2023 Season

[sabretooth]

The argument by way of specific example against the presumptive positive influence of a good/excellent hitting coach is that Coolbaugh himself coincided with both very good seasons and very bad seasons back-to-back with Grossman + Candy in 2021 and 2022.

I get it, and I really don't know of specific examples of where a hitting coach/approach turned an offense around and/or where the departure of a hitting coach significantly harmed a team's hitting.

I do know of a number of examples including Fetters where a Pitching Coach seemed to have made a major positive influence, especially on a bullpen and/or a starter or two.

I do feel that the Tigers failed to help their hitters adapt to the deadened ball this year.  Other teams had bad first 1/3rds of the season and then turned it around.  The Tigers had some modest turnarounds (Baez after a tough start almost perfectly matched his career norms from June 1st to the end of the season), but it's hard to argue this year where any of the hitters overperformed their established norms. and examples abound as to hitters who crashed and burned. 

[bobrob2004]

2 hours ago, sabretooth said:

There's no doubt that Hinch and Fetters do a wonderful job with the bullpen, and that's not because the GM handed them better pitchers than other Managers had.  They have had mediocre talent and have turned it into a top-5 bullpen worth 5 WAR.

There are different metrics that capture different aspects of this, but I am not sure how best to express it numerically.  I think a good bullpen Manager is worth more than the WAR differential because of the marginally positive effect that a good bullpen has situationally in games, and also in helping to optimize starter arms, and such.

Bottom line is that I think a top 5 bullpen vs. a bottom 5 bullpen can improve a team's won-loss outcome by more than 5 wins.

There's also the marginal positive influence that a Manager can have on player selection for the bullpen and bench, and the back end of the rotation (which overlaps with the bullpen outcome), if that Manager has an excellent relationship with the Front Office/GM.  For example, Leyland said openly in 2006 and afterwards that he was able to influence the 2006 bullpen positively, by advocating for promoting Zoom and putting him into the bullpen, among other things.

The injuries and bad hitting notwithstanding, I think Hinch and his staff were worth more than 5 and something less than 10 wins this year vs. what Gardenhire or Ausmus would have produced, for example.  I think if Hinch had the equivalent of a Fetters on the hitting side, the impact of him and his staff could have been close to 10 games vs. a poor Manager and staff.

I think the Tigers bullpen just just alright.  They ranked 19th in WPA and 11th in RE24.  They certainly weren't as good as Cleveland, Houston, or New York Yankees.  But did Hinch do better than anyone else would have?  Eh, maybe?  Hard to say.  I think if you have the talented players, they'll perform regardless of who is pulling the strings.

I personally felt that he kept Soto in the closer's role for too long and he used too many relievers as starters (of course with the injuries he had little choice).  

I want to point out that Philadelphia is ranked 23nd in WPA and 19th in RE24 and they are one of the top 4 teams remaining. Even the traditional stats the Phillies are not ranked very high.  

[sabretooth]

56 minutes ago, bobrob2004 said:

I think the Tigers bullpen just just alright.  They ranked 19th in WPA and 11th in RE24. 

....in terms of situational stats.....

.....and they were 6th in FIP and 8th in ERA and 7th in WAR, pretty similar to the NYY in most statistical respects, and right behind CLE in FIP (3.47 v. 3.39).  With basically a bunch of castoffs and nobodies.

56 minutes ago, bobrob2004 said:

They certainly weren't as good as Cleveland, Houston, or New York Yankees. 

You make it seem like there was some huge gulf in performance....with regards to HOU, yes, there was, and an ENORMOUS gap in terms of talent, HOU has an elite bullpen.  A performance gulf existed between DET and CLE to a lesser extent, but DET was pretty damn similar to NYY.

56 minutes ago, bobrob2004 said:

But did Hinch do better than anyone else would have?  Eh, maybe?  Hard to say.  I think if you have the talented players, they'll perform regardless of who is pulling the strings.

They certainly weren't projected to be anywhere near NYY or CLE, but they wound up performing nearly as well as NYY and were in the ballpark with CLE.  NYY was projected to have between 4.5 and 6 WAR from the bullpen from Steamer and ZIPS, whereas DET had a -1.9 WAR projection from ZIPS and a 1 WAR projection from Steamer; DET and NYY wound up with 5 - 6 WAR.  Incredible overperformance this year and in 2021 from DET.

The argument that players always play to their level of talent regardless of the situation or how they are used is disprovable in almost any sport.  It always surprises me to hear knowledgeable sports guys around here credit performance to talent as if that's a cinch.

The fact that BPs are filled with mostly marginal guys (in the Tigers' case, nearly all of them qualify as such) means that it takes more judgment and work on part of coaching/managment to produce a good BP than to produce a good lineup, even if you have the high-priced guys on the back-end of the BP (which of course the Tigers don't). 

56 minutes ago, bobrob2004 said:

I want to point out that Philadelphia is ranked 23nd in WPA and 19th in RE24 and they are one of the top 4 teams remaining. Even the traditional stats the Phillies are not ranked very high.  

WPA and RE24 aren't somehow better or more telling about bullpen performance than FIP or WAR. 

WPA and RE24 are useful, sure, sort of similar to how +/- stats can be useful in basketball or hockey, in a situational context.

Of course FIP tells you more about how the pitcher performed relative to what was actually within his control.  And in that measure the Tigers BP was 6th.

Edited October 21, 2022 by sabretooth

[RandyMarsh]

Also got to keep in mind that the bullpen shortens come play off time with the days off and with starter(s) getting moved to the pen so your season numbers may look bad due to bad middle relief or depth but if you have 2 to 3 shutdown guys that can be enough in the playoffs so I'd be interested to see how the remaining teams fair if you just use their top 3 or 4 guys. 

Edited October 22, 2022 by RandyMarsh

[casimir]

16 hours ago, sabretooth said:

There's no doubt that Hinch and Fetters do a wonderful job with the bullpen, and that's not because the GM handed them better pitchers than other Managers had.  They have had mediocre talent and have turned it into a top-5 bullpen worth 5 WAR.

There are different metrics that capture different aspects of this, but I am not sure how best to express it numerically.  I think a good bullpen Manager is worth more than the WAR differential because of the marginally positive effect that a good bullpen has situationally in games, and also in helping to optimize starter arms, and such.

Bottom line is that I think a top 5 bullpen vs. a bottom 5 bullpen can improve a team's won-loss outcome by more than 5 wins.

There's also the marginal positive influence that a Manager can have on player selection for the bullpen and bench, and the back end of the rotation (which overlaps with the bullpen outcome), if that Manager has an excellent relationship with the Front Office/GM.  For example, Leyland said openly in 2006 and afterwards that he was able to influence the 2006 bullpen positively, by advocating for promoting Zoom and putting him into the bullpen, among other things.

The injuries and bad hitting notwithstanding, I think Hinch and his staff were worth more than 5 and something less than 10 wins this year vs. what Gardenhire or Ausmus would have produced, for example.  I think if Hinch had the equivalent of a Fetters on the hitting side, the impact of him and his staff could have been close to 10 games vs. a poor Manager and staff.

Speaking of hitting coaches, can we assume they're kicking around some serious negotiations with someone on a playoff team's staff, or is it still early to name one of the hitting coaches?

[Cruzer1]

There should be zero expectations for 2023. They need to figure out their pitching staff and what they will do for the long haul. I'm sure there will be a lot of transactions, just like the past year.

[Tenacious D]

4 hours ago, Cruzer1 said:

There should be zero expectations for 2023. They need to figure out their pitching staff and what they will do for the long haul. I'm sure there will be a lot of transactions, just like the past year.

I’m not as confident in a lot of transactions—Harris’ hands are a bit tied, similar to what Dombrowski inherited. Too many injuries, underperformers and bad contracts.

[1984Echoes]

I believe we can grab waived players for free however (if he wants to go that route), as well as Rule 5 guys; and also, I don't think bottom-of-the-roster guys underperformances will stop Harris from moving other bottom-of-the-roster guys...

[Tenacious D]

14 minutes ago, 1984Echoes said:

I believe we can grab waived players for free however (if he wants to go that route), as well as Rule 5 guys; and also, I don't think bottom-of-the-roster guys underperformances will stop Harris from moving other bottom-of-the-roster guys...

Agree, but nothing to get excited about.  Striking gold (i.e., JD Martinez) is rare.  I don’t think Harris was successful doing that in SF.

[1984Echoes]

Maybe not gold...

But even a RH'ed hitting OF'er who gets on base at an insane clip might be helpful...

[mtutiger]

2 hours ago, Tenacious D said:

I’m not as confident in a lot of transactions—Harris’ hands are a bit tied, similar to what Dombrowski inherited. Too many injuries, underperformers and bad contracts.

To plays DA a bit, Dombrowski was fairly active on the free agent / trade market market in the 2003/2004 offseason and did pick up some value.... including Pudge, although that was a bit of a unique circumstance. Rondell White was decent pickup, and the Carlos Guillen trade as well.

Harris will have to be creative, but I don't know that it's impossible either.

[sabretooth]

On 11/1/2022 at 10:04 AM, Cruzer1 said:

There should be zero expectations for 2023. They need to figure out their pitching staff and what they will do for the long haul. I'm sure there will be a lot of transactions, just like the past year.

Yeah, the rotation is practically non-existent at this point.  

[RandyMarsh]

The Giants seemed to get some production out of cast off veteran or older/ non prospects like out of the blue which is a big reason why they won 100 games a couple years ago. Maybe we'll get lucky and Harris and co. Can manage to do that with a few guys in our system.