You feel that being good on a losing team is less valuable than being good on a winning team. I assume that’s because his goodness was “meaningless” since it didn’t get them anywhere.

Let’s imagine there is a team that’s so good that it’s way better than all rivals. It breezes into the playoffs, clinching a month early, and then wins the world series handily. Is the best player on that team also less valuable since the team really didn’t even need him? If another team had a tough pennant race and close series in the playoffs, is the best guy on that team more valuable?

Personally I think MVP should be the best player, regardless of team … but I still would have picked Mauer over Greinke.

part of their problem is that they try and treat professional athletes like 19 year kids.

Most NFL coaches were college asssistant coaches but they became assistants in the pros and learn that it’s a totally different game and that you can’t put Eastsouthwestnorth State on your schedule or act like you’re Patton.

Coaching matters much more to the recruitment of talent in college football and almost not at all in the pros (other than the actual evaluation of talent). A mediocre strategic coach can hide behind a good recruitment program.

I also think Beane did do this to a certain extent, managing from upstairs as it were, and when he did he took a lot of shit for it.

I think one of the reasons the team has been less successful under Geren is that Beane doesn’t do that any more and pretty much lets Geren act with the autonomy of a regular manager.

appears to have no effect whatsoever on on-field performance." Wow do you and I see sports in a different way but that’s what makes sports so much fun to talk about.

As far as the charismatic statistics professor I’m pretty sure no such person exsists in nature.

My point is not to argue that the “leadership” of the manager affects on-field performance. The point I’m trying to make is that effect on on-field performance is not the way to evaluate a manager.

Let me try another way. Do we evaluate Steve Vucinich’s performance as equipment manager by how he affects the team’s W-L record? No. We have other standards for determining whether he does a good job. It’s conceivable that his skill could have some slight positive effect on on-field performance, and if he were utterly incompetent he could easily have a detrimental effect. But ultimately, we don’t pick him to help the team win. We pick him to serve a useful and necessary function and we hope he does it in a way that makes life easier for everyone and keeps operations running smoothly.

Now obviously the manager is not as far removed from the game as the equipment manager. But I’m trying to make the point that if every employee of the team is ranked on a spectrum of how relevant they are to the W-L record, with players being near 100% and equipment manager, bullpen catcher, batboys, stadium vendors, etc, being closer to zero, the manager falls somewhere well below 50%. Therefore we shouldn’t evaluate him as if his only relevance were his effect on on-field performance. We should also evaluate him on general standards of competence in fulfilling his non-W-L-relevant purpose.

Hence my comparison with the equipment manager. To understand the real purpose of the manager, ask: Why do we even have a manager? Could you play the game without him? Well, you could, but it would get chaotic and awkward. Having a manager — like having an equipment manager — helps make the operation run more smoothly. That’s the reason we hire him; not because we expect he’ll do much to improve the team’s W-L record.