Let me first say that sabermetricians are only now beginning to understand exactly what a manager brings to his ball club.
There are numerous ways to measure the impact of a manager, each with its own set problems.
But that doesn't mean we can't give it our best shot.
A survey of the different methods shows Joe Torre to be a decidedly above-average manager. Yes, the Yankees skipper is typically burdened with high expectations, but he usually exceeds them.
Put simply, Torre's teams perform better than what would be predicted.
How much better?
Not very much. Torre's presence at the helm of a team might produce an extra win or two per year.
Is Torre the best manager in baseball?
That’s a lot harder to measure—and there’s no definitive answer other than “probably not.”
In the grand scheme of things, Joe Torre is an experienced journeyman who provided reliable leadership for the high-priced, big-ego veterans who plied their trade in pinstripes.
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And you can’t ask for anything more than that.
There are probably only two or three people on the planet who could do a better job managing the Yankees than Joe Torre—and those individuals have jobs or are retired, with the exception of Tony La Russa.
Sure, there could be some unknown manager out there who could be great in the Bronx—but I don’t think George Steinbrenner does "unknown" managers.
As far as I'm concerned, it's obvious that Steinbrenner should bring back Torre. And yes, I can hear the dissent from the peanut gallery:
“But what about the lack of a World Series ring since 2000?”
Many sabermetricians believe the playoffs to be a crapshoot. I don’t entirely agree with that assessment. The data shows that the best team in the playoffs has the best chance of going all the way—but being the best team in the postseason doesn’t automatically get you a ring.
Torre went to the postseason 12 times and won four World Series titles—a pretty impressive 33 percent conversion rate.
Considering that the “true” odds on winning the World Series in an eight-team bracket are 1/8, I'd call Torre’s postseason record a very good one.
As for the Yankees' struggles in the 2007 playoffs—the problem was pitching.
In the earliest days of the statistical analysis of baseball, Earnshaw Cook did basic regressions of various stats to determine which ones were most correlated to winning. ERA was one of the most prominent, with a correlation of .75.
Whenever you hear someone say “75 percent of baseball is pitching,” they’re talking about Cook’s findings.
The Yankees' weakness isn't their manager—it's their dependency on run-production over run-prevention. The club's focus in the next few years should be on recruiting, developing, and buying great pitching to complement their great offense.
Scapegoating Joe Torre won’t fix the problem, and gambling on a different manager avoids the real issue.
The calculators have spoken: Pitching is king.
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10 months ago
The whole point is Torre destroys arms. Look at the injury history of relievers not named Rivera since 2001. Karsay, Sturtz, Quantril, Gordon, Vizcaino, Villone. At the very least they got tired arms by september, many developed major injuries. Injuries are part of the game but Torre uses his "trusted" relivers far far far too often. He kills arms, simple as that. Vizcaino missed more than a month at beginning of the year. By Sept he had one of the highest appearance and innings counts of any pitcher in baseball.
The Joba rules exist for a reason. Torre will decimate this young crop if he is allowed to stay. I love Joe but it is time for him to go.
10 months ago
The Earnshaw Cook argument would be a lot more convincing if the author understood what the difference between the correlation coefficient and the coefficient of determination - an r value of .75 for ERA does *not* indicate that ERA is 75% of the game, the adjusted r^2 does.
10 months ago
I didn't even think of looking at pitcher abuse points (PAP). Sure enough, Torre typically finds himself near the top of the AL in PAP. However, Torre is normally abusing veteran pitchers which isn't as great a sin.
There isn't enough information yet for me to go out and say I think Torre is an arm destroyer though. Torre didn't have the right tools to avoid abusing pitchers imho, he went with his best pitchers during high leverage situations. Since he didn't have a lot of great pitchers this caused overuse. I'd also want to know how he compares to other managers as far as relievers' injuries go. More study is needed and if I find the time I'll look into it.
The question is will the Torre replacement avoid PAP on the young pitchers in the Yankees org. LaRussa I think would, Mattingly I don't know, and most other available managers would (Girardi being the worst). If Steinbrenner gets LaRussa then sure, good work, good call. But LaRussa doesn't want the job (so he says) and everyone else would be a step down from Torre.
-As for r^2 issue, Cook does not make that error. It's an error made by sportswriters who reported Cook's findings.
10 months ago
The "he had no other choice" argument is weak. Teams make the play offs every year with bullpens mostly comprise of pitchers that wouldn't ever get a spring training invite to Tampa. Torre sticks to proven talent and rarely gives the lower end of the bullpen a chance to improve. You can't sit a guy for two weeks straight, then throw him in in a blowout or extra inning game and expect him not to implode. Torre simply doesn't manage a bullpen well, and the Yanks have never had a pitching coach with the power/inclination to stand up to him and say no.
There is no doubt LaRussa would handle the pitching staff better, I think you can make a case for Giradrdi as well. I just don't know if either of them can control the clubhouse or handle the media.
10 months ago
If you want to protect pitchers arms, Girardi is the wrong guy.
As it is, I would have to see proof that Torre improperly utilizes his reliever more so than the average MLB manager.
10 months ago
http://www.baseballthinkfactory.org/files/newsstand/discussion/bleacher_report_hang_joe_torre_the_sabermetricians_argument/
10 months ago
I love the Baseball Think Factory, I actually used a BBTF article on evaluating managers as a reference for some of my columns.
Believe me when I say I have said worse things about my own work than anything in that thread. I am a harsh critic of myself and as someone interested in objective truth about baseball I find crticism and argumentation (even vulgar argumentation) as very important for helping find that objective truth.
It looks like what got everyone irked was my using the ERA correlation. I understand baseball is much more nuanced than one single (and flawed) stat but my point I think stands: The Yankees were a team with the weakest pitching of any in the playoffs and that makes it hard to win especially considering the Baseball Prospectus studies showing run prevention to be more important than run production in the playoffs.
Thus I think it wasn't Joe Torre's fault that the Yankees are headed home rather than headed to the World Series.
The other question I raise in the column is whether Torre should be replaced as the Yankees manager. Based on pythagorean W/L over his career and looking over some other methods of evaluating managers (including using methods from the BBTF article series I mentioned earlier) I found Torre to be average to above average and that there really weren't a lot of other options available to the Yankees as a replacement for Torre.
The argument Torre abuses his pitchers is a good one and I would like to see numbers comparing Torre to other managers when it comes to Pitcher Abuse Points and actual injuries to pitchers. No one in the thread provided that and when I looked at the raw data (injuries, 15-60 DL players, # pitchers injured) available on each team from SI.com I didn't find Torre to be any worse than any other manager. That's without running the numbers though and I intend to do just that.
10 months ago
Marty, thanks for that insight. Nothing short of brilliant in my honest opinion...I really enjoyed how you made this one so digestible for readers, while at the same time applying your vast knowledge of sabermetrics as the basis of your argument.
I full heartedly agree with you. Steinbrenner and Yankees fans just have too high standards. Joe Torre clearly isn't the best manager ever but he's a damn good one. He built those powerhouse teams in the mid/late 90's, and while it is often suggested that those rosters were stacked with the best talent money can buy, the fact is managing all those personalities and getting them to play some of the finest baseball the world has ever seen is no easy task.
The Yankees have had some enormous problems recently in getting it all together. It seems unfair that Torre is getting blamed for all of this...but more their unfair, it seems highly unwise. Unless of course they can get LaRussa on board, as you mentioned.
All that said, I agree with the anonymous commentators regarding the Yankee relievers getting injured. Simply put, the bullpen has never been Torre's strength. Relief pitching in particular is something that you have to develop; it's very common for mediocre relievers to catch fire suddenly and have great season runs. Thus, not giving your young arms any game time is a recipe for disaster. It's great to have vets you can rely on, but when you do it to the extent that they are always getting hurt it comes to bite you in the ass in the end.
Again, thanks for the great read Marty.
10 months ago
More than not, sports writers piece together a bunch of fluff with a few insightful blurbs mixed into the fold (see: http://www.bleacherreport.com/users/7-Dave_Finocchio). But on rare occasions, they actually provide profound wisdom.
Pitching, pitching, pitching...how many times do we have to watch this slugger-heavy Yankee club fail to a team with two good pitchers before we openly recognize the cause of the problem?
Good stuff Marty...keep em comin.
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