Is Sveum seriously the best that Thoyer could have done?

In Commentary And Analysis by berselius80 Comments

The pitchforks and torches are out among many Cubs fans (and even the media) after Dale Sveum bunted with two men on and nobody out with a nonpitcher at the plate not once but twice late in yesterday's game. Even worse, ont of those cases was with the Cubs second best hitter, Starlin Castro. Sveum seems to have a fetish for bunting that was foreshadowed by his preseason bunting tournament, and you wonder why he was even hired in the first place given the analytic bent of the Cubs front office. That got me wondering though – does such a saber-friendly manager even exist right now? Not ordering stupid bunts is just one aspect of managing.

The hiring process lasted a long time, and both the Cubs and the similarly analytical Red Sox had pretty much the same list of candidates. They went through a long and winding process, doing mock press conferences and quizzing the managers on reactions to game situations and general philosophies of managing. One of the big pluses in Sveum's corner was his love of spray charts and defensive positioning, which seems to be working well with the Cubs.

Now that so many progressively analytic types have taken over front offices, why hasn't the same thing happened in the dugout? Joe Maddon gets props for his maverick managing styles, but as MGL likes to harp on there's certianly still plently of mistakes that he makes. If all of this stuff is so obvious to us, why hasn't it shown up in the dugout? Any idiot fan could tell you that Castro shouldn't bunt, but so far it looks like there isn't *anyone* in the market whose skill set lies in the Venn diagram of Not Making Stupid Bunting/Lineup Decisions, Keeping The Players Happy, and Keeping The Media Away, which is more or less the three main roles a manager has to fulfill. If only someone would clone Earl Weaver.

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  1. uncle dave

    Mercurial Outfielder wrote:

    Also, just fucking cut Wood. Awful.

    I think it’s safe to add “leverage” to the list of shit Sveum doesn’t get. If he’s on the roster at all, Wood should be mopping up.

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  2. Mucker

    Cashner just struck out Harper with a 101 mph fastball to end the game. He was throwing bullets in the 9th.

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  3. Author
    Berselius

    uncle dave wrote:

    I think it’s safe to add “leverage” to the list of shit Sveum doesn’t get. If he’s on the roster at all, Wood should be mopping up.

    Should have gone with Lendy Castillo instead? This bullpen fucking blows.

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  4. Aisle424

    The problem with LaHair is that he is 30 adn doesn’t have a long history of success. Now that he’s actually hitting well and starting to answer the questins about whether he is a AAAA player, he will have to start dealing with wondering when the decline will begin and how steep it will be.

    I don’t know what value you would ever get for Bryan LaHair given the unreliability in assessing true talent level plus the unknown of his aging curve. The only good thing about him is the cost control, and I think that is a big plus for the Cubs right now. Somebody has to be a major league hitter on this team.

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  5. uncle dave

    @ Berselius:
    If you believe that TLR was right and relievers can only go one inning, you still have three guys who are better than Wood to pitch the 7th, 8th, and 9th in Russell, Camp, and Dolis. Yes, they blow, but that doesn’t leave him off the hook to find whoever sucks the least and put them into the highest-leverage situations.

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  6. uncle dave

    Aisle424 wrote:

    I don’t know what value you would ever get for Bryan LaHair given the unreliability in assessing true talent level plus the unknown of his aging curve. The only good thing about him is the cost control, and I think that is a big plus for the Cubs right now. Somebody has to be a major league hitter on this team.

    Agreed. I think that he’d be most valuable on a team like the Pirates or some other club with severe payroll constraints, but that’s just the type of team who wouldn’t be likely to send away young, cost-controlled talent in return. I think you ride him as long as you can while he’s still cheap, unless someone is desperate enough to give you a legit return for him.

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  7. Pezcore

    I feel that the Front Office isn’t trying to win. This (looked like) a seventy-win team.

    The Cubs have spent the last five years playing with athletic free swingers. Sveum’s job for this year might be to develop, and not win, so he’s making these players reinforce skills (sacrifice bunting, plate discipline) in high pressure situations.

    The point of Dave Sveuem is for the Cubs Players to learn how to take walks, steal bases, and play small ball. Home Run Hitters are expensive. Sveum wants doubles hitters. Castro may only hit 10-15 HRs. His ISO and .SLG both rose over the last two years. Batting Starlin third was an attempt to increase opportunities for extra base hits.

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  8. Author
    Berselius

    The Cubs only chance to get real value for Lahair is going to be on a deadline deal for a team that has a sudden hole to fill at 1b down the stretch. MO is right that he’s not going to be a significant part of the next good Cubs team, unless they’re willing to shell out some cash in the near future

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  9. Mercurial Outfielder

    @ Aisle424:
    I think that’s fair. But I don’t care how cost-controlled a 32 YO Brian LaHair is with a 30% k-rate and a normalized BABiP. (dying laughing)

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  10. Mercurial Outfielder

    @ Berselius:

    I think that’s right, but if I’m Theo, the first thing I think about with LaHair is where I can move him.

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  11. Mercurial Outfielder

    I bet Motte’s wife makes him leave his shoes outside the door because they smell like a sack of smashed assholes.

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  12. mb21

    Aisle424 wrote:

    I don’t know what value you would ever get for Bryan LaHair given the unreliability in assessing true talent level plus the unknown of his aging curve. The only good thing about him is the cost control, and I think that is a big plus for the Cubs right now. Somebody has to be a major league hitter on this team.

    I agree with 424 here. I think it’s going to take until next year before he has a lot of value and I think considering he’s league minimum the Cubs are better off keeping him around. If you trade him now you won’t be selling high on him because teams still don’t know what to think and will be cautious in what they give up. So if you sell now and get little in return only to find out in 2 or 3 years that’s he’s legit it’s going to look stupid. I don’t see any reason to trade Lahair unless some team offers a bunch for him and I don’t see that happening.

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  13. Mercurial Outfielder

    I fucked something up, his career MiLB rate is 21.4 %. So, yeah, he’ll probably end up somewhere between 24-27% in the majors. Decent walk rate, though, too.

    I dunno. I just don’t trust these late bloomers. Especially not when they coast on risible BABiP numbers.

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  14. mb21

    The difference in the 21.4% MO got and 21.6% I just posted is that I exclude intentional walks in the denominator when calculating K%.

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  15. mb21

    Mercurial Outfielder wrote:

    I dunno. I just don’t trust these late bloomers. Especially not when they coast on risible BABiP numbers.

    I don’t trust Lahair to post a .479 wOBA as he currently has, but I don’t see any reason he can’t post a .360 one (that’s his rest of season projection right now). I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s .340 and I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s .380 the rest of the way either. He’s not a .479 hitter, but his numbers are so damn good that even if we regress other numbers they’re still pretty damn good.

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  16. Author
    Berselius

    @ Mercurial Outfielder:

    All those HR aren’t factoring into his BABIP (dying laughing). He’s pounding the ball. I might take a look at trying to luck-neutralize his stats later this week and I think he’ll still easily outpace the rest of the team

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  17. Mercurial Outfielder

    @ mb21:
    Yeah, he regresses to league avg/slighty above average now, yes? There’s no question he’s having a tremendous season. I’m not saying that. I’m just saying I don’t trust it. I don’t want LaHair to fail. The Cubs need cheap talent. I’m more afraid that his regression is going to happen so drastically that the Cubs could be tempted to call up Rizzo before they really need to call him up.

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  18. mb21

    @ Berselius:
    He has a 24.6% line drive rate so based on that alone we’d expect a .366 BABIP. His current BABIP is .444. There’s obviously some regression coming his way, but that’s built into the ZiPS rest of season projection. I remember asking Colin one time about neutralizing a player’s current stats and he said the best way is to look at the rest of season ZiPS projection. This was before PECOTA offered in-season projections (are they doing that this year?).

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  19. mb21

    @ Mercurial Outfielder:
    I think he probably regresses to quite a bit better than average. There’s some caution considering his age, but LaHair just might be a very good ballplayer. Hard to believe. But sometimes, as Alvin would say, things just click. (dying laughing)

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  20. Author
    Berselius

    @ mb21:

    I think I remember seeing an announcement about in-season PECOTA a while ago. but I don’t have a BP sub anymore.

    LaHair’s updated projection is for a .360 wOBA, 24% strikeout rate

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  21. GBTS

    It would appear from Josh Beckett’s first two innings that he has not even thought of chicken, beer, or golf since his last start.

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  22. mb21

    I just saw the Cubs signed Mike MacDougal to the minor league contract. I didn’t even know he was still pitching. I haven’t heard of him since he was with the Royals and that seems like a decade ago.

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  23. Author
    Berselius

    mb21 wrote:

    I haven’t heard of him since he was with the Royals and that seems like a decade ago.

    He was a closer I recently enjoyed.

    I think he took a batted ball off his head a few years ago

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  24. mb21

    I have to admit that I haven’t read a single comment from Dale Sveum since spring training. I have no idea what he said on bunts. (dying laughing)

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  25. Mercurial Outfielder

    @ mb21:

    Basically that he knew he was taking the bat out of Castro and LaHair’s hands with men on 1st and 2nd and no outs, and that he thought it was worth it to stay out of the DP. Which of course ignores the fact that it did no such thing. LaHair’s walk cancels out the sac bunt. When this was pointed out to him, he blamed Castro for not getting the bunt down properly and insinuated that the team is in some sort of, to use srbutch’s term, “bunt slump.”

    Then today he was pushed on it again, and told Sullivan he didn’t want to debate “cybermetrics” and said Theo never talked with him about that stuff.

    The man is daft.

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  26. ACT

    My main concern with the Castro bunt was that I don’t trust Castro’s bunting ability. It’s worth noting, however, that late-and-close with no outs and runners on first and second (with a groundball hitter) is one of the best times to bunt (see The Book page 283).

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  27. ACT

    I also think that the argument that they’d just walk LaHair after a successful sacrifice is a weak one. Bases loaded and 1 out has a higher RE than runners on fist and second and no out. You’d have to take into account the abilities of different hitters, of course, but I like that even a “mere” successful bunt improve RE in this situation.

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  28. Astuce et Truc

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