Let's see your Willie!

[Guest iramets]

To get away from what's perceived by some as my irrational all-purpose hatred for Willie Randolph, I'd like to suggest that we try to fill out one of Bill James' useful "[Manager X] in a Box" forms, wherein certain more-or-less objective questions about a particular manager's preferences and techniques are noted. If nothing else, we should be able to see where we disagree and where we agree.

I was looking over James's Guide to Baseball Managers this week, and came across a passage about Leo Durocher that I thought applied perfectly to Willie:

Were There any Unique or Idiosyncratic Strategies that He Particularly Favored? Durocher was famous for playing hunches. He sometimes did things that didn't seem to make sense, like putting a slow runner in motion, bunting when several runs behind, or using a light-hitting infielder as a pinch-hitter when there was a better hitting outfielder available. He would explain these moves by saying he just had a hunch.

Partly of course it wasn't a hunch. The optimal strategy is never a predictable strategy. By doing the seemingly irrational, Durocher was doing the unexpected, which prevented the opposition from getting comfortable in the field

This may seem wise to you, or not, and it may seem to apply to Willie's philosophy or not, but it certainly brings out one trait that Durocher had as a manager, whether you like it or like him or not. (I thought this was a good way to look at oddball managerial moves, though I detested Durocher's personality.) Anyway, we did this once before, maybe with Bobby, but that's since vanished into ether, and I'll re-type out the questions for you if there's interest in collaborating on some sort of group analysis of Willie's managerial tendencies.

The larger categories covered, btw, are WHAT HE BROUGHT TO A BALL CLUB, HOW HE USED HIS PERSONNEL, GAME MANAGING AND USE OF STRATEGIES, and HANDLING THE PITCHING STAFF

[Guest iramets]

Let's start by filling out the easy, purely factual stuff

WILLIE RANDOLPH IN A BOX

Year of birth: 1954

Years managed: 2005-2007

Record as Manager:

Managers for Whom He Played: Danny Murtaugh, Billy Martin, Dick Howser, Bob Lemon, Gene Michael, Clyde King, Lou Piniella, Yogi Berra, Tommy Lasorda, Tony LaRussa, Tom Trebelhorn, Jeff Torborg

Others by Whom He Was Influenced: He coached for Buck Showalter and, for ages, for Joe Torre. Tell me if I'm wrong, but I expected Willie to rely on a veteran bench coach, like Don Zimmer, to compensate for his lack of in-game experience, but no such figure has emerged to my knowledge. Is this correct?

Characteristics as a Player: Ability to get on base his primary offensive skill: Lifetime OBP about 100 points over lifetime BA, never hit more than 7 HRs per year. Usually batted first, sometimes second in order (presumably, the Yankees' getting Rickey mandated that switch.) Hit well in Yankee Stadium--overall an average or worse hitter vs. righthanded pitching but lifetime had a .100 advantage in OPS vs lefty pitchers. He seems to have an unusually hard time against righty powerpitchers: some of his worst lifetime stats are against the likes of Clemens, Seaver, Ryan, while lefty finesse guys (Scott McGregor, Mike Flanagan and Frank Viola) he hit like a gong.

OE:Added stuff
OE: added more stuff

[Guest Edgy DC]

Managers for Whom He Played: Danny Murtaugh, Billy Martin, Dick Howser, Bob Lemon, Billy Martin, Dick Howser, Gene Michael, Bob Lemon, Gene Michael, Clyde King, Billy Martin, Yogi Berra, Billy Martin, Lou Piniella, Billy Marrtin, Lou Pinella, Tommy Lasorda, Tony LaRussa, Tom Trebelhorn, Jeff Torborg

[Guest Edgy DC]

His 11-year coaching career (ten?) was much more stable, working under only Buck Showalter and Joe Torre.

[Guest Kid Carsey]

He's a liar, defensive, deceptive, and inarticulate.

Couldn't manage his way out of a wet paper bag with a sledge hammer.

[Guest iramets]

You're boring me, KC. I suspect you're boring other people as well.

Why don't you take your crap to the RLF and let us discuss baseball here? Thank you for your cooperation.

[Guest Kid Carsey]

Frankly, I don't care if I'm boring you ... I'm adding my two cents. Have you
not stated all of the above regarding our skipper? I'm re-stating them.

It's amusing how I push a button and now after all this time you want to dem-
onstrate that you can measure our Willie (get it) with well constructed thoughts
not including words like moron, nincompoop, etc.

Carry on, I don't want to bore the others.

[Guest iramets]

Edgy DC wrote: His 11-year coaching career (ten?) was much more stable, working under only Buck Showalter and Joe Torre.

Certainly that belongs under "Others he was influenced by." Of course, influences are positive and negative. I think the largest managerial influence was Billy Martin, also a light-hitting leadoff-batting second baseman for the Yankees most of his career, who probably saw young WIllie in his image and tried to mold him more than he did others, but whether Willie viewed Billy as a role model or a demonic influence to be avoided at all costs remains to be discussed. At a first stab, I'd say he's much more a negative role model than a positive one for Willie, who seems to have modelled many of his public traits on avoiding Billy's problems, notably arguing with his players in the media.

[Guest Johnny Dickshot]

WHAT HE BROUGHT TO A BALL CLUB
Took over a wounded franchise just as a new front office and new investment helped acquire the 2 best free agents on the market and inject some badly needed talent.

Didn't panic when his team lost the first 5 games of his managing career straight, and steered it to 6 straight wins. Team has played hard for him ever since, with little evidence of disharmony and improved performances from a number of players.

As African American managers go, closer to Frank Robinson than to Dusty Baker: Prefers tough love to tender encouragement.

HOW HE USED HIS PERSONNEL
Everyday of at all possible, in the same order. Cycles through candidates if necessary but tends to prefer regular tenants over shares. Tough on rookies.

GAME MANAGING AND USE OF STRATEGIES
Generally, lets them play. Very few fancy defensive tactics, hit-and-runs, squeeze plays, etc. When straegies are in place, they tend to be conventional, primarily the sacrifice bunt or styraight steal, which he encourages. Backed off the sac bunt some when possessed of more power hitters (06 v. 05). Uses defensive replacements particularly with a lead to protect. Likes to alternate lefties and righties in the lineup. Appears to prefer bat-on-the-ball hitters with defensive versatility over power on the bench.

[Guest iramets]

Are we going to be relying on our memories and impressions exclusively here, or is there any kind of database on Willie we can use? I'm wondering about any interviews he's given in which he spoke about how influenced by Billy Martin he was as a player and manager. I can't remember offhand much about Willie, though I've probably read a dozen books about the Yankees when he was a player--Reggie's several autobios, Catfish's, some books on Steinbrenner, even the THE WORST TEAM MONEY COULD BUY...Not much on him that I can recall, but maybe someone can?

Just looked in CATFISH, who said that Wilie, though quiet, had a hair-trigger temper, and that he (and Nettles) took more groundballs than any infielders he'd ever seen. He also said that when WIllie was young he begged out of games on a wet field, fearing injury, but he (Catfish) took to teasing him about begging off and gradually insisted on playing under less than optimal conditions.

[Guest Edgy DC]

I think Willie takes a lot of Billy Martin, and leaves behind what he found to be distasteful. He certainly cited him as an influence when he took the job, though that may have been in part to distance himself from the "Torre Protégé" tag.

[duan]

I think he's been pretty good with the pitching staff as a whole and the bullpen in particular, but how much of that goes down as credit to Peterson I don't know.

[Guest iramets]

The idea, Duan, I think, is that Willie gets the credit or the blame for the pitching staff, though various other factors (like Peterson, or Omar) can't be discounted.

Under WHAT HE BROUGHT TO A BALLCLUB (some of which JD has anticipated), specific questions are:

Was he an intense manager or more of an easy-to-get-along-with type?

Was he an emotional manager or a decision maker?

Was he more of an optimist or a problem solver?

[Guest iramets]

Was he an emotional manager or a decision maker?

This one is the easiest. He's a decider. He doesn't seem to implore his players to play hard, or otherwise get under their skin, but he makes decisions and sticks with them

[Guest iramets]

="duan"]I think he's been pretty good with the pitching staff as a whole and the bullpen in particular, but how much of that goes down as credit to Peterson I don't know.

Under HANDLING THE PITCHING STAFF, the specific questions are:

Did he like power pitchers or people who put the ball into play?

Did he stay with his starters or go to the bullpen quickly?

Did he use a four-man rotation? (This one is badly out of date, and for or purposes needs to be changed, maybe to "How strictly did he stick to a regular rotation?")

How long would he stay with a pitcher who was struggling?

Was there anything unique about his handling of pitchers?

[Benjamin Grimm]

2006 Managing Statistics
From the Sporting News Baseball Register

http://leaptoad.com/mets/jpeg/06mgrs1.gif
http://leaptoad.com/mets/jpeg/06mgrs2.gif
http://leaptoad.com/mets/jpeg/06mgrs3.gif

[Guest Edgy DC]

We have the means for a very non-biased standard by which to judge managers. I have a sabbatical coming up soon.

[Guest iramets]

That's a lot of data for us to mine. Thanks, Yancy. If it's not too much trouble, could you (or anyone) post the same stats for 2005? The biggest problem in evaluating Willie's tendencies is the small amount of available hard data, so every bit helps.

I wish they'd total the figures up, and average them out so we could see at a glance how Willie compares to the norm wthout doing a lot of tedious math.

[Guest Johnny Dickshot]

More sac bunts than the competition, and favorite inning = 2? Ouch.

[metirish]

Those stats that Yancy posted are great,but they don't measure Willie's "gut feel" moves and tendencies.

[Benjamin Grimm]

Johnny Dickshot wrote: More sac bunts than the competition, and favorite inning = 2? Ouch.

That second inning thing caught my eye too.

In the second inning you can never be sure whether you'll need one run to win the game or if you'll need 12 runs. Sacrificing that early doesn't seem like a great idea.

I'd like to see a breakdown of Willie's second-inning bunts, though. Because if they occurred with the pitcher batting and runners on base then in that case I can excuse the sacrifice. The Mets did score a lot of first-inning runs, so they probably frequently had the number 9 slot come up in the second inning.

I would think that pitchers would do most of their sacrificing early in the game. If it's late in the game, and you need that run, you'll probably use a pinch-hitter.

[Guest iramets]

What are the final two categories under Relievers? ist batter APP? 3 pit. <2 run?

[Benjamin Grimm]

iramets wrote: That's a lot of data for us to mine. Thanks, Yancy. If it's not too much trouble, could you (or anyone) post the same stats for 2005? The biggest problem in evaluating Willie's tendencies is the small amount of available hard data, so every bit helps.

Maybe I'll be able to do that a little later this afternoon.

[Guest Johnny Dickshot]

]I'd like to see a breakdown of Willie's second-inning bunts, though. Because if they occurred with the pitcher batting and runners on base then in that case I can excuse the sacrifice. The Mets did score a lot of first-inning runs, so they probably frequently had the number 9 slot come up in the second inning. I would think that pitchers would do most of their sacrificing early in the game. If it's late in the game, and you need that run, you'll probably use a pinch-hitter.

I'd guess that too.

[Benjamin Grimm]

="iramets"]What are the final two categories under Relievers? ist batter APP? 3 pit. <2 run?

This is how The Sporting News explains them:

] 1-batter Appearances: The number of times a pitcher was brought in to face only one batter. Call the "Tony La Russa special" because of his penchant for trying to orchestrate specific matchups for specific situations. 3 Pitchers (2 runs or less): The clubs gives up two runs or less in a game but uses at least three pitchers.

Interestingly, there are several managers who did the Tony La Russa special more often than La Russa himself did.

[Guest Johnny Dickshot]

OK, I looked through all games of April and May last year and found 7 instances of 2nd-inning sac bunts, all of them by pitchers.

4/7 Trax
4/22 Pedro
5/10 Glavine
5/19 J. Gonzalez
5/25 J Gonzalez
5/29 Trax
5/30 Soler

Prettty sure it just continues like that, but oif someone wants to pick up in June BMG

[Guest Edgy DC]

Oh, "Be My Guest."

My first guess was "Big Moose Genitals."

[Guest Johnny Dickshot]

I figured having clicked on 60 boxscores I'd already wasted enough time.

[Guest iramets]

The first thing to do with the stats chart, it seems to me, is to look for Willie as an outlier (as opposed to a just-regular liar). So some categories in which he presents extreme tendencies are:

SB % leads the NL
SB att. A close second
Successful steals of 3B leads the league
“% of steals attempted w 2 out” leads the league
(All heavily Reyes-influenced, no doubt, except the last)


Fewest starts in NL to pitchers going 120 or more pitches

I'm surprised to see him as MOR as he is in squeezes: they have him down for 5, and the other day no one here could remember any

3rd lowest intentional BBs in NL
3rd lowest use of pinchhitters in NL
worst PH BA in NL
tied for fewest PH HR in NL

fewest relievers facing onlyone batter in NL

[Guest iramets]

If you wanna see a similar exercise with Bobby Cox go here Some ambitious person can also save me typing, and us time, by cutting and pasting the whole list of questions.