In the NBA thread, I discuss how NBA coaches don't matter as much as people think. For instance despite that Mchale is considered a bad coach by most, he won 54 and 56 games. Its not like an A-level coach would have done any better. But of all the team sports, I am thinking that MLB manager is probably the most overrated of all coaches in terms of impact. I mean how hard is it to just set up lineups, make occasional substitutions and such? I mean the value of the worse vs the best manager is probably very small for any given MLB team. In fact, of all the sports, I think that you could easily have a computer auto-manage a team for a whole season and not notice! What do MLB fans here think? And how would a computer manager do vs a human manager over a whole season?
Primary role of a baseball manager is communication. For instance, baseball players are always hurting after a month in the season. A computer would have a hard time figuring out if a player is good to go versus needing a day off. Players are different. One player may constantly whine about soreness and a manager will know to leave him in, but another player will say they are a hundred and ten percent while trying to hide a limp. As such, I think the computer manager would suck.
To this point, I think there's an underlying assumption that if we had such a thing as a computer manager, it would only be functional if it was fed data about the players. For example, players would have to wear fitness monitors (a la Deandre Jordan, etc.) and take some sort of daily fitness evaluation for a medical perspective, they'd probably need a mental evaluation daily or weekly, etc. A computer would need these inputs and would do better over time as it learned about specific players and how they perform based on those inputs.
Many managers (or their staff) call every single pitch in a game - from 100 - 130 or more in any 9 inning game. Pitch decisions constantly change due to situations. Pinch hitting, stealing, hit and run, sacrifice, defensive positioning and most importantly managing the pitching staff and bullpen are other decisions that again, change given any particular game situation and occur multiple times most every single game.
This assumes players are robots. But they aren't - they are human beings that have emotions. We've seen players go into and break out of slumps. We've seen ace closers that can't pitch in tied games or in the 7th inning. A 162 game season is long and its exhausting. There are going to be lots of ups and downs, winning streaks and losing streaks. A manager's biggest impact is not in the day-to-day lineups and pitching changes, but in the general management of a group of 25 people and keeping them focused and performing at their best. When you say coaches don't matter, you have to ignore the exceptions. But really, it's just the bell curve - most managers and coaches are going to be relatively average. The exceptional ones are, by definition, rare. In basketball, people like Popovich have proven the value of coaching - he's able to adapt to different players and build different schemes and styles to match their strengths. In baseball, I would argue someone like Joe Madden seems to consistently get the best out of his players more so than your generic manager.
Who would tell players to wear monitors after the computer manager gets spit on? Who would tell the computers that Dravecky's arm is flopping around like nunchucks in the hands of Michelangelo? Human managers are already using a lot of the computer information and are the people that communicate the data to players in a manner players can understand it. Players complain about front office personnel interactions already. In the foreseeable future, managers are going to be the people to handle interactions with players even if computers are making all the game theory decisions.
Strange discussion. Plenty of people complain about managers being "robotic" and making predictable moves only because its a certain inning, or subbing players based solely on handedness. Then again, managers do get a little more credit then warranted when a player (or team) goes on a hot streak. Sometimes managers rest slumping players, and they benefit form it. Sometimes, managers let players play through it, and they still benefit from it. One thing that seems semi-certain... MLB managers need to have played the game before. Was it the Marlins GM (never played pro baseball) that tried to manage for half a season? Was generally considered a disaster/joke... that's about as close to a "computer" as you would be able to get.
Not according to this article. http://www.mlbdailydish.com/2015/9/2/9244387/mlb-marlins-jennings-manager-general The summary of the article states that "If he accomplished nothing else, at least Dan Jennings managed to show that managers aren't terribly important."
Sample size. Also, that team was a disaster (in many ways because of the precedent set by the previous inept manager)... so yes, it really didn't matter who was managing. The article should state that it likely doesn't matter who the manager is when you have nothing but bad ones, AND you have a team that's completely given up (and those two things aren't mutually exclusive).
This. This, this, this. This, too. Arguments that managers don't matter always point to lineups and switches and always ignore the fact that these are people. Also, the line that "professionals shouldn't need a manager to motivate them" assumes that motivation is the only thing people need. It's been argued in this forum that leadership is overrated, even unnecessary. Tell that to the Spurs. Just because we can't measure it doesn't mean it doesn't matter.
Such a stupid conclusion. If a roster is trash, then indeed the manager is completely unimportant. One could argue that the manager is the 26th most important figure in the dugout, and i would agree. But still important.
