioned earlier about hitting to the other side of the field not showing up in the boxscore. Another thing that doesn't show up in the box score are botched bunts, either putting a guy down 0-2 or resulting in fielder's choice, DP, what have you.

 

It also doesn't show up on what Iguchi or Podsednik could have done had they not given up themselves by not even attempting to get a hit. It amazes me that broadcasters and Guillen will give Iguchi extra credit saying that his #s aren't as good as they should be because of how many times he gave himself up to move Podsednik over, and then in the next sentence talk about how this was a good thing. They are admitting that Iguchi could do better if given the chance to actually hit, thus helping his individual #s, thus helping the team; and yet they applaud his actions of giving away one of the precious few 27 outs so often.

 

Indeed. The boxscore doesn't mention a lot of things, and not all of the unmentioned things understate a player's value. Consider fielding, for instance - a player with rubbish range doesn't get an error for not getting to the ball...

 

I've never put much value in the breaking point of stolen bases. On paper, one could find how much a player helps and hurts his team with stolen bases. In reality, the values are different because each stolen base attempt has different value based on the game situation. How important was Dave Roberts's steal of second in game 4 of the 2004 ALCS? According to the stat sheet, that steal was just as, but not more important than any other postseason stolen base. Granted, Scott Podsednik didn't have a stolen base attempt as valuable as that one, but on a team that won so many one-run games, I bet his 59 stolen bases had more tangible value than the stat sheet perceives.

 

That's a fair enough point. The idea of the breakeven point is that the player attempts steals according to an average distribution of situations. There are situations when stealing a base is more of a risk and less of a risk, when there's more of a reward and less of a reward. And there's no guarantee that over the course of a certain number of attempts, the risk and reward will overall be in line with the average.

 

All the same, my guess is that Podsednik isn't clever enough, or good enough, to only steal when it really matters, and only get caught stealing when it doesn't, or whatever. But I don't really know. Therefore, really, it was wrong of me to even bring up the concept of the breakeven point.

 

But the ball is on your court as to the value of Podsednik's steals. You're the one that brought them up. So you find out just how valuable they were, and then get back to me...

 

Get a Podsednik game log, note the SBs and CSs, pull up the boxscore and play-by-play for each one, work out the bases/out situation. Use a run expentency matrix such as this one here --- http://www.tangotiger.net/RE9902.html --- and work out the run value of each attempt, positive and negative. Add them up, and give me a number.

 

So, if Podsednik tried to steal 1st/0 outs, and made it, meaning 2nd/0 outs, the number of runs that he'd have added via the steal would be 1.189 (run value of 2nd/0 outs) minus 0.953 (run value of 1st/0 outs), or 0.236 runs.

 

Of course, there are still problems with this. 1) The data upon which the Run Expectancy Matrix is based is old (99-02), and the run environment isn't quite the same today. 2) Again we're talking situational averages in terms of the run value - but a steal of 2nd with 1st/0 outs on a 0-0 count when down by 1 run is a lot more valuable than than the same steal with the same base/out situation only when you're winning by 7 and the count is 3-0. And 3) it's not park or lineup or anything adjusted, it's just the average across all of baseball. All the same, this ought to give you something of an estimate, something a whole lot more reliable than your "bet" that Podsednik conveniently only gets CS when it doesn't matter, or whatever...

 

So back to my previous point, the Sox's 2004 Podsednik- and Iguchi-less offense combined with the 2005 pitching staff, doesn't have the success the 2005 team had.

 

You still haven't explained this to me.

 

2004: 865 runs, 5.34 runs per game, standard deviation of 3.77 runs

2005: 741 runs, 4.57 runs per game, standard deviation of 2.89 runs

 

Yes, the 2005 Sox were more consistent at scoring runs, in other words, but the 2004 Sox scored an awful lot more runs. What leads you to believe that the difference in standard deviation of 0.88 is more valuable than the difference in the opposite direction of 124 runs over the course of the season? If you want to make a case for the 2005 offence being better, you're going to have to do a whole lot better a job than you're doing right now.

 

What would be interesting actually would be the standard deviation in runs scored per inning (as opposed to runs scored per game). Perhaps the 2005 White Sox were able to grind out individual runs a lot more frequently, as opposed to waiting for the big inning as they maybe did in 2004. If you want to go ahead and prove that, feel free.

[treebird]

diffusion is probably my favorite poster.

[South Side]

If you don’t mind a Sox fan putting in his two cents worth:

 

Having watched the Sox play this season, I can assure you they completed defied “Moneyball” type analysis.

 

As stated above, the White Sox won because of pitching, starting and bullpen. They finally had five real starters, and a bullpen so deep they were able to go through three closers and still win the World Series. Ken Williams gets the credit for that. But the “Smallball” mentality actually had something to do with that IMO. It comes down to the psychological aspect of the game that numbers can never capture.

 

An example is Jon Garland. Garland, throughout his career, had a tendency to self destruct around the fourth or fifth inning. Typically he’d get down a run or two, try to be perfect to keep the game close, and end up getting his butt handed to him. This year, thanks to the Sox attempt to play for one or two early runs, Garland typically had a lead or tie in the middle innings, and was a completely different pitcher. In one game I saw early on, Garland had a two run lead in the fourth, and reverted to his old tendency to nibble around the plate. Pierzynski walked out to the mound, pointed at the scoreboard and yelled something at Garland. Garland went right after the hitter, and went on to have a great season. Garcia always has a tendency to give up early runs. The Sox negated that by scoring a run or two early, giving Garcia a chance to settle down. I also saw the same tendency with Hernandez, but not to the same extreme. In previous seasons, the Sox were always a big inning offense, and if that big inning didn’t come early, the pitchers tended to fall apart attempting to hold the game scoreless. The 2005 Sox didn’t put up a five run inning until almost halfway through the season, yet held a lead sometime in virtually every game to that point (they actually set a ML record in that respect).

 

Moving on to the offense, with Podsednik on base, pitchers tend to make mistakes. Lots of mistakes. Iguchi hit around .325 when there was a runner on first (typically Pods, sometimes Uribe). That’s not a coincidence. And it’s not a coincidence that Iguchi’s worst part of the season was when Podsednik was injured. He stopped seeing a steady diet of fastballs. The tradeoff is the Sox sometimes give up one of their outs to keep the threat out there. The tradeoff often worked.

 

Finally, the most important part is the fact that the team had the ability to play Smallball when necessary, but had enough power to put up a big inning when necessary. And Guillen had an uncanny ability to identify which situation was which. Obviously it will take a few more seasons to determine if that was luck, or if the Sox have an unusually talented manager.

 

I can’t really prove or justify the above with anything other than the experience of four decades of watching baseball. But I am confident that numbers don't always tell the story.

[hardcorecubfan]

What's wrong with Cox winning the award?

 

he is the Mike Hargrove of the NL can get to the playoffs but can't go beyond that. Phil garner deserves it