Keith Law on Fredi Gonzalez

[CBAreject]

Keith Law fielded some questions on Fredi Gonzalez in his chat today. Priceless stuff.

Jason (Atlanta)

KLAW, Fredi Gonzales admitted the other day that he had no idea of the OBA of Schafer, Mclouth and Heyward and that he "thought" Schafer's was highest. How can a GM let something like this pass in a day and age when EVERY team employs people to apply advanced statistical analysis?

Klaw (2:57 PM)

Well, the GM is obviously fine with this. I wouldn't be if I were an Atlanta fan, but the way that lineup is set and the way the roster is used implies that Wren is completely OK with Fredi's (mis)management.

Michael (Iowa)

We all know your dislike for Clint Hurdle's managerial abilities. But for anyone who has subjected themselves to more than a ffew Cubs games this year can tell you, Mike Quade is making a good effort to take over that mantle. Who besides Hurdle would you lump in the Managers hurting their teams category?

Klaw (3:11 PM)

Tracy. Fredi. Baker.

Here's a fan of the ilk we've seen in this forum who sees criticism of Fredi as unfounded "hating"...

Joe (Atlanta)

Why are you hating on Fredi Gonzalez?

Klaw (3:29 PM)

I'm not "hating on" him. I'm offering an objective opinion of his in-game managing, and that opinion is that he's not good at it.

There were a lot of questions in the chat about Braves trade prospects, namely Beltran, and to that end the fact that the Mets were probably asking for too much.

Edited July 22, 2011 by CBAreject

[macdaddy]

I really haven't seen enough games this year to judge. To say that Fredi is hurting this team to me implies that we should have won more games than we have. Right now i think we have the 2nd best record in the NL and 3rd in MLB. That's with an offense that's near the bottom of the league. I realize we have a great pitching staff but does Fredi get credit for nothing?

[CBAreject]

I really haven't seen enough games this year to judge. To say that Fredi is hurting this team to me implies that we should have won more games than we have. Right now i think we have the 2nd best record in the NL and 3rd in MLB. That's with an offense that's near the bottom of the league. I realize we have a great pitching staff but does Fredi get credit for nothing?

First off, our offense is actually average in the NL in terms of runs scored. We make up for not getting on base much by hitting lots of homers (even Hinske has 9 as a reserve). Of course, it would be better if we didn't have a .290 OBA player batting leadoff in front of our top power hitters. Let's take things from your perspective, though. If you're arguing Fredi is managing to win games in spite of being overmatched (having a very poor offense), we should see evidence of that. We should see the Braves winning "the close ones", for instance. In fact, the Braves have played the 33 1-run games. Their record in those games? 17-16. Their record in extra inning games? 10-8. I don't believe those records mean much of anything, but if you were to postulate that Fredi were helping the team win more than expected or had a knack for making the impactful move that swung the game in our favor, I think you'd want to see an advantage in those games.

I would say the question is "how does Fredi get credit for anything?" There's a reason managers get fired when teams have a losing season. That reason is that the wide majority of people (including almost all fans) evaluate a manger based on his team's record. The truth is that managers have relatively little impact on their team's final record. It seems impossible to quantify that, but the difference between the best manager and an average manager might be around 2 games. Consider that a superstar outfielder gains you no more than 5 wins over a replacement-level outfielder, and such a player is generally thought to be worth $20+ million per year. If managers were worth that kind of difference, you'd see more GM's spending tens of millions on managers, since after all, those millions are supposed to by more wins. GM's don't do that, and it's most likely because they don't think managers have that kind of influence. I'd say they're generally right, and my feeling is most managers neither help nor hurt their teams very much.

Now, the main problem comes when the manager is well below average, and he makes such poor decisions on a regular basis such that he hurts the team. Over the course of a 162-game season, this may be around 4 games. Consider that an optimal lineup vs a horribly non-optimal line-up costs you a win or two alone. If you add to that misuse of a relief staff, such that Scott Proctor is pitching in very high leverage situations and Venters is pitching mop-up duty with 4 run leads, you're looking at another couple of wins. This is all probably moot as we'll probably be the wild card either way, but poor decision making in the playoffs could cost you a game, and that is difficult, if not impossible to overcome when you're playing the best team in the league. Besides, if it's easy enough to hire a competent in-game decision maker for the same thing you're paying Fredi, why not do it? We have clear evidence that Fredi doesn't know what he's doing regarding in-game decisions, and we know that hurts our chances to win. We don't have any clear evidence that he is doing anything to help the team win, however, unless you think his standing in the dugout and mouth-breathing makes us luckier.