Bleacher Report - Articles by George Fitzpatrick

Beane Counting: Evaluating Possible Mets GM Candidates

George Fitzpatrick — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 21:04:58 -0400

Calling this season a long summer for Mets fans would be an understatement. So much has been written already about the trials and tribulations of the team that there is no need to recap it again - leaving Mets faithful without faith in the management of the team. Omar Minaya, who already tested the patience of fans after 2007 and 2008, appears to have lost most of his support in the fan base - however, Wilpon seems poised to keep him - for now. Buster Olney on his ESPN.com Insider blog suggests the Mets look for a "Bill Parcells" - a trusted name who can take over the situation and survive the New York media. He suggests 7 names, four of whom have experience as GM's - Billy Beane, Doug Melvin, Pat Gillick, and Mark Shapiro. Using my system of measuring GM's I developed in my article "Beane Counting: How to Grade a General Manager" (which you should read in order to get an idea as to my methodology) as well as subjective observations, I will evaluate these candidates (and the incumbent Minaya) to see if any of them are good fits to put the Amazin' back into the Amazin' Mets.

Begin Slideshow

How To (Hopefully) Fix the Mets for 2010

George Fitzpatrick — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 11:30:42 -0400

Much like the migration of the birds, leaves changing colors, or new sitcoms on TV unlikely to last 6 episodes, a New York Mets collapse as the calendar changed to September seemed like an act of nature the last two seasons - giving Phillies and Braves fans an early Christmas gift with Met fans left to wonder if they are actually Cubs fans. However, with the cooler, rainier weather of June that resembled Autumn weather, the team decided to collapse early this year. Injuries, dropped pop-ups, and ill-advised trades for Jeff Francoeur followed leaving the Mets with a split-squad spring training roster left in the majors and only the historically bad play of the Nationals left as comfort. Omar Minaya, who received the dreaded vote of confidence from Fred Wilpon (hardly comforting considering this faith was also given to Bernie Madoff), recently declared the Mets buyers going into the deadline and was confident the team was headed for a turnaround. However, with the Phillies running away with the division and a ton of NL candidates ahead of the Mets for the Wild Card, "wait until next year" should not just be a cliche, but a mantra for Minaya as he approaches the team. This off season (like every Mets off season) is extremely important with a number of holes to fill to help fix the Mets for 2010. The good news is that over 40 million in contracts are expiring, and with the economic climate, that can buy a lot of talent, However, there are many holes to fill to get the Mets back up to full strength next season. This slideshow will break down the best options for the Mets to fill their needs and hopefully will help the Mets win more than just next year's off season.

Begin Slideshow

Beane Counting: How To Grade an MLB General Manager

George Fitzpatrick — Fri, 29 May 2009 14:07:43 -0400

Although many refer to baseball's current generation as the "steroid era," far from the only changes in the game can be traced to medically enhanced physiques. Pitcher wins, losses, and saves, batting average, RBI, errors and bunting all seem to be on the way out in favor of adjusted ERA, BABIP, VORP, range factors, and pitch counts, all leading to a newer era in baseball influenced by the work of sabermetrics—trying to measure objectively what leads to wins and losses, challenging the conventional wisdom, and often upending it.

The book Moneyball and the success of small-market clubs like the Oakland A's in the early 2000s had a lot to do with this changing of the guard—and a consequence of that is the fact that general managers are in the public eye in a way not seen before in baseball history.

For example, nearly every baseball fan would associate Billy Beane with the Athletics more quickly than most of the current A's on the roster, but few would know offhand the executive of great teams of the past. Does anyone associate Bob Howsam with the Big Red Machine?

Because of this, a great irony of this sabermetric era has erupted—great strides have been made in measuring players objectively, but the man who has assembled that team gets a free pass when it comes to such analysis. In my experience, arguments among my peers about the best GMs in baseball tend to consist of hyperbolus statements like "X is the worst GM ever" or turn one bad transaction into the basis of failure, such as "He traded X, Y, and Z for W! That's an awful trade."

Discussion like this seems to get us no closer to an answer. Some articles have made an attempt at it, but the flaws in each seem to undermine the results.

David Gassko tried to do this in 2005 with his article Ranking the General Managers at The Hardball Times—basing his rankings on three factors: how well a team is built for its park, how much the team wins compared to its payroll, and how a team gained or lost at the trade deadline.

This only was done for the 2004 season, meaning that the basis for all of these factors was only that particular season—though that was the only goal of the article, so it is understandable.

However, the problems in the formula are significant. Building a team for a home park may not even be a positive factor at all—I can understand why it was included, as it may seem wise, but when the measurement basis is just having a better home team than road team, it can be seen as a detriment just as easily as a positive.

The midseason transactions idea is interesting, and has some merit, but both of these factors are taken into consideration as greatly as the "bang for your buck" of the team. That would seem to take precedent over either of the other factors—especially the home field—and that would cause significant problems in accepting his results.

Forbes published a study that measured the best GMs in sports in 2007, with the baseball GMs ranked here, which factored improvement on a predecessor and payroll relative to the league.

Aside from the problems of making this a sports-wide exercise without adjustments to the winning/payroll conditions of each specific league, the idea of comparing a GM only to a predecessor has its problems. Any GM with an historically awful predecessor will rank highly even with only a mediocre job on his part, and any GM with an historically great predecessor will only rank as mediocre even if he can maintain the team's success.

Also, winning is factored twice as much as payroll—an idea I don't object to in theory, but there is no reasoning for why this proportion was decided.

Among the factors seen, the only variables that can truly be used are the success of the team and the relative payroll. These factors also allow for comparison between different years, since the payrolls can be adjusted.

This idea is common in subjective analysis—another common statement in measuring GMs is "He won X games with a $Y million payroll in year Z." However, without a baseline for exactly how many games a certain payroll should have won in a certain year, how can any conclusions be drawn from it? Without that question answered, there is no logical starting point.

In order to get this baseline, I made a database of team payrolls and Pythagorean winning percentages for every team I had payroll information available for (I used USA Today's database, found here).

To adjust for the different average payrolls of each year, I simply found the Z-score of each payroll—figuring out how many standard deviations it was away from the mean spending of that season. By running a regression on those variables, an equation that shows what should be expected from a team at a certain payroll:

Y = 0.0263293618645785(X) + 0.500400325761534

This equation shows for every standard deviation the payroll changes, it should increase or decrease team winning percentage by about .026 (in terms of a 162-game season, that's a little over four wins.) The equation has a correlation coefficient of about 0.17 (which is significant with 600 team seasons worth of data), but indicates that having a large payroll is far from enough to win games (sorry, critics of Brian Cashman).

The middle 95 percent of payrolls fall between a Z-score of -2 and 2, which, according to the formula, indicates that an average GM should win 72.5 games at an extremely low payroll and 89.6 games at a relatively high payroll. (The only team to break these constraints on a regular basis are the Yankees.)

This is an interesting conclusion—73 wins for a team with minimal financial resources seems like a better than average job, in the same way that a team with 90 wins with a huge payroll seems like a bit of a disappointment, but this reinforces the correlation coefficient's determination that money is somewhat overrated in baseball.

Applying this to GMs is a matter of comparing how their team did compared to the baseline (in math terms, finding the residual value from the equation for each season). I took this a step further by adjusting these values to be more easily read by turning them into curved test grades: 75 is an average job, rarely will a GM get over 100 or below 50, and grades above 60 and 90 are extremely difficult to achieve.

Here are the rankings for the 10 best seasons and 10 worst seasons for a GM since 1988:

Team

Year

Grade

GM of Team

OAK

2001

100.4

Billy Beane

SEA

2001

98.7

Pat Gillick

WAS

1994

97.7

Kevin Malone

HOU

1998

97.2

Gerry Hunsinger

CLE

1995

94.5

John Hart

LAA

2002

94.1

Bill Stoneman

NYY

1998

Brian Cashman

ATL

1998

92.9

John Schuerholz

OAK

2002

92.6

Billy Beane

ATL

1993

92.5

John Schuerholz

TOR

1994

57.5

Pat Gillick

NYY

1990

57.1

Harding Peterson

DET

1996

56.5

Randy Smith

DET

1995

56.2

Joe Klein

FLA

1998

55.5

Dave Dombrowski

DET

1989

Bill Lajoie

BAL

1988

53.1

Roland Hemond

DET

2002

50.8

Randy Smith

ARZ

2004

50.4

Joe Garagiola

DET

2003

49.3

Dave Dombrowski

Click here to view a table of the rankings of every GM who has managed at least 5 seasons since 1988 (determined by the average scores of each of their seasons). A list of only active GMs is also included.

If you want to see individual seasons for a GM, comment and I'll post them. Feel free to debate my rankings and critique my formula - I would love to make the method even better.

Chris Lofton: An All-American Guard and All-American Hero

George Fitzpatrick — Thu, 01 May 2008 16:21:23 -0400

Chris Lofton is my new hero.

This in itself is amazing, considering I am only a casual college basketball fan and had barely watched Chris play until this year's NCAA Tournament. When I did watch him play, I honestly thought he was another overrated shooter who didn't have a future.

I have never been more wrong.

When I saw Chris Low's article on ESPN's front page that he was diagnosed with testicular cancer just nights after his loss to Ohio State last year, my normally busy mind just came to a halt. All I could do was stop and read.

What I read was the incredible diagnosis due to an odd finding on NCAA mandated drug test looking for steroids (and, for the record, that is the last time I call drug testing a useless witch hunt.) It continued with the story off an offseason of a young man dealing with surgery and painful radiation to fight his cancer, and it ended with him leading the charge of a top team in the country while just trying to play himself into shape. However, that doesn't impress me as much as the fact as this story was kept a secret today due to his insistence.

He didn't want the pity of every basketball analyst and fan in the country making excuses for him as he tried to come back from an illness that no one in their early 20s should have to deal with, and he came back with the same discipline that made him an incredible shooter and three time All-American in the first place. His senior season, at first glance a down year, is a testament to a strength and bravery almost none of us are truly capable of.

The word cancer is enough to strike the fear of death in any person, but he kept a lid on it because he "didn't want it being a distraction for our team." Most would just be happy if their team's star player just passed the ball a bit more.

Even in the era of Lance Armstrong, Chris Lofton is a cut above. We live in an era of basketball where the talented are being discovered earlier and earlier and the only down to earth basketball stars play for the San Antonio Spurs. Consider that one of Lofton's peers, O.J. Mayo, had the arrogance to call up USC to recruit him, and that took none of us by surprise.

As a Knicks fan, I've watched a complacent team waste talent, resources, and the money of season ticket holders at obscene rates for nearly a decade. Very few on the team seem to be able to deal with their teammates and coach, let alone with a cancer diagnosis. And Chris Lofton did it with the same graceful brilliance that we all see in his sublime jumpshot.

His coach, Bruce Pearl, was quoted as saying, "[Lofton's] No. 5, is going to be hanging in the rafters in Thompson-Boling Arena...No. 5 is going to be there. Chris Lofton leaves his mark in such a way as a Volunteer to have overcome this, to have not hidden and to have not allowed it to beat him." I couldn't have said it any better except to add this - No. 5 should not just be remembered in the rafters of the University of Tennessee, but in the hearts and minds of anyone who loves sport. Even if he never becomes an NBA All-Star, he is something much bigger - a legendary testament to the fact that there are role models left in the jaded world of sports today.

My message to any NBA team is this - don't pass on a chance to get Chris Lofton. Players more talented will come along, but you may never again see a player this special.

Will Giants' Mario Manningham Be Super Bowl Or Super Bust?

George Fitzpatrick — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 09:00:37 -0400

The New York Giants must feel that more magic is imminent after the divine miracle known as Super Bowl XLII, because they might need the help of God to get through to their latest 3rd Round pick.

His name is Mario Manningham, and is well known throughout college football with the reputation as a dynamic playmaker with a ton of leaping ability coming off an incredible junior year, racking up incredible numbers 1174 yards and 12 touchdowns as a Michigan Wolverine. However, he has also produced numbers that are much more troubling - as in 2 positive drug tests and a Wonderlic score of 6 out of a possible 50.

Football history is littered with guys who fit Manningham's profile - talented wide receivers who can entertain you on the field and infuriate you off the field. We remember when Keyshawn just wanted you to give him the damn ball, we remember when TO went from insisting Jeff Garcia was a homosexual and calling Donovan McNabb a choker to tearfully defending "his quarterback," Tony Romo. We are currently experiencing Ocho Cinco go Mucho Loco due to yet another Drew Rosenhaus induced contract holdout.

Oh, and the most talented receiver ever, Randy Moss? He goes from getting thrown out of two colleges for behavioral problems (including Florida State, which in itself is an accomplishment), then becomes a record breaking superstar, then becomes a selfish headcase who refuses to practice, and finishes it off by again becoming a record breaking superstar.

Must be something about catching the football - and I would be less worried if Manningham were actually as talented as any of the players I mentioned. But he isn't, and it isn't close either.

Manningham is 5'11" and under 180 pounds, meaning he doesn't have great size for a receiver. This would be more acceptable if he had 4.3 speed, but he clocked in at 4.55 at the combine and it took hiring an agent to get himself back in shape. Comments like "he simply knows how to get open" seem to translate into "overrated" in my mind. Yes, being a good route runner with excellent leaping ability counts for something, but he is not a great athlete and doesn't have exceptional talent - and that's something that makes the risk by the Giants more puzzling. You can justify it if he has the potential to be a future #1 threat, but even if he pans out, it is hard to imagine him as anything more then a decent #2.

In terms of the other issues, the Wonderlic score of 6 is extremely troubling, as according to the approximate formula for translating Wonderlic score to IQ (IQ = 40 + Score(2)), means Mario's IQ is around 72. That is troubling, considering 70 is considered mentally retarded by the CDC. Many feel the score is meaningless, but when a draftee is considered borderline retarded, that should cause many teams to take a step back.

In a country like the US, where marijuana use, although illegal, is pervasive; it does not surprise me that Manningham has used it. I'm not about to start a debate about the safety of the drug, but suffice it to say that I wouldn't want one of my players using it if I were a coach or GM. Why? Because when your job entails running faster than other people, it is not exactly a great idea to be smoking anything.

The Giants seem to be a decent situation for him, as they have already made a legitimate star out of headcase Plaxico Burress, who was once called "Plexiglas" by Shannon Sharpe for being soft, but ended up playing through an ankle injury that would put even the toughest players on the IR. He is also a decent fit with Manning, who seems to do well with (read: needs) receivers who can leap for the ball.

Coughlin, although he softened this year, is still a disciplinarian and may be just the medicine Manningham needs, in the way Parcells got the best out of Keyshawn. He also is going to a winning team, and that seems to affect players like Chad Johnson and Moss. However, the Giants have already used 3 recent 2nd rounders on talented receivers (Tim Carter, Sinorice Moss, and the other Steve Smith), who, despite rare flashes of their ability, have not come close to meeting expectations - and none of these guys carried the baggage of Manningham.

I am willing to grant Jerry Reese the benefit of the doubt, considering his last draft provided some immediate success. However, Giants fans have already been awarded one miracle by beating the greatest team of the salary cap era, and doubt the Lord has another one lined up.

Maybe we finally have our successor to Amani Toomer - but I doubt that when the Giants move into their new stadium in 2010 that the fans inside it will have Manningham on the backs of their jerseys.