Baseball is different than the other sports. As mental skills coach Bob Tewksbury pointed out, there’s a lot of down time in baseball. All that time standing out there in the field. All that time in the dugout waiting for your at bat. That’s a lot of time to think.
That’s why it’s important to have well constructed teams. That’s why it’s so ironic that Andrew Friedman and Brian Cashman have bought into “mental skills” coaching.
Joe Girardi did a great job with the Yankees. They won the World Series in 2009, had winning seasons year after year, and last year, in a year when The Intelligentsia said “they are rebuilding,” he took them all the way to Game 7 of the ALCS. Not bad. And when his team was down 0-2 in the ALDS last year and the rabid New York mob was calling for his head they rallied and won the series 3-2.
The Yankees saved Girardi’s job and Cashman fired him anyway. Yikes.
Then he replaced Girardi with Aaron Boone who, prior to this season, had never coached a day in his life and has a perpetual deer-in-the-headlights look.
Teams take on the personality of their coaches. Under Girardi the Yankees were cool, calm and collected. Under Boone the Yankees are tense and uptight. Sure, they have been playing well lately – they do have plenty of talent on the team. But talent does not necessarily equate to success in sports, especially in a sport as psychological as baseball.
Will the Yankees continue to play well? Part of a manager’s job is to create an environment in which his players can flourish. That isn’t about X’s and O’s. It’s about demeanor. It’s about vibe. It’s about personality.
Aaron Boone has fear in his eyes.
When the Yankees players struggle, do they need “mental skills” coaching? Or do they need a GM who cares more about the team’s success than having a manager who he can push around?
The Yankees didn’t need Giancarlo Stanton. They already had Aaron Judge.
When Stanton struggles, everyone says “why did we need him? We had Aaron Judge! Trade Stanton back to Miami! Bring back Starlin Castro!”
When Judge struggles, everyone says “why do we need him? We have Stanton now! Trade Judge for Kershaw!”
It’s easy to see how it could be difficult for both Judge and Stanton to thrive in that system. Judge has gotten off to a great start. But Stanton has struggled badly. If Stanton starts to perform better, will Judge start to struggle? Will the two of them ever get going simultaneously? That trade had bad chemistry written all over it.
All the “mental skills” coaching in the world won’t bring back Joe Girardi. And it won’t make Judge and Stanton in the same lineup a good idea.
People are a product of the system in which they find themselves. There’s only so much the individual players can do to overcome a flawed system.
The Los Angeles Dodgers system is so bad, it makes the New York Yankees system look like the Kansas City Royals system.
Andrew Friedman traded AJ Ellis late in the 2016 season. Apparently, Ellis’s numbers weren’t good enough. But, Ellis was beloved by his teammates, in particular star pitcher Clayton Kershaw.
The idea behind that trade was that chemistry doesn’t matter. That numbers on an Excel spreadsheet are more important than the actual human beings on the field.
And the Dodgers are expected to win a World Series for Friedman after that?
A wise man once said that “Love is the force that ignites the spirit and binds teams together.” The players on the Dodgers loved Ellis. Love Matters.
AJ Ellis was the heart and soul of the Dodgers. Heart and Soul Matters.
The Dodgers lost two games in a row to the Milwaukee Brewers on August 26th and 27th of last year. The next day they had an off day. On that day their erstwhile teammate AJ Ellis was on Intentional Talk on MLB Network joking about the possibility of his new team, the Miami Marlins, playing the Los Angeles Dodgers in the playoffs.
Next thing you know the Dodgers lost 14 of their next 15 games. 16 out of 17 overall. A historically bad stretch. This for a team that The Intelligentsia said was an all time great.
By that point, though, they weren’t even a team. They ceased to be a team the moment they traded Ellis.
The Marlins had been playing great baseball at the time of Ellis’s interview. They were three games over .500 and a Wild Card berth was not out of the question. If the Dodgers had collapsed all the way into the Wild Card game it was not out of the realm of possibility that they would have played the Marlins in that game.
Maybe if that had happened Ellis would have hit a game winning home run against his former team. After all, his Postseason numbers are tremendous.
If that had happened, Friedman would have looked so bad.
If Ellis had hit a home run and knocked the Super Team out of the playoffs in the Wild Card game? Wow.
The Dodgers players loved AJ Ellis.
Clayton Kershaw loved AJ Ellis.
The Dodgers recovered and won the NL West. They made it to Game 5 of the World Series, where they were matched up with the Houston Astros.
The series was tied 2-2. The Dodgers had a 4-0 lead in the 4th inning. Then Kershaw gave up 4 runs in the 4th. Tie game. Woah. When was the last time Kershaw did that?
The Dodgers recovered and took a 7-4 lead heading into the bottom of the 5th.
Kershaw was so off that night. Was it his back? The pressure of the Postseason? Did he miss AJ?
The Dodgers lost Game 5 and lost the World Series.
If they had won, every snobby intellectual in the SABRmetrics community would have said “See! There’s no such thing as chemistry! The Dodgers won the World Series after trading AJ Ellis!”
They lost the World Series. They are 12-16 so far this year.
Chemistry Matters. Love Matters. Heart and Soul Matters.
SABR Skeptic 