Washington Nationals
This year, every baseball writer in this country picked the Nationals to make the playoffs. Every baseball writer in this country, except for me that is.
Why did I pick the Nationals to miss the playoffs this year, a year when every other baseball writer in this country picked them to make the playoffs, a year when they were heavily favored to win the NL East, a year when they were proclaimed to be a “Super Team” by The Intelligentsia?
They made a terrible decision firing Dusty Baker.
Dusty is one of the best managers of all time. Every team that he has taken over has enjoyed instant success. The Nationals are no different.
They had a disastrous season in 2015, one mired by underachievement and all sorts of drama. They were favored to win the NL East that year too. They won a meager 83 games and missed the playoffs.
Then, Dusty was hired to take the place of Matt Williams, who had managed the team the previous two seasons.
They won 95 games that year and followed it up with 97 the next year. They won the NL East by a wide margin both seasons.
In the Postseason last year, the Nationals lost in the NLDS. Was that Dusty’s fault? Or is it because Mike Rizzo did a terrible job with that team’s roster, acquiring three closers at the trade deadline when the team only needed one?
Mike Rizzo’s tenure with the Nationals is emblematic of a few things. The acquiescence of Old School Baseball to The Intelligentsia. The importance of laissez-faire.
In Stephen Strasburg’s first year following Tommy John surgery, The Intelligentsia said “he can’t pitch in the Postseason or his arm will fall off!” This, when the Nationals, who used to be the Montreal Expos, for years one of the worst teams in baseball, were on the cusp of their first Postseason appearance since the 1980s.
The Nationals lost that year in the NLDS while Stephen Strasburg sat watching from the dugout.
Since? He has been effective when healthy, but he is often injured.
Then, in 2014, the Nationals were on the verge of a key win over the San Francisco Giants in the NLDS. Jordan Zimmermann had pitched the first 8.2 innings of the game. He was pitching a tremendous game. The Nationals had a one run lead. For some reason, Matt Williams replaced him with a relief pitcher, who proceeded to blow the lead, and the Nationals lost the game in 18 innings.
Brutal.
Stephen Strasburg was fine in 2012. His arm was a ok.
Jordan Zimmermann was fine in 2014. He was more than capable of getting that final out.
The Nationals had a good thing going with Dusty Baker. They didn’t need to make a coaching change last fall.
The Intelligentsia says “all managers do is make lineups and pitching changes! That is worth what one or two wins here and there?”
Here is what they miss.
A coach’s primary function is to create an atmosphere in which his players can thrive. How is that done? Personality. Demeanor.
Dusty Baker creates one of the best clubhouse atmospheres of any manager in recent memory. That is why his teams succeed year after year.
There is more to coaching than Xs and Os.
It was a huge mistake to fire him. This isn’t meant to be a critique of Dave Martinez. He could be a great manager one day. But the Nationals were Dusty’s team. And with just a year to go before Bryce Harper became a free agent? The timing of the move was atrocious.
If the Nationals had succeeded this past season, they would have validated Rizzo’s decision to fire Baker. No wonder they won a meager 82 games, 15 less than they had won the previous season with Dusty at the helm, and missed the playoffs, as I predicted.
Atlanta Braves/Philadelphia Phillies
Prior to this season I described Matt Kemp as “the most underrated player in baseball.” This, when The Intelligentsia described him as “terrible” and “awful” and when something called “Wins Above Replacement” ranked him as the 1,276th best player in baseball.
Any “metric” that ranks Matt Kemp as the 1,276th best player in baseball is totally useless.
Duh.
The Intelligentsia’s formulas highly overrate defense, baserunning and arm strength, as well as on-base percentage.
8/10 of what makes a player great is slugging. 1/10 is hitting for average. The other 1/10 is everything else, including obp.
And that doesn’t factor in personality type, which is obviously extremely important.
Matt Kemp has consistently been a good-great power hitter, and has consistently hit for a good-great batting average. This while The Intelligentsia derided him constantly.
This year, after I described him as “the most underrated player in baseball” Matt Kemp got off to a tremendous start. He was voted to the All Star game as a starter.
The Intelligentsia described Kemp’s season as a “surprise.”
Maybe they should have read SABR Skeptic?
The Atlanta Braves had a tremendous season, despite trading Matt Kemp the previous offseason. Why is that?
That’s a story for another day. This much at least is clear. Brian Snitker did a tremendous job as the manager of the Braves this season. Snitker, an Old School Baseball Dude, made this year’s Braves team a great Old School Baseball Story.
In a day and age where many teams are going to recently retired players with little or no coaching experience, the Braves went with Snitker, a longtime coach in the Braves minor league system.
Meanwhile, the Philadelphia Phillies were managed by Gabe Kapler, who has long been a darling of The Intelligentsia.
The Phillies totally crumbled down the stretch while Snitker’s Braves won the NL East Division Title going away.
The atrocious Intelligentsia Fail Analytics Disaster roster assembled by the Phillies GM Matt Klentak aka twerpy little Klentak had a lot to do with that obviously. Still, the success of Brian Snitker’s Braves this season should give front offices pause when considering who to hire as their next manager.
The conventional wisdom these days in Major League Baseball is that Old School Managers are a thing of the past. Some of the best managers in the history of baseball were just let go at the conclusion of this season. Dusty Baker, Mike Scioscia, Buck Showalter, John Gibbons, just to name a few, are all currently unemployed.
The success of this year’s Atlanta Braves team says a lot about that conventional wisdom.
The Intelligentsia is currently attempting to phase the Old School Managers out of the game. This project is just beginning. Their project to phase the Old School GMs out of the game is well underway, and it has been enormously successful.
Some of the best GMs in baseball are currently unemployed.
Ned Colletti. Dan O’Dowd. Ed Wade. Terry Ryan. And Ruben Amaro Jr.
For years, Amaro Jr. has been a laughingstock.
Talk to The Intelligentsia. Talk to The Cool Kids. And they will tell you “Amaro Jr.? He’s terrible!”
Yet take one look at the Philadelphia Phillies roster. The entire core of the team, the team that got off to a tremendous start this year, was built by Amaro Jr.
Maikel Franco? Signed by Amaro Jr.
Odubel Herrera? Signed by Amaro Jr.
Rhys Hoskins? Drafted by Amaro Jr.
Aaron Nola? Drafted by Amaro Jr.
Cesar Hernandez? Signed by Amaro Jr.
Nick Williams? Drafted by Amaro Jr.
That is what Old School Baseball’s Ruben Amaro Jr. brought to the 2018 Philadelphia Phillies. How about The Intelligentsia’s twerpy little Klentak?
He signed Jake Arrieta and Carlos Santana.
The Phillies already had an emerging ace, Aaron Nola, who was one of the top pitchers in baseball in the second half of the 2017 season. Did they really need Jake Arrieta? Klentak just had to contribute something didn’t he?
How about Santana?
He is one of the most overrated players in all of baseball. Why? First of all, he doesn’t have the personality type of a leader. Numbers on an Excel spreadsheet can only tell you so much.
Santana’s obp and defense may be impressive to some. But the Phillies needed a leader to anchor their young core. Eric Hosmer would have fit the bill. Matt Kemp would have as well.
It says it all about the current state of Major League Baseball that Carlos Santana received a three year, $60 million contract when Todd Frazier had to settle for a two year, $17 million contract.
Santana was awful this year for the Phillies. Would Amaro Jr. have signed him? Or would he have gone for Handsome Hosmer or Magnificent Matt Kemp?
Despite those terrible signings the Phillies had a lot going for them this year. Amaro Jr. built a great team.
They were 15 games over .500 with a 1.5 game lead in the NL East on August 8th. To that point in the season, they had coasted on Amaro Jr.’s accomplishments. After the trade deadline, though, this was twerpy little Klentak’s team. And what an Analytics Disaster they were.
The team assembled by Klentak at the trade deadline was a glorified fantasy baseball team.
The Intelligentsia claims to be “sophisticated.” Basing your decisions on numbers on an Excel spreadsheet without taking into account basic human psychology and basic group dynamics is “sophisticated” ???
Asdrubal Cabrera, Wilson Ramos, Justin Bour and Jose Bautista are all good baseball players. But team construct matters.
The Analytics Phillies totally fell apart down the stretch while the Old School Braves won the division title going away. The Phillies finished with a losing record, 80-82, ten games behind the Braves.
The Intelligentsia said “the Phillies are just a young team. That is why they totally collapsed down the stretch.”
The Braves weren’t a young team this year?
If the Phillies had just played this season with Amaro Jr.’s guys they would have won more than 80 games this year.
Early this year, everyone was saying “what a great job Klentak has done with the Phillies!” He was coasting off the accomplishments of Old School Baseball. Then he ruined what Old School Baseball built.
New York Mets
The Mets are a team at the crossroads. What kind of team are they going to be going forward?
They are not far off. They have one of the best starting rotations in baseball with four excellent starting pitchers, Noah Syndergaard, Jacob DeGrom, Zack Wheeler and Stephen Matz. They have plenty of talent in their lineup. They have a great leader, Todd Frazier. With a few shrewd moves, they could win the NL East Division Title next season.
They don’t need to “rebuild.”
Who should be the next GM of the Mets? Could it be any more obvious? Ruben Amaro Jr., the man who built the Philadelphia Phillies, is currently the first base coach for the New York Mets. It says it all about the current state of Major League Baseball that the best job Ruben Amaro Jr. can get is first base coach. What a travesty.
The Mets should bring Amaro Jr. up to the front office and let him run the team.
The Mets have four ace starting pitchers. You only need one. They should trade Noah Syndergaard this offseason for three top MLB ready prospects – two position players and one pitcher. They would still have DeGrom for the next two years, and Wheeler for next year, as well as Matz. They should go all-in and try to win before DeGrom becomes a free agent.
With the young players acquired in the Syndergaard trade, what else would the Mets need to compete the next two seasons? An impact player for their lineup. Yoenis Cespedes had been that player for the team in recent years, but his injury woes make him unreliable. Harper and Machado are out of the Mets price-range. How about Yasiel Puig or Matt Kemp? How about both? Add one or both of them to a lineup featuring Frazier, Bruce, Rosario, Nimmo, Conforto and McNeill? There is no reason the Mets couldn’t win the NL East next year, and perhaps even the World Series.
Miami Marlins
Jose Fernandez Rest in Peace.
SABR Skeptic 