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You guys know how we feel about Juan Pierre. We like him as a dude. We like the way it looks like he's borrowing a giant man's helmet. We like calling him John Peter. And we think he stinks at baseball.
Just for giggles and shits, I plugged the phrase "Juan Pierre" into our Bill Simmons 1980's Movie Reference Software (available at BestBuy), and here's what I got:
"In the world of out machines, Juan Pierre is the WOPR." Not bad for $24.95!
And now, take it away, Jayson Addcox of mlb.com! What is it about the on-base percentage that a player like Juan Pierre -- who leads the Dodgers in at-bats, runs scored, hits, stolen bases, triples and games played -- gets knocked for not having his higher than .350?
So much to digest, so quickly. Let's chuck the grammatical wonkiness out the window and just try to deal with the question at hand: Why does Juan Pierre get knocked for having an on-base percentage below .350? I made a list!
1) Because he's a lead-off hitter. 2) Because he has no power to make up for his lack of OBP. 3) Because he's being paid $45 million by the Dodgers. 4) Because his OBP isn't just a hair below .350 -- it's .324 this year. 5) Because .324 is good enough for 134th out of 171 eligible MLB batters. 6) Because there's a massive conspiracy against Juan Pierre.
By the way, why didn't he just say "gets knocked for not having his higher than .400"? It would have made Pierre look a lot better to anyone who was too lazy to look up his actual OBP.
Of course, Juan Pierre leads the Dodgers in triples, so I'm supposed to let it go, I guess. I'm supposed to forget that he's a lead-off hitter who doesn't walk for a second, and give him credit for leading the team in AB's? Wait -- hold on -- I'm supposed to be giving him credit at all for leading the team in AB's when in the same sentence you're admitting that he can't get on base? Ba-wuh?
He's batted in four different spots in the lineup this season. When he's hitting well, he's in the leadoff or No. 2 slot, but when he's slumping, manager Grady Little hasn't hesitated putting Pierre in the seventh or eighth slot.
I know I'm opening myself up to "you wouldn't know because you never played baseball" criticism here, but is it really so difficult to hit in different spots in the line-up? Does Juan Pierre's head explode when he sees that he's batting in the 7th spot? Is he suddenly going up to the plate and trying to catch the ball in his mouth because he has no idea how to hit 7th?
(Incidentally, I did play baseball, at least when I was young. Played 3rd base for my little league team. My coach encouraged me to play 3rd like a hockey goalie, and ended up earning the nickname "Reggie" that year thanks to late 80's Bruins goalie Rejean Lemelin. What were we talking about again?)
The issue with Pierre is that he doesn't walk. Plain and simple, his OBP suffers because he averages one walk every 21 at-bats. On the season, he has just 24 walks in 510 at-bats, which is the lowest in the Majors. On the flip side, Pierre doesn't strike out often, either. He has struck out just 32 times this season, which is once every 15.9 at-bats, making him the hardest batter to strike out in the Senior Circuit.
In the red corner: walking. Getting on base. Not getting out. Making the pitcher throw at least four pitches to you. Getting to first base so you can do the one thing you do well: steal bases.
In the blue corner: not striking out. In Pierre's case, finding other ways to get out. If you believe us, not really a good thing. Not a bad thing, just not a good thing.
Not striking out isn't "the flip side" of not walking. It's a different goddam coin. A coin that you keep in your pocket when talking about baseball because it's not really relevant, unless you want to talk about the virtues of the coin itself in a vacuum. You know what I mean. (Hopefully. Because I don't.)
Also, those of you who like not-striking-out-ability usually point to things like productive outs and "good things happening when you put the ball into play." Of course, Pierre's a lead-off hitter, so more than any other player in the line-up, he's going to have the lowest percentage of opportunities for "productive outs" anyway. This season, Pierre leads the Dodgers with 147 hits. He is fifth in the NL with 45 multi-hit games, he leads the Majors with 14 sacrifice bunts and he's second in the Majors only to Jose Reyes with 50 stolen bases, and yet his OBP supposedly isn't cutting it.
"Jayson, it's Darryl. Just going over your copy for the latest mlb.com article...No, yeah, it's fine. One thing. Looks like the word 'supposedly' somehow got into the last sentence of paragraph eight...Right...No? You sure?" "He's a disruptive force when's he's on base," Little said. "The other team has to be concerned with him regularly and it disrupts the pitcher. The whole key is for him to get on base and that's what we like."
Write it down, kids: When writing an article in support of Juan Pierre, it's okay to admit that he has a low OBP, as long as you quote the manager of his team saying that the whole key is for him to get on base. A thing, which, you've already pointed out, he does poorly.
Compared to some of the elite leadoff batters in the game, Pierre's .324 on-base percentage is considerably low. Reyes has an OBP of .375, Hanley Ramirez is at .392, Chone Figgins is at .392 and Ichiro is at .396, so the consensus is that a No. 1 or 2 hitter in the lineup needs to have a .350 or higher OBP.
I imagine that was Dodger catcher Russell Martin's response to manager Grady Little, after hearing this "compliment" --
"He," Dodgers manager Grady Little says of his catcher, in the loftiest of baseball terms, "is a dirtbag."
And then, after showing a sly smile, Little explains in his gravelly voice: "He's a baseball player."
What do you think of baseball player Russell Martin? He's a baseball player.
I submit this for the approval of the Dodger fans who wrote in to defend Grady a week ago.
Also, the Red Sox of the early 00s called themselves "Dirt Dogs." That I kind of understand. But isn't calling your guy a straight "dirtbag" just kind of insulting?
Many of you have pointed out that the Long Beach (Cal State, maybe?) college team is called the Dirtbags, or calls themselves the dirtbags, etc. So I guess that part isn't that weird.
1. Tony La Russa He put to rest the notion his players tighten up come October with one of the great managing jobs of our time last year. It's no easy thing to make an 83-win team believe it can win. Now he's made me believe. He's an original thinker who's unsurpassed strategically. "I have tried to guess along with him on what moves he'll make next,'' David Eckstein told me in spring training, "and it just can't be done.''
If you haven't already, I invite you to read Buzz Bissinger's book 3 Nights in August, about La Russa. The purported aim of the book is to show how brilliant La Russa is as a strategist. The actual accomplishment is to make one feel like one wouldn't trust La Russa to take care of one's cats, much less one's baseball team. It starts with an anecdote about how Albert Pujols has a severe arm injury -- one that allows him to swing a bat but not throw. La Russa wants to play him anyway, to like intimidate the other team (which doesn't know about the injury), so he puts him in left field and tells him to casually underhand the ball to the SS if it gets hit to him. A doctor has told La Russa that Pujols, the most important player on the team by a factor of fifty, is risking severe like career-threatening shit if he throws a baseball. This is a not-super-important game. I mean, what the hell?
Avid readers of this blog might remember many months ago when I wrote that I was going to do a lengthy review of this book. I started reading and making notes. By page 80 I had filled ten notebook pages with scribbles and exclamation points and frowny faces, and decided the task was just too big.
And before we go talking about how La Russa is a master strategist because his crappy team won the WS after winning 83 games last year, let's all remember that he controlled three of the most disappointing WS teams in recent history -- the 88 A's (104 wins, McGwire/Canseco, 3 16 game winners and Eck, blown out in 5 games by the Dodgers), the '90 A's (who got humiliated by the Reds) and the '04 Cardinals (who won 105 games and got brushed aside like sidewalk trash).
2. Jim Leyland Perhaps he isn't the master strategist that La Russa is, but as a salesman and motivator, no one's better. His only blemish is his short time in Colorado, when his heart wasn't in it.
I fail to see why it's okay that his heart wasn't in it when he had a tough job. As opposed to when he managed the '97 Marlins, the best team money could buy, or the ultimately disappointing 90's Bucs. I think he's a fun guy, and a good manager, but shouldn't a big part of a manager's evaluation be how he does when he gets handed a pile of crap? (And please don't tell me the '06 Tigers were a pile of crap. They were well-positioned to be a solid team with that pitching.)
3. Mike Scioscia Smart and solid, he's extremely even-keeled, and his players have bought into his aggressive, NL style.
Whatever. He's fine.
4. Joe Torre Fourth place for the four World Series rings. But can he please take it easy on his favorite relievers? He especially needs to be careful with Andy Pettitte and Mariano Rivera.
I don't really know what to make of Torre. I happen to think that the most important job a manager does is handle the clubhouse and the owner. He has a tough clubhouse and a terribly whimsical/crazy owner, and is always even-keeled, so, to quote that weird guy who writes a weekly column about Starbucks and The Sopranos for SI.com, I think I think he's good. He also has a $200m payroll every year and occasionally makes some really odd decisions.
5. Lou Piniella He didn't do his best work in Tampa, and baseball people noticed. Plus, he's been cited by some for mishandling pitchers. He certainly can lose his cool, as well, but that's part of his charm. Wouldn't want to have to match wits against him in the postseason, though that might not be anyone's worry this year.
I believe Sweet Lou is insanely overrated. Tampa never seemed one ounce better off with him than with anyone else. But what really irritates me is that he's sitting here at #5, and is followed by
6. Bobby Cox I'm sure most would rank him higher. But since the goal is to win titles, that has to be seen as a failing.
I mean, you've got to be kidding me.
Figuring out what effect, if any, a manager has on a team is very difficult. Moneyball famously talks about how Billy Beane loved Art Howe because Howe sat stoically in the dugout and stared straight ahead and had the appearance of a leader, while essentially just following orders. He presided over those overachieving computer-generated teams that everyone loves to call underachieving because they got terribly unlucky in October, and then he went to the Mets and stunk up the place.
As I said, most anecdotal evidence (because empirical evidence with managers seems misleading) says that managers' most important job is that of a sheep dog -- herding the players in the same direction, keeping them from going astray over the course of a long season, focusing them on the task at hand, that kind of thing.
If that is at all true...who is better than Bobby Cox? He didn't win titles? He won every division title from 1844 to 2005. He throws some of the best player-protecting temper tantrums in the game. His guys love him. He handles veterans and rookies and retreads and rich guys and does gutsy things like make John Smoltz a closer. If I were GMing a team, I might get Bobby Cox to run it. Assuming he secretly agreed to run it Moneyball-style.
7. Grady Little He was knocked hard for sticking with Pedro Martinez in the 2003 ALCS, when his critics apparently would have rather seen him turn the game over to a very iffy bullpen. He's a low-key guy who doesn't get the plaudits he deserves.
Grady Little is a bad manager. He is a very nice man who says pleasant things in a pleasant drawl. He has no business being anywhere near a dugout. And this is not sour grapes. This is common sense.
9. Ozzie Guillen It may look like he's managing on emotion, but few know the game better.
He hits Podsednik first, doesn't care about OBP, thinks everyone should steal, bunts all the time, and says racist and insulting things. But he has a fun accent!
10. Terry Francona The Red Sox skipper keeps his cool in a tough environment. He manages both the clubhouse and game well.
If these are your criteria: put Torre first, Terry 2nd, Cox 3rd, and everyone else 4th.
11. Ron Gardenhire Always has the Twins hustling, just like in the Tom Kelly years.
He also thought Luis Castillo was worth 15 extra wins for his team. He seems decent, I guess, though he does some funky things with his line-up.
Managers are a mystery. Uneven payrolls and the large element of luck in short series make conclusions about their abilities very difficult. In general they should probably be judged on their overall team management skills, on and off the field -- controlling their players well and also letting them have fun without letting things get out of control...all that jazz.
However, I believe -- and this is from memory, so correct me if I am wrong -- that it was Rick Pitino who once said that the only time a basketball coach really has any tangible influence over that fluid game was coming out of a timeout, when (s)he could set up a specific play. If there is any corresponding truth in baseball, then people who famously make bonehead moves at crucial situations should never be on the list of best managers in baseball.
It should be noted that in the same article, Heyman seems to imply credit to Schuerholz for the acquisitions of Maddux, Glavine, Smoltz, Andruw and Chipper. ("...the one who procured the talent")
Glavine was drafted well before Schuerholz took over.
Smoltz was acquired in a trade (Doyle Alexander to the Tigers) during Cox's tenure as GM of the Braves, which I think a lot of people (including paid journalists) forget.
And this is just speculation on my part, but given that Chipper was drafted in the first season of Schuerholz's tenure as GM, it's at least somewhat likely that it was Cox and his team who did the early legwork on that one.
“This will certainly have carryover,” Dodgers Manager Grady Little said.
On September 19th: Pirates 10, Dodgers 6. Asked if the Dodgers had a letdown after their dramatic rally in an 11-10, 10-inning victory over the Padres on Monday, Los Angeles manager Grady Little said, "The results appeared that way, but it was the same situation -- we haven't been able to stop the bleeding late."
Basically, if they win the next day, it's carryover. If they lose, it's a letdown. I think I get it now.
Did any sentient entity on any planet in the universe expect any sportswriter to describe the hiring of Grady Little as the manager of a major league baseball team as a "coup"?
The answer to the question is yes: me, on planet Earth, because that sportswriter's name is Bill Plaschke. Plaschke's going with the headline "Team Pulls a Real Coup With Its Latest Hire" -- the team being the Dodgers and the hire being Grady Little. Now, just so we're straight here, Merriam-Webster defines a coup as a brilliant, sudden, and usually highly successful stroke or act. The area where I agree with Plaschke is that yes, hiring Grady Little could indeed be classified as an act. Or a thing. I guess it was sudden, also.
Judging managers is exceedingly difficult to do with any sort of precision. Short of a guy being a total jerk or putting on a fake mustache and glasses in order to re-enter a game he's been ejected from, it's tough to say with certainty exactly how bad (or good) a manager is. Actually, now that I think about it, even if a guy were to put on a fake mustache and glasses in order to re-enter a game he's been ejected from (although I can't see how that would ever happen in real life), he still might be an okay manager. Besides, the ability of the baseball players on a baseball team is far, far, far more important than the savvy of the manager. I would say something crazy, like 100 times more important. At least.
Regardless, when it comes to good old baseball man Grady Little, Bill Plaschke is willing to credit all of his team's success to Grady and simultaneously absolve him of all failure. Let's begin the hyperbole:
Let me see if I have this straight.
There was an unemployed manager out there whose last night of work was Game 7 of the American League championship series.
Yes. In that game, the unemployed manager you speak of made arguably the most colossal blunder in baseball history. Arguably.
There was a former manager out there whose last season contained 95 wins.
Yes. His team in that last season, the 2003 Boston Red Sox, featured a historically great offense including six regulars with OPS+'s over 120, among them Manny Ramirez, David Ortiz, Nomar Garciaparra and Jason Varitek. The pitching staff was headed by all-time great Pedro Martinez, who threw 186.2 innings of 212 ERA+ (2.22 ERA) ball.
There was an ex-manager out there who was fired because he trusted instinct over statistic, people over paradigms, baseball over everything.
Also there was the colossal blunder thing, and the multitude of questionable in-game decisions throughout his tenure.
And this same guy, the Dodgers just hired him?
Ned Colletti can pump his right fist any time now.
I'm beginning to think that someone really, really likes Grady Little. Likes him a lot.
In resurrecting Grady Little as the new Dodger manager, he hit a late-inning, backdoor slider out of the park.
What's that? Oh, you're not done.
The baseball folks in Boston may be wincing, but baseball folks everywhere else are smiling, waxing in the rebirth of a good man wronged.
Are they, Bill Plaschke? Or did they also watch Game 7 of the 2003 ALCS? And is it just me, or is Bill Plaschke using an unconventional definition of the verb "wax," which I believe means (here comes Merriam-Webster again) one of three things: 1 a: to increase in size, numbers, strength, prosperity, or intensity b: to grow in volume or duration c: to grow toward full development 2: to increase in phase or intensity -- used chiefly of the moon, other satellites, and inferior planets 3: to assume a (specified) characteristic, quality, or state
These baseball folks are increasing in intensity because Grady Little got hired?
"I love baseball, this is my life, this is what I do," said Little, a former cotton farmer with a voice like syrup and the expressiveness of grits. "To be able to get another chance like this, I'm very, very fortunate."
"The expressiveness of grits"?
Little's only other major league managerial experience consisted of two years with the Boston Red Sox, who fired him because of one bad decision he made when the still-cursed franchise was six outs from going to the 2003 World Series.
So it was the curse that made them lose, not Grady Little.
Going with his gut, his gut failed him, as he left a tiring Pedro Martinez on the mound to face the New York Yankees in the eighth inning with a 5-2 lead. Martinez gave up three runs before the Yankees won it on Aaron Boone's home run in the 11th.
Little was gone shortly after the ball, canned by weak-kneed Boston officials who bowed to a region of whiny, self-absorbed fans.
So it was the fans that got him fired, not Grady Little's performance.
Before breaking the 86-year-old "Curse of the Bambino" — which was really the curse of being the last integrated team in baseball — the Red Sox did all sorts of silly things to their managers in the name of voodoo.
What? Integration is coming up in an article about Grady Little?
"It's New England, it's Boston, all they want to do is win," said Little with a huge sigh and great restraint.
Funny, but that's all Little, 55, did there. He won.
Well, to be fair, there was the colossal blunder thing.
This was a guy who had been director Ron Shelton's inspiration as the real manager of the Durham Bulls.
Who cares? Seriously, who the hell cares?
Players understood and loved that he was all about the grass-roots part of the game. That he would judge them not for only how they looked, but who they were.
I want my team's manager to judge players for how good they are at playing baseball.
"It's like [former player] Dante Bichette once said," Little explained Tuesday. "When you see a pretty girl wearing a bikini on the beach, she shows you a whole lot. But she doesn't show you everything."
He added, "My philosophy is like that. Statistics can't show you everything. I'm a human kind of guy."
Here's a better analogy: when you see a checkbook and the numbers in it showing the debits and credits to your checking account, it shows you a lot of what you need to know about your checking account. Those numbers represent money, and ultimately, what you want to know is how the money is doing.
Baseball statistics are nowhere near as accurate as the numbers in your checkbook, but I still think this is a better comparison than saying that statistics are to a player's effectiveness as the attractiveness of a girl's figure is to her suitability as a life partner.
But that's me, a guy who undestands analogies.
This humanness pulled together a clubhouse with players as diverse as Manny Ramirez, Derek Lowe and Nomar Garciaparra.
Actually, Manny Ramirez and Nomar Garciaparra had been performing at superstar levels for years before Grady Little managed them. Derek Lowe had one amazing year, and that year occurred while Grady Little was his manager. If you want to attribute his success to Grady Little, as you clearly do, you are welcome to do so. Please understand if I am skeptical about this attribution, however.
Ramirez averaged 34 homers and 106 runs batted in in two seasons with Little despite being benched for missing games. Lowe was 38-15 under Little and channeled his nervous energy into a force.
Okay, but didn't Grady Little just say "Statistics can't show you everything"? Anyway, Manny Ramirez' career 162-game averages are 42 home runs and 136 RBI. So he was worse under Little. Again, if you think that Little somehow helped Lowe with his energy-channeling-force-creation, be my guest.
Then there was Garciaparra, who had his last good season under Little, 28 homers and 105 RBIs.
Yes, but before that he was even better. He declined afterwards due to injury and various other reasons. Your point?
Little took a diverse group and turned them into winners who, months after he was fired, became nationally known as "the Idiots." Then, of course, they finally won the World Series.
After he was fired and another manager was hired. Now you're crediting him for helping them win it all the following year? Good Christ, Plaschke. Those hollow, flexible cylinders with red stripes you're grasping are known as straws.
Yet, when he was fired, he accepted it with humility and grace, never really ripping, instead disappearing into the Chicago Cubs' system as their roving catching instructor, an important yet anonymous and thankless job.
A good reason for that disappearance was that no one wanted to hire the guy who made that colossal blunder we've already talked about.
Wow. Just...wow. The realy lame thing is, if the Dodgers improve by like 15 games next year as I believe they will -- because everyone on their team won't be injured -- and everyone is going to attribute it to Grady Little and ned Colletti instead of DePo who has put the team together. And if they don't, everyone will blame DePo for having put the team together.
