McClendon an "active" manager

A recent post by Brian at Redbird Nation called my attention to this study by Studes at Hardball Times.

He concludes that "Lloyd McClendon should really learn to cool his jets. Let your team play, Lloyd." The evidence is this: Mac leads the NL in the sum rate of stolen base attempts, sacrfice hits, and intentional walks per game. I wouldn't argue that Mac is the second coming of Danny Murtaugh, but I will say this study is foolish.

The stolen base attempts by the Bucs this year are just a bit above average (42) and what you'd expect from a team with relatively less power and regulars like Jason Kendall and Jack Wilson. A team of singles hitters has to get their runners to second and third if they expect to score runs. The steal is a logical way to accomplish this.

The Bucs have stolen 27 and been caught 18 times this year, a 3-2 margin, which is close but just below the overall average a team would like to have. Rather than analyze a manager's steal-calling on the overall success rate, though, it would make more sense to look at the attempts one at a time since the quality of the call is going to have a lot to do with the context as well as the success rate. A call might be stupid, but the runner is safe; a call might be smart, but the runner is out. Also, it's more than possible that the success rate has less to do with the quality of the manager's ability to pick spots than it has to do with the ability of the baserunner to execute the play. For example, Tike Redman was put on the team to leadoff and steal bases. He's gone 3-for-3. Is McClendon wrong to send him? Criticizing McClendon for Redman's 50% success rate is criticizing a manager for starting a player in a slump. We have to see how good Tike Redman can be, and we have to know if he's part of the problem or part of the solution. The only way to evaluate Tike is to play him and ask him to do the things you need him to do if he's going to be part of the solution. When you think about it, it's pretty obvious that McClendon isn't out there on the bases, so the blame is not all his every time he makes a smart call and the runner gets thrown out. The overall success and failure rate with steals doesn't provide any information that can be used to evaluate the quality of the manager's decision-making. It only describes how often these things have happened. Yes, it invites further study, but it's circumstantial evidence. There has to be more consideration of the context before these facts can support the kind of breezy conclusion Studes cheerfully offers about Mac's ability as a manager.

The more stupid part of evaluating McClendon's performance by this overall equation comes with use of sacrifice hits as a measure. Studes uses stolen base attempts but not sacrifice hit attempts. Could it be that the Pirates have more sacrifice hits in fewer attempts? Some teams are better at putting down sacrifice hits than other teams. Also it's a fact that the Pirates' pitchers have been stellar bunters this year, and many of those sacrifice hits were by pitchers. For example, Kris Benson had four sacrifice hits in one game. He has eight sacrifice hits on the season, and bunting is just about the only thing he can do with the bat. Is McClendon an intrusive hot-head because he asks Benson to bunt every time he comes to the plate with a runner on first and no outs? Does every team in the NL have a no-hit, good-bunting pitcher capable of four sac hits a game?

There may be something to Mac calling too many intentional walks, but I doubt it, knowing what I know about the way the bullpen is constructed. It's not like I sit around watching or listening to the Pirates cursing Mac for issuing so many free passes. Maybe I should pay more attention.

Either way, this was a silly study that wants to support a shallow reading of Mac's abilities as a manager. I'm all for constructive criticism of the manager. The team sure could win some more games. But it doesn't help to come to conclusions after this kind of superficial review of the team's tendencies.