Analyzing the Twins Extension for Manager Rocco Baldelli

On 5/26/2023 at 10:47 AM, chpettit19 said:

Terry Francona is pretty widely considered the best manager in baseball. His team has scored the fewest runs in baseball this year. Should we blame that on Francona or the players? The Guardians have all these big time young players that were supposed to take over and flourish under the guidance of Francona.

Probably best to let this play out. 2022 turned out pretty well for Cleveland, and an experienced manager can find ways to place players in optimal conditions for success. Even to steal wins from hapless foes from time to time.

Cleveland was not a great team in 2022, yet they won the division, and then four playoffs games. Four more wins than Baldellli has in his entire managing career.

There are intangibles to this game, but the work of great managers - over time - becomes apparent. It's almost like parenting or captaining a ship. Small moves, building relationships, setting a tone - these all matter. I'd take Francona over Baldelli any day of the week.

I'm on record as saying that baseball managers have less overall impact on the game than a lot of other pro sports. A lot of the impact that a manager has is behind the scenes in keeping the clubhouse together and managing all the personalities...which is something we mostly don't see and can't know for sure if he's doing a great job or not at, unless something bad breaks out and someone talks to a reporter. We haven't really seen anything like that where there have been anonymous comments in the press crapping on the manager; the closest has been the Sonny Gray stuff about wanting to pitch deeper in games...and that's been pretty overblown (IMHO) in terms of how much actual criticism of the manager it really was (perhaps by people who already had an agenda against Rocco?).

The overall quality of managing in MLB is better now that it was 20 or 30 years ago, but that's also flattened out the impact of managers, I think. There's a handful in the league that are superior, showing a consistent ability to not only keep their clubhouse in order, but also manipulate their lineups to their advantage, handle the bullpens well, not make mistakes in game management, etc. There's a handful that seem to step in it often, can't get out of their own way, and aren't up to the task. Most of them fall into a muddled middle where most outsiders look at them and think they're probably fine, but will have some quirks that drive the locals batty, or become focal points for the fans when things are going perfectly, but are maybe only noticeable to people watching the team every day.

Rocco lands in the middle for me. He's doing what the front office wants in terms of general strategy and approach. He seems to handle the clubhouse well, and does a better job of managing his lineup and bullpen than some other Twins managers. He's been more conservative than I'd like in some things and overly aggressive in others...but in the final analysis he's been generally fine. When his teams have talent and health, he's won. When they don't, he's not likely to manufacture it out of nothing.

I don't think Rocco has done anything worth firing him; unless the front office gets swept out at the same time a lot of the stuff people find deeply offensive about Rocco as a manager will still be happening under the next guy. They're still not going to be playing a lot of small ball, they're unlikely to be stealing tons of bases (until the players turn over more), they won't be bunting a lot, and they're still going to have hitters that strike out a lot. They're still going to take out starters earlier than some people will like, and they're not going to have a 90's era style closer. They're still going to take an analytically-driven approach to baseball.

So who are you going to get that will be demonstrably better than Rocco? Firing him will make some fans happy in the short term, but it will take little time for those fans to turn on the next manager for the exact same reasons, so what's the point? If healthy enough, this team should contend for the division this season and if they get in the playoffs anything could happen. (I think they're better positioned to win in the playoffs with this squad than many of their others than have struggled in the playoffs)

Baldeli is the worst manager I have been around. Players don’t like him, and intelligent knowledgeable baseball fans despise him.

 Quiet arrogance for a guy who’s done nothing as a player or manager. 
  People want an Aaron Boone type who fights everyday for his players, arguing balls and strikes or close plays if needed.

it’s also the way he talks 100%
  could you just talk normal 1 time PLEASE; such scripted speeches.

He is so phony it’s unrealistic to listen too and once just once, fire the team up somehow, my goodness, your lethargic response from the dugout is noticeably getting worse with every game.

He stinks, he’s a garbage manager with no experience in any type of winning culture and it shows!!

16 hours ago, jmlease1 said:

Firing him will make some fans happy in the short term, but it will take little time for those fans to turn on the next manager for the exact same reasons, so what's the point?

Ain't that the truth brother, lol. Excellent post and I agree.

I do think there is a learning curve for Rocco. He seemed less assertive early on but has come out of his shell lately. Maybe he's been a little over aggressive with some of the pinch hitting this past week, but as part of learning, I believe he will reign it in.

Variety is the spice of life and you couldn't have a wider variety than the views expressed above of @jmlease1and @Our Thoughts on Rocco, lol! This seriously cracked me up

On 5/27/2023 at 4:00 PM, chpettit19 said:

The Twins were 14th in baseball in runs scored in 2021. Almost the exact definition of average is all the team needs to go from being bad in close games to Rocco not even mattering? Feels like thats wrong.

Your argument is basically that when the team loses close games it's Rocco's fault, but when they win them it's because the players are good. Sorry, I just don't buy it.

Do you buy that Rocco is a good manager? How would you rate him? Is he below average, average or above average?

On 5/26/2023 at 12:57 PM, chpettit19 said:

But in 2021 they went 25-19 in 1 run games while going 73-89 overall. Was he a great manager that year to raise their level of play in 1 run games so drastically?

(For the record I'm not a Rocco fan, I'm not defending him, just attempting to point out the randomness that goes into most stats people think are driven by managers. I don't care 1 way or the other on who the manager is.)

Fans need a scapegoat, and they don't want to blame the people (players) who are directly responsible for the failure. Do we think coaching is somehow responsible for the Twins being 4-47 with the bases loaded?  

You keep using facts and logic.   People don't want to hear it and facts will be ignored because fans need to complain when their team does not win.  Last year we heard the constant drumming about Rocco pulling pitchers based on a spreadsheet.   Well, the Twins SPs are at the top of league in average IPs proving your point and mine.  Your point being players make all the difference and my point that people are still complaining about a spreadsheet while ignoring the fact Rocco has proven he is quite willing to ride with pitchers worthing of being trusted.