Sweet Lou and Fiery Managers
After the 2002 season, the Mariners and Lou Piniella parted ways in a strange fashion – the M’s traded him to the Rays (with Antonio Perez) for Randy Winn. You don’t see managers get traded very often, but he had market value even though he didn’t want to manage this franchise anymore. Since Piniella left, the team has run through a handful of replacements, none of whom have had much success, and all of whom fell short when measured up against Piniella’s charisma and goodwill with the fans. Because he yelled a lot and the team won while he was here, fans grew quite attached to Lou, and it is still quite common to hear people talk about how Wak needs to be more like Piniella and “show some fire” or some such thing.
I wonder if any of the people who think Piniella is a managerial genius are aware that he’s 496 and 542 since leaving Seattle, good for a .478 winning percentage? He’s now in his 7th season since taking off for greener pastures, and he’s finished last as often as he’s finished first. He wasn’t able to turn the Rays into anything while he was there, and he’s now in charge of yet another massively disappointing Cubs team.
The fact of the matter is that Piniella, like pretty much every other manager on earth, wins with teams that have talent and loses with teams that don’t. He doesn’t get more out of his players than anyone else. He doesn’t inspire his men to greatness. He doesn’t make brilliant tactical decisions or teach bad players how to become good ones. Right now, in fact, he’s making a debacle of the Cubs catching situation by benching Geovany Soto (who is really good) in favor of Koyie Hill (who is really bad).
I get that people love to watch Lou Piniella because he’s entertaining. I get that the media loves him because he’s a fantastic post-game quote. He’s an affable, charismatic guy, but that doesn’t make him a great leader. Between the two guys running the clubs at Safeco over the next three days, I would much rather have the guy in our dugout than in theirs. Wak doesn’t need to be like Lou, because he’s not that kind of guy, and because Lou Piniella just isn’t that good of a manager to begin with.
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Well said
Heretic!
Dave, please take the apostrophe out of “managers” in the second sentence. Thanks.
Agreed. I will, however, partake in the “LOOOOOOOOOOU” chant that will surely take place tonight at the ballpark.
I agree with the first point. But I don’t think you can prove the second point without a large sample of parallel universes.
I agree with the basic premise of managers who have talent win. I remember a quote from Miller Huggins way back in the day (I think it was him…) and it went something along the lines of this:
“Yeah, I’m such a genius. All I have to do is pencil in Ruth, Gehrig into a lineup, and they all think I invented this game or something.”
Has anybody else noticed that no one has been issued #14 (Lou’s number as the skipper)ever since he left?
Good to read this along with DMZ’s classic Evaluating Managers (Reference Material to the left).
All things I know in my heart to be true, but wouldn’t dare say out loud.
As much as I’ll always love Lou for so many great memories, his pulling Halama in game 2 of the 2000 ALCS will forever stick in my craw as possibly an epic fail. If we could have gotten past the Yankees, the Ms would have made mincemeat out of the Mets.
It was weird hearing Arthur Rhodes pitch against us in the Cincy series. I’ll always remember him best for serving up batting practice to David Justice in Yankee Stadium in 2000.
Lou Piniella spent ”10 wonderful years” in Seattle managing the Mariners. Four of his teams reached postseason play, with his 2001 squad winning 116 games, tying the major league record set – ironically – by the 1906 Cubs.
He managed the start of several notable major league careers, including Alex Rodriguez and Ichiro Suzuki, and handled a wealth of talent in Ken Griffey Jr., catcher Dan Wilson, designated hitter Edgar Martinez, infielders John Olerud and Bret Boone, outfielders Jay Buhner and Mike Cameron and pitchers including Freddy Garcia, Arthur Rhodes, Jamie Moyer and future Hall of Famer Randy Johnson.
”We had nice athletic teams who could run, hit with occasional power and play defense,” he said.
If he doesn’t throw his hat to the ground and kick it a few times sometime during this series, I’ll be disappointed. I’d much rather see him pull a base out of the ground and throw it, but I’ll take the hat-kick.
Hm. Is that an econium or an indictment?
The thing about Piniella is that despite his relatively ordinary numbers, he was still far and away the best manager the Mariners ever had. And Wak still does’t touch him – not yet, anyway.
I don’t need Wakamatsu to be outwardly passionate, but how about just a little creativity? Wakamatsu manages like a machine. Never alter the bullpen rotation (Shawn White should never pitch), the rookie bats 9th (a ridiculous Rigglemanesque rote philosophy), and for Gawd’s sake, the pinch hitting selections are pitiful. I get that there’s not much to choose from,but you might want to re-think the rookie who works the pitcher in a late-inning assignment.
And please nail Tui to the bench. Guys got AAA embedded in his DNA.
I’d like to think that at least Piniella would insist that Figgins bat ahead of the Annointed One. Or at least hit the pitcher 8th and Figgins 9th on the road against NL opponents.
Out of the box, Wak. The air is pretty fresh when you pull your head out of your arse.
Rating managers is tough. Is there really a good stat for it? Lou was fun to watch and the players seemed to like playing for him, what it’s worth. He also managed his pitching staff dubiously at times. It’s quite possible he’s not that great of a manager.
Wak is even harder to judge. It’s too early to say, really. Last year, his team overperformed. This year, it underperformed. It’s unclear what impact he had.
What’s the M’s winning percentag since Piniella left? Can’t be much better than his, but I don’t know where to look that up.
Anyway, Posnanski had a blog post quite a while back about the most underachieving team ever.
Calling Lou a bad manager is a little too far Dave. I feel that he did great things for us. Maybe he is just old and senile?
Yes, Dave, whatever you do, please don’t ever offer criticism to a sacred cow. Nostalgia is a much better drug.
You’re criticizing the guy who hit Russ Branyan second in the line-up last year for not thinking outside of the box?
Come on.
Tui got sent down to AAA last I heard.
If Lou “wins with teams that have talent and loses with teams that don’t”, like everyone else, why do you say he is “not that good … a manager”? Why does it matter who manages?
That’s all kind of contradictory. Either managers matter, or they don’t. Either some managers are better than others, or they aren’t.
What’s your criteria for a good manager?
If your criteria includes:
…then how has Wak demonstrated any of this, to the point where you’d rather have him managing the Ms than Lou?
Basically, what stats do you use to evaluate a manager and who are examples of good managers?
Amen on this point again, brother (and I think we were both agreeing on this in a recent thread). If the M’s had gone up 2-0 on the Yanks in the Bronx — even if they would’ve wound up dropping two out of three at the Safe — they still would have had them in a world of hurt in that series and might very well have gone on to win the WS that year as well.
I will say this: The M’s have been around for 33 years. Lou is the only manager to lead us to the playoffs (which even I forget sometimes). That’s right, 4 playoff trips out of 33 seasons.
But 4 out of 9 in his years.
I love you Dave, but that has to mean something.
So I find the banter about the mangers interesting but I think we missed an interesting point: Dave, think if Lou is soured on Soto, we could pry him away from the cubs? I think we’d love a catcher like that!
Chris, I don’t see why those three statements are contradictory at all. #2 and #3 argue that Piniella isn’t that good. #1 argues that the quality of the manager has a minor impact.
If I said I’d much rather have X as the the 7th man out of the bullpen rather than Y (where X=a decent pitcher and Y= a replacement level one), but at the end of the day it’s not likely to have a major impact on the W/L totals. Indeed, I *would* say that because I’m a big fan of teams I follow increasing and improving their chances of winning, even when those improvements are trivial. There’s no inconsistency here.
The undercurrent on Lou has always been that the younger players, pitchers especially, are afraid of him and that he makes no attempt to hide his lack of faith in ‘unproven’ rookies. I don’t know if what I’ve heard is necessarily true, but I’d bet that reputation has at least some truth to it. He hated Jeff Cirilo though, and that’s enough to endear him to me forever. I accept that he doesn’t get more out of his players than their talent warrants, but I wonder if any of his idiosyncrasies are actually detrimental to the performance of his team.
You only found five articles on “one year deal”? That’s low. The M’s offered him a one-year deal to start (again) with a one-year option. I don’t think the vesting details were out but it was almost certainly health-based, so if he hit 400 plate appearances it’s a two-year. It might have been a player option or dual-option, depending, but there’s no way the Mariners offered him a 1+1 where the +1 was “we’ll bring you back for a $1”. We’d have to get the specifics from one of them, though. This was widely reported as a one-year offer, which really… not so much. Though yeah, you’re certainly welcome to ding me for glibly overstating it there.
Branyan wanted 3y, $30m or, failing that, two guaranteed years. He got 1 @ 2 + a mutual option, and mutual options in practice are totally worthless. Branyan would have gotten more out of arbitration.
So to put this another way — the Mariners, having seen him all year, having tended to him through his season-ending back injury, made him an offer that at worst (only a 1y deal) would have been substantially better than he found elsewhere and in all likelihood was far, far better.
And to return to the point, there’s no way you can say the M’s didn’t “do their homework” and come up with the high number. In the worst-case, again, they made the highest offer and then, when Branyan stuck to his at-least-2-guaranteed position, moved on.
Good god, is someone still pining for Branyan? With the perennial back situation, he’s almost the same player as The Hugger.
HI Dave,
Suggest you take a cue from Bill James. He never takes these arrogance stances that stat bloggers do.
He does not mistake knowledge of baseball stats with knowledge of baseball. He undertands that there is a difference.
Furthermore, who said that Piniella is a good manager because he is fiery? Who said this???
You are clearly just taking an obviously dumb argument and throwing it up as a straw man.
Listen to the guys who played for Piniella, they will all say that he was a great manager. He has won a WS and a bunch of Div titles with teams with varying levels of talent.
He is the best hitting coach amongst managers, he understands how and when to make adjustments in approach at the plate. Why? Because he has done it!!! Doing things helps. Its how you learn stuff, not by looking at a spreadsheet.
I don’t think you have any clue about what makes a good manager. You have never done it.
Cop on…
Good god, open your ears. There are plenty of people who say this.
This is a rather stupid statement. By that same token, you don’t have a clue either, and your criticism of Dave is, thus, irrelevant.
So, your point is that the Cubs would be even worse at hitting than they are if they had someone else as manager?
If that were true, you should be able to provide evidence of it — showing that players hit better after having been with Lou for awhile.
I suppose it is easier to use lots of exclamation points than to actually, you know, find evidence that supports your points.
If that’s true, then neither do you. QED.
Thank you DMZ. I appreciate your acknowledgement. I think you probably intended to post this train of thought on yesterday’s game trail as a follow-up to my late evening post from yesterday. However, I found it here and I appreciate the additional information.
Thank you again … this level of detail is not information that I knew of – although I was aware that Branyan was being overly greedy and unreasonable. Us outsideres were routinely updated with intel regarding a “one year” offer and I got a bit flumoxxed last night when I saw your “multi year offer” quote … that I was pretty certain had never occurred.
The end result of the Branyan negotion: A negotiation gone bad, Branyan ending up on a bad team and the Mariners ending up with a worse team than they would have otherwise had (offensively).
I will admit to making an “overboard” statement by saying “The Mariners should have done their homework differently. They obviously did their homework. Shit happens in negotiations. At a certain point you reach a fish or cut bait decision point.
In hindsight (admittedly) I think the Mariners cut bait too quickly in their negotiations with Branyan (homework or no homework). They probably could have and would have willingly matched the Indians offer after Branyan’s true market value sorted itself out – if they had not “moved on” so soon and acquired Kotchman. Moving on “soon” caused them to lack the flexibility to acquire their first choice. It is a decision they are currenlty paying for in a much different way. Branyan at $3M or Kotchman at $2.75M. Not a difficult call to make at this point in time.
The Mariners probably wish they had retained some flexibility in that negotiation. I think that is where they truly made an error.
I appreciate the debate.
I agree with you Dave that managers impact on teams are very overrated and certainly Lou hasn’t had the same success in Tampa or with the Cubs that he did in Seattle.
I do think though that Lou was the right manager at the right time when he took over the M’s. He brought a toughness and attitude to the team/organization that I think was very needed.
Certainly it can be argued that the mid 90’s M’s would have won anyways with the talent they had but I think Lou was a great fit for that group of players and I think him coming from Cincinnati after winning a World Series there brought a lot of credibility to an organization that had never even made the playoffs.
Again, I do fully agree that managers get way too much credit and blame but I do think Lou was definitely the right guy at the right time while he was here.