it's not, until you try to apply it to individual games and lose sight of the fact that every baseball season is 162 games long.Quote:
Originally Posted by HoustonGM
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it's not, until you try to apply it to individual games and lose sight of the fact that every baseball season is 162 games long.Quote:
Originally Posted by HoustonGM
In an individual game, the point is to win the game. You do this by outscoring your opponent. To win, you must maximize your run scoring and your run prevention, especially in cases where it matters most. The only way to maximize run scoring and run prevention is to use the best possible available players. If you are using lesser players, you are not maximizing your run scoring and prevention.Quote:
Originally Posted by ltt
This is a fallacy - although true for INDIVIDUAL sports - in team sport the combination of "best" players is NOT always true (it maybe in BM or sim sports).Quote:
In an individual game, the point is to win the game. You do this by outscoring your opponent. To win, you must maximize your run scoring and your run prevention, especially in cases where it matters most. The only way to maximize run scoring and run prevention is to use the best possible available players. If you are using lesser players, you are not maximizing your run scoring and prevention.
IRL it is the best team UNIT that wins the most games & therefore the division title.A team unit is a combination of best & lesser players that work together to produce the most productive team result.
Any Economist or Business Studies analyst will tell you that the sum of the parts does not neccessarily lead to an increased production.It is the "right" people* at the right spots that will lead to maximised production.
Also note,your basic analysis is ONCE again a "subjective" analysis based on hindsight,unfortunately Managers/Coaches/GM's do NOT have your fortune as they have to react in REAL TIME & SPACE (& as ltt stated they have to do this based on a 162 season not a single game enviroment) & thus attempt to win using their knowledge at the time without knowing the outcome until the play has happened."Second guessing" is so much easier when you know what has happened.....
* right can be lesser players who mesh better into the team structure & group.
Yup
I don't even think that calling that game a must win was accurate to begin with
that is true, and if the baseball season was one game long, your theory would have merit.Quote:
Originally Posted by HoustonGM
It's not, and the goal of baseball is NOT to win individual games, but rather to win more games than your division foes, regardless of how many games that is.
That's what is wrong with your proposal - your butting up against the same problem Saussure encountered when attempting to apply reductionism to language - what goes on in speech, and what goes on in a baseball, is vastly more complex than simply adding up games or words.
Additionally, real managers have to make their decisions in light of an uncertain future, and on this point in particular, I think your proposition is flawed: using your "best" pitcher in the 7th inning of a tie game only makes sense if you're CERTAIN your second best and third best pitchers will also close out the other team. And if you are, then aren't they all the "best?"
I could go on - every sentence I write reminds me of another gaping whole in this "leverage" argument: matchups, splits, middle of the order v. bottom of the order, league opponent vs division opponent, league opponet v interleague opponent, there are so many factors to consider when talking about "leverage" that the term essentially has no meaning without context, and therefore has no logical argumentative weight.
I'm sorry that I started this thread on the basis of one game, because it seems as though, no matter how much I reiterate it, nobody can just drop that lone game and focus on the larger picture here.Quote:
Originally Posted by WATERY
And in order to maximize your chances of winning more games than the rest of your division, you should always attempt to win every game. Why the heck would you argue that the point of each and every game is not to win? Until you've clinched a playoff spot (at which point, it's time to not care about winning and start resting players and getting ready for the playoffs), there is absolutely no reason not to attempt to win each and every game.Quote:
Originally Posted by ltt
No, it makes sense if you want to maximize your chances of not allowing a run, and thus, maximize your chances of going ahead.Quote:
Originally Posted by ltt
The best available player for the given situation.Quote:
Originally Posted by ltt
Tie game, 7th inning, three lefties due up to bat. Rafael Betancourt may be the better reliever between he and Rafael Perez, but Rafael Perez is the better reliever for the given situation, as he's death on left-handed hitters, thus, go with Rafael Perez.
Obviously you have to account for matchups, splits, the batters coming up, etc. But then, once you account for that, choose the best available option, taking those things into consideration. And there are some cases where the choices are so obviously mismatched that barring unavailabilty, the choice of one player is always better than the other.
Now, please, ignore the game that I originally posted in this thread, and just look at two pitchers - Mariano Rivera and Jeff Karstens. Mariano Rivera is a veteran with outstanding control, a ticket to the Hall of Fame, good strikeout ability, and he's basically one of, if not the best, relievers of all time. Jeff Karstens is a mediocre rookie with fringe-average stuff. They're both right-handed pitchers. In 57 career innings, hes walked 20 to 21 strikeouts while allowing 10 home runs. He's allowed 67 hits. That is horrible. Mariano Rivera, in 146 innings over the past 2 years, has just 3 more walks than Karstens has in over double the innings. He's allowed as many hits this year in 71 innings that Karstens has allowed in 57 innings. Mariano Rivera has allowed less home runs over the past 3 seasons (over 220 innings) than Jeff Karstens has allowed in 57 innings. Rivera has done it in every single ballpark against both lefties and righties. Assuming both are uninjured and equally rested, there is not one conceivable situation in which using Jeff Karstens in a tie game gives you a better chance of keeping the game tied than Mariano Rivera. Care to provide one?
It's that one game, however, that is illustrative of my contention that there isn't really a larger picture.Quote:
Originally Posted by HoustonGM
I'm not - I'm arguing that you attempt to win every game, but you do so with the additional understanding that taking a lower chance of winning an individual game may be beneficial in that it gives you an increased chance of winning down the road.Quote:
And in order to maximize your chances of winning more games than the rest of your division, you should always attempt to win every game. Why the heck would you argue that the point of each and every game is not to win?
sure there is. Like, say, not using your closer in an interleague game if you're the Cubs and you have a 4-game set with the Brewers coming up.Quote:
Until you've clinched a playoff spot (at which point, it's time to not care about winning and start resting players and getting ready for the playoffs), there is absolutely no reason not to attempt to win each and every game.
in ONE game. You're still ignoring the fact that a manager has a plan for a 162 game season.Quote:
No, it makes sense if you want to maximize your chances of not allowing a run, and thus, maximize your chances of going ahead.
which is what managers do every time. They (and I) just disagree with how you're defining the situation. You're saying "It's just a tie-game, like all tie-games when you haven't clinched" The manager is saying, "here's how this day fits into my plan for the YEAR"Quote:
The best available player for the given situation.
It's ridiculous to claim that, having considered those things, and everything else he thinks is important, the manager DOESN'T choose the best available option. Of course he does, he's just evaluating his options based on different criteria than you.Quote:
Obviously you have to account for matchups, splits, the batters coming up, etc. But then, once you account for that, choose the best available option, taking those things into consideration.
if that were actually true, this entire thread would not exist. QED.Quote:
And there are some cases where the choices are so obviously mismatched that barring unavailabilty, the choice of one player is always better than the other.
no, because that's not what I'm arguing. I'm arguing that there are infinite tie game situations possible in which a manager, [i]in order to maximize his TEAM's chance at LONG TERM success[i], would sacrifice the advantage in an individual game.Quote:
Now, please, ignore the game that I originally posted in this thread, and just look at two pitchers - Mariano Rivera and Jeff Karstens. Mariano Rivera is a veteran with outstanding control, a ticket to the Hall of Fame, good strikeout ability, and he's basically one of, if not the best, relievers of all time. Jeff Karstens is a mediocre rookie with fringe-average stuff. They're both right-handed pitchers. In 57 career innings, hes walked 20 to 21 strikeouts while allowing 10 home runs. He's allowed 67 hits. That is horrible. Mariano Rivera, in 146 innings over the past 2 years, has just 3 more walks than Karstens has in over double the innings. He's allowed as many hits this year in 71 innings that Karstens has allowed in 57 innings. Mariano Rivera has allowed less home runs over the past 3 seasons (over 220 innings) than Jeff Karstens has allowed in 57 innings. Rivera has done it in every single ballpark against both lefties and righties. Assuming both are uninjured and equally rested, there is not one conceivable situation in which using Jeff Karstens in a tie game gives you a better chance of keeping the game tied than Mariano Rivera. Care to provide one?
Your notion that "leverage" is easily tied to individual games is deeply flawed. Every situation is defined by a much broader and more complicated context that simply does not lend itself to the sort of definitive conclusions you are presenting.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ltt
So, they're infallible beings who always choose the best player for the given situation and can never make the wrong decision, and never choose a bad player for a situation?Quote:
It's ridiculous to claim that, having considered those things, and everything else he thinks is important, the manager DOESN'T choose the best available option. Of course he does, he's just evaluating his options based on different criteria than you.
yep. That's exactly what I said.Quote:
Originally Posted by HoustonGM
You can't be serious...
Managers are perfect and can never ever make a wrong decision? O_o
No, young men who have no experience managing a team make no mistakes
yep. That's exactly what I said.Quote:
Originally Posted by HoustonGM
...Quote:
Originally Posted by ltt
Okay then. I guess you're right, baseball managers are otherworldly and aren't subject to the basic human principle that everybody makes mistakes. They're perfect people capable of making 100% perfect decisions without fail. Also, there is no difference between managers, because they all always make the perfectly correct decision and can never ever be wrong.
:rolleyes:
Actually what he has said through out the thread is that Manager's decisions are exactly that a DECISION which produces a factual RESULT & thus cannot be disproved as their is no real comparatives available.As already stated "leverage" is a subjective theorem which itself cannot be proved as IT NEVER HAPPENED!
ltt is taking it to "extremes" in answering (because 29/30 managers by November will have made a "bad decision") but the point is mathematically he is right.....;)