Oct 31
Two years ago on Rays Index we wrote about how some thought Joe Maddon was one of the crappiest managers in baseball.
Joe Maddon Is Too Good For The Rays [Rays Index]
Archive for October, 2009
Oct 30
[THE HANGOVER] The One Where We Discuss Glenn Gibson’s Successful Tenure With Rays
Don Zimmer, Glenn Gibson 1 Comment »The Rays released a number of minor leaguers. The most notable name on the list is Glenn Gibson. He was the player the Rays acquired from the Nationals for Elijah Dukes. That may seem bad, but we have long said that as long as Gibson didn’t somehow maim Evan Longoria as a member of the Rays organization, it was a good trade for the Rays.
Mission accomplished.
DEVIL DOGS WEBTOPIA…
- The Rays announced their ticket prices for 2010. [St. Pete Times]
- The Rays sister franchise in the UFL is set to play at the Trop tonight. [MLB]
- MLB Trade Rumors, where we moonlight from time to time, has been working through their list of the top trades of the past 10 years. Of course, Scott Kazmir for Victor Zambrano makes the list. [MLB Trade Rumors]
- Well, Don Zimmer’s grandson said that Zim and Pedro Martinez had kissed and made up. Sure doesn’t seem like it now. [St. Pete Times]
Oct 29
One year ago on Rays Index we wrote about the end of a World Series we had not hoped for.
Not The World Series We Would Have Hoped For [Rays Index]
Oct 28
[THE HANGOVER] The One Where We Discuss The Mayor Of Tampa’s (Pin)Stripes Shining Through
Jason Bartlett, Scott Kazmir 14 Comments »We are pretty sure that most of you throw up a little every time two mayors wager over a championship game. We do. Well, if that bothers you, you might want to sit down before hearing what the Tampa and Clearwater mayors have done. Mayoral championship wagering just Jumped the Shark…
The Tampa Bay Rays didn’t make the World Series this year, but two local mayors aren’t letting that stop them from betting on the outcome…Since Clearwater and Tampa are the spring training homes of the Philadelphia Phillies and New York Yankees, Clearwater’s mayor has made a wager with Tampa’s mayor.
Somebody please explain to us how it is possible that the mayor of Tampa is openly rooting for, and wagering on, the New York Yankees in the World Series. Maybe the Rays should change their name to the St. Pete Rays Pelicans.
DEVIL DOGS WEBTOPIA…
- It has only been 12 months since the Rays were in the World Series, but apparently it is not too soon for Martin Fennelly to wonder if the Rays will ever make it back. [Tampa Tribune]
- David Laurila of Baseball Prospectus interviewed Jason Bartlett. See if you can count the number of times Barty uses the word “man.” [Baseball Prospectus]
- Do you want the Rays to trade for a catcher this winter? Well here is a list of catchers that could be on the market. See anybody you like? [MLB Trade Rumors]
- Looking for something to root for in the World Series? Tom Jones has a list of reasons to pick a side. [St. Pete Times]
- Michael Sasso breaks down the Tampa connections in the World Series. [Tampa Tribune]
- We mentioned this a few days ago on Twitter, but now we have a transcript from the radio bit in which former Mets GM Jim Duquette interviewed Scott Kazmir. Awkwarddddd. [Newsday]
- Did we mention that we are on Twitter? [Twitter]
- The first 2010 prospect list is out. Our thoughts are in the comments section. [Dock of the Rays]
- Rays Prospects projects where the Rays top prospects will be playing in 2010. [Rays Prospects]
Oct 27
The Rays announced today (via press release) that they have re-signed Gabe Kapler to a one-year deal. The deal is a major league contract for $1.05 million. He made $1.0 million last season.
Kapler, who turned 34 in August, hit .239-8-32 with a 98 OPS+ and .334 wOBA as the Rays primary right fielder against left-handed pitchers.
With Ben Zobrist and Matt Joyce in the mix to play right field, this move is a bit surprising. Does this mean the Rays are leaning towards using Zobrist as the most-days second baseman and a Joyce-Kapler platoon in right? Or is this just insurance in case either Joyce or Sean Rodriguez are not ready to be major leaguers? If the Rays are still leaning towards Zorilla and Joyce in right field, Kapler would be relegated to 5th outfielder. It is hard to imagine that Kapler would have signed so quickly without some assurance that he will compete for regular playing time.
Oct 26
Measuring the impact of a manager on a Major League Baseball team is a difficult thing to do at best. The closest approximation we can come up with is to compare the number of games a team wins to the number of games the team should have won.
Using Fangraphs data for the last four seasons, we compared total Wins Above Replacement (WAR) for each team to the number of wins each team had greater than 55. In theory, my six-week old daughter could manage a big league club to 55 wins, so we want to see how each team performed compared to the worst possible scenario (55 wins).
What we see is a close relationship between a team’s total WAR and the number of games a team wins. No surprise there. We are more interested in the trendline (black line above). This gives us a formula that will help us determine how many games a team should have won based on how the players performed.
EXPECTED WINS = (0.95 * WAR) + 48.2
Now let’s look at every team from this past season and see how their actual wins compares to the number of expected wins.
As you can see, the Rays 2009 win total was 12.6 fewer than what would be expected based on how the players performed this season. That was the worst mark in Major League Baseball this season.
The way we see it, there are two possible explanations. Either the Rays were the unluckiest team in baseball, or Joe Maddon did not get the most out of the talent he was working with [Ed. note: see comments for discussion on Strength of Schedule as a factor. In summary, it likely plays a role for some teams, but not necessarily for the Rays in 2009].
While we don’t want to completely discount the possibility of “luck” being a factor, there are a couple indicators that suggest the Rays were not that unlucky this season.
First is the team’s Pythagorean Win Percentage. Based on the number of runs scored and runs allowed, the Rays should have won 86 games this season. That is only 2 wins more than the actual number. This suggests the Rays were a little unlucky, but certainly not 13 wins unlucky.
Also consider that we are dealing with a 162-game schedule. How much of a factor can “luck” have over 162 games? We aren’t exactly talking about a small sample size. Maybe luck can swing a team’s record one way or the other by a few games, but can it cause a team to lose 13 more games than expected? We don’t know the answer to that question, but our gut says “No.”
Also, if the Rays were “unlucky,” then certainly this should be an aberration on the record of Maddon. Actually, turns out it is not.
In three of Maddon’s four seasons as manager of the Rays, the team’s win total underperformed the performance of the players by a wide margin, ranking at or near the bottom (complete data for 2006-2008 can be found after the jump). Even 2008, when the Rays won the AL East and Maddon was named American League Manager of the Year, the team still only won 2 more games than expected.
The counter-argument is that Maddon was not managing to win in 2006 and 2007 as the team was in a developmental stage. So maybe we should not hold Maddon accountable for 2006 and 2007.
Also, one could make a case that outside of his in-game decisions, the manager is somewhat responsible for getting the players to perform at a high level. The Rays WAR values suggest that the players are indeed playing at a high level. However, that level did not lead to the number of wins that would be expected, and that could be directly related to Maddon’s managerial decisions during the games.
We are not ready to say JoeMa has been a bad manager. You can’t be a bad manager and win a pennant in the same division as the Red Sox and Yankees. But according to this data, the team played like a 97-win team this season and yet they only won 84. Is that all Maddon’s fault? Not likely. But it is hard to imagine that any other manager would have done worse than 84 wins with this level of talent.
Oct 26
One year ago on Rays Index we wrote about Dioner Navarro’s golden brainfart that swung the momentum of the World Series in the Phillies’ favor.
Rays Blow Golden Opportunity On Navarro’s Brain Fart [Rays Index]
Oct 26
[THE HANGOVER] The One Where We Discuss Global Marketing, SuperLongo And Being Better Without Pat
Evan Longoria, Pat Burrell, Stuart Sternberg 2 Comments »Hey Stu, does this sound familiar?
Fulham Football Club has struck a marketing deal with the sister company of the Boston Red Sox baseball franchise, in one of the more unusual pairings between an English and American sports team.
While the deal is mainly based on a marketing and promotion relationship between the baseball team and the English soccer team, there is also a chance that Boston would host an English Premiere League match.
We know the Rays are having a difficult time just building a fan base in their own backyard, but we never took Stuart Sternberg as somebody that limited his thinking to small scale items.
DEVIL DOGS WEBTOPIA…
- For those of you that are interested in such things, Evan Longoria will be part of McFarlane Toys’ Spring 2010 line. For those that are not familiar, McFarlane makes the one set of action figures that actually look like the person intended. [Toy News International]
- The Phillies say they are a better team without Pat Burrell…that’s funny, because the Rays were also a better team without Pat Burrell. Go figure. [St. Pete Times]
- Matt Silverman will appear as part of a discussion panel during the Sports Leadership Summit on Friday at the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center. [St. Pete Times]
- MLB Trade Rumors took a look at the Rays 2010 commitments and speculated on some of the moves they could make this off-season…It jives fairly well with the payroll projection we produced last week. [MLB Trade Rumors]
- Rays the Stakes wants to know if you had to choose between Carl Crawford and Carlos Pena, who would you choose. [Rays the Stakes]
- Rays the Stakes also submitted their AL MVP ballot, with a couple of Rays making the list. [Rays the Stakes]
Oct 22
The Philadelphia Phillies finished off the LA Dodgers and will try to become the first repeat champ from the NL since the Cincinnati Reds of the mid-70s (let’s hope this is the last time the Phillies are mentioned in the same breath as the Big Red Machine).
Of course, last year the Phillies cheated their way to a World Series title over the Tampa Bay Rays. If you blocked that week out of your mind, let’s recap…
- There was Joe Blanton and his pinetar cap in Game 3.
- JC Romero tested positive for a Performance Enhancing Drug prior to the playoffs. But miraculously, MLB could not find an arbitrator prior to the World Series in order to uphold his 50-game suspension.
So with the Phillies going for back-to-back titles, let’s speculate how they will cheat this year (assuming the Yankees win the ALCS)…
- Raul Ibanez might be ‘roid-enhanced.
- With Romero out of the playoffs due to his post-’roid injury, he will dress in drag and visit Alex Rodriguez in his hotel room the night before all road games.
- Two words for CC Sabathia: Veggie Platter.
Just remember, the Phillies put their pants on just like the rest of baseball, one leg at a time. Of course after they have their pants on, they cheat their way to World Championships.
