Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 751: Between-Series Banter

Episode Date: October 26, 2015

Ben and Sam follow up on a story from last week and discuss the Royals’ rotation secrecy, Ruben Amaro’s new job, managing for the Marlins, and more.

It's a killing time, I know it well Too late to change, too soon to tell Still I can smile at what I find Waging wild and killing time Bite the bullet, help me through it There's more I can't sweat, I'll take my mind Good morning and welcome to episode 751 of Effectively Wild, the daily podcast from Baseball Perspectives, brought to you by the Play Index at Baseball Reference. I'm Sam Miller, along with Ben Lindberg of Grantland.

Hi, Ben. ben hello how are you doing i'm all right anything to banter about yeah well an update on the bereavement leave story that we talked about last week with aaron loop who was missing for parts of the blue jays playoff run there was some speculation about why he had missed that time. The story has since come out. His wife Leanne was on the bus to game three of the ALDS. When her water broke, she was 26 weeks pregnant, which is obviously scary. And so he went to be by her side, and then it looked like the doctors might be able to delay the labor, so he came back to the team. They couldn't delay the labor, so he went back to join his wife.

And that's the story. And they had a son, and the son seems to be healthy and doing well for someone who was born at that point. His name is Wyatt Aaron Loop. So happy ending to that story. And we talked last week about whether it would be possible to fake a bereavement leave because we were discussing why the league doesn't have a rule that allows you to replace players who are on bereavement leave during the playoffs. And we got an email from Rowan in Dublin who sent us an example from 2007 of a fake or semi-fake bereavement leave involving Stephen Ireland, the soccer player.

And I'll just – I'll read from Wikipedia from the controversy subheading. Never good if your Wikipedia page has a controversy subheading So it says in September 2007 Ireland was at the center of controversy when in the immediate aftermath of a Republic of Ireland International match and days before their crunch game against the Czech Republic coach Steve Stanton informed him of a telephone call Just received from his girlfriend reporting the death of his maternal grandmother just received from his girlfriend reporting the death of his maternal grandmother. Staunton quickly consented to Ireland's compassionate leave on these grounds, and a private jet was chartered for his return. However, the media quickly discovered that Ireland's grandmother was not dead, at which point Ireland announced it was his paternal grandmother who died. But yet

again, reporters discovered that Ireland's paternal grandmother was also still alive, and her relatives had threatened to sue one newspaper that reported her death. Ireland changed his story again, saying one of his grandfathers had divorced, and it was his second wife who had died. That was also quickly discovered to be untrue. Ireland eventually came out with the truth, admitting he had invented a reason to leave the Irish team in order to visit his girlfriend in Cork, who he claimed had a miscarriage. And then there's a quote, I decided at that stage that I must tell the truth and admit I had told lies, Ireland said.

I realize now it was a massive mistake to say my grandmothers had died, and I deeply regret it. And of course, if his girlfriend had had a miscarriage, she could have been granted compassionate leave to go be by her side. So it seemed like an unnecessary lie, to say the least. As far as I can tell, this story ended fairly happily. He is now married to the girlfriend and has a child with the girlfriend. And from what I can tell, his image has been rehabilitated too. And despite this and other controversies, he is now looked on as a veteran team leader type, which just goes to show you that that can happen for anyone. Ben, let me ask you a question. Where does lying about the death of your grandmother rank compared to, say, lying about being in traffic?

Is it significantly worse to fictionally kill a real person than to just say that you got locked in the bathroom or something like that? I think it's worse if you're a public figure and it's going to be a newspaper headline that your grandmother might read. Yeah. It also is in some ways a crime against everybody because we all depend on the care and consideration of others in times of difficulty. public trust that supports this sort of sympathy and empathy, then you're making it, in a very slight way, you're hurting my ability to get sympathy when I need it, when I have an actual source of bereavement in my life. Okay. All right.

So a monster then. We're calling him a monster. Yeah. I guess unless he actually did have a reasonable reason for asking for it, but was for some reason afraid to do that. But I don't know, he kind of squandered his credibility on the multiple dead grandma story. Yeah, so he's covering for her lie, and her lie doesn't make much sense, but isn't as, I mean, there's no obvious means to be why are we going so deep into this i don't know i was just wondering whether it wasn't actually his girlfriend so much as like his mistress and that's why he lied yeah i don't know yeah this was this was several years

ago this was 2007 so many thousands of miles away and yes but there. Not the sport that we talk about. No. Not something that we have any insight into. Nope. And here we go. Deeper and deeper. All right, anything else? Oh, well, as long as we're talking about Aaron Loop's absence, we might as well talk about the David Price pitch tipping. Yes.

Tom Verducci, in a wonderful piece of baseball writing, explained some of the advantages that the Royals had in the series based on their keen observation of Blue Jays' tendencies. And one of these things is that Verducci figured out a pitch tip that David Price had for his changeup and confirmed that the Royals also had that pitch tip and also says that other teams at various points in the year had there were rumors of pitch tipping and so this would somewhat go to

the question not of whether David Price is incapable of pitching in the postseason but whether the struggles that we saw him having in small samples were real if the Blue Jays knew that those that the pitch tipping was happening in some way but didn't necessarily know how to fix it, then they would be reasonable in assuming that David Price was not the same quality of pitcher that he was during his Cy Young season. And this would probably be an instance where the team might have knowledge that we wouldn't have, and we as analysts would be best saying, small sample, don't worry about it, great pitcher,

while also in some way acknowledging that there's a chance that the team has more knowledge. However, the fact that there were rumors of this pitch tipping going on all year and he still produced like a 2.4 ERA or something like that, I don't know. I mean, Verducci is very convincing, and I believe Verducci. I believe everything he, I, Verducci is very convincing and I believe Verducci, I believe everything he ever says, um, always. But I also will say that in a general sense, not in this

sense, but in a general sense, there is a lot more, I feel like there's a lot more, uh, pitch tipping in a way is almost like pitchers pitching through some sort of pain or something like that. is almost like pitchers pitching through some sort of pain or something like that. You hear about it a lot after the fact. But in fact, I think that there's a lot of so-called pitch tipping that goes on that we don't hear about because it doesn't actually matter. I think hitters all think that pitchers are tipping a lot more than they are and they all think that they have cracked it or whatever. And so if Price hadn't struggled, for instance,

he could have had the same tip, but if he hadn't struggled, we probably just never would have heard about it. Like I think that there's a lot of guys who you could after the fact say, yep, and he was pitching, tipping his pitches. Yeah, I'm always a little bit skeptical when I hear those things.

That's a better way of saying it. Thank you. Yeah. So I don't know. I mean, there are real advanced scouting advantages and there are reasons to have people watching to try to pick up on these things. And I'm sure that sometimes they really do make a difference. convenient for there to be such a one-to-one relationship like everyone knows when price is going to throw a change up and they just take the pitch with complete confidence because they're so sure that he's going to throw a change up maybe you know maybe it just seems like it would be hard to be the best pitcher in the league while doing that. Yeah, I mean, you can already almost guess with something like,

I don't know, you could probably guess with about 80%, on average, 80% confidence what a pitcher's going to throw, don't you think? I mean, some pitchers have very deep repertoires. But the count is a big factor. Their tendencies, generally speaking, are a big factor. And whether you're right-handed or left-handed are a big factor. Their tendencies, generally speaking, are a big factor. And whether you're right-handed or left-handed are a big factor. I mean, for relievers who mostly only have two pitches,

and one of them is a fastball 80% of the time, well, you can just say 80% of the time it's going to be a fastball. If you just guess fastball every time, you're going to be right more often than not. And so maybe a pitch tip on one specific pitch. And again, I'm not denying that with the Royals in this specific case, it might have been a big deal. I mean, I like, I think whatever Verducci tells me, I believe. But in general, maybe you go from 80% to like 82%, but you're still like, you're still having to guess. You're not really sitting there with 100% confidence, which is what you need for it to really pay're not really sitting there with 100 confidence which is

what you need for it to really pay off i would think so yeah there's like a if you really unlocked a pitcher completely then yeah you could probably hit 450 off him but there's still a in a weird way it doesn't really matter whether it's like 90 or or 80%. There's still a big part of you that's holding back because of the 10% or the 20% or the 30%, the uncertainty that makes it hard to really jump on something. The other thing about the Verducci thing that I wanted to know what you thought about is that Verducci, like I said, A plus writer. I mean like A plus, like an all-timer. And broadcaster. I think a very good broadcaster.

One of the best, one of my favorite ones. And I think he's great in both roles. But also, this shows the danger of having him do both roles, doesn't it? Because he knew this pitch tipping thing before the start. Like he saw it in Price's previous start. And he's providing color on the broadcast of the game and Holding back the most important thing that he knows about the game Mm-hmm, and that's kind of weird and I mean I see why he does it he wants to he well for one thing

He wants to save it for maybe maybe what maybe he prioritizes his column over the broadcast. For another, the Royals confirmed this beforehand to him. And I'm guessing that they wouldn't make a habit of confirming things to him if he were going to spill the secret before the game started. There's always a sort of a presumption that I think in this case that you'll respect the team's competitive efforts when they're doing you a favor. However, if he weren't writing a column for Sports Illustrated, he would have spotted that also, and then he could have told us about it, and then we would have known about it in game six, and it would have been a much better broadcast for that. So I don't know how I feel about it.

I don't know if it's better to have the great guy in both roles, even if it hurts him in one role. And I don't know, to some degree, takes away a little bit of the integrity of the broadcast. Or if it's better to have worse guys in both roles who can tell you. I mean, that's what we've had. We've had worse guys in that role for a long time, and it sucked. Yeah. I don't know that I want worse guys.

Even if he was holding back, he was still giving us more than almost anyone else would have yeah that's true he just didn't tell us the most important thing he kept a secret right uh which is i don't know maybe it's okay i don't know i just bringing it up i don't have an opinion yet all right anything else well we got a listener email from Gary who said, Every year I wonder why teams announce postseason rosters and starting rotation days in advance. Why give the other team days to prepare and structure their own rosters accordingly? Wouldn't it be an advantage if the Royals didn't know if they were going to be facing Harvey, DeGrom, or Syndergaard until the morning of the game? And the Royals, as we we speak still have not announced their

rotation i think the mets did on saturday and andy mccullough had a quote from ned yost asked why he won't announce his rotation until sometime today yost said because i'm being a little bit of a punk so i'm wondering if you think there's any advantage whatsoever to not disclosing i i don't think that managers do this uh i think that this is an unwritten rule among among managers yeah that you that you don't do this it's considered i think this is one thing that's considered unsporting, which is another way of saying it's considered advantageous and therefore it cannot be allowed. But it's kind of an arms race, right?

If you do it, then the other guy will do it. You can only take advantage of this once before then the other team will just do the same thing to you. And you want to know. It's not fun to be a manager and not get to do your special skill managing. We worked this way with the Stompers this season where our manager always wanted to know who the upcoming starters were,

and we would always just sort of guess, but then eventually we started asking or asking through someone else who the starters were, but in order to get that information, we would have to disclose who our starters were. Which wasn't a surprise. We weren't hiding who ours were. Right.

And then everyone could tell whether it was a righty and a lefty, and they could give the players in their lineup some warning, some notice if they'd have the day off or they'd be starting on a certain day. So it was nice for everyone to know that for sure. I assume that Ned Yost was saying that mainly to the reporters who were complaining because reporters always want to know they need that they need that little nugget yeah to to tuck into their notes or they need to start working on their little pre pre-game profile of the guy who's going to be going or to start finding some relevant scouting information that they can put into their piece.

Like Socia, for instance, would never, ever announce who his starter was before he had to, even when it was incredibly obvious. When Jared Weaver was the Angels' super ace and he was lined up in spring training to start opening day and still the social would announce his opening day starter until the day before opening day and i don't know why he did that i mean i certainly wasn't to get any advantage there was no mystery whatsoever to it um and the reporters would basically assume it as well and write about it and prepare for it as such so i don't really know why he didn't do that but i'm guessing that i don't know why ned yost hasn't named his starter i'm not totally sure he

knows how confident are you he knows he knows right yeah he must know i mean it's it's like it's going to be volquez or cueto i you know i don't know what the like either way it's going to be a righty yeah but your lineup probably, wait, wait. Your lineup probably doesn't change. So do you think he knows, though? Like, do you think as of yesterday he knew? I think he probably knew. Who do you think it'll be? I don't know.

Volkis. But it's questionable. I mean, I don't know either. So maybe he doesn't know. Maybe not. Maybe he's thinking about it. Yeah. You're allowed to use the time.

I can't imagine that there's any advantage. I can't imagine there's any advantage even if it was a lefty. I can't imagine there's any advantage even if it's a lefty who throws 81 compared to a righty who throws 99. As long as you tell the other team in enough time that they can make a lineup, I don't really think there's any real advantage. And you annoy the other team, and i don't think that's his goal no probably not i think i think volk is well by the time people are listening to this he may

have already let that information out yeah well let's see hang on no it's still not out okay all right i have 11 minutes 12 minutes left and so instead of doing a topic, let's just keep talking. Okay. Do you have any more emails you want to answer? I don't have emails. You want to talk about Ruben Amaro becoming a first base coach? So this report, Jeffrey Flanagan, Ned isn't saying it, but it's likely Volquez in game one,

Cueto in game two, Ventura in game three, Young in game four. Where do you think the word likely comes from? I feel like if you're going to say Ned isn't saying, but it's likely that, you have to justify the likely. Yeah. Because that's probably just I think that. Right. Probably.

But it could be that somebody in the front office or a coach has been like, I mean, it's going to be Volquez. Yeah, he won't say, but it's going to be Volquez. All right, what did you just ask me? Ruben Amaro becoming a first base coach for the Red Sox. I guess the bullpen catcher job was taken. Yeah, I mean, there's something. Well, okay, there's always something comical about Amaro.

Like we've allowed him to get to this point where whatever he does, it's funny. Like if he's – when he was trying to trade Cole Hamels and other teams were like, man, he's asking for our good players. We're like, ah, Amaro. And so when he wanted to be a manager, a couple weeks ago it was reported that he had hired an agent who was – I think an agent. Agent might not be the technical term but hired an agent to help him sort of scout possibilities to get a GM or manager job. And there was some mockery of that as well. Really, there's some mockery of the idea that he'd be a GM, right? Yeah. really there's some mockery that the idea that he'd be a gm right he's yeah he was he was generally seen as the worst or the second worst gm for the last few years even though you know he had he had

recovered to some degree and i think that most most a lot of smart phillies fans had considered the job he did the last 18 months or so to be much improved but no nobody was going well there's only 29 gms in the world better than ruben amaro jr like there was kind of a general sense that he was not as good as the alternatives and so that was already because we get to do this with ruben amaro because this is what we do to him. There was already mockery of that, but then that he wanted to be a manager, a job that he has no experience in, and that feels just a little presumptuous and ambitious was also getting mocked. Now that he takes a job that is much less ambitious and perhaps demonstrates a humility and a willingness to work his way up to manager, that also is kind of getting mocked. So it's hard to separate the news from the

pre-existing narrative. It definitely feels to me, well, for one, so it feels to me that almost everybody who's a first base coach is overqualified for it. And so certainly if you have been a major league GM for six years and have been in those rooms and done those things, you're probably overqualified for it. In fact, if you have two arms, you're overqualified for it. You really only need the one. To strap players' shin guards too. I was just sort of imagining a waving. Although first base coaches hardly even wave because the play is in front of the runner. There's very rarely a situation.

I guess you have to wave when the throw is wild. And you have to alert the runner, go to second. Now the throw got past the first baseman so he is overqualified probably almost all of them are overqualified but he his resume is incredibly overqualified there's also the case it's also the case that most first baseman but first space coaches also have other roles on the team yeah he's also going to be the outfield instructor i was going to say they they tend to also be the infield instructor or the outfield instructor or something, base running coordinator, things like that.

So he'll be the outfield instructor as well, which is also a thing that he's fairly overqualified for, but it's fine. I don't know. I mean, he's, look, here's what happened. Look at what happened with Dusty Baker, Ben. Dusty Baker got canned by the Reds, And I can't remember where I read this, but afterward, he was really kind of sad because he thought that job offers were going to be coming into him. Like he thought that he'd either get another job offer as a manager or he would be

doing broadcasts, that network would call him up and do broadcasts. And the job offers never came. do broadcasts. And the job offers never came. And Dusty was sort of sad and fell out of the game a little bit. And then years pass and now he's asking for interviews that he's not even getting with teams. And I sort of feel like Amaro's smart. He's instead of letting the game kick him out for the couple of years it takes for everybody to completely forget him. He's just staying in the game. He's, he's taking a job. He's staying in uniform. Uh, he's doing what he needs to do to stay around. And we do see re reputations get rehabilitated all the time. I mean, there's guys who we think of as bad GMs who a couple of years later, you, when you hear their name again, you find out that in fact, they're an assistant GM with some smart team and everybody loves them.

And it just wasn't quite the right role for them at the time, right? I mean, you can think of me. I don't know. Omar Minaya. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So he's paying his dues. You could look at it as him paying his dues. He's not too big for the first base coach job just because he's been a GM. He'll go, he'll start with one of the, I don't know, less exciting jobs on a coaching staff.

And he'll work his way up if the openings are available to him. And he's a former player. And I mean, at this point, his background is probably more likely to turn into the coaching track than the executive track if he hadn't already done the other. So good for him, I guess. good for him I guess. I'm not sure that there was a more mocked GM in my formative years than Allard Baird and when Allard Baird got fired in 2006 it would have been inconceivable to me that a decade later he would be seen as really smart and competent and qualified and you and a good baseball man because I only got a very narrow sliver of the public assessment of him. I got the snark assessment and I saw what he did in a difficult GM role, but I didn't really know what he was like or who he was or what his skills were. And now he's generally considered a very important part of a very smart franchise in Boston. So I have no reason to think that.

And Ruben Amaro Jr. was there. He was a big part. He wasn't the GM, but he was a big part of building that organization's player development system that went on to win the World Series. And so, yeah, I have no reason to think that he doesn't have a bright future ahead of him and he'll probably do this for one year I'd be shocked if he does it for two he'll do it for one year and then he'll be something else next year

and in seven years there's a pretty good chance that his name isn't a punchline and there's a decent chance that it is alright so he's taking the long view yeah good for him be a fun job too there's no stress whatsoever yeah not really you know can't get criticized for sending someone i've never heard a first base coach get criticized i'm sure that they they do and every once in a while you hear a first base

coach get praised but yeah yeah you never hear like he didn't yell back yeah and i got picked off exactly no that never happens he didn't he didn't bring his stopwatch out there and i didn't know how fast the pitcher was throwing the whole plate look at all those runners running around with pads on yeah look at that guy he turned right wouldn't carry my wouldn't carry my elbow protector. Made me wear it all around the bases. I know, you never hear that. Yeah.

And meanwhile, Don Mattingly is, it looks like, going to the Marlins, which seems like supposedly Jeffrey Loria loves him, and you can understand why maybe he wouldn't have wanted to stick around in LA. Probably it wasn't an option to stick around in LA. I know it was reported as a mutual parting of ways, but if it hadn't been mutual, it probably still would have been a parting of ways. And so he's going to the Marlins. How much would the Marlins have to pay you to be their manager? How much would the Marlins have to pay you to be their manager? It seems like you could do a great job and still lose your job.

There's no job security. That's true. And good managers have had that job and lost it. Like Joe Girardi had that job for a year, won the manager of the year award. Yeah. And then got fired and then, you know, has had the New York managerial job, which is tough to keep for what, eight years now or something like that. So being a good manager definitely doesn't guarantee that you keep that job. No, I mean, everybody loved Freddie. Everybody loved Freddie Gonzalez.

He was a he was a hot manager and he got fired. And then I really liked Mike Redman. I don't know if everybody else did, but I liked him and he didn't make it. Yeah. I mean, in a way, they've had three pretty – they've had three trendy managers in a row and none of them made it. So partly none of them won. Their GM has been a manager, so you know that they could at any time just you know they'll just they'll do anything they'll bring in an executive to be their manager if

they want to and you can't count on having talent ever you could start the season with a talented team and watch it all go away by the deadline so it seems like there's no way you could really win being the Marlins manager. You can't really be an institution in that position. No. Maybe, yeah. And how, I guess to some degree, one of the nice things about being Don Mattingly just in general is that your reputation precedes you.

You have an authority that most managers don't have, even if they've got a lot of experience. There's certain managers that just have, for one reason or another, more of a kind of a perceived authority, like Joe Torre obviously did when he moved to the Dodgers, and I think Mike Socha did when he went to the Angels, and Mattingly does. did when he went to the angels and and mattingly does and so maybe he's the counterweight who they need in that dugout perhaps uh i mean they succeeded when they had jim leland and jim

leland was that guy right jim leland was already a near hall of fame manager before he ever went there uh and so he succeeded although it was a different ownership i don't know i don't really what we talk about we talk about marlins moves as though they they matter and they they really don't i mean it's it's like the as soon as you start observing the marlins they're in a different place you can never really know what matters Because they're always Their transaction analysis privileges Should be revoked Like we should just not even write about the moves they make Until they prove

That they deserve for them to be covered Yeah I wouldn't take that job I also wouldn't have gone there if I were Jared Saltz of the Machia And I wouldn't go there I mean we've talked Every time the Marlins hire somebody, we go, huh, why'd they

go there? Remember when they signed a couple of, was it scouts or player development guys? Right after the trade, they had hired a couple of front office guys from elsewhere. They were either on the scouting or player development side.

They were fairly well known and they had left pretty the scouting or player development side and they were you know fairly well known and they had left pretty good teams to go there and we talked about whether the marlins were a team that you would want to work for yeah right and i i mean i always don't know why anybody goes there i mean it there are if you can't go to any other team, then I would rather work there than sell insurance. Yeah. Would you rather be the manager of the Marlins or the first base coach of the Red Sox? I would rather – If your goal is to manage long term.

So tell me exactly what my goal is for – so right right it's 20 it's october 16 2015 you tell me where i want to be on october 26 2025 and then i'll answer you want to be a manager anywhere well yeah for any major league team preferably uh your pick of them but i mean if all i want to do is be a manager then i would take the bird in the hand right and i'd be a manager then i would take the bird in the hand right and i'd be the manager i would just take the manager job and i wouldn't really care as much about being a manager in 2025 because by 2025 who knows what i'd want to do but i'd already have managed i'd be feeling pretty good about that right i mean i would take the manager job in florida yeah before i would take the first base i't, I can't really even think of a scenario

where I would take first base coach in Boston over manager in Florida, unless I was winding down and I wanted the lowest stress job ever. And I just needed health insurance. Right. But I don't feel like everything I just said about Dusty Baker and Ruben Amaro Jr. applies to Don Mattingly. I don't feel like he was going to get forgotten about, that he was going to get marginalized to the point that he wasn't in the game anymore. I think Don Mattingly was going to have his pick of jobs for the next three off seasons, at least, if he wanted to. And he could have taken it easy. He could have done, you know, he could have been, I mean, I don't know that he's exactly this, but he could have been like Davy Johnson or Lou Piniella where he sort of floats in and

out of jobs, does other things. Maybe he's a broadcaster in between, maybe goes on the speaking tour, maybe is a special assistant to a GM, does this, does that, and then comes in, does managing, managering for six years when the right opportunity comes to him. But yeah, I mean, look, going to Florida, when you go to Florida, what you're essentially doing is saying, okay, I'm going to have two straight jobs on my resume where I got fired. Yeah. And that's what you don't want. You prefer not to have a bunch of, like eventually you're eventually firing a stick. Who loses two elections in a row and you're not allowed to run anymore.

Yeah, right. Exactly. All right. I got to go. Okay. All right. So we'll do a full World Series preview later today probably and have that up tomorrow. And you can continue to email us at podcastfaceballperspectives.com and join the Facebook group at facebook.com slash groups slash effectivelywild. Rate, review, subscribe to the show on iTunes, and support our sponsor, The Play Index. Go to baseballreference.com, use the coupon code PP, get the discounted price of $30 on a one-year subscription.

We will talk to you tomorrow.