Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 108: What Position Should Ian Kinsler Play?/How Do You Know When You Need a New GM?

Episode Date: December 27, 2012

Ben and Sam answer listener emails about Ian Kinsler, how to decide when it’s time to change GMs, R.A. Dickey and the dome, and more.

Good morning and welcome to episode 108 of Effectively Wild, the daily podcast from Baseball Prospectus. I'm Sam Miller in Long Beach, California. Ben Lindberg is in New York, New York. Ben, how are you doing? I'm very well. I'm rested relative to usual. Yes, because you got to rest.

Mm-hmm. Yep. And we took an extra day off, sort of, or we weren't exactly sure whether we would take Boxing Day off. And in the end, we decided to because it's an important day to rest and reflect. Ben, what is Boxing Day? I don't know. It's a day that we didn't do the podcast. Well, we have quite a show lined up, don't we? It's email Thursday this week, and we've got a lot of them. There goes a ring, my ring.

It's a year-winning ring. And we'll get to some of them, and maybe all of them. We'll see. So, Ben, do you want to ask an email? Well, first I want to read about Boxing Day. Oh, okay. The exact etymology of the term boxing is unclear, which is why we didn't know what it meant, I guess.

There are several competing theories, none of which is definitive. So we don't know why it's called Boxing Day. There are several theories you can read about on Wikipedia if you're interested. So, yeah, we have many questions. I thought we would start by kind of revisiting something we already talked about because someone sent us a question related to it matt in brooklyn said hi guys in podcast 105 you discussed the impact of wind on knuckleballers it's a convoluted answer but a steady wind directed toward the pitch is

preferable the lack of spin exhibited by a knuckleball is what causes it to move inconsistently which cause it to be difficult to hit wind directed toward the pitcher increases the friction and the amount of movement that can be imparted on the ball. It's the same basic concept as throwing a ball with spin into the wind or an airplane taking off. The effect is an increase in drag. As for the effect of pitching in a dome, I would imagine having a consistent temperature and humidity will be helpful for Dickie's controlling of the knuckleball. I appreciated that answer from Matthew, except I would have liked his credentials. Yes, there was no citation, no evidence cited. I totally believe him, and I imagine that he has reason to believe this is true, but...

But this is a topic that I wanted to revisit anyway because a day or two after we talked about it the first time, there was an article on MLB.com about whether the dome would be good for Ari Dickey's knuckleball, and there were lots of quotes from people who might know, so I thought I would read some of them. A lot of them are quotes from Tom Candiotti, who pitched in Rogers Center, which was then called Sky Dome. And he really liked pitching there. And he says it's good to pitch there. But I thought the more interesting quotes were

from Alex Anthopoulos and R.A. Dickey. So according to this article, which was written by Gregor Chisholm, the Blue Jays didn't find any advantage to pitching in a dome for a knuckleballer. Not that they necessarily would have said that they did if they had found something, but he writes, in their research, the Blue Jays didn't uncover any major advantages between pitching indoors versus outdoors. The main benefit is that Dickey occasionally will get to avoid pitching in the rain. Alex Anthopoulos said, it was so foreign to us, we tried to do our best to analyze and study it. When asked what factors went into evaluating Dickie. Temperature wasn't an issue so much, but rain certainly seemed to be.

It is for anybody, but especially for RA. You look at some of the starts where he really got hit. One game in Atlanta, it was just pouring, and he gave up a ton of runs. Certainly having a dome where you can control the elements, that's a nice bonus, but it didn't really carry the day because the guy has been unbelievable the last few years, etc. And then Dickie says he doesn't want to read too much into moving from Citi Field to Rogers Center. He doesn't feel there is a major advantage to the closed setting.

He actually prefers to pitch with the roof open when there are games in a retractable roof stadium. So I guess that answers the question about whether we will see him pitching indoors on a beautiful day in Toronto. He says that it just needs to be a somewhat predictable setting. He says, I haven't looked at the statistical analysis of indoor versus outdoor, but I feel like it's pretty good. I know I love pitching in Tampa. I love pitching indoors during the course of my knuckleballing career, so I don't expect it to be much different in Rogers Center, et cetera, et cetera. He doesn't like rain, and he likes the fact that there won't be rain.

But otherwise, he doesn't seem to think it's a big difference, and neither does Alex Anthopoulos. I think that as long as Jay Happ is pronouncing his name Jay, R.A. Dickey should be pronouncing his name Ray. Yes, I agree with that. So I guess we're done with R.A. Dickey knuckleball topic. I'm pretty sure I just got the last word on it, yeah. Yeah, right. All right.

So moving on. We have a question from Ryan. He says, hope you guys are having a happy holiday. I'm having a happy holiday. guys are having a happy holiday. I'm having a happy holiday. Are you having a happy holiday? Well, it's over. I guess.

We still got New Year's. It's a holiday. Yeah, okay. I mean, yeah, okay. Sure. Yeah. I have a question regarding Ian Kinsler and his possible position change. While Kinsler may have potential at first base in terms of power, having similar numbers to Adam LaRoche among others,

wouldn't it behoove the Rangers to fit him into an outfield spot? I suppose having Mike Alt play first would hurt his value, but I still think finding an average first baseman would be easier than filling in a corner outfield spot. So the issue I suppose is that as long as the Rangers still have Elvis Andrus and also have Jerickson Profar, they need to find somewhere to put Profar, which would seem to be second base, which is where Kinsler plays. And so to make playing time for Profar, they have to put Kinsler somewhere.

So the options are first base, where I guess he'd be replacing Mitch Moreland, left field, where he would be replacing David Murphy, and DH, where I guess Mike Olt would be hitting if Kinsler weren't. So what's your opinion on where Kinsler should go? Well, I mean, I think that it is... It seems to me that the argument that... Well, okay, so this is hard to answer because there are a lot of different factors. I think that Kinsler can certainly probably hit enough

to be an average first baseman or better, but I think it's a waste of his defense to put him at first. There's not a huge difference in value defensively between a first baseman and a left fielder, but for a guy like Kinsler, he has the speed, I would think, to be a much better than average left fielder and perhaps a great one. He can really run. At first base, even if you have good hands and you're sort of good at first base type things, there's just simply not that much room to be great because you're really boundaried into your little corner. You just don't get to move around a whole lot.

And so it seems to me to be a waste of his defense to put him at first specifically. The problem is that the Rangers, of course, have to decide which incumbent they want to upend or get rid of. And so then the question is, even if Kinsler is kind of better utilized in left field in a vacuum, is Mitch Moreland better than David Murphy at their respective positions? And I have a hard time reminding myself that David Murphy had a really fine year and is a pretty good ball player. But I think that, I don't know, it feels, I mean, I haven't totally come down on one

side or the other, but I think I would rather see him in the outfield. I think there's a chance that if you put him in left field that he might actually end up being a good enough defender that he could play center field, which is probably where they need a player more than at either one of those positions. And I would maybe like to see Holt on the field and not relegated to DH this early in his career.

I guess if Leonis Martin is ready, as he might be. Yeah, could be that too, but I think that's probably the less likely of their guys. Well, if he's not ready, then yes, I could see that. Otherwise, I think I agree with you that Kintzler could contribute more defensively in left field, but I think the difference between Murphy and Moreland is probably big enough that I would rather see him replace Moreland. Yeah, maybe. I don't know. It's weird how you just get it in your head that one guy is good and one guy is bad. And for some reason I've had it in my head for three or four years

that Moreland is just about to turn the corner because he was really good at one point that I saw him and it's hard for me to get that out of my head. I mean, he's not a bad player. He's not a bad hitter. He's not a league average hitter. Murphy was roughly a league average hitter before he had his good year last year

and Murphy's older and Moreland is 27. Murphy had a surprisingly good year in 2010 also. He was not so good in 2011. He is sneaky good. He is sneaky good. I don't know. I feel like if you put Kinsler in left, that you'd still find a way to get everybody at bats

because you'd have, you know, Murphy's sort of a, well, I don't know, maybe I'm not giving him enough credit, but he's sort of a platoon guy. He can, you know, give crews a day off. He can play 10 games a year in center field. You know, he can do some DH. Maybe he, you know, can spot start at first base or something like that. Maybe he becomes a jack of all trades. Whereas if you put Kinsler at first, then you're just going to have Kinsler at first.

And it becomes a sort of much more static lineup. Now maybe that's what they prefer. Maybe they like the stability. But I don't know. It feels like there's an opportunity. I feel like the Rays would do more with this situation than put Kinsler at first don't you think it'd be hard to imagine the Rays putting Kinsler at first in this situation yeah I guess so well now we have to imagine the Rays putting James Loney at first well they put James Loney at first because they don't

have a better first baseman I mean they have they're they have a shortage of manpower but when they haven't when they have position players that can provide defensive utility, they seem to get the most out of them. And putting Kinsler at first fills the hole and gives them a lineup. But it doesn't seem to get the most out of his skills. He's got more skills than a first baseman. He can run like the wind. I don't know't know I mean I don't know that I'd hate it it just surprised me and when when I found out they were gonna do that it it seemed to be a little bit of a waste not that I don't think he can him he's a fine player but But it's not my ideal. Okay. Next question is from James from Sarasota.

He says, Dear Ben and Sam, when is the right time? Wait a minute, wait a minute. No trivia? Oh, you want to do the trivia? Sure. That's actually his second question. But we don't know the answer to the trivia. Well, we don't, but he just wanted us to answer. Yeah, he did.

He didn't seem to be that interested in sharing his knowledge. It's a secret. What if he never gets back to us? He never tells us. This one's a trivia question. It'll be easy to research the answer. But I want you to respond instinctively within five seconds. Which I love because what he's saying is, I want you to answer wrong.

Don't even think. Don't even think. Just first word that comes to your mind. Right. This is like a trivia question. This is like a Rorschach trivia question. Well, I've already ruled myself out because I've been thinking about this for more than five seconds.

I have two answers. He says, of the 30 ballparks currently in use in Major League Baseball, how many have never hosted a World Series game? I had my five-second answer, which involved no thought or calculations or

anything. my five second answer was six okay so did you you didn't come up with a five second answer i think i had my initial idea was was like five just because there have been so many new ballparks in the last couple decades um what's your thoughtful answer? Probably also that. I don't know. I didn't think that much more about it, so I don't know that my thoughtful answer is any different from a five-second answer. But you went deeper, I guess. Yeah, I just went down the list and I came up with 10. Oh, well, that's no fun. You know the answer. Well, no, I don't. It's not like I did research on the internet

James specifically said no research on the internet so I didn't do any research okay well he does say if you want me to send you the answer let me know do we? yeah I guess send us the answer James so his non-trivia question was when is the right time to fire the gm

sometimes it's obvious the gm has and executes a plan and the plan doesn't work and the team becomes slash remains terrible but sometimes a move is obviously awful not because of the short-term on-field impact but because of the long-term and or financial impact. Hypothetical example, what if the Orioles and their hypothetical GM, Duke Donette, had signed Josh Hamilton to a 10-year, $220 million contract this offseason? On the one hand, there is arguably no other single move that would make it more likely that the 2013 Orioles would make the playoffs than signing Hamilton would. On the other hand, guaranteeing that much money for that much time to Josh Hamilton at this stage of his career

is a fireable offense in my book. So you've got the solid evidence staring you in the face that this Danette person has no business running the baseball operations of any team, and you've also got the solid evidence that the team will probably be better next season. Waiting for the inevitable consequences of such a signing to play themselves out would not make things any easier for the So I guess, first of all, What are your thoughts on the bind that GMs put their teams in by these kinds of moves? So I guess, first of all, if the owner is signing off on the 10-year $220 million contract for Hamilton, then he's not going to turn around and fire the guy right away. So if it's, I mean... That's obviously a big part of this. Yes, if he has the authority to hand out that contract

or he is allowed to hand out that contract, then he probably has some sort of job security or at least he won't be fired for that move immediately. Yeah, but if your GM came to you and you're the owner and he said, I want to give Josh Hamilton a 10-year, $750 million contract, and you said, no, you don't have the authority to do that, then do you just fire him on the spot for being wrong? The tricky thing about this from an owner's perspective is that you hire a GM who's presumably smarter than you.

It's easy for us to say you don't respond to results exclusively, you don't respond to win totals exclusively. You look at all these factors of whether the GM seems to be getting good value for the money and whether he's making savvy trades and whether his moves have an internal consistency to them, whether there seems to be a plan, whether he does things in a baseball smart way. But when you do that, when you're not merely measuring him on results, then you're saying that you know more than him, which in most cases, if you think you know more than your GM, you should fire him. You should fire him immediately.

You should fire him yesterday. And I mean, a lot of the, a lot of, I forget, who asked this question? James. A lot of James' question sort of comes down to, well, if you think your GM is being dumb, that's when you fire him. I mean, there's other GMs out there, and you don't need cause to fire a GM. If you think that he's making bad moves, you fire him. If you think he's going to make another bad move in the future, you fire him. If you think that he doesn't know how to do his job, you fire him.

You don't really care about the record and all that. It's, of course, never really that simple. Although I can think of maybe one case close to home where it was. Right. Yeah, I guess so. I mean, obviously there are cases where owners meddle for whatever reason and don't change GMs. I mean, we see it happen with the Yankees, I guess,

where it's kind of a team president move or an owner move, but Brian Cashman has been there forever nonetheless. And he got fed up with that a few years ago and kind of demanded that he have more authority. And I guess he does, except he still seems to get overruled sometimes. So that's just kind of a reality of life for many GMs. Maybe in the least dysfunctional organization, everyone is aligned and in tune and either feels the same way or the owner gets out of the way and lets the GM do his job.

And then if that job turns out not to work, then he gets rid of him after a certain amount of time. I have a question and this will lead into this topic further, but it won't seem like it immediately. But how many of the 30 best GMs in the world, like if you could have the best GM in the world, if money was no object, you could hire someone for a billion dollars. And so you could convince anybody in the world. You could convince Barack Obama to be your GM if you thought he would be the best GM. How many of the 30 current GMs do you think are among the 30 best GMs in the world? do you think are among the 30 best GMs in the world?

So you're saying I can choose anyone in the world as my general manager, not anyone who's currently involved in baseball? Yeah, exactly. I guess what I'm basically saying is are teams limited by other human beings' desire to be GM, or do they basically get the ones they want? I mean, is this job prestigious enough that the people who are best for it take it? I mean, are, is, is, um, you know, is Andrew Friedman really the best GM in the world or would either like, I don't know, would Warren Buffett

be a better GM or would like, I don't know, would Theo Epstein be a better GM or, you know, uh, uh, uh, Joe Torrey or Peter Gammons or whoever? Are there people who are kind of not considering this job who would actually be better at it? I would say yes. Who would they be? Who do you think those people are? There are a lot of people in the world. I'm not saying the odds suggest that there's somebody out

there undiscovered, but I mean, of people who are conceivably, you know, who are known. Well, so are you saying that they could just step into the job right now, as is, and do it better? Yeah, well, like, when I was covering... Or if they had devoted their lives to working in baseball, they could do it better. No, no. I mean step in right now. When I was covering education, one of the big trends was hiring military leaders to run school districts.

The thinking being that leadership is the quality that you want. Educational knowledge isn't necessarily the quality you want. So yeah, I mean, I'm not giving them, I'm not training them from birth. There's no alternate reality here. It's just you have the money to hire anybody. You're the Dodgers. You have all the money in the world. Who do you hire? Okay. In that case, I would guess that there are some current GMs who would be among the best 30, current GMs who would be among the best 30. But I would probably say that the majority not. I guess it seems like such a big part of being a GM now is hiring the right people.

And I mean, obviously, it helps to have spent your entire working life in baseball so you know which people are good to hire. But probably the 30 GMs are not the world's 30 best judges of character or the best at hiring people or the best at relating to the media, which is also a big part of the job, or the best at managing an owner, which is also a big part of the job, or the best at managing an owner, which is also part of the job. I don't know. I would guess that if you could swap in anyone, I guess fewer than half would actually deserve to be one of the 30 okay and so then more more reality based is this question do you think that like these like Bill Stoneman for

instance is us like a special advisor to the Angels or something like he's in their front office he's not their GM he's their former GM and he stayed when he left when he quit he stayed in. When he left, when he quit, he stayed in the organization. Didn't Regan stay in the organization too? Yeah, but not really. Regan has a job, but Stoneman still is very powerful. Wasn't that how Terry Ryan was? Yeah. So I wonder if what the owners do basically is like the idea that you should hire if you're rich and you don't know anything about money, you should have accountants to watch your accountants.

patriarchs of the game who are in front offices, if that's really what they do, is they have low-pressure jobs that don't require them to be away from their family all the time, that don't require them to be in the limelight and get criticized for everything. But they are actually more knowledgeable than the GM or considered more kind of authoritative than the GM. And so they're the ones who can give the owner kind of the skinny on whether they have a good GM and whether he should be fired or not. Yeah, that sounds plausible. I mean, I guess if you are the current GM,

you don't necessarily want one of those guys around. Or maybe you do for advising you and being able to bounce things off. I mean, you wouldn't really want a guy who's going behind your back to talk to the owner about the job that you're doing, I guess. Or maybe it would keep you on your toes. Who knows? Sometimes you'll see the same thing with managers, I guess, where a team will surround a manager with a bunch of former managers as a bench coach or base coaches or something. And there's always kind of the suspicion that they're around in case things go wrong and someone has to make a change so yeah probably anyway i think to

answer james question if you don't have faith in your gms um moves that's when you fire him so what i mean i guess it differs uh by team and by situation but what is the longest let's say you're an owner and you're a rich guy who bought a team but you don't know that much about baseball or you're not an expert and your team is bad when you buy it and you hire a gm what's the longest you let him go without let's say a playoff appearance before you make a change? I mean, it depends on what kind of budget I'm giving him. But I mean, I think that the five-year idea that after five years, the team is the GM zone is relevant to this. I think that, you know, like in Seattle, Jack Z is about to have his fifth year.

And I think in a way this year is particularly significant in terms of evaluating the job he's done because almost everybody on that team has either been signed by him, drafted by him, developed by him, re-signed or extended by him, traded for by him. And so it's his team. So I don't know that I specifically would say make the playoffs or don't make the playoffs. But if I didn't think the team had made serious forward progress in five years, it'd be pretty easy to let him go at that point. And maybe I'd start thinking about it probably after three. Okay.

Next question. This one is from Bill in Silver Spring, Maryland. This one is from Bill in Silver Spring, Maryland. He says, a player who got a qualifying offer. D, you're trading a low first round or high second round pick for a compensatory sandwich pick. It's pretty close to a wash, so teams in that position shouldn't be inhibited by the new rules. Or did I miss something? Well, I think you missed something, but I'm afraid that I missed something. Should we say it on three? I haven't even thought about this yet okay so i mean the the they're yeah well if they give up their draft pick they won't have two

if they if they keep their draft pick they get two two draft picks are better than one one is obviously better than zero but two is also equally better than one and so the expense to a team would be identical whether they have another draft pick or not especially now where teams are no longer constrained by the money that they allot themselves based on their budget their owner's budget but rather by the money that they are allotted by major league baseball based on their draft positions and which is an artificially low number which means that they shouldn't have really any fears of bumping up against what they can afford.

So I would say that that's the answer. Okay. Do you think? I'll accept that answer. I think that's right. Okay. I mean, I might have misunderstood. Well, if we got it wrong,sell carlton will correct us tomorrow and

we'll read his answer hope so all right so there it is episode 108 of effectively wild we'll be back with one more show on friday before we go on a mini break again that is exactly right have a nice day