OC Register: Joe Maddon: ‘There’s no emotion anymore’ with Angels

[eligrba]

For me, analytics is an attempt by front offices to use data to automatize in-game decisions.  Unfortunately, many old school managers use probabilities when make making in-game decisions.  And, how a specific player is doing at that moment may impact the in-game decision by changing the probability in the manager's head.  The Angels represents the guy who goes to Vegas with gobs of data and a well designed predetermined set of betting decisions who doesn't understand why they constantly lose.

[HanfordGuy]

[Docwaukee]

1 hour ago, eligrba said:

For me, analytics is an attempt by front offices to use data to automatize in-game decisions.  Unfortunately, many old school managers use probabilities when make making in-game decisions.  And, how a specific player is doing at that moment may impact the in-game decision by changing the probability in the manager's head.  The Angels represents the guy who goes to Vegas with gobs of data and a well designed predetermined set of betting decisions who doesn't understand why they constantly lose.

this is actually a poor analogy to support the argument that analytics shouldn't always be used.  Because the reason this Vegas guy is losing is likely because he abandons the analytics for his instincts.  And good luck with that if you're playing black jack or some other odds based game.  

and it's not just to automate in game decisions but give you actual useful information on how to make better and more consistent decisions.  

so they got rid of the guy who likes to split a pair of 5's.  The problem is that their system still sucks even without those obvious poor decisions.  

[eligrba]

23 minutes ago, Docwaukee said:

this is actually a poor analogy to support the argument that analytics shouldn't always be used.  Because the reason this Vegas guy is losing is likely because he abandons the analytics for his instincts.  And good luck with that if you're playing black jack or some other odds based game.  

and it's not just to automate in game decisions but give you actual useful information on how to make better and more consistent decisions.  

so they got rid of the guy who likes to split a pair of 5's.  The problem is that their system still sucks even without those obvious poor decisions.  

I guess I wasn't clear.  I'm saying analytics is being misused in an attempt to maximize outcomes that are often based more on chance.

I tried.

[Stradling]

29 minutes ago, Docwaukee said:

so they got rid of the guy who likes to split a pair of 5's.  The problem is that their system still sucks even without those obvious poor decisions.  

Does the system suck or does the development suck or the coaching suck?

[Angelsfan1984]

5 minutes ago, Stradling said:

Does the system suck or does the development suck or the coaching suck?

Clearly it’s the coaching. We’ve all seen 21. Kevin spacey taught the shit out of those players.

[Docwaukee]

25 minutes ago, eligrba said:

I guess I wasn't clear.  I'm saying analytics is being misused in an attempt to maximize outcomes that are often based more on chance.

I tried.

not the way it should be thought of.  Analytics don't negate chance.  All decisions all made under uncertainty.  Analytics are a guide.  They don't tell you what to do.  You don't ignore them if they only get you to 60/40 instead of 50/50.  

[Docwaukee]

24 minutes ago, Stradling said:

Does the system suck or does the development suck or the coaching suck?

The system is all of that.  

[Just Sayin]

16 hours ago, Duren, Duren said:

Analytics?

Remember the  Strat-O-Matic baseball game in the seventies when they came out with lefty/righty stats on their player cards? And other then 'advanced ratings' for fielding and running? Even by today's deep computer diving that now modest model still represents a foundation for managerial thinking and roster construction. I won a university league championship one year drafting and managing a team based on the 1977 or 1978 season players. 

It was a blast and makes you feel like everything is based on coldly processing data and going with the best odds. But it has nothing to do with real life and real people. There is a disconnect when you don't factor in emotion, motivation, hot and cold streaks, health, team chemistry and other day to day intangibles.

Hypothetically I would be curious to see a Bill James or equivalent  managing in a dugout in real time, wearing a uniform and walking up and down looking and talking to players as the game is played. Things like intuition, hunches, instinct, experience can over ride the raw numbers at specific key moments. 

A manager is in a different world than a GM during a game. And many GMs have never been players or even have been in dugouts much.  Ivory tower suites are great for observation and checking spreadsheets, but maybe a manager has a better understanding of the players on a game by game basis. 

Not that managers are all equal and don't screw things up. But they know the pulse of the players up close and personal in the heat of competition. So it is easy to see Maddon's frustration.  

Strat-O-Matic?

That’s a cult of which I am a PROUD member.  Since ‘72.

Unless someone wears the “Strat” (as we used to call it) badge....they have no credibility with me!

This guy “Ron Mexico” just “gets it!”

I’ll never forget during the ‘81 strike season when ESPN had no games to cover. 
 

EVERYBODY was jonesin’ to watch a game.

So what does ESPN do? They bust out STRAT!

A couple of fans of each team “managed” the game.  Televised!

Managers looking over the player cards. Wearing the caps of the teams they were “managing”

Mano a Mano!

Televised rolls of the dice (sadly none in slow-motion)

I remember the first youth-league manager job I had (at age 19)...

The players were age 15-17...

”do you have any experience managing?” The League supervisor asked me 

“I’ve managed thousands of games in Strat-O-Matic” I told him.

Dude looked at me like “WTF?”

It was a volunteer job and it wasn’t like they had a line out the door for candidates.

I guess that answer was good enough for him.

We won it all by the way...

STRAT!!!!

[Just Sayin]

Whoops sorry ...shout-out to Duren-Duren for knowing about Strat-O-Matic!!!

[TurboFan]

10 hours ago, Docwaukee said:

 

Joe failed at his job but someone else is responsible for letting him have control and execute his way that didn't align with what others were trying to do.   

That someone was Eppler, probably at Arte’s insistence. And this is why I believe Minassian firing Maddon was not a knee jerk over-reaction as many have stated. I suspect Perry was mulling over what to do at the expiration of Madden’s contract and may have already decided to move on (doubling down the day Joe walked Seeger with the bases loaded while losing - I would hope). Then when the losing streak happened, it presented an opportunity to accelerate the transition that he wanted anyway to a new manager of HIS choosing and have a look at Nevin in the process. It will be interesting what happens with Nevin next year.

[AngelsLakersFan]

16 hours ago, stormngt said:

Are you sure we are applying Analytics the same way the Dodgers or rays?

Put too much in a players head and they will struggle.  It seems like many here think it's best just to play the game like it's video game.

I have seen many puzzling decisions that makes sense if the Analytics tell them.

Barria advanced analytics suck.  But excluding one year he has been good.

Why did both Maddon and Nevin devided not to bunt the winning run to third with no outs.  

Why do our shifts often get burned?

I have been suspicious is over reliance of sabremetrics.  Madden confirms my suspicion.

I don't know what the dogs and Rays do.  But it has to be different than what the Angels are doing.

Last year Joe took the defensive analytics he was given, threw them in the trash and positioned the fielders with his gut. This year they’ve followed the analytics and all of a sudden our pitching is pretty decent. 

A lot of the head scratcher moves seemingly have no basis in decent analytics. Like walking a runner in with the bases loaded or not bunting over a runner when you only need a run with the bottom of the lineup up. 

So the question is, are the analytics provided to the team trash, or has it been a fight to get the analytics implemented correctly? To me, what I’m seeing is some smart analytical front office dudes trying to explain statistics and probabilities to a bunch of old jocks who probably didn’t pass high school algebra. 

 

[T.G.]

This is classic Maddon.

the biggest difference between him and Scioscia is that Scioscia never made it about himself and with Maddon, it’s all about Joe.

That being said, leadership needs to figure out what they want. Do they want a GM with ultimate control or do they want something else?

I am for anything that makes Angels baseball fun to watch again. That means none of this 3 outcome BS. 

[ten ocho recon scout]

3 minutes ago, T.G. said:

That means none of this 3 outcome BS. 

Strike out

Pop out

Ground out

[Inside Pitch]

3 hours ago, ten ocho recon scout said:

Strike out

Pop out

Ground out

[79CAAman]

16 hours ago, Docwaukee said:

no they didn't.  They had Friedman.  

The Angels needed a manager to act as the bridge between the players and the front office.  He's not wrong in that it was clear the two weren't on the same page.  And that's what happens when there is discord between who's in charge.  

Joe basically indicted himself that the way he thought the FO was trying to do things was wrong and that he was basically going to do it his own way.  

So yes, the franchise has leadership issues.   But no to executing baseball the way that Maddon was trying to do it.  

And also no to the crap roster that Minasian put together.  Joe took that crap roster and made it worse.  

The reason teams like the Dogs, Cards, Yanks, Rays, Braves etc are successful is that everyone is in lock step on how they would like to execute the vision of the FO from the owner down to the training staff.  

This is a top down failure and the shortcomings of everyone involved are relevant.  From Arte to Carpino, to Minasian, to Maddon.  

Joe failed at his job but someone else is responsible for letting him have control and execute his way that didn't align with what others were trying to do.   

How th fuck did Maddon make this shit-show of a roster worse? The lineup could barely hit major league pitching (leading the fucking league in strikeouts) how did Maddon make them worse?  If anything, it’s on perry for getting this group of players together. A group that clearly cannot handle the pressure of winning with arguably the two top players in baseball (at the time).  The prove this point every time Ohtani takes the mound… just too much pressure for them. What a cop out to blame a World Series winning manager. Name the manager, this group of hitters perry has assembled  is going to continue to suck donkey balls… and why does the hitting coach get a free pass?

[Inside Pitch]

Lol.... At one point under Eppler's watch the Angels had 15 analytics people and were in the upper 20% of MLB.  Since then more and more teams have been adding and growing those depts...

This is where we are today apparantly.

Good luck finding that team less inclined to adhere to analytics, Joe.

[Stradling]

29 minutes ago, 79CAAman said:

How th fuck did Maddon make this shit-show of a roster worse? The lineup could barely hit major league pitching (leading the fucking league in strikeouts) how did Maddon make them worse?  If anything, it’s on perry for getting this group of players together. A group that clearly cannot handle the pressure of winning with arguably the two top players in baseball (at the time).  The prove this point every time Ohtani takes the mound… just too much pressure for them. What a cop out to blame a World Series winning manager. Name the manager, this group of hitters perry has assembled  is going to continue to suck donkey balls… and why does the hitting coach get a free pass?

So you are pretending Joe didn’t have an influence on the roster, uh ok. As for the hitting coach getting a free pass, why hire a guy to fire him at the end of the season?

[Dtwncbad]

The bottom line is it sure seemed like Maddon wasn’t coming back in 2023, so when the team shit the bed and lost 14 games in a row, you dump the lame duck manager even if they are not the entire (or even most of the) problem.

Thats just the way it goes.

I am not in any way wishing Maddon was still managing this team. 

[cals]

18 hours ago, Dtwncbad said:

I am not in any way wishing Maddon was still managing this team. 

I like how you had to add this at the end of an intelligent post to make sure you weren’t attacked by the mob.

[Taylor]

On 8/20/2022 at 7:07 PM, stormngt said:

Maddon is on to something here.

Analytics should glnot be treated like a religion.  Yet it has been.

Maddon also repeated his frustration with the way many front offices – not just the Angels – have put too much emphasis on analytics, at the expense of relying on the experience of the manager and coaches. He had said that in interviews with Southern California reporters on the day he was fired.

“It’s at the point where some GM should really just put a uniform on and go down to the dugout, or their main analytical membrane, he should go down to the dugout,” he said.

“That’s something that should be done. Because they try to work this middle man kind of a thing. And what happens is when the performance isn’t what they think it should be, it’s never about the acquisitional process. It’s always about the inability of coaches and managers to get the best out of a player. And that’s where this tremendous disconnect is formed.”

I do glnot agree.

[Tank]

can someone tell me what the bench coach does? what are his responsibilities in game? does any of this land on him? would a different/better bench coach have made a difference?

[BTH]

10 minutes ago, Tank said:

can someone tell me what the bench coach does? what are his responsibilities in game? does any of this land on him? would a different/better bench coach have made a difference?

I’m sure it varies team-to-team, meaning it’d be hard for anyone on this fourm to give you an accurate answer.

For example:

I’d imagine Brad Ausmus, who has multiple years of managerial experience and is now the A’s bench coach, has more influence than other bench coaches since he’s working with a first-time manager in Mark Kotsay.

Whereas Buck Showalter, an experienced MLB manager, probably doesn’t lean on his bench coach Glenn Sherlock (who is an old school coach) that much.

[ten ocho recon scout]

I have no reason to doubt Maddon is like "f*ck those putos". 

That said, I picture him giving this interview over the phone... 

... and he's wearing women's pumps, like the Fonz in The Waterboy.

[Docwaukee]

7 hours ago, ten ocho recon scout said:

I have no reason to doubt Maddon is like "f*ck those putos". 

That said, I picture him giving this interview over the phone... 

... and he's wearing women's pumps, like the Fonz in The Waterboy.

I picture him crossing Jeff Fletcher's name off his 'people to kill' list.