I’m curious as to why you think Tram is such a bad manager. I know use of the pen has been arguement, but what exactly has he done (or not done) to earn the “suck as a manager” title.

The whole reason I responded was because I think numbers were being used to prop up an argument Brian was setting out to make anyway. It’s not good analysis, and the numebrs serve to only blur the issue.

True enough, Dan. But the reverse is also true. Maybe with some managers, the Tigers are 22-30 in those games. I don’t think that that stat, in and of itself, is a compelling argument to either keep or fire Tram.

But I do agree that baseball isn’t always about numbers, and that’s not because I don’t understand them.

I don’t understand how anyone could say that he’d like to see what Trammell can do with one more year. It’s obvious what he’ll do. He’ll utterly mismanage his bullpen. I’ve never seen a manager with less of a clue. We’re repeatedly left antsy as a pitcher is rushed to get loose while another douses a fire with gasoline. Have you not noticed this?

Also, your point about close games doesn’t make any sense, for a couple of reasons.

First off, you say: “The Tigers are 26-26 in games decided by less then[sic] two runs (through 8/6) so it’s not like he’s “blown” a lot of close games either. It looks like you meant to say “two runs or less” here, since less than two runs means it was a one-run game. The Tigers, by my count, are 13-20 in one-run games, about which it can be safely said that the manager has more sway.

Secondly, the Tigers record in games decided by two runs or less does not, in and of itself, tell you that the manager does a good job. It is not a zero-sum problem. In other words, has the performance of the players in those situations been such that the Tigers should have won about half of those games? How about the performances of the players who maybe SHOULD HAVE been hitting, pitching or running in those situations? There is no way to say, and there is a lot of anecdotal evidence to be considered. Have we been watching the same team all year? Did you see Chris Spurling give up three homers in one inning? Did you watch Jamie Walker crap on the mound while Rodney rushed to get warm?

This last point needs to be considered a little more often. Baseball Prospectus makes this mistake constantly, when they say something like, and I’m making up an example here, “His home EQA is 50 points lower than his road EQA, so it’s not as though his home park is helping him out”. How do you know? If he wasn’t playing in Coors Field, would his home EQA be 100 points lower? We do not know. I hate it when people say baseball isn’t all about numbers because I think it’s just their way of saying that they don’t understand the numbers, but statheads sometimes forget that it is not a dice game. Home and road EQAs aren’t robotically equal until outside factors affect them. The Tigers aren’t automatically a 26-26 team in 2-run games. Maybe with average manager they would be 30-22 or 28-24, I don’t know. Neither do you until some other information is introduced.

I think Trammell should get another year. The only way you replace him is if you can get a clear upgrade, which I don’t think will be available.