Maddon vs. Gardy: How much of an improvement would Maddon be?

[Otto von Ballpark]

Well, if you want to go there, the Twins opponents in the post season haven't been just good teams - they've generally been monsters.  Gardy's opponents averaged 101 wins each year, to the Twins 92.  That's a huge difference.  The only series Gardy lost where the Twins were the better/favored team was the 06 A's.  In contrast, Maddon had a 96 win team knocked out in the first round to a 90 win team and his playoff teams avg 94 wins while their opponents avg 93.  

I know some excuses can be made for some of our playoff failures, but the sample size got pretty large there -- it's really hard to excuse that.  Especially all the sweeps (or win one, then get swept like 2002-2004) -- even a 92 win team shouldn't be expected to lost 12 straight games to a 101 win team.

 

If you want more context, Maddon's teams lost to the eventual AL pennant winner every year (in addition to their own pennant year, of course).  Three times Gardy's Twins were eliminated (and 2 of the 3 times, swept) by a team that immediately lost its next series.

[TheLeviathan]

The only series Gardy lost where the Twins were the better/favored team was the 06 A's.  

 

I don't want to break it down for every year, but immediately when I read this I thought about the 2010 Twins who were a better offensive and better pitching team than the Yankees they faced and we had homefield advantage in our brand new park.

 

I'd argue after a certain point we started becoming the underdog regardless because of the perception of our team folding in the playoffs and little to do with an actual talent disparity.

[markos]

The exact value of a Win in free agency isn't at issue. Its in the 6-7m range, according to fangraphs last study. The question remains how do you determine what is a baseline replacement manager worth and how many more is Maddon above (or below) that level? We have no idea of what Win-value Maddon presents to teams looking for a new manager outside of the rumors that about 28/30 teams are interested in him right now.

 

I agree with this 100%. The other big question about Maddon is how much of his value is due to the backing of the Rays front office? Will he be as effective without the stats/data that he is accustomed to?

[tobi0040]

I agree with this 100%. The other big question about Maddon is how much of his value is due to the backing of the Rays front office? Will he be as effective without the stats/data that he is accustomed to?

 

It is still his job to play the guys though.  To shift the defense, construct the lineup, etc.  I agree he is not a 10 win guy....but nobody, absolutely nobody is debating he is a better candidate than anyone we have interviewed.

[brvama]

It is really interesting how a couple of days change things Friday and Saturday Maddon was viewed as the manager of all managers who must lead the Twins. Today there is some question as to if he is really that much better to be worth the extra cost. Is the TD base doing their 'due diligence?

 

It is certainly very difficult to quantify the value of managers. It really boils down the talent that they manage. I will not be disappointed if Maddon becomes the Twins manager, nor will I be disappointed if he isn't. I guess I am as interested in the coaching staff as the manager.

[alexlegge]

I didn't try to say it doesn't, though it probably reads that way.  My point is that it might not, and there are reasons to think that they might not be perfectly correlated.  For example, if they are really good at executing/moving players ahead a base because of coaching, but I don't call it at the right time quite so often, we might get more runs but somewhat fewer wins than the Pythag projection.  Or maybe I'm really good at platooning, which isn't situational on a day-to-day basis.

 

The Pythag projection doesn't usually show huge variations anyway, so I'm inclined to think that more runs (based on expected runs absent the manager) is important as its own measure.  I have no belief that could be estimated with any degree of accuracy, though.

 

 

 

This was something I struggled with, and probably could be solved with more advanced metrics. There are several components of in-game managerial moves that aren't captured in Pythag projections. Defensive shifting is a big one, which Maddon is of course well known for. That wouldn't be captured (at least not much) in a manager's ability to win close games.

 

Ultimately, I wonder if it's feasible to put together a measure of all managerial decisions that are directly game-related - namely lineups, defensive shifts, replays, substitutions, and steals/bunts/pitchouts/etc.... Team performance after ejections could be also be interesting. 

 

Obviously, total runs scored would be related to how the game is managed on all these levels - but I'd argue that it lurks much farther into player performance and front office influence, instead of isolating managerial moves.

 

In any case, thanks for your comments! Very much appreciated

[alexlegge]

I don't want to break it down for every year, but immediately when I read this I thought about the 2010 Twins who were a better offensive and better pitching team than the Yankees they faced and we had homefield advantage in our brand new park.

 

I'd argue after a certain point we started becoming the underdog regardless because of the perception of our team folding in the playoffs and little to do with an actual talent disparity.

The 2010 sweep stuck with me because I still hold a grudge against the Yankees. The Yanks were still favorites because they had essentially backed out of the AL East title in hopes of facing the Twins instead of the Rangers (sacrificing homefield advantage in the process).

 

I feel like those 2010 Yanks were a big part of instigating the second wild card - to prevent teams from backing out of a division title. That would make three straight years of the Twins getting shafted on rules that would later change (2009 playoffs was a prime example of the need for instant replay, and the Twins should've had homefield advantage in the 2008 tiebreaker were it not for the stupid coin flip rule).

 

And then of course there was the Vikings losing in overtime after one possession in the 2010 NFC Championship, ugh...

[gunnarthor]

I don't want to break it down for every year, but immediately when I read this I thought about the 2010 Twins who were a better offensive and better pitching team than the Yankees they faced and we had homefield advantage in our brand new park.

 

I'd argue after a certain point we started becoming the underdog regardless because of the perception of our team folding in the playoffs and little to do with an actual talent disparity.

The Twins weren't better and the Yankees had a better record despite under performing their pyth w/l while the Twins out performed theirs.  The Yankees easily had the better pitching (esp with Nathan on the DL).  If Morneau was healthy you might be able to argue that the Twins offense was better but he wasn't and they weren't.  And the Yankees match up was about the worse one we could  have gotten since our main offensive threats at that point were all lefties who were shut down by CC and Pettitte.  Span, Mauer, Kubel and Thome went 8 for 43 in that series.

[TheLeviathan]

The Twins weren't better and the Yankees had a better record despite under performing their pyth w/l while the Twins out performed theirs.  The Yankees easily had the better pitching (esp with Nathan on the DL).  If Morneau was healthy you might be able to argue that the Twins offense was better but he wasn't and they weren't.  And the Yankees match up was about the worse one we could  have gotten since our main offensive threats at that point were all lefties who were shut down by CC and Pettitte.  Span, Mauer, Kubel and Thome went 8 for 43 in that series.

 

All of these things are quite subjective.  And even if they were true - since when does the best team win in the playoffs as some sort of rule?

 

We went to the playoffs a lot and couldn't manage to win games much less series.  Meanwhile upsets are common in the playoffs in baseball and if your version of events is true, it's still a weak excuse for being that impotent in the playoffs.

 

I don't, for the record, put that on Gardy.  (Not much at all really)  But can we please stop the "woe is the little engine that could" meme?  We have consistently played soft in the playoffs and blaming it on less talent is a really lame excuse.

[one_eyed_jack]

All of these things are quite subjective.  And even if they were true - since when does the best team win in the playoffs as some sort of rule?

 

We went to the playoffs a lot and couldn't manage to win games much less series.  Meanwhile upsets are common in the playoffs in baseball and if your version of events is true, it's still a weak excuse for being that impotent in the playoffs.

 

I don't, for the record, put that on Gardy.  (Not much at all really)  But can we please stop the "woe is the little engine that could" meme?  We have consistently played soft in the playoffs and blaming it on less talent is a really lame excuse.

 

Not sure I buy into the "playing soft" thing either.  Who played soft?  There were quite a few games where we had late leads, only to have our normally reliable bullpen (including our all-star closer) cough them up.  Was Nathan playing soft? 

 

And on not using talent disparity as an excuse, I get where you are coming from, but I think it depends on what year you are talking about.

 

Take 2009.  I understand not liking the whole "little engine" thing, but I also think it's a little silly to throw out starters like Duensing and Blackburn against guys like Sabathia and Pettite, counter an infield of A-Rod, Jeter, Cano and Teixera with Tolbert, Cabrera, Punto and Cuddyer and expect to win because "upsets happen".

 

2010 was a different story.  It was a deeper, more experienced Twins team.  The Yankees were starting to look older and weaker.  We had home field advantage in the new ballpark. We clinched early and were able to set up our rotation.  It felt like it was our time to finally break through.  That was a winnable series.

[TheLeviathan]

Not sure I buy into the "playing soft" thing either.  .

Poor choice of words, I just meant we always seemed to play poorly and find ways to lose.

[Circus Boy]

Interesting post, thanks.

 

What about playoffs?  I don't mean to rehash bad memories for Twins fans, but Maddon equaled Gardy's career playoff victory total by his 8th career playoff game.  13-17 overall isn't great, but it's way better than 6-21.

 

Obviously we aren't terribly close to returning to the playoffs, but it might be nice to know our manager isn't just a good "long haul" manager but can also hang in the October elimination tournaments, should the opportunity (hopefully) arise.

 

Here is another way to compare them: if my math is right, Gardy's teams are 25-38 against Maddon's head-to-head.  Obviously the last 4 years have been terrible for the Twins, so that skews things toward the Rays (who only had 2 similarly bad years under Maddon), but even in 2006-2010 the Twins barely edged the Rays 18-16, despite the Rays having two 96+ loss seasons in that time.  Gardy's success against Maddon is almost entirely based on Maddon's first year in Tampa (2006, when the Twins won the series 6-1) -- the Twins never won a season series with the Rays after that.

 

This. I like Maddon, too, because his success came in the East. If we played half our games in that division the past 13 years, we would have struggled, to say the least.

[Otto von Ballpark]

There were quite a few games where we had late leads, only to have our normally reliable bullpen (including our all-star closer) cough them up.

Don't know how true this really is.  Bullpen blowing late leads only happened a couple times, really -- Game 2 in 2009 and Game 4 in 2004.  (Game 2 in 2004 and Game 5 in the 2002 ALCS our bullpen entered trailing, and we later took a lead before immediately losing it in the following half-inning.)

 

Frankly, we didn't have hardly any leads to blow.

 

In all 3 of our series covering 2002-2003, after winning game 1, we didn't even have another lead until we were facing elimination (thank goodness for the Oakland playoff curse!).

 

In 2004, after winning Game 1, we only held a lead for 1 inning before the elimination game.

 

In 2009 and 2010, we only held a lead for 5 innings COMBINED, and 3 of those were in 2010 Game 1.    2009 Game 2 was the only one of those leads held beyond the 5th inning.

 

In 2006, we never had a lead at all.

[Otto von Ballpark]

Well, if you want to go there, the Twins opponents in the post season haven't been just good teams - they've generally been monsters.  Gardy's opponents averaged 101 wins each year, to the Twins 92.  That's a huge difference.  The only series Gardy lost where the Twins were the better/favored team was the 06 A's.  In contrast, Maddon had a 96 win team knocked out in the first round to a 90 win team and his playoff teams avg 94 wins while their opponents avg 93.  

First of all, I think your math is slightly wrong.  Twins average playoff opponent had 99 regular season wins from 2002-2010, to the Twins' 92.

 

Is 6-21 (and most recently 2-19, with a 12 game losing streak finish) an expected recorded, even for a 92 win team versus a 99 win team?

 

I am not laying all of this at the foot of Gardy, of course, but whether he's a clear playoff underperformer or a clear regular season overperformer, it renders a lot of the regular season analysis in this thread moot.

[one_eyed_jack]

Don't know how true this really is.  Bullpen blowing late leads only happened a couple times, really -- Game 2 in 2009 and Game 4 in 2004.  (Game 2 in 2004 and Game 5 in the 2002 ALCS our bullpen entered trailing, and we later took a lead before immediately losing it in the following half-inning.)

 

Frankly, we didn't have hardly any leads to blow.

 

In all 3 of our series covering 2002-2003, after winning game 1, we didn't even have another lead until we were facing elimination (thank goodness for the Oakland playoff curse!).

 

In 2004, after winning Game 1, we only held a lead for 1 inning before the elimination game.

 

In 2009 and 2010, we only held a lead for 5 innings COMBINED, and 3 of those were in 2010 Game 1.    2009 Game 2 was the only one of those leads held beyond the 5th inning.

 

In 2006, we never had a lead at all.

 

 

 

Fair enough.  The blown leads probably stick out in my mind more, but it would have been more accurate to say tied or leading.  My point was that there were close games that could have gone either way.

 

In any case, I need to be done with this topic - too many painful memories.  I think I'd rather re-hash the last 4 years of incompetence and irrelevance than dissect the Gardy-era playoff losses.  I'd guess about 98% of the F-bombs I've dropped in my life were during those 21 playoff losses.