How much does a manager matter?
Joe Espada takes the reins
Like a good chunk of the Astros fan base, I felt a change was needed in the manager’s office in Houston.
I intentionally use the word “felt” because I have no concrete evidence to “prove” it, other than my eyeballs, some stats that may or may not be “evidence” and because while we could use those statistics to tell ourselves how many games Dusty Baker “lost”, we never mention the games he may have “won”.
My teen does this. He tells me how many games the Astros “lost that they should have won” (at least 5 in 2023 according to him), but never tells me how many they “won that they should have lost”.
What if Dusty “lost” 5 games, but “won” 10?
Maybe that’s something I can track next season with some specific criteria. I’ll give it some thought.
To me, the situation was more nuanced than a jumble of numbers (and I obviously LOVE numbers). I’ll get to some numbers in a little while.
This was more the modern game and modern player vs. what Hank Aaron said in 1974, the stubbornness of not playing the best player repeatedly despite public hints from your boss, the questioning of everyone “who never played the game”, fans that had opinions, and of course, writers who are paid to keep said fans informed.
The World Series win in 2022 was great, but in Dusty’s mind it elevated him to a place where he shouldn’t, and couldn’t, be questioned.
Not just by fans who “never played the game”, but by writers who cover the team or general managers who never made it past Double-A.
95% of Astros fans believe Yainer Diaz should have played more, but it’s the other questions that intrigue me, including centerfield (Chas should start 120 games), how Dubon is used (Aledmys Diaz-like utility player), off days (please make it make sense) and bullpen usage.
Most of all, I want to know why. Either because it’s obvious or because Espada tells us the reason.
I may be disappointed with the second part, but I’m optimistic about the “it’s obvious” part.
I also believe it’s important to note that while we “think” Espada is the perfect candidate for the job, the “fact” is he’s never been a full-time manager of an MLB team, so we don’t actually know.
That’s not a criticism, I feel the same as many of you, I’m just stating the part that’s never said - Espada has an infinitesimal amount of experience doing this particular job.
The Numbers
I’m dubious that any conclusions can be gleaned from the chart below, but I include it for reference to make a point.
Here’s an almost 10-year-old article that purports to analyze manager performance. Perhaps you’ll find a familiar name under “the bottom 10”.
So, I took the AL West of 2023 and applied a similar methodology.
The second number from the left is the number of wins based on run differential only (Pythag Expected), and then you have my methodology under “AP Expected”, which includes run differential plus one-run and extra-inning games.
By these numbers, the World Champion Rangers, and by extension Bruce Bochy, underperformed by between 3 and 6 games, the most of any team in the division.
Did the Astros underperform? These numbers say yes, but only by 1.67 to 3.33 games, a similar number as the Mariners.
I do think the Rangers underperformed in the regular season and allowed an Astros team racked with injuries to win the division.
I’m not dubious of the numbers above, I think they’re fairly straightforward. Both the Rangers and Astros should have won more games.
More on this in a coming post.
This would seem to imply that Dusty managed better than Bochy. Who believes that?
The funny thing is, we have some evidence of just that. Afterall, Dusty did lead an injury-ravaged team to the AL West title, that can’t be denied.
No one denies it, they just ignore it.
What tends to happen is, if you like the manager he gets credit for the wins without getting dinged for the losses.
If you don’t like the manager he is dinged for the losses, but given no credit for the wins. This is how my son approaches Dusty.
Human nature.
That’s why I’m dubious of using these numbers to say the manager underperformed because there are so many things that go into that, both known and unknown, but mainly because the players are the ones that accumulated the numbers that lead to the “projected wins”.
Even if the manager made the “right” move, the players still have to perform for the move to be successful. The reverse can also be true: The Manager can make a bad move and still be successful.
There’s no easy way to easily delineate between the two.
This leads me back to the non-numerical part up top. I felt a change was necessary in Houston, but it’s not something I can quantify and even for a numbers guy like me, that’s OK.
Spreadsheets aren’t always the answer.
