Baseball Musings
Baseball Musings
September 04, 2003
Stark on Bowa

Jayson Stark on ESPN.com has a good column that tries to look at the Larry Bowa situation from all angles. The summation:


If this season ends with the Phillies making their first postseason appearance since Joe Carter's home run in Game 6 of the 1993 World Series, it's a good bet this whole debate will be moot. As consistently as Wade has defended the manager, it may be just a big blowtorch of hot air, anyway.

But regardless, it's suddenly an issue on a whole lot of minds. And it's going to hover there for the next three weeks -- if not beyond.

"We can talk about all this stuff," Wade said. "But the bottom line still comes down to his effectiveness as a manager, and his ability to get us to the finish line."

For any manager, that's the way it ought to be. And for this manager, that's the way it ought to be. If he wins, how he does it is just part of the show. But if he doesn't, it's everyone's right to ask: Why not?


The problem here isn't the Phillies making the playoffs or not. The problem is that the Phillies have underperformed all year. They are playing .540 ball, when the pythagorean method has them at .565. Usually, this happens because teams don't win the close games, but the Phillies are 31-29 in one and two runs games. But compare this to Felipe Alou (who, by the way, is not a manager I consider to be that great). The Giants are playing .616 ball, but the prediction for them is .564! The Phillies and the Giants should be tied. But the Giants are 44-18 in close games. And if a manager is going to make a difference, it's how he handles these close games; does he put in the right pitcher, the right pinch hitter, the right defense. Yes, there's a lot of luck involved, but Alou is getting the luck to come down on his side more often that Bowa.

This Phillies team was designed to beat the Braves. They're not even close. Fiery is great. You shouldn't like to lose when you're a professional athlete. But Lou Piniella does fiery and his players love him. It's because there's a difference between positive and negative criticism. As far as I can tell, Bowa can only do the negative; no one wants to be around that very long.


Posted by David Pinto at 11:11 AM | Baseball Jerks | TrackBack (1)