As many here know, I despise Jimy Williams. I thought he was an idiot in Boston... and had my own personal pity party when Houston hired him. I've never been able to tell why anybody likes the bumbling fool. But here's some pretty nice objective evidence that he is the idiot I've always believed. Apologies if someone has beat me to the punch, here. Evidently, Jimy Williams is one of the objectively worst managers in history! http://www.battersbox.ca/archives/00001298.shtml
Oh, and further down in the article... the list of the worst 10 managers from 1980 to 2003 by pythagorean record: Sort of sad that two Astros made the list . Here's a list of the best, by pythagorean record: Obviously, there's a great deal of luck involved... and it's very arguable how relevant the statistic even is given the # of overall games... the relatively small differentials... and the lack of direct correllation.
The reason why this team had such a great run differential last year had more to do with the inconsistent offense, rather than Jimy's managing. This offense was WAY too feast or famine... they'd have games where they'd score 8-9 runs, and then they'd string together some 2 or 3 run games. Their strikeout numbers were a little high, and nobody had a superstar year on offense as well. I don't know about Jimy's other teams over the years, but last year he did a great job of managing this bullpen.... pretty much anybody coulda managed the other parts of this team and gotten similar results.
I actually tend to think that managers are fairly irrelevant. However, I just thought it was an extremely odd occurrence that a # that tends to be regarded as having at least some value in judging managers... was negative for Williams in every single year of his managerial career. Incidentally, I disagree with you about his management of the bullpen. He's notorious for yanking pitchers too early... and sometimes too late. My reasons for disliking Williams are hardly a secret... and have held true during his tenure with Houston. He manages by the gut, when baseball is the sport in which statistical projections play true far more than in any other. In basketball, etc... where objective measures are so much less compelling... I have little problem with intuition.
Haven, I'd like to know how odd was it that last year's Houston team had a actual record 7 or 8 games worse than its phyagorean one. It has to be pretty rare. In fact, if I'm not mistaken, the Astros had the 2nd best phyagorean record in the NL last year, but feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. On Williams, I concur with you that he is a horrible manager, as I got sick of his stupid decisions regarding pinch hitters(namely colin porter), the Ensberg situation, and his insistence on going to the bullpen by the 5th inning in way too many games. Hopefully, his micro managing helps come playoff time, but I'm not that confident in him. Houston has the talent to be a playoff team and a World Series championship caliber team so he better do his part well, and hopefully the overall talent can get the team to the playoffs even with his idiotic regular season micro managing.
First, many complain that dierker is was a bad manager (which is correct in that many of his decisions were blantantly bad), and now jimy williams isn't good enough. C'mon. At some point, the blame is to be put on the players. Blame players like Wagner, Hidalgo, and Biggio who let the team down every time when it counts. Joe Torre was considered a marginal manager until he went to the Yankees and suddenly surrounded by all this talent and a high payroll. Jimy is not the problem of the Astros. Some of the Astros hitters are. And adjustments need to be made to the bullpen. I'm not sold on Ricky Stone.
I have alot of doubt about a system used to rate managers that has Bobby Valentine rated the best, while guys like Joe Torre and Bobby Cox don't make the list. I wouldn't really call this "good evidence." (And I'm not even a fan of Jimy Williams)
We hired Jimmy to take us somewhere in the playoffs our current team has failed to go.........The second round. If we don't get there this year he should be fired. But he has yet to have a chance to prove his value. It's our batters fault and their inconsistent offense that kept us home in October. I thought Jimmy did a good job with the pitchers last year. We don't have a Kerry Wood or Mark Prior that can throw 130 pitches a game. That's the reason scouts are hesitant to pick pitchers 6 foot tall or under. I thought he did a great job with our bullpen last year. A manager has little to do with offense, IMHO. I have my doubts Jimmy would ever throw Mike Freakin' Jackson in the 8th inning rather than Octavio Dotel in a close playoff ballgame.
I did too. But now that i have the hindsight, i'm sure glad we didn't resign Alou for a huge contract. It baffles me how much he declined in 1 year. He's still good, but nowhere at the level he was when healthy with the Astros.
SamCassell: Why dislike Bobby Valentine for his performance? I agree he's an *******... but some of his Mets teams really overachieved. And the team that got him fired sucked despite a change of manager. Pythagorean record isn't the only way to judge managers... but from the explanations I've heard, there's some correllation. And don't you think that Williams sucking that consistently is fairly damning, even if there's only a weak correllation?
Any formula that has Bobby Valentine as a great manager, is one that goes out the window of logic. However, I do agree with the general idea that Williams sucks. I don't blame him for guys like Biggio who pee their pants in the clutch, but I do blame him for Lidge having an ERA upwards of 5 or 6 in the 2nd half of the year. Jimy does not understand that reliever cannot pitch every single day. Moreover, starters need to be in the game longer than 4 innings. I am praying that Jimy does not blow out the arms of Dotel and Lidge again.
Pythagorean record isn't the only way to judge managers... but from the explanations I've heard, there's some correllation. I would guess the standard deviation of Runs-Scored each game (and Runs-Allowed each game) would have far more correlation than managers. A team with good pitching that scores 50 runs in 10 games like this: 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 Is likely to be well over 0.500. A team that scores 50 runs in 10 games like this: 10 0 10 0 10 0 10 0 10 0 will be at or below 0.500. The Astros seem to have a ridiculous level of inconsistency in their offense, and I would guess that contributed far more to their Pythagorean suckiness than Dierker or Williams.
I just saw this response, sorry for the late reply. I think most games are won or lost regardless of who the manager is. You'd agree with me there, I bet. A manager has an impact when there's a tie game in the 6th and he has to decide whether to pinch hit for the pitcher, or there's 2 men on in the 8th and he brings in his lefty specialist, etc. I would primarily evaluate the record of a team in close games when judging a manager, as judged against their overall W/L. I don't have any numbers, but I'm guessing the Stros were pretty good in those games last year. I also think it's important to have a manager who can run a clubhouse, or at least coexist with his players. Bobby Valentine was the steam engine driving his own train out of NY. Pythagorean is a good mathematical formula for predicting a team's W/L record, but it's not flawless. A bad-ball hitting team like the Stros that traditionally wails on mediocre pitching and struggles against good pitchers will have a somewhat skewed pythagorean formula as a result. My complaint with Jimy isn't his in-game managerial decisions, I don't think they're particularly flawed. I'm just scared he's going to ruin Brad Lidge by overworking him.
