Monday Discussion Thread

"Don't overwork your pitchers."
"Get people on base."

Sometimes I think we make things too complicated. To paraphrase Bull Durham, it's a simple game, really. Get on base. Keep the other guy off base.

You have a Runner on First Base. You have your runner go and take a lead but stand on the edge of the Outfield Grass.

It only works a couple times. What you're aiming for is the Pitcher to do a double take and not understand whats going on. He will think the Runner is out of the basebath (though the rules say you can be out of it as long as your not being chased by the ball, etc). The idea is to make the pitcher Balk the runner to 2nd Base.

However, organizational strategy is much more difficult. For example, it's hard to find a good catcher, so do you:

a) Draft lots of catchers and hope one pans out?
b) Draft lots of players at other positions and try to make one into a catcher?
or c) Acknowledge the fact that you'll have a catcher in your 8 hole forever and focus your efforts on more sure things?

This question is far from abnormal and the answer is far from common sense.

In-game managerial decisions are the tactical level. Organizational decisions come under the rubric of strategy or, perhaps, operations.

Here's a question. Let's say you are a baseball team owner. Would you like to have an excellent general manager (the strategist) and a mediocre field manager (the tactician)? Or would you prefer to have a mediocre general manager and an excellent field manager? Ideally both of course, but let's say you can't have both, just one or the other.

You can have an excellent tactician in charge of the battle once it begins...but if the master strategist is an idiot, the tactician may not be able to do much given the conditions of the battle itself.

Even excellent division or brigade commanders may have trouble winning the battle if the general in charge is someone like, say, Braxton Bragg. Or name your least-favorite baseball GM here.

On the other hand, if you have a horrible division or brigade commander (or baseball manager), the best designs of the overall commander (the GM) may not be reached or can even be sabotaged.

If I owned a pro baseball team I could not have a GM like Billy Beane. He wants autonomy and I want to be involved in the developement of the team, therefore our principle interests would clash. I would have to be hands on with my team and that would allow for my GM to be merely average. I'd need a GM with good people skills, who could manage the front office and scouting department and make sure that the organizational direction is followed.

A sharp manager and his coaching staff can give me just as much input about major league talent as an astute GM, more even in some cases. Consider LaRussa and his pitching coach Dave Duncan. They were able to transform Dennis Eckersley and Dave Stewart into All-Stars, and they'd be able to identify players with the same kind of untapped potential. You need a top-notch scouting department, and I don't think that's necessarily a product of an excellent GM. The organization sets the criteia of what we want in a prospect, and it's the job of the scouts to go shopping and find what we're looking for.