WuTang_OG wrote:margins are thin in baseball. we are not just looking to win some games in the regular season. as injuries/struggles come about (and we are already seeing it now), montoyo has to navigate through that intelligently. easier said than done for any manager but that's what the good ones do, and this will get us to where we want to be - the playoffs... and he's gotta show it there where the games are even more important.
not to mention more pressure this season than last, bigger expectations, etc. so he's gotta prove it .. and hoping he can
There's a lot of effect-becomes-cause in this though. People start to assume that managers are good because their teams did navigate the playoffs, when in reality they suck but a combination of good team and good fortune rendered it moot.
A few years ago, 538 analyzed the best and worst bullpen management by managers from 2000 - 2016:
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/baseballs-savviest-and-crappiest-bullpen-managers/Note the list of the worst ones. It includes Dusty Baker, who made the World Series last year. Ron Washington: two World Series appearances. Bob Melvin, long-time manager of the statistically-conscious Oakland A's, picked up to run the contending Padres this offseason. Tony La Russa, three-time Series winner and Hall of Famer. How is that possible? Because, per that article:
Perhaps surprisingly, we found that bullpen management — good or bad — doesn’t actually affect a team’s overall performance all that much. Certainly it’s not as important as, say, having good relievers to employ in the first place. A manager who’s bad at managing a bullpen (for example, Manny Acta) might be expected to win about 0.5 fewer games per season as a result of his bullpen-management problems than an average manager with the same ’pen, while a good one (such as Joe Girardi) might win 0.5 games more than average over the course of a season. The total effect of this skill has a range of perhaps one win per year.
If we assume (and it's not wrong to do so) that Charlie is on another tier altogether of badness, you're talking maaaaaybe a couple wins difference between him and a good manager on 'pen usage. Maybe throw in another couple wins for his management of the lineup. That's 4 Wins Below Good Manager. And that, again, can matter. Probably cost us a playoff spot last year. You don't want to be giving away wins at all if you can help it, and 4 wins a year would basically mean offsetting the difference between an All Star and a replacement-level player. That's really bad! But teams that are 4 wins worse than their opposition win in the playoffs
all the time, because baseball is a high-variance sport and **** just happens.