(I feel like I write that a lot - I don't mean to give the impression that I disagree with everything you write here. Au contraire! It's just, when I don't respond, that pretty much always means I'm with you on an issue. I write my lengthy comments when I take exception to what you're saying, mostly because when I don't disagree I can't put it better than you.)
Anyways, it seems to me like you're always willing to give Z (and Wedge, and co.) the benefit of the doubt, but never willing to extend those same benefits to Dave Cameron. Every post I see here disagreeing with him seems to imply that he's just making up these allegations, that he doesn't understand what's going on inside the boardroom, etc, etc. Have you considered that he may be relaying information rather than creating it? As in, from a source? Dave Cameron is the managing editor of the biggest and most famous SABR website out there. He has PLAYER contacts, that he talks about openly, never mind guys inside front offices. I don't think it's safe to assume that whatever he writes is just his own opinion.
Let's just take for example your first assertion: Jack Z and Eric Wedge are sabermetrically oriented, and his portrayal as a SABR-ignorant GM on LL and USSM is absurd. What evidence do you have to back this up? Is it more valid than an in-the-know source? Because I can personally guarantee you that Dave Cameron has at least one source who would know all about the Mariners' front office. Not even in the sense of "he must because he's a writer". In the sense of "He does. I know."
Put it this way. Dave (and Jeff (and Scott)) are not the originators of the idea that Jack Z doesn't know anything about SABR. The rumor that he uses RBI and W as primary means of player evaluation did not come from USSM or LL - it came from within the industry, if not within the front office itself. Now, maybe the person that it did come from is a liar with an agenda of his or her own... but sourced info still trumps our guessing, and Dave definitely has sourced info that Z is not a sabermetrically oriented guy. In fact, I'm almost certain that Dave actually knows MORE and WORSE things than he lets on, and tries to convey them with tone rather than with statements of fact so as not to expose his source's identity with too many details.
In short: it's great to give Z and Wedge the benefit of the doubt, but Cameron deserves some, too, and giving Cameron any benefit of the doubt leads one to believe that maybe Z and Wedge don't deserve quite so much after all. In shorter: I would bet large sums of money that you're wrong about Z's SABR-friendliness.
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Q. Is it disturbing that a General Manager would later fire people that he hand-picked? Does rapid (?) turnover equal hiring incompetence?
A. The best 3rd-level Director I ever worked for, changed half his 1st-level managers every quarter.
Maybe not half. But trust me, you never knew who was going to be your 2nd- or 1st-level manager three months from then.
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Q. How does that not imply "hiring incompetence"?
A. How does Pete Carroll releasing Michael Robinson not imply incompetence?
Have you ever observed President Obama making changes in his administration? You ride a manager while he's getting results, and the MOMENT those results are tapering off, here comes a new guy.
It is incredibly naive to equate "managerial turnover" with "hiring incompetence" and bust an executive's chops for turnover underneath him. You might as well say that a good baseball team would be keeping the same 25 players all season.
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Q. What gets a senior manager (F-500 type) fired?
A. A senior manager, for, say, Microsoft, has a good-sized budget, and peoples' livelihoods in his hands. His responsibilities would crush a lesser man. He is responsible for three things and three things only:
- Delivering his deliverables ON BUDGET
- Deliver them WITH LOW DEFECTS
- Deliver them ON TIME
In some organizations, these priorities change. At Boeing, you're okay to be over budget. You're NOT okay to be late. With the Mariners, you're apparently fine to deliver a cruddy product...
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The point is, a 3rd-level Director is under Atlantic Trench style pressure to get ALL of his sub-organizations on time, on budget, and delivering good stuff. The MOMENT one of those orgs stops doing so, the manager is gone. Period!
The result of this is that all the managers are popping tall. They do whatever is necessary to get results, including firing their nephews. Or their Carmine Fuscos, gentlemen.
What is amazing to me is that baseball managers can lose so much before getting fired. Eric Wedge has been operating on a totally different timetable than any I've ever been used to. A scapegoat, killed by a cowardly farmer? At Boeing he'd have been gone long, long ago.
I'm not against Wedge. I'm just saying it's weird to put a Mariners managerial change into that category.
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Q. Was Blengino a scapegoat?
A. I don't know much about it. Here are the facts that we do have available:
- Zduriencik AND ERIC WEDGE are sabermetrically oriented. Their reps on the blogs, as knuckle-dragging Branch Rickey types, are simply absurd.
- Blengino couldn't have been fired because "he was the stats guy." The M's have a dozen stats guys, still.
- Zduriencik will definitely fire somebody for being less-than-pleasant to work with (e.g. Lee Pelekoudas).
Let's return to Dr. D's paradigm as a former consultant to execs. Who would Z be defending himself to? To the ownership board.
Is it feasible that Zduriencik, a 4th-level* manager, would go to the 5th-levels and say "this contract worker I got, he steered me wrong"?
It's not feasible; it's laughable. For a 4th-level to go to his 5th-level and protest that a 1st-level influenced his call, well... THAT, gentlemen, is a fireable offense. Actually you don't get to 4th level behaving that way.
When I, as a contract worker, completed deliverables working desk-to-desk with a 3rd level, that 3rd level signed off on every single word. Then when we both went to the 5th-level board, that 3rd level owned it. I was there to provide support data IF AND WHEN the 3rd-level condescendingly asked for some little tidbit that was beneath his radar.
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Q. Leaving us where?
A. We have two exhibits offered us as testimony to Zduriencik's cowardice: the presumed scapegoating of Fusco, and the presumed scapegoating of Blengino. Then we are on sound footing to conclude that Zduriencik, following form, is scapegoating Wedge.
Fusco probably did get scapegoated, and probably because Zduriencik was forced into doing so. Blengino very likely was phased out because he forgot when to shut up; at least that's what got me phased out a couple times. :- ) Sabermetrics As A Concept wasn't scapegoated; the M's are as cutting-edge as any other MLB franchise.
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Q. Would it save Zduriencik's job, to throw Wedge under the bus?
A. By any objective standards I've ever seen, Wedge is long overdue to be fired. (I'm not saying I would fire him.) The 6-14 record, since his return, is especially damning. It implies that the young players are uncomfortable around him.
The blogs have the wrong paradigm, asking "does the senior manager deserve to be losing? Maybe he has good excuses?" That is simply not a Fortune 500 paradigm. They don't ask whether you have an excuse for being late on your deliverables. They just replace you with a man who is then on time with his deliverables.
Look, kiddies, Eric Wedge has had three years. The ballclub is in worse shape than ever. We finished last with you and we can finish last without you.
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NEXT
Comments
I heard Wedge talk about some success a player of his was having, and he quickly qualified it, saying it was, of course, a "small sample". That alone told me that Eric is well aware of Sabermetrics.
of saying that any chef who knows the word "brie" must be an expert in the use of French cheeses in cooking.
.. then yeah. Your point is well taken Logan. SSI is not the place where Cameron is going to get the most of it. Point cheerfully conceded. Of course, he has plenty of fans who deliver as much of that as he wants.
And thanks for holding down the other side of this one. Friends of USSM don't speak up too often here, and we try not to focus on them obviously, but when they do come up, their friends are always very welcome to chime in.
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What you have here, though, is a situation where it would not matter in the least if USSM's source were Jeff Kingston his ownself.
You could give USSM all the benefit of the doubt you wanted, and you would still have to conclude that neither Cameron, nor I, nor Jeff Kingston (the assistant GM) can comment on Jack Zduriencik's saber orientation. To go ahead and assert that "I've got a source close to Zduriencik and he personally assured me that Zduriencik does not listen to his sabermetricians" is just a case of not having been around many execs like him.
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Zduriencik in fact has had many sabermetricians taking payroll checks from him, such as Percival, Brett, and Tango. In the blog-o-sphere, they want to solve this by wordsmithing quotes from Zduriencik. That's pointless when in fact he has employees who are dedicated sabermetricians. (But Zduriencik has repeatedly stressed his regard for sabermetrics.)
So you've got Admiral Rickover with a dozen chemists on staff, and then he orders the Sixth Fleet to the Indian Ocean, and "one of Rickover's staff personally assured me that Rickover never listens to his chemists. Look! He just moved the Sixth Fleet. What more do you need?" Logan, I'm sure you can see the problem with that kind of commentary without any more help from me.
What we do know is that if Admiral Rickover personally chose and paid twelve chemists, and a civilian reporter is screaming to the world that Rickover hates science with a bloody passion, that civilian reporter is out of line. Period.
Rickover hired the chemists; that's the fact we've got in front of us. The rest of it is no more than pulling baloney out of our ears.
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Besides all that, Cameron (in this analogy) is a civilian, no time as a servicemember, commenting acidly on Naval (i.e. F-500) processes. How do you suppose that kind of commentary is received by actual Sailors? :- ) You guessed it. Bat571 isn't real interested in your and my opinion as to how he should run his processes on an aircraft carrier, and if he were, there would be something wrong.
In this analogy, I happen to be a Sailor (consultant to execs), and now you (a civilian) are asking me why I don't give Cameron (another civilian, er, non-big-company guy) "the benefit of the doubt" --- > when he publishes hit pieces on Naval (i.e. F-500) processes. How ironic! ;- )
In this case, we can't apply benefit of the doubt, because there isn't any. It's simply inappropriate to charge Zduriencik with any particular decisionmaking process from a distance of five miles. If we've got a mole in the next office, that mole is also unable to comment on why Zduriencik signed or didn't sign Raul Ibanez.
(Bill James implied that it could be reasonable to sign Ibanez for next year. Another pernicious USSM habit is to take their own analysis and equate it with "the sabermetric" analysis.)
We don't know what Zduriencik weights when he makes a decision, and we most emphatically don't have the right to infer it from a decision we happen to disagree with.
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As to Cameron's ability to write an interesting op-ed? Stipulated. :- ) The contemptuous tone often drives me to distraction, as everybody knows, but nobody ever denied that he's super smart. And my guess is that a rep for being scary smart is the main goal there, so it's all good.
Keep it comin' Logan - always happy to volley a few amigo -
With the legal case made, above, let's retreat to common Netiqutte.
"Trust me! I got somebody on the inside!," was out of bounds ten years ago. There are two or three Mariner blogs who are still trying to pull this stuff, ten years on, and drawing the same rolled eyeballs they always have.
The guy around here who actually does talk to people is Geoff Baker. And yet you'll never hear him do that, "Just trust me on this one. I talked to somebody." and why? Because he's capable of making his case transparently, on an even playing field with those who disagree with him.
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SSI readers have been hearing this for years. "Trust me! Mike Hargrove is going to fired in two weeks! The Mariners say they will not let Michael Pineda near a big league mound until he has a changeup! Dustin Ackley will never be allowed to play 2B!" etc etc.
It's all either (1) bluffing or (2) buying in to the opinion of a Mariner worker bee who isn't a shot-caller anyway. Zduriencik doesn't even tell his closest employees what he's going to do. The Mariners don't let ANYBODY see the cards they've got in the hole :- )
From Wedge:
Wedge ... said he uses sabermetrics and statistical analysis all the time....
"Hey, I use the numbers as much as anybody," Wedge said. "I used the numbers in Cleveland. And Cleveland was one of the first teams to really dive into it with Mark Shapiro leading the way. So I've always been a big fan of using the numbers.
Wedge feels the issue took on a life of its own because he poked the sabermetric bear.
"When I bust somebody's chops or make a joke at it, you can take it in a light-hearted way or you can take it personally," he said. "Quite frankly, I don't care either way. But the fact of the matter is, sabermetrics is a part of the game of baseball. It has been for a while. It's my job to see it from all ways.
"What people have to see is these are human beings. They are not widgets. It's not XYZ corporation -- something out of a book. These are human beings. And that's the thing you have to factor in the most. They have emotions. They have families. You have ups and downs and everything that goes along with it. Things you can't read on a piece of paper.
"But it's most definitely part of it. I use it each and every day. It's not the end all. It's not just black and white. It's got to be a nice blend between the human factor and the numbers. You have to be able to go out there and motivate these guys and treat them as human beings as well. So for those who I offended, I'm sorry about that. One thing you have to have in this game is broad shoulders and a thick skin. That's something that is part of it, too."
http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20130529&content_id=49010696¬...
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There is a discussion going on about this currently at BJOL. Bill is educating his readers as to just how cutting-edge ALL major league teams are, with approaches evolving on a week-to-week basis. "Any organization that didn't keep up would be quickly left behind."
Honestly, for fans to imagine that ANY big league manager did not look at UZR and xFIP is simply naive. I don't mean it in a perjorative way; I mean it literally. The industry is hugely data-driven, and it's not possible to conceive of the org being data-driven when the front-end data customer (Wedge) freezes the Application Integration stream out at his process point. Again, companies don't work that way.
For example, you're assuming that Jack Z is the guy who hired those analysts, and that he's the one who is keeping them there. Z is not the highest-level executive within the Mariners! Keeping in mind that one of the conditions Lincoln and Armstrong had for GM candidates, at least when they hired Jack, was SABR-friendliness, I could very reasonably see a scenario in which Tony Blengino built a statistical analysis department, and then got fired, and now that he's gone Z no longer listens to them but feels compelled to keep them on payroll because otherwise Lincoln and Armstrong might grok that he's not playing by the rules they set when they hired him. That may not be the way it is, but I see no reason why that COULDN'T be the way it is... the Admiral Rickover analogy sort of breaks down if it was the President who demanded he hire the chemists in the first place. Or if one of the preconditions for his getting the admiralty was having chemists on staff. Which, in Z's case, it was.
Your larger point is taken: even with sources, we can't ever definitively say what Z is thinking, because only Z knows that. But isn't that what you're doing when you say, for example, "Morse was a good idea but Z was snakebit"? You don't know what Z was thinking when he signed Morse. His process could've been terrible, and he might not've been snakebit at all. If we discount process completely, because you're right, we don't know, all we are left with is results-based analysis. And going by results-based analysis paints a horrendously ugly picture. Have the Mariners made a single good move since they excised Blengino in the middle of last offseason? The Kelley and Carp dumpings look disastrous now, as do the Jaso/Morse trade and the Saunders signing. Giving Brandon Maurer an early-season crack at the rotation was a trainwreck; so was promoting Zunino only to watch him get injured and burn service time on the DL. Kameron Loe imploded, and then so did the entire rest of the bullpen...
You (and James) say that if the Mariners weren't listening to SABR they'd be getting left behind by the other 29 teams, perhaps excluding KC and PHI. But isn't this what that looks like? They've now made an entire season's worth of catastrophic moves. And if we can't guess at their motivations, you're right that we can't condemn their process... but we can't say they've been unlucky, either. All we can say is that their moves have been near-universally bad.
But you can't sneer at someone in Southern France for being a Neanderthal, and in the next breath dismiss his proper understanding of French cuisine.
I have been chided by USSM/LL sycophants with a cry of "SSS!" - when it was totally inappropriate (can we at times agree that, yes, it is a SSS, and continue with the discussion?). That sanctimony did not crawl out of a rock. It was nurtured by the blogosphere's so called brightest lights.
That the blogs that praised Z to the skies are now filled with such venom. Z is no longer the brightest GM but is now the dumbest, and lacking on character besides. Nothing worse than a fanboy scorned, I guess.
...what about the poor roster construction? Isn't this what happens when four years later, you're still playing meaningless games in September? Look, I'm a big believer in the "building from within" strategy and I understand wanting to hold off on making major investments in the roster when you are trying to develop a core group of players. But, you still have to put a team out there every year that has to compete. There is still the year to year process of assembling a roster at the major league level, of figuring out how to make the most out of each of those 25 slots. Billy Beane does this every year with fewer resources. Zduriencik has completely and utterly failed at this, and you can't just say that he had to keep spots available for young players or whatever. What's clear to me is that the one overriding goal this last offseason was "more dingers". That's why Michael Morse was brought in, which I personally think was a disaster, and that's why Raul Ibanez and *Kendrys Morales were brought in. And these players were brought in when everyone and their grandma understood quite clearly that Jesus Montero was never going to be an everyday catcher in the Major Leagues and that Justin Smoak was going to be given one more shot a taking over first base, which he sort of did. And so from opening day, this team started out with 4 roster spots occupied by completely one dimensional players. This situation forced Morse and Ibanez to the outfield, where their defensive limitations were completely exposed.
But there were more dingers this year, so I guess it worked.
*I'm only criticizing the Kendrys Morales acquisition in the overall context of the roster. I think it's fine to have one or two of these guys on your team and I'm fine with Kendrys being one of those guys.
Check out the very title of this post! Front Office Turnover. The FO that was praised four years ago is not the same FO that's scorned today, because Z himself is not the whole FO. Conflating the two has misled a lot of people into thinking that this front office is unchanged since the early days when in fact it's changed a whole heck of a lot.
But even if the FO hadn't changed, it wouldn't be wrong for people to, y'know, change their minds as more evidence became available. That's sort of a core principle of rational thinking. And where are you reading that USSM/LL thinks he's a terrible person?
Hey 13, the narrative is compelling. Just not sure I'm buying it yet.
... regarding roster construction.
Yeah, Morse was intended to start - but Ibanez was supposed to be a support piece, not a starter. He was FORCED into a starting role because Guti hit the DL.
The ORIGINAL lineup had Guti in CF - (started 9 of the first 11 games), Saunders the primary in RF (started 6 games in RF and the 2 in CF that Guti took off), and Morse the LF starter - but who began the season sharing time with both Ibanez and Bay.
PLEASE - show me a roster that was "well constructed" enough to survive the loss of a key CF without it having reprecussions. The fact that Z had a BACKUP capable of hitting 25 HRs is not a PROBLEM with roster construction, it is precisely what is nearly impossible to achieve. Did Z get lucky with the offensive year that Ibanez had? Absolutely. But, he put himself in a position to get lucky.
If Morales is a problem as a "one-dimensional" DH - then Boston was stupid times 12 in keeping Ortiz, I suppose.
But, forgotten is that AFTER losing Guti for most of the season, Saunders hit the DL for awhile. Not only did Z have Bay already on the roster, he had Endy in AAA. This is not poor roster construction - this is GM ***BRILLIANCE***.
Understand - the LA Dodgers were playing WORSE than the Mariners for the first 72 games of the season, (30-42). Did they turn around the season because of great roster construction? No. It all turned when a rookie, not even on the original roster came up and hit like Stan Musial. The Dodgers spent $200 million assembling a roster, and were saved by a basically free rookie RF signed as an international FA last year.
In the end, even with the injuries that destroyed the original OF plan completely, (and put Montero out for the year), the offense is still producing a 100 OPS+.
The problem this season was completely and totally on the PITCHING side - not the roster construction side. The 86 ERA+ should be a clue. The -13 wins from the relief staff should be a clue.
In the end, the problem with the 2013 club tracks back specifically to the relief staff --- which had been a positive in 2012 and returned almost completely intact.
The 3/4/5 slots in the rotation did not turn out well, but Saunders was serviceable -- and losing both Hultzen and Erasmo to injury did leave Z scrambling. But, in the end, the rotation as a whole was about average, (with Felix and Iwakuma holding up the weak sisters). There was no such help in the bullpen. The ENTIRE bullpen was nothing but weak sisters.
From 2007- 2011, Beane had a five year stretch in which his teams ended in the mid 70's in wins, except for one 81 win season. It took 5 seasons for Beane to rebuild. Something tells me he wandered off the SABR reservation a few times, fired a manager here and there, without being labelled a scapegoater.
I agree you have to plausibly put together a contender each season. Z was right in seeing this team needed a power right hand bat. Morse was a disaster. But let's not elevate the Beane record beyond its truth. If anything, Beane either got real lucky, or is out scouting everyone (Donaldson? Really?).
Anyway, if we are to expect Beane-like results from Z, then give him another season.
...has Z done that gives you any indication that he has a coherent vision of what a winning roster looks like? Billy Beane at least had done it in the past. Plus, Oakland has always had fewer resources than Seattle.
There actually was one bright shining example, and that would be the 2009 season, but then everything went south after that.
Of course, there have been extenuating circumstances. First of all, you have the depth of the hole the Mariners found themselves in after the 2008 season and the complete lack of talent in the system when Z took over. Again, he seemed to right the ship to some degree in 2009, but then then you had the injuries to Franklin Gutierrez and the Figgins and Griffey debacles and our good friend Milton Bradley. I also think that, as good as they are in the draft, they were a bit unlucky in that there was no obvious aircraft carrier player available at #2 in 2009. Yes, Mike Trout was available, but we've been over that story.
But really, the marginal decisions are what bother me most. Jaso for Morse, for instance, or letting Casper Wells go in favor of Jason Bay, or, as I mentioned before, loading the roster with defensively limited DH-types. I'm just really wondering about the vision of the person making those decisions, and just to reiterate, that person was not Eric Wedge.
No question. But some of that performance has to be laid at the feet of the defense, especially in the outfield, which was horrible. There should have been a better contingency plan for Gutierrez going down, which was all too predictable. And when your plan from the get go was to have Morse in left, then your CF going down is just a disaster waiting to happen, which it did.
As for Morales, I don't have a problem with his performance. As I said, I think it's fine to have one or two of those guys on the roster. The problem is when you start the season with all four of Morales, Montero, Morse, and Ibanez on your roster. At that point, you've basically made a tradeoff of defense and athleticism for dingers.
Which I feel safer with than the evil I don't, if only because his farm system is so well regarded and is only now coming to harvest. If he trades away the farm to get a quick fix, then I say goodbye. Apparently he almost did that last Winter. That does worry me. But I am of the opinion that Z is a pretty bright guy who tries things, and learns from them. I want the guy in charge to know and understand real well what assets we have, because they are going to be undervalued, if the past is any indication of the future. And it's been my understanding that Z has said no to a lot of trading partners who wanted our assets real cheap. No more Bavasis, who trade the future for weak talent.
was Michael Saunders. I agree the outfield defense was bad and a big reason for our poor season. I think Cameron called this one. I'll give him credit for that. But this team needed a big right handed bat, and Morse is a big right handed bat. The alternative to Morse was paying Swisher a big contract, and Swisher has barely seen the outfield this season. I think Morse was a smart move, a power bat with a one year contract. It was a disaster, but we're not saddled with 3+ more seasons, like we were with Sexson and Figgins. For some reason, Z doesn't get credit for learning from mistakes like those. He doesn't get credit for bringing in a .800+ OPSer like Raul in for 2 million. He doesn't get credit for Iwakuma. He does gets crap for Jaso/Morse, for Guti having health problems, for the slow or non development of everybody's top prospects Smoak, Ackley and Montero. These were EVERYBODY'S top prospects. What REALLY amazes me is the crap Z gets for trades he didn't even make, but were mere rumors.
I would like to see what Z can do with his own system, his own prospects, before I throw him out for failing to spinning someone else's system into gold. I think he deserves that opportunity. I remember it was Dave Cameron who (among others) thought the 2010 team had enough offense, because on base skills, speed and defense would carry the day. the USS Mariner likened the construction of that team to the 101 win Cardinal teams of the 1985. It didn't work out that way. The team was a disaster. Cameron also thought, the following year, that the Morse trade for Longerhans was another example of Z's brilliance. So, basically, the 1985 Cardinal thing didn't work out, so whereas the Cardinals went out and traded for Jack Clark, the smart guys on the blogosphere were singing Z's hosannas for trading away our own Jack Clark, gathering dust in our farm system, because, let's face it, Jack was working with someone else's system. I don't fault him for not seeing the value in Mike Morse. I will fault him if he doesn't see the value in a Zunino, Brad Miller, or Nick Franklin.
Anyway, Z has managed the contracts pretty darn good after the Figgins fiasco. He's tried to spend money, but others have thrown way more than he was willing at his targets. Now, the books are cleared, his prospects are in place, and his system is ready to produce. I want to see what he can do.
Pretty sure Neanderthals weren't big on the French cooking...
And no, actually, usually we can't agree that it's SSS and carry on the discussion. The whole point of "small sample size" is that, when you have a small sample size, it's more likely that the data means nothing than it is that it means something. Why would you spend 500 words to discuss what a data set means when you know the answer is most likely "random variation"?
...but I would take exception to the approach that Morse needed to be a priority because we needed a right-handed bat. I don't give Z any credit for that because I think it was a poorly conceived priority to begin wth. I mean, I'm fine with putting a right handed batter on the shopping list, but I disagree that it was so urgent a priority that you had to give up Jaso for a player with one skill. If a big right-handed bat was the missing piece to the World Series, then okay. But really, there were a lot of holes and what we needed were quality players. Instead, there was this myopic approach to the offseason that de-emphasized defense, baserunning, and athleticism in favor of dingers.
And I still don't understand why people think giving up John Jaso wasn't a big deal. Catcher was basically a disaster this season until Zunino got called up. I suspect that may have had something to do with the pitching problems.
It generally works better if you call out the small sample size from the beginning, as in "I know this is small sample size, but..." and then continue with your point.
Yeah, the Director has a bunch of chemists on his staff, but maybe just maybe he hates chemists and they are just there to impress the VP.
You ever sit in on an inter-org budget meeting Logan? You don't have deadwood employees just sitting on your payroll for show. The execs battle back and forth for budget money based on demonstrated need for functionality.
The chemists are in Zduriencik's org. There is nobody in his org he doesn't want there. One of the first things he did when he got here was ax Lee Pelekoudas, longtime Mariner spear carrier, just because he didn't like Pelekoudas.
Besides that, Blengino is a longtime cohort of Zduriencik, brought over from Milwaukee. Why would Armstrong force Blengino on him?
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Meaning no disrespect amigo... the fact is, this conversation is becoming more and more undergrad-student-theorizes-about-corporate-America. There's a certain point at which an outside observer should simply acknowledge that he's out of his depth, and start listening to those who aren't. We've long passed that point.
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I've never understood the emotional loyalty that Dave Cameron commands from nice guys around the blog-o-sphere. I don't resent it, but I don't understand it. Why would he, specifically, inspire such personal devotion? I'd have thought that personal relationships would be a relative weak point for him, but no matter how much contempt he publishes, the affection for him increases.
I mean, you're a great guy, and you're doggedly trying to defend a hit piece that was completely inaccurate and completely unfair. Why would you? ::bemused::
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... arises from the central theme, that Zduriencik is using Eric Wedge as a human shield, and from paragraphs like this ...
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When the team got embarrassed by Josh Lueke’s past transgressions, Carmen Fusco was made the sacrificial lamb. Instead of standing up for his childhood friend, Jack allowed the organization to throw Fusco under the bus for something that simply wasn’t his responsibility in any way, shape, or form. Fusco was made to be the fall guy for a decision he had nothing really to do with; in fact, he was on an airplane, out of contact with the rest of the front office, when the decision was made to back out of the deal with the Yankees
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... and so forth.
You've got to be VERY biased in Dave Cameron's favor to interpret that piece as anything other than a --- > a mean-spirited attack on Zduriencik's personal character. (Supposing he'd written that about you? How would you feel, exactly?)
But it is *completely typical* for his fans to stand up and protest, "Hey, Dave wasn't being mean at all. He was just relating a few obvious facts."
Cameron always deserves benefit of the doubt, genteel treatment, empathy for his perspective, etc., which he promptly denies to everybody he doesn't like. The defenses of Cameron are not even-handed. They never are. It doesn't bother me, this syndrome, but it mystifies me.
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He's using whatever influence he has with the local fanbase and media to call for Jack Zduriencik's head. I think his general argument is sound, though some of the points you made have me questioning the "pattern of scapegoating" part. Where I think he's on firmer ground is the larger point that Jack is the guy that hired Don Wakamatsu and Eric Wedge and Jack is the guy that made the decisions on what players to sign, trade for, etc. So if someone has to take the fall, why wouldn't it be Jack?
One part we're missing here is that Eric Wedge may be the one deciding that he needs to pack it in for perfectly understandable health reasons.
If he's arguing for Zduriencik's dismissal, there's nothing inherently wrong with that. (Is it going to have any influence on actual outcomes?)
The way in which you call for a replacement is another issue, of course. Baker has been making the case for quite a while, on other grounds...
Baker's basic logic is that --- > Zduriencik gets too much credit for youth. You take the youth accumluation out of the equation and it's clear that Zduriencik is overdue to go, per Baker. So it pivots on how much you value the young talent, and Baker argues that in any other city, the Ackley-Smoak-Montero failures call into question whether Franklin, Miller, or anybody else will succeed, and if so, when they would.
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The flavor of that argument is different on a lot of levels. For one thing, it puts a lot more responsibility on Baker to defend the position, which responsibility he accepts.
Calling for Zduriencik to be fired based on --- > (1) personal attacks on Zduriencik's integrity, and (2) vague suppositions that Zduriencik doesn't like saber, those are easy to defend because they are so elusive. They were only ever vague insinuations to begin with.
In my mind. .
But the accusation was that Zduriencik and Wedge are oblivious to, probably hostile to, sabermetrics. That accusation was inaccurate and unfair.
I can assure you that SABRMatt is a better sabermetrician than Eric Wedge. There are probably 50 people in the Seattle blog-o-sphere who are better sabermetricians than Jack Zduriencik is. Does that mean they should be running things -- and that they have license to splutter in frustration when the idiots get a decision wrong?
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In the corporate world, that is why an analyst has a desk. The Subject Matter Experts (SME's) are supposed to be able to make a contribution, if they're drawing paychecks.
A SME who is smirking at his senior manager, for knowing less than the SME about his subject, is going nowhere in the company. The SME's -- in this case the blogs -- need to respect the fact that the senior manager's forte is breadth of knowledge, and ability to manage (to deliver good products cheap and fast). Not depth in one subject.
Sabermetricians have always figured, well, I know more about calculus; I should be in the GM's chair. They don't understand macro business processes.
Email me; thirteenoftwo@gmail.com.
Take the Morales post. People say Morales is MOTO. There's 60 MOTO spots in the majors. He's not top 60 by wRC+, ISO or SLG. There's some context there, but how about this context? Among DH on that list he's 6th, 8th and 5th in those stats. To me it's fundamental that not just any guy can DH. Most players hit considerably worse when they're not playing the field. You want to compare a catcher to a RF go right ahead, but if they couldn't both do the others jobs what is the point? This is exactly the problem with the DH detriment in WAR calculation. For instance in 2010 in the AL, the DH average OPS was .758, topped by LF .768, 1b .788 and RF .791. WAR doesn't use that info to attempt to make an accurate "apples to oranges" comparison (which is exactly what WAR is trying to do), instead relying on old samples to decide the differences of now. Every year since 2006 (Hafner career year, Ortiz and Thome also over 1.000 OPS) DH OPS has been topped by 1b and that year it was a tie. Half of those years it's topped by a corner or both and often by OF as a whole. A DH's peers worth comparing them to are DH's. Especially if you're using WAR as any part of it, which Dave didn't but basically all the followers went right to in retweeting the correctness of "Morales isn't worth..."
"Knows brie=expert chef" hyperbole.
I totally agree with what you're saying, not something I really know much about though. For me this is a time to appeal to authority ;)
Sorry for misunderstanding you amigo.
In the interview I recalled, he made a general observation about the recent positive contributions by a player, and quickly took GLS's advice by adding that, of course it was a small sample. Apparently, Wedge should have just shut up, because "most likely" the positive contributions were nothing more than random noise. But, Wedge doesn't have the option of saying to the press, e.g., in April, "Boys, anything I say about this game, or this month for that matter, is simply random noise. Come back to me on June 25, when I have enough data to give you reliable information on the reality of these wins and losses."
I would suggest that Wedge's (and my) understanding and use of SSS is proper. See a pattern, suggest a kernel of truth or knowledge lies therein based on knowledge already gained and accepted. Articulate it, but understand and accept the data is small enough that you may be in error.
Raul may not be able to give us that sweet .500+ slugging if he isn't out there butchering it in the outfield. :-(
Interesting stuff Wishhiker. Thanks!
Was just clarifying. There were many responses on that tree so I wasn't surprised the context was lost.
I totally agree with that. The biggest roster mistakes in my opinion were injuries and more specifically on pitching both in the bullpen and to Ramirez and Hultzen. About when it looked pretty certain Hultzen should have taken one of those spots he goes down. I think that pair could have put up mid 4 ERA to top the mid 5 ERA's they were replaced with.
You do have to account for injuries and ineffectiveness, and it seemed those backup plans could have done better than they did. Looking through several successful rebuilds (still trying to find that mythical 4 year rebuild) even in the year they break out there's at least one guy that stagnated, got entirely lost or missed most of the season. Often it's 2 or more players and it's not uncommon for 2 young guys to just not come on when the rest of the team already had. I'm downplaying my hopes with that thought, but think it's something to take into account this offseason. Don't expect everyone to stay healthy and improve.
To my list of extenuating circumstances, I should add Ichiro's untouchable status. Ichiro following the 2009 and 2010 seasons was the biggest and best trade chip that we had.
Your original statement was more or less "Because Wedge said SSS, he must be aware of sabermetrics". I will grant you that that's true: Wedge is aware of sabermetrics. So is my 90-year-old grandfather, who thinks it's better for a hitter to ground out than to walk. The topic up for debate wasn't whether or not Wedge knows SABR exists, it was whether or not Z and Wedge are using statistics well in their decision-making. SSS is such an entry-level concept (seriously, I learned it within a week of re-becoming a Mariners fan in 2011) that it doesn't prove he has any sort of familiarity with the actual use of stats in making baseball decisions. I'm not saying Wedge was wrong to answer a question posed to him and then say "but SSS" - it was a good answer! I'm saying that anyone suggesting it means he uses good sabermetric practices to make decisions is taking several leaps too far.
My subsequent comment about not discussing SSS issues in-depth applied more to bloggers like us than to managers who are asked direct questions about SSS phenomena. I stand by it. When I address an issue using statistics - like, say, Justin Smoak's platoon splits - I don't want to spill 500 words being thorough on the topic when there's a >50% chance the answer is "it means nothing because it's a small sample size". If you want to do that, that's your prerogative, but you're going to waste a lot of time and e-ink. Taking note of an SSS phenomenon is one thing. Thorough back-and-forth discussions that ignore SSS the whole time is something else entirely.
My central frustration is your assumption that, because of your business experience, you're the only one among you and Dave and I who realizes that the idea of a major league front office ignoring sabermetrics is patently absurd. It is! It totally is. A year ago, I was making your same argument: of course they use HitF/X! How could they just ignore that data? They have sabermetricians on payroll, and their entire job is to make baseball decisions, and there's no reason to ignore any data when doing so! Duh! I know it sounds crazy and unbelievable. But I'm still arguing it. Why do you think that is?
Hint: This comment http://seattlesportsinsider.com/comment/91691#comment-91691 is more or less completely wrong. And I can understand why you wouldn't believe me when I tell you that - I can't prove it to you and in fact have promised not to prove it to you. So it's your choice. You can believe me or not. From where I'm sitting, by choosing to not believe me, you're choosing to be wrong... but I don't have any way to convince you of that, so it's your call.
Regardless of who's right here (I'm secure in my beliefs, and it doesn't seem like I can persuade you, so we should probably just move on), if we ignore process - as you're arguing we should, because no one other than Z can possibly know his process - the results over the last year speak for themselves. Looking only at results, it's pretty clear to me that Z should be fired ASAP. And if that's true, then Cameron's goal (getting Z fired by stirring up fan reaction) is the right one, no?
To be clear, I have no fondness for Dave Cameron's arrogance. I don't respect it in far more accomplished individuals than Dave, so why would I tolerate it from him? But the notion that a VP wouldn't through a few $100K to consultants as misdirection to keep the dogs at bay strikes me as dubious. That he has, I couldn't say, but whether a VP could do such a thing seems obvious to me. Power and politics are deeply entwined.
I'm sure you are aware of this, but in my world of academics and government, consultants are often hired to placate a dissatisfied player in bureaucratic politics, not solve problems. Given how poorly run the M's are, why would you be surprised by these issues?
Asked and answered. ::wink::
Budgets at a major university, vs. budgets in F-500, that is two completely different conversations. (The military is a third conversation, with seven parts F-500 and three parts federal bureaucracy.)
There is absolutely no selective pressure operating against the U there, Dr. K. They are genuinely free to spend their money to forward their political agendas, yes.
Universities (via the IRS) tax people at threat of jail time, confiscate their money, and redistribute the money to engineer social justice (their version, of course). I mean it in a good way. (Obviously I'm not making insinuations against your job specifically. The hard science end is different from the liberal-arts end. Research scientists sometimes make a lot more for Pfister than they can for a university.)
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Just as one trivial example, my wife just applied for a courier job at the UW. They've got a huge fleet of new Priuses, half of them unusued, and the dispatcher himself, a hippie with a pony tail, sighed "they like to have an image of being green." The benefits to that part-time job are simply insane, and the wages are twice what they'd be in the private sector.
... she applied for another one, with a small city hall, and the wages and benefits are 3x (literally 300% plus) what they were when she worked for a private courier company. She made $800 per month (NO benefits) working for Seattle's biggest courier; this job pays $2700 per month (and $2000/mo in benefits).
Right. Government bureaucracies, and universities, take their money by force with zero concern for customer satisfaction. Then they spend the money to make commentary on our society. Weyerhaeuser does not.
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I suppose a 4th-level Boeing manager could hire a bunch of chemists in order to impress his 5th-level, but I've never seen anything remotely like it in a big company. You impress your 5th-level by meeting goals on time and on budget, and you argue with your 5th-level that you still need this or that position in your org. Those arguments aren't easy to win.
Weyerhaeuser (and every other high level corporation) spends far more money to make commentary on society. Taxpayers subsidize corn because of ConAgra's "commentary"; F18's are still produced because of Boeing's. I've seen countless primaries--both Republican and Democratic--upended because of the money spent by big business to influence elections.
I'm not one to say that all corporations are all bad all the time, but they are certainly not more virtuous than governments and universities. In my experience, even, universities have been more responsive to their customers than corporate chains in my home town.
While not equivalent to Boeing, Stanford University is big business. The university has an operating budget of ~$5B a year, after all. The president of Stanford is not just an excellent academic. He is worth 10s, if not 100s, of millions of dollars, has started multiple companies successfully, sits on the board of Google and Cisco, and has the main job of fundraising for the University (which he has done to the tune of a billion dollars a year for the last decade).
Stanford has a product it sells to students, donors, and government. Where is the competition? Try Harvard, Princeton, Oxford, Tokyo University, all of whom have a similar product to sell to similar people. Bill Gates and Paul Allen have buildings at Stanford named after them because of donations they made to the university. They didn't attend Stanford, why would they donate to Stanford? Do you think that Stanford had to compete against Harvard, MIT, and the UW for a piece of Bill Gates' dollars?
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Stanford University contracts with the Department of Energy to run a Scientific National Laboratory with a $250M annual budget. Why is this so much different from Boeing contracting with the Department of Defense to build missiles and jets? Where is Boeing's competition? How many companies in the US can run such technically challenging projects? It is also important to realize that Boeing gets to use those government contracts to develop new technology, some of which it can eventually implement in non-military projects. In a very real way, tax payers subsidize R&D through military contracts to the benefit of Boeing (and the country at large, if managed well).
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If you want a contract, you have to please the client. When the client is the federal government, the needs can be inefficient and apparently useless to the task the contractor has agreed to deliver on, but as they say, 'the customer is always right.'
If you want a job, you have to please your boss. The CEO of Chase answers to the shareholders. Shareholders haven't coerced CEOs into poor decisions because they were expedient in the short run? Sure, the CEO of Chase can be fired, but so can the president of the UW. Chase can also go out of business and the UW cannot, but Stanford can go out of business, as can SPU, PLU, and Whitman College. Private colleges with uncompetitive product are closing.
Jack has multiple bosses, bosses that appear to overvalue their understanding of the job Jack has to do (just like the DOD or DOE might micromanage a contractor's President or CFO). Why is it inconceivable that Jack would placate Chuck Armstrong on some issue if he believes it is the only way he can be a GM in the big leagues. Seems like a small compromise to make to get your dream job.
Pete Carroll is a good example to me. Why was Pete Carroll willing to follow Bill Parcells in New England, where the talent was ill-suited to Pete's preferred schemes and the owner thought Bill Parcells was a genius and Pete should do it Bill's way? Because it was the best offer he had at the time. Only after a decade of excellence at USC, was Pete able to 'write his own ticket' when he came to the Seahawks. Jack starting with the M's was Pete in New England, not Pete in Seattle.
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The fact that a literature professor at UW can still deconstruct the writings of Camus from a pro-Marxist perspective and the tax payers of Washington state subsidize him to do so may gall you, but don't confuse it for the core purpose of the university. The budget of the Literature department couldn't keep the hospital open for a day. The Humanities are at the margins of the University, because money sells in that setting too. To be clear, government and academia deserve much, if not most, of the negative attention they receive. It's the slobbering over market efficiencies and the remarkable character of big business that I dislike. Business, government, academia -- its all just a bunch of people, behaving the way people do. Just my two cents.