Here we are on the last day of December. Everyone is filled with happy thoughts about the promise of a new year. Throw out the old and welcome the new. It’s the way it’s always been. My belief is we should always welcome the new. Yet at the same time we should always celebrate that which is old and – most importantly – good. In that spirit, here are old baseball items that I firmly believe we should always keep in the front of our mind. Most of these come from Casey Stengel and Bill James.
- No matter how good you are, you’re going to lose one-third of your games. No matter how bad you are you’re going to win one-third of your games. It’s the other third that makes the difference.
- ‘Attitude’ and ‘leadership’ are very real things; they are on the same plane of existence as ‘talent,’ ‘desire,’ ‘training,’ and ‘experience,’ which is to say that they are very valuable if you can turn them into on-field results. If you don’t turn them into results … they’re meaningless words. … If you score three runs and the other team scores four, you lose, period; how much ‘leadership’ and ‘ability’ you have does not have one blessed thing to do with it. If you lose a ballgame on the field you cannot win it back in the clubhouse, and anybody who thinks you can is a loser.
- Being with a woman all night never hurt no professional baseball player. It’s staying up all night looking for a woman that does him in.
- When people say that one statistic is meaningless, what they are really saying is that they have learned to see the distortions in that statistic — but haven’t yet learned to see the distortions in the alternatives.
- The secret of successful managing is to keep the five guys who hate you away from the four guys who haven’t made up their minds.
- The first job of a manager is to ask (and answer), “What needs to change here?”
- The Mets have shown me more ways to lose than I even knew existed.
- A team with a high on-base percentage and slugging percentage will always do well in runs scored, no matter what else they don’t do. They can be slow as the devil, they can be terrible bunters, bad clutch hitters, stupid baserunners and completely inept at hitting behind the runner. They will still score runs.
- Son, we’d like to keep you around this season but we’re going to try and win a pennant.
- And anybody who thinks you can win baseball games by making outs is probably one of those guys who tries to tell you that you can get rich by remembering to write your underwear off on your taxes.
- I don’t like them fellas who drive in two runs and let in three.
- Rightward shifts along the defensive spectrum almost never work.
- Throw strikes – home plate don’t move.
- Virtually all sportswriters, I suppose, believe that Jim Rice is an outstanding player. If you ask them how they know this, they’ll tell you that they just know; I’ve seen him play. That’s the difference in a nutshell between knowledge and bullshit; knowledge is something that can be objectively demonstrated to be true, and bullshit is something that you just ‘know.’ If someone can actually demonstrate that Jim Rice is a great ballplayer, I’d be most interested to see the evidence. (Written after the 1984 season when Rice finished 13th in the MVP race despite a .791 OPS)
*****
Here are things that I believe should make their way into baseball wisdom:
1. Manage to fit the talent on hand, not the way the other 29 clubs do things.
Decisions should be based on what gives the team the best chance to win and not on what will result in the least amount of blame coming the manager’s way.
2. If you do reasonable things on a consistent basis, players will adjust.
There’s no reason a four-man rotation with a soft 100-pitch count couldn’t work. The main threat to pitchers is not starting every fourth day but throwing 120-200 pitches every fourth day.
3. Don’t manage your team for the benefit of those that contribute the least.
Bending over backwards to maximize the value of a guy who pitches 35 innings is insane.
4. Days off are good things.
Few things in life are less important than for an individual to play 155 or more games.
5. All players on the roster should contribute.
If you don’t have confidence to use a player in the late innings of a close game, that player has no business being on your roster.
6. The manager, GM, owners and media/fans should all operate within a system of checks and balances.
All four of these entities have important roles to play and when any one body usurps too much power from another, bad things happen. And one group should never cover/lie for another. The media abdicates its responsibility when it doesn’t question the moves of the manager, much like the GM fails when he claims to have money from ownership that everyone knows simply isn’t there.
*****
Here’s to winning baseball from the Mets in 2015!
“I’m probably the only guy who worked for (Casey) Stengel before and after he was a genius.” – Warren Spahn
…Spahn reached the major leagues with the Boston Braces in 1942 at the age of 20. He clashed with Braves manager Casey Stengel……. and Spahn played for the 1965 Mets, managed by Stengel.
Happy New Year!!!
PS… Ted Simmons should be in the Hall of Fame.
Off the topic, but did you all notice today’s article in Fangraphs? I posted below under your article Brian about Flores.
http://www.fangraphs.com/community/jon-niese-is-changing-it-up/
He makes an interesting find on Niese’s pitch usage, but he needs to redefine what he considers average/above average.
His standard of above average is:
“I can envision a career season in the area of 195 IP, 3.20 ERA, 1.15 WHIP, 160 Ks.”
In 2012, 190.1 IP, 3.40 ERA, 1.17 WHIP, 155K. He was basically 1 good outing away from hitting those marks.
In 2014, 187.2 IP, 3.40 ERA, 1.26 WHIP, 138K. Had a higher whip and lower K’s, but also 1 good outing away from hitting the IP and ERA mark.
But despite barely missing those marks, he starts and ends with
“He might not be so average anymore”
Basically he makes the incorrect assumption that Niese has been merely average when, even according to his standards, has been above average.
Or this piece was written from a fantasy perspective where WHIP and K’s are more important.
Excellent point!
Just wanted to say… Happy New Year everyone! Looking forward to another year of great writing, discussion and (hopefully) a competitive baseball team!
Any chance you could forward your requests to TC’S email? Maybe he’ll get the message? And just maybe he’ll put “his” players in the best possible situation to succeed? Happy New year to one and all!
Shoot, if I had his email address he would have blocked me as spam many years ago!
I completely enjoyed your writing…do this everyday of 2015, please
Thank you for the kind words!
Lol. ..I guess make every day new years…like the dalai lama might recommend
I enjoyed what I expect was the intentional irony of juxtaposing quotes from Stengel, the epitome of old school, and James, the guru of advanced stats. To me it nicely represented (and here I’m not so certain of intent) that both sides offer a legitimate take on the game.
It seems those in the advanced stats camp feel superior, supported I suppose by the comfort they find in the cold rationality of numbers. Mind, I’m not one of those who scoff at sabermetrics, dismissing it as mental masturbation for numbers geeks. I take it as a given that studying statistical information gives new insights to the game. I just don’t find that view so appealing. I like the emotional and psychological angle of baseball much better, regardless of Bill James’ suggestion that such things are bull****. I guess that’s why I’d rather read Stengel than James. Each to their own, and Let’s Go Mets!
Glad you enjoyed it!
Is it possible that what you deem as “arrogance” is nothing more than a learned response from the anti-intellectual dismissal of new ideas that those people were on the receiving end of when they presented contrary evidence to misguided conventional wisdom to those in power to do something good with it?
If so, it doesn’t make it right.
It does make it understandable.