Comments for Has Tony La Russa Done Enough with the Talent he was Given? at http://wezen-ball.com , comment 1 to 4 out of 4 comments http://wezen-ball.com Fri, 12 Mar 2010 07:18:52 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.3 http://wezen-ball.com/2009-articles/october/has-tony-la-russa-done-enough-with-the-talent-he-was-given.html#comment-100 Managers are responsible for good and bad choices - like trading haren over reyes agains his HoF pitching coach's advice. Just not sure how you'd ever put a number on that other than my lament that the cards would have been serious WS contenders every year had they kept haren - mikkyld Wed, 21 Oct 2009 21:59:15 +0100 http://wezen-ball.com/2009-articles/october/has-tony-la-russa-done-enough-with-the-talent-he-was-given.html#comment-96 Good point, Ian. I saw someone mention that same thing somewhere else, and I have to say that the data does not take that into account. I generally try to account for strike-shortened seasons somehow, but it slipped my mind in this case. Like you said, I don't think it changes the analysis, but it'd be nice to better reflect it in the graphs. And, heyblue, that's a great point too. There were certainly problems that I saw with using the team WAR as an indicator, and that was one of them. But I'm just not sure there's a way to figure that out right now. I picked WAR as the metric because, to me, it's the best single indicator of a player's talent/value but, since it's based on time played (ie, it's a counting stat), it's subject to those weaknesses. If there was a way to measure a player's ability that wasn't directly tied to his service time, position, and in-season production, i'd use it. Career stats don't work because then you have to deal with super-young and super-old players (eg, Earl Weaver shouldn't be given Cal Ripken's career stats when evaluating the 1981 season, and Alex Grammas shouldn't get Hank Aaron's career stats when evaluating the 1976 season. It's a tough thing to find. But, even if we did find something like that, do you think the results would ever say anything different? - lar @ wezen-ball Wed, 21 Oct 2009 07:58:27 +0100 http://wezen-ball.com/2009-articles/october/has-tony-la-russa-done-enough-with-the-talent-he-was-given.html#comment-95 WAR also doesn't account for a manager playing the wrong guy. For instance, Torre playing Jeter over A-Rod at short. Conceivably, the Yankees of 03-06 could have had a greater accumulated WAR with A-Rod at short and Jeter somewhere else, and, conceivably, they could've won the World Series that way, too. So how do we determine if Torre got the most out of those Yankee teams and/or if some other manager could've done better? I don't know if there is an answer to this question, I'm just asking. - heyblue Tue, 20 Oct 2009 22:46:39 +0100 http://wezen-ball.com/2009-articles/october/has-tony-la-russa-done-enough-with-the-talent-he-was-given.html#comment-93 Great article, but I have a question. Since WAR is a stat that accumulates with more games played, does that hurt the value of teams in strike-shortened seasons? For Bobby Cox's chart the 1995 Braves fall right in the middle. While I don't think they were necessarily his best team, I'd imagine they rank a little higher than that. Same with the 1981 Dodgers on Tommy Lasorda's chart. I have a hard time believing the 1988 team was better. I don't think it changes anything you've written here, I was just wondering about it. - Ian W. Tue, 20 Oct 2009 21:00:39 +0100