2015 Cubs Offseason: Building a Winner Around David Ross

[Slaky]

I like reading people who can actually write nice English sentences without resorting posting six consecutive graphs that seem ripped straight from a Calc 134 textbook. We went through this phase in baseball and it's still happening in hockey where YOU GOTTA HAVE HARD DATA TO MAKE AN OPINION.

Fuck that. Gammons knows how to tell a story and the decades of experience and shit he's seen means something.

[Quality Start Machine]

I can't believe this.

Look, Gammons decided to write about one component of Maddon's managerial system, how he handles people.

We know he embraces advanced analytics, he even refers to "the nerds" and how often he consults them.

Just enjoy, for even one fucking second, that Joe Maddon is fucking awesome in many regards and Peter Gammons decided to shine the spotlight on one of them.

[Quality Start Machine]

Good stuff from Gammons. There's even a blurb about Fork's buddy Andreoli.

http://www.gammonsdaily.com/peter-gammons-joe-maddon-and-managing-human-beings/

*taps link, page loads*

"gammonsdaily.com
Daily Gammons
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You are here: Home / Gammons Files / Peter Gammons: Joe Maddon and managing human beings
Peter Gammons: Joe Maddon and managing human beings
March 29, 2016 by Peter Gammons"

Who wrote the article? Could it have been Peter Gammons?

It's a good article why do you care about this part.

It's not, though. You have statphobia ("not tic-tac-toeing through five relievers with analytically correct match ups in the final three innings of a showdown game").

You have incomplete foundations for opinions (no mention that Starlin was playing and especially hitting like dogshit for almost the entire season and that's why Maddon made the move, not because he's some kind of motivational savant who knew exactly how to get Starlin hot).

You have bizarre, lazy sportswriter cliches and tics (David Ross's Jeteresque Victory Tour? Huey Lewis is old and these kids are young, yuk yuk yuk?).

You have nonexistent editing ("He wants them to embrace the pressure their talent in a baseball-insane environment" ... what?)

Multiple, way too many, and Hawk-esque Gene Mauch references (who last managed in 1987 and has been dead for 11 years).

Plain doe-eyed incorrectness (Cubs ownership doesn't want to be considered stars? Tom Ricketts makes it a point to roam around the park every single game, especially national ones, and pose for pictures, and they did an episode of freaking Undercover Boss).

Regular incorrectness or general laziness (John Lackey "beat the Cubs in the 2015 NLDS" - but no mention that he beat them once in game one and then got rocked for 4 earned in three innings in the clinching game four).

Dramatic overreaches (Addison Russell already the "best player" in Arizona besides Mike Trout? Oh come on).

And what is a heartline and why are David Ross and Ryan Kalish (seriously, WTF with all the talk of Kalish, he's nobody and not even on the radar to even think about cracking this roster ... oh right, he's former Red Sox, which always merits a mention!) heartlines, whatever that is?

There was quite a bit to like but a lot more that wasn't. If I'm the only asshole who got progressively more annoyed the more I read, then fine.

Okay. But why do you care about the stuff you mentioned in your first post?

Because I noticed it was time to post but I didn't want to type a whole list. You know how it is. Ask Fork.

Please tell me we still have Eli's original masterpiece TIME TO POST flowchart.

I wish we had the slogger where Eli was a little mortified when I saw it for the first time.

[SKO]

Look, guys, it's spring training for all of us, too. Sterling needed to bitch about a really stupid thing, and we all needed to gang up on him for it, and now we're ready to go for the regular season.

[Eli]

I wish we had the slogger where Eli was a little mortified when I saw it for the first time.

Ha. I was indeed. I think you had picked up on the "time to post" thing at some point, but it was a few weeks until you found out there was an actual flowchart. And I felt some brief guilt about you being offended, since I live constant, crippling fear of someone being mad at me. Fortunately, you can take a joke.

[R-V]

Also, I'm 98% sure the "tic-tac-toeing through five relief pitchers" part was NOT an insult to Maddon or to analytics in general. Gammons was simply saying that while Maddon's bullpen management WAS impressive, he was more impressed with his handling of the Starlin situation. And Gammons is right! This Sterling jihad is just a tad misguided.

[Oleg]

I wish we had the slogger where Eli was a little mortified when I saw it for the first time.

Ha. I was indeed. I think you had picked up on the "time to post" thing at some point, but it was a few weeks until you found out there was an actual flowchart. And I felt some brief guilt about you being offended, since I live constant, crippling fear of someone being mad at me. Fortunately, you can take a joke.

Fork doesn't make jokes.

[PenFoe]

I wish we had the slogger where Eli was a little mortified when I saw it for the first time.

Ha. I was indeed. I think you had picked up on the "time to post" thing at some point, but it was a few weeks until you found out there was an actual flowchart. And I felt some brief guilt about you being offended, since I live constant, crippling fear of someone being mad at me. Fortunately, you can take a joke.

If I hadn't made the "Regression Therapy" joke a few times already, now would be a perfect time.

[flannj]

There was quite a bit to like but a lot more that wasn't. If I'm the only asshole who got progressively more annoyed the more I read, then fine.

Look.  This is some ridiculous shit.  I'm not a Peter Gammons fan but your criticism is basically a whole bunch of picking nits...and out of context to boot.

Gammons is 70 years old and went through a stroke.  Maybe you should forgive him for being a statphobe (even if he's much, much more enlightened than a whole host of mainstream writers and analysts who are far younger and less good at writing than he is).
Your second criticism about incomplete foundations is exactly the same thing that you're complaining about (not to mention your absolute miss of the point of the Castro example).
Bizarre and lazy cliches?  God forbid someone makes a joke that doesn't land (Ross) or fails to be ultra-contemporary (Epstink invited Heuy Lewis to camp?  What, Berl Ives wasn't available?)..
Ooh...look, I caught some faulty editing on a blog post!  I can't believe you don't work for the Chicago Manual of Style (does that thing still exist)?
Good work completely missing the point about Mauch.
Your Ricketts thing is about the only thing I found weird about the article but, holy shit, care to split some finer hairs?
I'm not really sure how good Russell has been in ST.  I'm not sure I care.  Whatever.  I'd rather think that he was the best player in the world.  I can't believe Gammons didn't use 7000 words of analytics to prove his point.
I have no idea what your problem is with Kalish or Ross or whatever.  You're the first person ever to point out that Gammons is from Boston and has a Red Sox slant to him.  Did you know that the current president of The Cubs used to be the GM there?

Like I said, I'm no big fan of Gammons.  But your "takedown" reeks of pettiness.  I get it, it's not some amazing investigative journalism.  It's a fucking feel-good story about the manager of, what I assume is, your favorite baseball team.  Perhaps you should adjust your expectations.  If you can't get some joy out of that story 6 days before the season opens, I don't know what to tell you.

You say tomato, I say tomahto, you say takedown, I say I was asked what I didn't like so I told them and apparently that was the wrong thing to do so let's call the whole thing off. I'm sorry I didn't like what you liked.

No you weren't.

[Eli]

Also, I'm 98% sure the "tic-tac-toeing through five relief pitchers" part was NOT an insult to Maddon or to analytics in general. Gammons was simply saying that while Maddon's bullpen management WAS impressive, he was more impressed with his handling of the Starlin situation. And Gammons is right! This Sterling jihad is just a tad misguided.

This. I don't know why anyone would think Gammons is anti-stats. He was the first mainstream guy I ever heard talk about things like OPS and FIP, back when those were considered new-wave metrics.

[SKO]

The important thing is Sterling wants to read about baseball stuff while absolutely despising everyone who ever writes about baseball stuff, and he most certainly doesn't want the people writing the baseball stuff to point out that they wrote the baseball stuff.

[Oleg]

Also, I'm 98% sure the "tic-tac-toeing through five relief pitchers" part was NOT an insult to Maddon or to analytics in general. Gammons was simply saying that while Maddon's bullpen management WAS impressive, he was more impressed with his handling of the Starlin situation. And Gammons is right! This Sterling jihad is just a tad misguided.

This. I don't know why anyone would think Gammons is anti-stats. He was the first mainstream guy I ever heard talk about things like OPS and FIP, back when those were considered new-wave metrics.

You're right.  He's the John Kasich in a field of Rosenthals and Heymans.

[Saul Goodman]

Look, guys, it's spring training for all of us, too. Sterling needed to bitch about a really stupid thing, and we all needed to gang up on him for it, and now we're ready to go for the regular season.

Let's do this thing.

[Quality Start Machine]

I wish we had the slogger where Eli was a little mortified when I saw it for the first time.

Ha. I was indeed. I think you had picked up on the "time to post" thing at some point, but it was a few weeks until you found out there was an actual flowchart. And I felt some brief guilt about you being offended, since I live constant, crippling fear of someone being mad at me. Fortunately, you can take a joke.

a) It would take an awful lot to offend me.

b) If I dished it out and couldn't take it, I'm pretty sure I'd get piled on pretty heavily. And I'd deserve it.

[Yeti]

I wish we had the slogger where Eli was a little mortified when I saw it for the first time.

Ha. I was indeed. I think you had picked up on the "time to post" thing at some point, but it was a few weeks until you found out there was an actual flowchart. And I felt some brief guilt about you being offended, since I live constant, crippling fear of someone being mad at me. Fortunately, you can take a joke.

a) It would take an awful lot to offend me.

b) If I dished it out and couldn't take it, I'm pretty sure I'd get piled on pretty heavily. And I'd deserve it.

http://hje.me/ci/sbox/day/2011/3/29/p124101136#p124101136
It's a shame the link is broken on the flowchart.