CBAreject

When Jason Whitlock is in your corner, you're generally correct. My favorite part of this article is where he calls sabermetrics "the plague ruining sports" and then says "That is not intended as a shot at Bill James" in the next line...Bill James, who invented Sabermetrics. Whitlock then realizes 2 things...one, he has a lot of cheetos crumbs in his keyboard, and two, that sounded really, really stupid, so he corrects himself, "Wait. Hell, maybe it is a dis...of James". Whitlock's argument against sabermetrics in baseball centers on 3 points: 1) Sabermetrics are boring ("they reduced the game to a statistical bore") 2) Abner Doubleday didn't intend for people to use computers to analyze baseball ("Sports were never intended to be a computer program") 3) It's difficult to beat "stat geeks" in an argument when they can support them so well with all those stats Whitlock then says that sabermetrics undermines debate in sports. Why? "They try to interject absolutes". OK, we'll get back to that. Whitlock then proceeds to make what he believes will be the most impactful point of his article--to show through the example of Elway just how flawed statistical analysis is. How? By using the trusty "no one will convince me" position. It's a doozy. He acknowledges that Elway is overshadowed in every way by multiple other QB's (including in terms of championships won), but he emphatically states "I CAN and HAVE argued CREDIBLY and PASSIONATELY that Elway is the best QB and player in the history of the league". So the key is PASSION. The most passionate arguer wins, see? Facts be damned. Now the best part. Whitlock then says "I invite you to disagree. I'd love to refute your erroneous position." Oh, but I thought that debate was undermined by the interjection of absolutes. I guess as long as the absolute is Whitlock's infallible opinion, it's OK. Nice. I think I'm beginning to understand how sports debate works.

"Riding the hot hand" is foolish, since an apparent hot streak cannot be assumed to be a true hot streak. Most times, they are aberrations. Fredi Gonzalez is among the most ill-equipped people in baseball to discern the difference. What I said there in no way "insinuates" that there is no such thing as a hot streak. You'd like for me to take an extreme position because it's easier to prove it wrong. You have caught the hawksfanatic disease of wanting to "win" the argument instead of listening to what is being said and actually digesting it. You don't actually support your positions and contribute constructively to the debate, though. Saying "I applaud" is not actually lending support to your position; it's simply saying that you enjoy your own position so much that you clap your hands together when someone agrees with it. That in no way makes it any more correct.

Unfortunately, blocking hawksfanatic doesn't stop his posts from being quoted in others' posts. I never said hot streaks don't exist. In fact, I took great pains to say that wasn't my position after being accused of that repeatedly by hawksfanatic, et al. They do exist. The trouble is, one cannot assume that an apparent hot streak is a true hot streak and not an aberration without looking at what is going on in the games. Constanza's apparent hot streak was very likely due to luck due to the unsustainable nature of the way he was reaching base. Proving that hot streaks exist (which was never actually in question) does not prove that a perceived hot streak is a true one. Hawksfanatic isn't concerned with what I have to say. He's only concerned with arguing with it, whatever it may be, which is why he was the first to reply to this thread, quite predictably, and why he's more interested in setting up strawmen to rail against (such as the position that "there's no such thing as hot streaks"). Nobody said "it's good to overuse relievers". That's true. Then again, I never said they took such an absurd position. What they did say in a myriad of different ways was that Fredi was "doing a pretty good job". That's patently false, and is apparent given the benefit of hindsight now. Fredi was guffing up the single most important part of being an NL manager. Those who excused him on whatever grounds were blind to that. There were plenty of blunders along the way this season, but none was so obvious and so egregious as his misuse of our relievers. It seems almost inevitable now that St Louis will take the wild card, but as catastrophic as that will be, if it unseats Fredi's corpulent posterior from the managerial seat, it may, in the long run, be worth it.

For the last two weeks, Venters and Kimbrel have begun to show the inevitable signs of the undue wear and tear Frediot Gonzalez has placed on them all season. I watched in horror as he pitched Venters in 4 run game after 4 run game during the midseason, knowing all along that he may not have enough left in the tank to pitch well in closer games (higher leverage situations) down the stretch and in the playoffs (should they even make it). I have lambasted Fredi for his moronic decision to abuse Venters and Kimbrel on here several times. Every time, a small collection of squawkers has rushed to Fredi's defense, saying some version of "I think he's doing a pretty good job", despite the obvious fact that managing a bullpen is the single most important facet of being a national league manager. The Fredi love on her has been blind. My accurate criticism of Fredi has been met with emoticons, "LOLz", and personal insults. I ask you now squawkers, particularly coachx, now that Venters has spent the last 2 weeks pitching like the worst reliever in the NL, now that our wildcard lead is down to 2.5 after 5 blown saves by Venters and Kimbrel in that stretch, now that Kimbrel has given up HR in back to back games (as many HR as he gave up in the previous 100 appearances or so)...please rush to Fredi's defense and explain to me how this melt down so obviously due to overuse of Kimbrel/Venters in low leverage situations is not Fredi's fault.

Wren has done a fine job so far as GM, but the Bourn move was one of his best. I think he was responsible for the trade of Renteria to the Tigers for Jurrjens, which was a coup. Scheurholz made some real stinkers in his last several years with the team, including shipping off Wainright and Marquis for 1 season of JD Drew, and sending the Rangers 4 strong prospects (Andrus, Feliz, Salty, Harrison) who are all big contributors now for 1 season of Teixeira.

Please explain how context mattered in what I quoted there. You said that I only criticize in hindsight. That's pretty self-explanatory without context. OK, I pick "not". Surprise, surprise. No evidence to support that prior claim. No. If you believe that, you're either not reading my posts or you're too angry at me and have made this too personal to consider that you may in fact be wrong sometimes. I've said you contradict yourself because you say "stats go out the window when a guy is hot" but then you use stats to prove he is hot in the next sentence. That is as contradictory as it gets. Those aren't "different circumstances". It's the same decision--whether to play player X, who is allegedly hot. You may not like my effusive writing, but you have to at least pause for a second and think, "Gee, it seems like this guy takes his time to think things through". Do you really believe my comprehension is so poor that I've simply misunderstood your terse posts? Is that what Occam's razor would bear out here? They're not teeming with dense, conceptually complicated material, yet I typically dissect them line by line. It seems like you altogether ignore mine. Your case was recapitulated above and it was contradictory for obvious reasons. Clear as mud. And you like to make claims without support. Which stats disagree with my "beliefs" on hot and cold streaks? As a reminder, I agreed that there is such a thing, and I agreed that they are not insignificant. The fact that you are confused does not imply I am trying to "muddy the water".

One more thing while we're on the subject of your contradicting yourself, coachx. A few weeks ago, you accused me of criticizing Fredi only in hindsight for his decisions that failed. You said that if Ross had GIDP, I would've criticized him for not bunting. You failed to defend that assertion, even after I asked you to--probably because there was no evidence to support that accusation. Then, you come with this: If I criticized Fredi only in hindsight, why would I be critical of him now? Were you wrong about that accusation?

Understand this critical difference. There can be genuine hot streaks and fluke hot streaks. There can be both. The problem is that MOST hot streaks are flukes. Therefore, it is foolish to mindlessly conclude that a given hot streak is not a fluke, because on average, it probably is. A better way to do it is to actually look at what's going on. Constanza's weak bloops aren't going to be hits every time. Results justify the decisions, eh? I saw a guy push all in with a dominated hand in poker and win 3 straight times (e.g. AQ over AK). Did his winning mean he was playing well? I'm not a stat expert, but I know better than to wholesale discount an entire philosphy without being an expert in it. That's what you tend to do. So what if I am? Why would that bother you so much? I don't care if you are smarter than I am. You may well be, but I can sure tell you I try a lot harder to defend my points than you do in this forum. Effort matters, too. Saying "ride the hot bats baby" and posting mocking emoticons, as many of you have done does not stand in the place of critical reasoning. I agree, and I do not believe that I am the best at interpreting them or that my way is necessarily best. The problem is that you and others on this forum interpret them carelessly if at all. Try a bit, and I'll give you respect. Again, the fact that there is such a thing as a hot streak does not mean that all hot streaks are due to genuinely improved performance. In fact, most hot streaks are due to variance. To tell the difference, we have to actually watch the games and see what is going on. You're the one who wants to settle for looking at a .400 BA and assuming it's due to performance and not variance, yet you accuse me of "managing strictly by stats" Who doesn't? All you've done is repeatedly characterize me as a faceless stat-head who thinks baseball managing only relies upon stats. If I thought that way, I wouldn't believe Bobby Cox was a fairly good manager (despite his relatively poor in-game tactical skills) Fredi ALWAYS goes with his gut. You pretend as if he has some perfect balance of stats and feel. He ignores statistics, to his peril. He's blessed with a very good team, but he will likely cost us 2 wins or so per season over an average manager (few enough that people who don't pay attention won't notice the difference).

I don't block people for not being smart. I block them for being vindictive and/or haughty. Regarding hawksfanatic's circular argument on Ross, he likely made that without reading all of my posts (which would be expected, since he is interested in arguing with me, not understanding me). I am not ignoring variance. Bunt analysis always considers two things, 1) the expected number of runs scored; 2) the probability of scoring at least one run. The second is not the same thing as a confidence interval, but it's actually more practical to use and easier to understand conceptually (BTW, I promise you Fredi is not thinking about 95% CI's). I clearly stated, more than once, in that thread that bunting in that situation reduced both the expected runs and probability of scoring at all. In some cases, bunting may increase #2 at the expense of #1, and in some cases, that is preferred, but in this particular case, it reduced both, which made it a bad play. Hawksfanatic ASSUMED that #2 increased in that case, but that wasn't true. Essentially this is his argument. A) The play increased #2 at the expense of #1, due to variance B) You said the play was a bad play C) Therefore, you don't understand and/or are ignorant of variance If A were true, C would also be true, but it's just not. Now, if you'd read my posts, you would've seen that I already understood that concept and stated it plainly. But, you have caught the "let's disagree with CBA because he's pompous and writes effusively and we want him to be wrong" disease. I refer to variance frequently in my posts, but I haven't generally used the term "variance". If I am implying that hot streaks are of little importance, I am invoking variance. If I didn't believe in variance, I would believe more strongly in hot/cold streaks, and I would say things like "ride the hot hand, baby!" Variance is not an advanced concept, nor are confidence intervals. Since you have a penchant for bolding sentences you think really drive home your point (the nails in my proverbial argumentative coffin), please take a look at yourself here. First you say: But then you immediately contradict yourself by trying to prove Constanza is hot by using limited statistics (and poorly, due to small samples) Then in your next post, you say: So, which is it sir? Are we looking at stats or not? All you've done is prove my point that we all look at stats, both saberists and anti-saberists. The difference is that anti-saberists like you fail to consider things like sample sizes, informative peripheral stats, and variance. Someone who quotes a 10 game sample size appears to be the one who doesn't get variance. Should I bold that? Worst of all, the saberists on this side of the argument aren't even looking at the stats. We're watching the games and seeing Constanza post a .400 AVG on bloops and choppers, not line-drives. If you'd read that CAC article, you'd have seen he took his singles one-by-one to show that this apparent hot streak was just variance, not genuine improved performance. If managing baseball were about just looking at statistics, we'd all be playing constanza right now because his stats are phenomenal in 10 games. You're the one who wants to rely on that sample, not the saberists.

Coachx, I don't read hawksfanatic's posts because I have him on ignore. He functions as somewhat of a sniper, only entering a thread in this other sports forum when he believes he can directly disagree with me. Otherwise, he is disinterested in the thread. Hence, the ignore. I didn't tell you that I don't believe in hot streaks or cold streaks. I simply said they're controversial and for good reason. What Uggla did for the first three months of the season was not chance. He wasn't just "cold", but I have no problem with calling that a cold streak. He changed his approach and possibly his swing, and he was getting bad results. He may have been unlucky, too, and that factored into his psychology, which is important, too. Human beings are not machines, and psychology factors heavily into extended slumps. This is why you'd see more streaks than variance would suggest. The important point, though, is that variance explains the majority of streaks, and even for the ones it doesn't, benching the cold player does not generally help him right himself. How do you tell the difference? One way is with your eye, but what you'll learn by studying advanced baseball statistics is your eye lies to you far more frequently than you ever thought possible. It's actually better to look at peripheral statistics. You can see that a player is swinging at more pitches out of the strike zone or perhaps you'll see that a player is getting rather lucky or unlucky by their batting average on contact or on balls in play. These things help you see whether the player is actually hot/cold or just getting lucky. Until you spend a lot of time reading about sabermetrics, you don't fully understand how many things they can tell you. When you don't fully understand a field, it's easy to wholesale-discount it because you believe they're myopic in their approach. One thing your eye can tell you is that Constanza's hits have almost all been low-probability. When a player makes weak contact, he will generally get out, even if he is fast. Constanza's weak-contact seeing-eye singles are not evidence of a hot streak, but evidence of luck. Luck is not sustainable. The important point is not whether Jason Heyward is currently cold (he is) but that Constanza is not hot. Constanza didn't suddenly learn how to hit .400, even for a brief while. If you're going to "applaud" Fredi for playing the hot hand, you must have also agreed with the decision to pitch Proctor in high-leverage situations when he had a 3.00 ERA (despite an FIP that predicted he would crash to earth). That didn't work out well, did it? None of this says you don't have the ability to understand statistics. I'm sure you do. The problem, I believe, is that you and many others on here have discounted "stat-heads" without understanding all that they do. Hawksfanatic (I saw quoted in another post in a different thread) said something like "Oh, if you ask a saberist which player is better between two with a .400 OPS, he'll say 'they're the same'". Take a moment and think about that. He's assuming he knows sabermetrics well enough to perfectly predict what any saberist would say. That's arrogant, and in fact, his assumption was patently false. OPS is insufficient to evaluate a player. It depends which position they play, how well they field their position, who is speedier, who runs the bases better, how much of that OPS is due to OBP vs SLG. Are there stats to evaluate these things? Yes, and the best stat for total player value is wins above replacement, which, though not perfect, is better than anyone can do with the naked eye. But you seem to want to dodge my two questions: 1) did you even read the CAC article? I read yours. 2) if you believe in benching a player who is "cold", then what would have happened to Uggla if you had been managing? *as a corrollary, if you believe in playing the "hot hand", then you agreed with letting Proctor melt down in high leverage situations those times

This practice is considered foolish by people who understand statistics, but you're applauding Fredi for doing so. I feel like you didn't read the CAC article by the way this comment sounds, since the article commented on hot streaks...and how they are only relevant in hindsight. Says a person who is almost hostile toward saberists. No, the numbers do not speak for themselves. You must know how to interpret them. This was the point of my last post. Sample sizes. Which translates into a .280 hitter at MLB with no power and no patience (he almost never walks). The sum of all that is a sub-.700 OPS and not many runs created. Contact is over-rated. The highest run producers in baseball generally strike out 150 times per season. It's not about contact; it's about solid-contact. It's about hitting line drives. Martin Prado took pains to cut down on his strike-out totals and it resulted in a lower batting average due to a higher frequency of weak contact. His K% certainly dropped, but it clearly illustrated that K's are not that bad an outcome. Speed is a great asset, but it never trumps patience and power. Heck, look at Uggla. And while you're looking at Uggla, consider what would've happened to his 31 game hitting streak if Fredi were benching him and playing Brandon Hicks because Hicks was putting up a tidy season at AAA and getting lots of bloop hits in the majors. It's hard to "get in a groove" when you're not playing every day.

You know, I would agree with you if I thought the Braves' management knew how to interpret flukey stats, but they don't. Scott Proctor posted about a 3.0 ERA in his first 20 or so appearances. The Braves thought he was pitching well because they don't know how to look past results-based statistics like ERA. They pitched him in too many high-leverage situations, and it cost them a couple of wins (namely, the Baltimore game). The bloggers on CAC, who are skilled at statistical analysis, couldn't say enough times that Proctor was pitching terribly despite his ERA. They know how to appropriately handle a stat like ERA and they knew that Proctor's apparent "success" was coming mostly by good luck, which is unsustainable. Less educated fans would post replies with all the common retorts, such as "why are you hating on Scott Proctor" and "he must be doing something right...he has a 3.0 ERA!" It took several meltdowns by Proctor before his ERA regressed to expected numbers. Finally, the Braves released him today. A great irony here is that all the people (including Braves management, apparently) who scoff at saberists for "looking at stats" are guilty of "looking at stats" themselves. The difference between saberists and the rest of the world is that saberists actually know how to handle stats, and they aren't misled by a pretty ERA or batting average. A greater irony is that those who oppose saberists will say "stats don't tell you everything", but in fact, it is the saberists who realize stats don't tell you everything. Their opposers are the ones who put too much weight on a given statistic, just as the Braves' management did with Proctor's ERA and Schafer's stolen bases, and just as they're doing now with Heyward's batting average. So, the argument between traditionalists and saberists is essentially moot. They both look at numbers, and they both draw conclusions based on them. It's just that saberists are skilled at doing so and more likely to draw the correct conclusions.

Yes, we all love stories like Constanza, but Mark Bradley actually knows very little about baseball. I suggest you balance his unabashed, feel-good approbation of Fredi with this much more rigorous, quantitative, and fact-minded article posted on Capitol Avenue Club: Constanza over Heyward The fact is that Constanza has an artificially high batting average due to an inordinate number of bloop hits and bleeders that is not sustainable. Don't get me wrong, he may well turn into a .280 hitting, base-stealing major leaguer, albeit with almost no power and very little patience. However, that kind of player isn't as productive as Heyward is, even when Heyward is playing badly. Not only that, but hot streaks and cold streaks themselves are somewhat controversial in the first place. It has seemed easy for squawkers to shrug off "stat heads", but you should at least consider their rigorous analysis, since so much careful thought goes into it. In general, when one party thinks very carefully, analytically, and quantitatively about an issue, he is more frequently right than another who simply goes with his gut or makes decisions on a gestalt of emotions.

Coachx, I actually agree with you for once. Bunting to move Bourn over is a horrid, horrid, horrid strategy. Wasting an out with one of your best batters to simply advance a runner when your best 2 hitters are coming up behind him and when the runner could've been advanced with his own two legs with just as high success rate (if not better) will only serve to keep you out of big innings. It will do nothing to increase your run scoring potential. Now, the fact that ppl are calling for more bunting in general is making me crazy, so please try to understand this, bunting fans: what the Braves need is NOT more bunting. That is not what's wrong with our offense. In fact, the Braves are at the top of the NL in sac bunts. The problem with our offense is that we make outs at too high a frequency. Bunting will increase that frequency. Sacrifice bunting is a controversial strategy, in general. For the last few years, saberists mostly agreed it was never correct unless the batter was a horrible hitter (like a pitcher in the NL). However, some more thorough analysis using expanded run expectancy tables has shown that there are some other situations in which bunting can be favorable (but these tend to be somewhat rare). It is probably never correct to bunt with the #2 hitter, and especially not early in the game. The obvious case of bunting with the pitcher aside, these are the things you want when you are opting to bunt. 1) The batter has lower skill as a batter (hence why you never bunt with your clean-up hitter) 2) You are particularly interested in scoring just one run (late in the game when it's close) 3) The next batter up is not a power hitter (if the chances of an extra base hit are great, why sacrifice an out to move into "scoring position"?) Think a bit on #3 and you'll see that the same restriction may apply to base stealing. This is the reason that many statistically-minded, thinking baseball analysts say that the convention of "speed at the top of the order" is flawed. Speed is most useful when it's applied ahead of singles hitters. As such, it could be awfully useful for your #6 hitter to be speedy. On the other hand, running into an out when your sluggers are up isn't worth the risk, since they are generally more likely to get a walk or XBH (both of which make the stolen base worthless) than they are a single.

Who was arguing that the fear of Ross hitting into a DP was unfounded?

If Ross had hit a grand slam last night, it would've no more proven my point than his GIDP proved yours. Ross will hit into double plays sometimes, just as all players will. He will hit grand slams sometimes, just as all players with power will. Citing a double play in a specific case only tells us what we already knew. Process > Results. This is the concept in baseball that helps us favor objective analysis over visceral reactions to a specific result. FYI, the name for the emoticon you posted at the end of your comment was "derisive". While it doesn't help strengthen your case, it gives clear evidence that you're more interested in taunting me than you are in finding the truth.

We absolutely raped the Astros in this trade. The only player worth keeping that we traded was Abreu, who is a right-handed bullpen fireballer. Oberholzer was never going to make our rotation and Schafer might not ever be able to adequately handle anything better than AA pitching. It's super nice to have speed, but I'm just happy that we won't have a .250-.290 OBP guy batting leadoff anymore.

Hahahah. Because it's Frediot #vroooooom In his mind, the leadoff man must be the fastest man, even if he doesn't get on base nearly enough to justify getting the most at-bats. In Costanza's defense, he isn't very good, but he probably earned the promotion ahead of Schafer who was awful at AAA and continued to be awful at MLB.

I love the Edwards signing. Love that we keep Clabo for a reasonable contract. We all knew Snelling was gone when we drafted the thick RB in the 6th round. Don't like that Dahl is leaving, but I think this means we keep Blaylock, who I preferred anyway. The only thing that surprises me is that Anderson was cut. Dmitroff knows his value as a run-stopper so he must have allocated the cap savings toward something. I generally believe he knows what he's doing. The Julio Jones deal could really blow up, but I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt for now.

Good point.

Sure you can. My criticisms of Fredi Gonzalez have been thoroughly supported with facts and data. You are welcome to disagree, but I'd appreciate it if you took the same care in supporting your case that I have in supporting mine. I'm a die-hard Braves fan. I've watched over 2000 Braves games in my life and suffered through 14 playoff exits. If I cared a lot less about the Braves, I would be relatively indifferent to Fredi's ineptitude. I just don't see indifference about whether your manager is costing your team games as a sign of dedication. The complaint Atlanta fans have about the media is that they give us an undeserved negative evaluation due to ignorance, apathy, or even hatred. I tend to disagree with most fans on here who think the media, by and large, has it out for Atlanta. Their negative evaluation of our franchises has been mostly well-deserved. I wish so much it were not so, because it hurts to be a fan of arguably the worst professional sports city (1 championship in over 150 professional seasons). Despite now living in Dallas, I couldn't appreciate that the local Mavs won a championship as I watched in a bar a mile down the road. I just wished it had been my Hawks. I couldn't appreciate that the Rangers won their first ever world series game, thinking that my Braves could've beaten those Giants if Conrad hadn't been forced to start at 2B. And I couldn't have cared less that the superbowl was played here this year, because my Falcons weren't in it. Was there a better sports city to live in this year than Dallas? I can't change allegiances, though. I haven't even lived in Atlanta in a decade, but I'm still fiercely loyal to my Atlanta teams.

OK, but in the last 3 years with ATL, he is a .284 hitter with an .875 OPS in 392 plate appearances. Sample sizes are always important to consider, but players' ability levels change over the course of their career. The fact that Ross hit .207 in the first 3 years of his career with the Dodgers isn't that imporant to how he is playing in his prime, which is now. So Ross is roughly average at grounding into double plays (or very slightly worse). Brian McCann's rdp is -9. He grounds into double plays 12% of the time, which is more frequently than Ross does. Should we also bunt with McCann, who is an MVP candidate simply to stay out of double plays? Better yet, should we bunt with McCann when the 4 hitters up behind him can barely make contact and shouldn't be on a major league roster? The problem is not that the play was conservative. Conservative plays sacrifice a chance at a big inning for an improved chance at a single run. Sometimes, these plays are preferable, such as when the game is tied in the 8th or 9th inning. This play did sacrifice a chance at a big inning but without the benefit of increasing our chances of scoring just one run. As such, it was a demonstrably poor decision to bunt with Ross in that situation. I'm actually not sure I've ever seen a manager bunt in a more unfavorable situation than this one. Again, it has a lot more to do with who was hitting behind Ross than it does with Ross himself. If Freeman/Uggla were up behind Ross, it would be understandable, though it's not clearly beneficial, even in that case.

I think Beltran was undoubtedly the better player (switch hitter with MUCH higher OBP and at least average defense), but what makes this more palatable is that he's an asset that may be either flipped in the offseason or allowed to walk the season after with draft picks as compensation. Quentin would definitely decline arbitration, given he would be 29 and up for a huge contract as a FA in 2012. Beltran came without the promise of draft picks, and the Mets were wanting roughly the same package (Mike Minor). The downsides are 1) Quetin's defense is reportedly atrocious and 2) if Chipper doesn't retire in the offseason, we'd have a hard time playing everybody, since we'd have 3 star corner outfielders to play in 2 spots. I would suggest trading him in that case, but it would be nice if chipper retired gracefully and Quentin could take over his lineup spot having Prado move in to 3rd.

First, I don't hate Fredi. I hate the way he manages, because it's moronic, but I wish him no harm as an individual. I do want him to be fired, but I hope he would find an even better job elsewhere. Second, you're implying that my cricism is only fashioned in hindsight. Nothing could be further from the truth. I have never come on here and blasted Fredi for something that made sense at the time simply because it failed. I actually posted on the CAC blog "Wait, did we just bunt our best hitter for Ramirez and Lugo???" That was done the second Ross bunted before Ramirez had seen his first pitch. A shrewd poster named NRPS over there said "even if this works out, it will be the wrong play...process >> results". The point is, it was wrong at the time. The results do not justify or condemn the individual decision. Also note that Fredi had Prado bunt in the 10th, and it failed (Prado got behind 2 strikes after fouling the bunts and had to swing at a bad pitch). I thought that was a slightly sub-optimal play, but a reasonable/understandable one, since Freeman/Uggla/Ross were up next. The fact that it failed didn't change the fact that was a reasonable play at the time. As such, I made no criticism of that play, in spite of its failure. In this light, please defend your assertion that I would've criticized Fredi for letting Ross swing away if Ross had GDP.

Perhaps, but I don't have enough information on every national league manager to say. Nonetheless, I strongly doubt your assertion because not all national league managers make as many traditional, "by the book" plays as Fredi Gonzalez does. It's hard to analyze MLB managers comprehensively, but this article introduced a metric called traditional managing index (TMI), which is simply a sum of sacrifice bunts and intentional walks. These stats are fully 2 months old, but you can see a wide variation in how frequently managers utilize these traditional plays. They are both controversial plays which are usually sub-optimal, which is why the author was interested in the metric. Note that Kirk Gibson and Bruce Bochy were bunting about half as frequently as Fredi over the season's first 2 months (I'm thinking they must have left out the times that pitchers sacrifice, which is almost always called for if possible, given how poorly they hit). Clearly, the fact that Fredi bunts in any particular situation does not imply that all other NL managers would do the same in that situation. Regardless, even if all NL managers would do the same thing Fredi did, that would not conclusively demonstrate that the play was correct (optimal). If there actually were a traditional managing text book, it could not be followed in such a general sense without making lots of errors. You must consider the situation in more specific detail than you have here. The single most important factors in deciding whether to bunt runners over are who the bunter is (including how good he is as a hitter and as a bunter, since bunts are not fool proof--the NL average is only 68% success rate) and how good the hitter behind him is. This is what makes bunting with the pitcher (generally a horrible hitter) to set up the lead-off man (ideally the highest OBP on the team) a good play most of the time. This is also why you should almost never have the #8 hitter bunt a man over for the pitcher. Bunting with a bad hitter to move runners over for a good hitter can swing the expected number of runs scored upward AND swing the probability of scoring at least one run upward. If you take an average of all bunting scenarios, however, it is a negative-expectancy play in both situations. There are some cases where it is a positive play and many more cases where it is a negative play. A good manager can reason out which is which. The question you're asking here is something like "What's more likely, that Ross gets an XBH or a GDP?" That question isn't very important, because there are many other possiblities besides the best and worst case scenarios, respectively (which are actually about equally likely, since he gets an XBH 10% of the time in his career and a GDP in 10% of opportunities - source baseball reference). Ross may walk, get a single, get HBP, reach on an error, hit a ground ball that moves the runners over anyway. Take note it is far more likely that Ross fails to get the bunt down than it is that he grounds into a double play (22% for his career vs 10% for his career). But all of this is unimportant when you consider just how bad the 2 guys were behind him.