(02-17-2024, 08:42 AM)lex24 Wrote: Mick dateline='[url=tel:1708102492' Wrote: 1708102492[/url]']
lex24 dateline='[url=tel:1708095737' Wrote: 1708095737[/url]']
Curious Mick. What’s your issue with Melvin?
We did this dance back in October...
https://thecardboard.org/board/showthrea...#pid401348
I'm more anti-Farhan than anti-Melvin. I don't have anything against Melvin. What I really, really like about Melvin is that he's a Cal guy, just like my mom's father. My dad was recruited by Pete Newell the year that Cal won the NCAA in men's basketball. I toured Cal with both my boys and they both were admitted. I would have been DELIGHTED if they had attended Cal (more delighted if they had attended Stanford, but that's the family school...). Maybe it's worth noting that they completed their UC applications but not the Stanford applications, but then they both knew where they were going after Cal's application deadline had passed but before Stanford's admissions deadline had passed. It's one reason why I keep pumping Jeff Kent for the HoF, and I am a of immense proportions fan of Mark Canha's...I know his family well.
Melvin gets NorCal. I like that. He's a Bay Area guy who grew up here. I like that, too. He played for the Giants and I like that. And he was as successful for the Moneyball A's as anyone could be. He's likeable. He's affable. He's old school and therefore more comfortable for the average fan than the skintight clothes weating, workout nut, tattooed weirdo who led the Giants to 107 wins but put lots of people off, yourself included. Makes me wonder if the Giants would have made the playoffs in the COVID year if Posey had played catcher instead of Joey Bart, Chadwick Tromp and Tyler Heineman. They missed the playoffs by a game. Thanks, Buster.
I like Melvin for his similarities to Bochy. He is a Baby Boomer backup catcher who worked his way up the ranks. He has a lengthy career managing west coast teams. He appears to be liked and admired by the players. He is humble and shifts the spotlight to the players when things are going well, and don't criticize them when things go poorly. And BoMel is very smooth. He knows how to manage up and down (although SDP's GM Ken Rosenthal couldn't stand Melvin to the point that he let him go to a division rival). He's a good manager. But the Giants will need a great manager to get to the postseason.
What I don't care for:
1. Unlike Bochy, Melvin is not proven in the post-season, a lifetime 16-23 postseason record. Lost in the WC or first round six of seven times. That's mainly why I think of Melvin as Bochy-lite.
2. Melvin gets great press and the benefit of the doubt. Everyone extolled Melvin's relationships with Far Eastern players, and he would be critical to land Ohtani and Yamamoto. We didn't get either. We paid double Lee's market value because Farhan needed a win. Ditto Chapman, who played for him for years. Let's get Chapman in the door.
3. Mostly (and this article explains the bulk of it), Melvin had a team full of multiple-year All-Stars, Gold Glove winners, Cy Young winners and a player (Tatis) who didn't fit the prior three descriptions but finished in the top five in MVP voting -- twice. Farhan's team had none of those players, no one who could approach those numbers except a decrepit Crawford (.587 OPS) two years past his prime. As much as you dislike coconut-oil-head, the Giants won 79 games with poor players, injured players and too-old players. Melvin won 82 with an end-to-end All Star team. And the robo-manager has a better career winning percentage than BoMel, and Kapler's worst full year was better than eight of Melvin's 20 season records and his best year was better than...well...20 of Melvin's 20 seasons. By 10 wins.
4. I don't like that Melvin's Seattle team tanked...they went from 93 wins to 63 wins in a single season.
To summarize an earlier post, people treat BoMel like he's the second coming. He's the anti-Kapler...he took a hugely talented San Diego roster and dramatically underachieved whereas Kapler took a no-talent roster and overachieved. They had very similar records. BoMel was a safe, logical pick.
Because BoMel is supposedly such a great manager, I want to see 95+ wins out of him this season.
Fair enough. But I think you miss, at least my point. Which simply was I wanted a more “balanced” manager. One that appreciates and uses analytics but isn’t controlled by them. And someone players respect. He fits that bill.
“ although SDP's GM Ken Rosenthal couldn't stand Melvin to the point that he let him go to a division rival)”. Don’t get that comment…..
I got your point, it was very obvious. I just didn't agree with it... ;)
As far as the players respecting the manager...they seemed to be respecting him okay during the 107-win season. And Stripling started the public disrespect when he started whining about how he was used. News flash, Ross: Your 6.00+ ERA means they fit you in when they can.
The most successful company I ever worked for grew about 800% faster than the average firm in my business. And my boss, the managing partner, was an execrable pustule of a man, just a horrible person. He fit every Mad Men stereotype and worse. I didn't respect him in the slightest, but WOW were we successful. We grew 40% a year (I was head of sales). He stepped down, I left a year later. His immediate successors then and to this day were fine gentlemen and excellent supervisors. They've averaged 5% growth annually since then.
Still, the way I understand your comment is that if a professional ballplayer doesn't like his boss, or the way he's used, he'll pout and tank. Okay. I get it. Not the Dick Williams A's of 1972-74, but that was another generation. Today's athlete has to be coddled, and frankly, there's a certain kind of fan who is much, much more comfortable with a more traditional manager. With that understood as the foundation, then yes...someone like Bob Melvin is necessary.
My comment re: Rosenthal was to indicate that Melvin isn't universally loved by management. Rosenthal couldn't wait to get rid of him, so much so that he let him go to a division rival. Allowing your key supervisor to go to a rival means you think that they are so poor at their job that they will will have a deleterious effect on your rival.
On a separate note:
The Giants were 60-50 through game 110, then went 19-33 thereafter. Through game 110, they were 15-5 in "opener" games, and 45-45 in games with conventional starters. In the next 52 games, they went 4-11 in "opener" games, and 16-21 with conventional starters. The most interesting part to me is that the players who gave up the most runs in the "opener" games weren't the relievers...it was Stripling, Manaea, Beck and Hjelle, the conventional starters. The starters ensured the failure of the opener experiment. Still, in overall terms, the Giants finished 19-16 using openers and 61-66 using conventional starters. Won't have to worry about openers with Melvin, I suspect.
Separately, the Giants' fielders tanked after game 110. Through game 110, they averaged 0.6 errors per game. After game 110, they averaged 0.94 errors per game. League average was 0.52 errors per game, so the Giants weren't all that bad in the first 110 games. Just as an aside, the four best fielding teams (in terms of fewest unearned runs given up) made the playoffs (Dodgers, Rays, Twins, Rangers), the Diamondbacks finished 6th in that stat, the Orioles were 8th, the Marlins and Brewers were 11th and 12th and the Braves were 14th. Only the Blue Jays (20th, and out in the first round) and the Phillies (27th) were poor fielding teams. The Giants finished 29th of 30 teams in terms of most unearned runs given up. If Melvin wants a successful season, they'll need to fix that. The worst offenders are all still on the team, except for Crawford (12 errors). Bailey (13), Wade (10, JD Davis (9), Flores (9), Estrada (8), Schmitt (8), Sabol (6), Wisely (4) are still there.
In 2021, the Giants were 9th in fewest errors and 5th in Rtot...what happened? Funny thing is that the guys who
did create the errors on that team were mostly gone by 2023 (Solano, Dubon, Bryant, Longoria, Casali, Belt, Cueto, Posey, Vosler, Alvarez, Dickerson, Duggar, Gausman, La Stella, McGee, Litell, Ruf, and a few others). All replaced by players who can't field a lick. Of course, that 2021 team hit 241 HRs, versus 170 last year. And its ERA was 3.24, second in the league.
I'm sure Bob Melvin will return the Giants to the days of Bochy-ian greatness.
