Here’s the thing: I think we all can piece together what was going through the mind of then 86-year-old White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf when he decided last year to pull then 76-year-old Tony La Russa out of the carbonite chamber and insert him as the manager of his exciting young team.
Pretty much the whole point of the 1-2 count situation is that the pitcher can throw whatever the hell they want to throw. It most definitely doesn't have to be a strike. So pitcher's throw their best pitch, and if it's close, and often even if it's isn't close, the hitter only has one strike left. So, he's inclined to swing. So, even taking LaRussa's point as being 100% true, he could order his pitcher to throw sliders in and sliders away or chin high fastballs, or a changeup in the dirt, or whatever. There's a good chance that Turner gets himself out offering at one of those pitches. Pointing to first base and not even attempting to throw three pitcher's pitches at Turner is where the stupidity really comes in.
I think that La Russa’s treatment of Yermin Mercedes in 2021 was the most compelling sign that the Hall of Fame manager is out of touch. Mercedes started the season 8-for-8. He continued to do well for several weeks, and one day La Russa used him as a pitcher in a lopsided game. I thought to myself, “Let’s hope he doesn’t injure himself as Jose Canseco once did.” Mercedes came through that ordeal pretty well. But not long thereafter, he homered on a 3-and-0 pitch In a game in which the White Sox had a very large lead. La Russa ripped him to shreds publicly for violating some unwritten rule. It was ugly. Mercedes soon returned to the minors. La Russia (an auto-correct that seems to fit) should return home.
As a Cardinal fan I watched Tony La Russa closely for the 16 years he managed in St. Louis. Many times he made moves that seemed inexplicable when he made them. However, he could also give an explanation after the fact that would make some sense. He had good success - 9 playoff teams in 16 years and 2 World Series titles - but I always felt like they could have won more if he was willing to be more conventional or use "common sense".
The intentional walk to Turner on a 1-2 count sounds like an unconventional move infused with confusion about the game situation. Shouldn't the bench coach pull him aside and remind him of the situation (maybe that did happen, and maybe TLR overruled him)?
This is where the manager shouldn't matter. He should have a bench coach that firmly tells him what to do in every situation according to agreed upon analytics of how to approach various situations. (Although you shouldn't have needed analytics at all in this situation). The problem is either that the bench coach is terrible or LaRussa doesn't listen to his bench coach.
I honestly don't understand the American obsession with septuagenarian leaders. I believe President Obama is the only person born after 1947 to represent either party in a presidential election.
That’s a little recency bias. Trump and Biden were the only Presidents inaugurated in their 70s for their first terms. (Reagan turned 70 sixteen days after his first inauguration.) GW Bush and Al Gore were both only in their mid-50s when they ran in 2000. Using 1947 as a birth year wasn’t as bad a baseline 22 years ago.
It was meant to be recency. In 2020 the the winning candidate was 78 when inaugurated, and the losing candidate would have been 74. Though Trump was really the only Republican candidate, the Democratic runner up was Bernie Sanders, who would have been 79, (75 when he also finished 2nd in 2016) a distant third was Elizabeth Warren, who would have been 71.
Of course, when Trump was inaugurated in 2016, he was 70, and if Clinton had won she would have been 69, the baby of the recent group. Romney would have been a young 65, but still a senior citizen had he won, and Mccain in 2008 would have been 72.
Yeah, in 2004 both Presidential candidates were under 60, but Obama is the unicorn since in a field of other presidential candidates (just the nominees) other than him who would have had an average age of 71 at inauguration had they won. Bill Clinton is younger than Trump, Biden and George W Bush, and his tenure ended more than 21 years ago.
During the 2020 election, I took to asking people (based on the age of leading candidates and nominees the previous two elections.) How many people they knew over the age of 70 that they would allow to run a small business they owned. The answers were mostly none. I am not trying to be as ageist as this sounds. Some of my favorite people are over 70, or even over 80, including my Mom. But not one of them has not had a noticeable downturn in their abilities and thought processes after 70. I just don't know why the electorate seems to be focused on such aged leaders.
Even long term, for 36% of the time since 1980 (assuming Joe lives out his term) the President has been over 70, 16 out of 44 years, and it very well could have been 11 more, as losing candidates (to younger opponents) Bob Dole in 1996 and John Mccain in 2008 were both over 70, and George HW Bush would have been 70 for the majority of 3 years of his second term had he beaten Clinton.
It could change, of course, but at this point the presumptive candidates for 2024 are both over 70 as well. To me, that is just way too many.
Speaking of age, by the time new blood gets injected into Congress in January 2023, 94 members of the House (21.6%) will be at least 70. 18 of those 94 will be over 80. 37 members of the Senate will be over 70, (since there are 100 Senators, that is the percentage as well) and 7 of those will be over 80. Many of the Senators will continue serving past that date as only about one third of the seats are up for election, and an additional 19 Senators will be between 65 and 70, meaning 56% of the Senate are senior citizens.
Perhaps. But Joe says nothing about the younger managers (Girardi and Maddon) who have been such unmitigated disasters that they have been fired (already!) this season. Yet he goes hammer and tongs after La Russa...because he's old? La Russa hardly has the market cornered on managerial incompetence, but he's Joe's favorite whipping boy!
You might be right about Girardi. Joe did criticize Maddon pretty hard after the intentional walk with the bases loaded ("Maddon's Madness", https://joeposnanski.substack.com/p/maddons-madness?s=r). At least Maddon didn't try to defend it as a statistically better option, instead saying it was a non-traditional way to fire up his team.
Good catch, I stand corrected. I can't help but observe that Maddon himself is somewhat older--68 (still younger than TLR though). The ageism seems to be a trend.
I don't want to seem uncharitable--I mostly enjoy Joe's writing immensely! But he does have a well-documented antipathy to TLR that relates to his age.
Great piece, Joe. Knowing how you feel about intentional walks generally, I was anticipating your reaction to TLR’s, um, “easy call.” I would note, though, that Reinsdorf at 86 is not much quirkier than he was at, say, 49 when he had the bright idea to have Hawk Harrelson, of all people, run the front office, and effectively gave Harrelson license to fire TLR for no obvious reason.
It still gets to me that Tony LaRussa was the White Sox manager on the day Tom Seaver won his 300th game, August 4, 1985. Tom Seaver has been dead for almost two years, while Tony LaRussa is still the White Sox manager.
"Isn’t it amazing how the people who most mock advanced statistics are the ones who rely on ultra-specific stats that could not possibly be more manufactured or meaningless?"
Another great blog--and very personal as I've been a Sox fan for as long as I've been "an object to myself," as the philosophers like to say--which occurred around the age of 5 (when Luis Aparicio was a rookie--and rookie of the year), making my "fan tenure" 65 years.
The old cliche is that when we reach a particular age defined as "old age" (in my case, 71), we are "getting old," but the strange thing is that deep down inside, we still feel that everyone else is getting old and I'm still that kid getting amazed by players such as Luis Aparicio.
As a septuagenarian, I have some problems with LaRussa (mentioned in the blog), but I've also become sensitive to how often his age gets mentioned--and how words (such as "grandpa") become used. Their use is humorous, but the ageism, however implicit and, (owing to real diseases that impede cognitive processes) potentially relevant, might also assume things that are not true.
When Bill Veeck promoted LaRussa to manage the Sox in the middle of the 1979 season, he basically made the "anti-Reinsdorf" move, abandoning his ties to old cronies (e.g., Paul Richards) and bringing in "fresh eyes" (or something to that effect), that could shake things up. What did he have to lose? The White Sox, broke and going nowhere, would finish at the bottom of the standings with or without any manager.
But then, stuff happened. Veeck sold the team to Reisdorf (and Eddie Einhorn); Rollie Hemond, the great baseball lifer and Sox GM had some resources to rebuild and refresh a farm system and by 1983, LaRussa and the Sox won 99 games (and looked like a team of the future). At the time, though, people thought LaRussa was too young to manage, but some of his "quirky moves" became innovative foundations (e.g., how to create a sequence of relief pitchers).
Eventually, Hemond left, Reinsdorf became distracted (he also owned the Bulls, who had drafted Michael Jordan) and let Hall of Fame announcer, Ken Harrelson, provide one of the all time great examples of "The Peter Principle," by advancing to a level of incompetence as the new General Manager and subsequently, firing LaRussa.
Now we're in the 21st Century, with an 80+ year old Reisdorf, seeking some sort of redemption, reuniting with a 70+ year old LaRussa. Neither have provided much assurance to Sox fans, especially the younger ones, that they get the concerns of Sox fans--and (it should be noted) the fans' desperation to "make hay" while there is still time (remember, this is a team that is known, mostly, for "blowing" the 1919 World Series).
The White Sox may go nowhere with LaRussa--just as they went nowhere with a list of "usual suspects' (with Ozzie Guillen in 2005 as an exception). LaRussa will be criticized as the old (read as senile) guy who shifted them in reverse (just as Jerry Reinsdorf went into reverse to make this drama happen). Sox fans will lament about "a window that closed" and we will continue to wait for a glory day--which for Sox fans, is not too dissimilar from the two old guys who waited for the guy that never showed up.
I have a corollary to the Peter Principle that states that if you pass your level of incompetence, the sky is the limit. Sadly, I’ve seen too many cases of this in today’s world.
The interesting thing here is that I didn't need the statistics to tell me that this was a dumb move. As Joe says, you don't walk someone with the count 1-2. Now, if it goes to 2-2 or even 3-2, you might say, put him aboard. But even the dumbest or craziest manager isn't going to do that ... unless he's a Hall of Famer, of course.
Come to think of it, since he never noticed steroids, maybe he didn't notice that the count was 1-2.
This is the first time I had seen that there was a passed ball (or wild pitch) that allowed the runner to move from first to second. Which doesn't make the intentional walk a smart move, but without that information it is even more ludicrous.
I think it’s great that Joe is getting much less woke and making grandpa jokes! I mean, it was kind of funny but to the woke, who knows?
Will this lead to the reincarnation of the Intentional Walk Rage Scale?
Pretty much the whole point of the 1-2 count situation is that the pitcher can throw whatever the hell they want to throw. It most definitely doesn't have to be a strike. So pitcher's throw their best pitch, and if it's close, and often even if it's isn't close, the hitter only has one strike left. So, he's inclined to swing. So, even taking LaRussa's point as being 100% true, he could order his pitcher to throw sliders in and sliders away or chin high fastballs, or a changeup in the dirt, or whatever. There's a good chance that Turner gets himself out offering at one of those pitches. Pointing to first base and not even attempting to throw three pitcher's pitches at Turner is where the stupidity really comes in.
I want to add, this was Max Muncy's first game back from injury, and he's been AWFUL this year.
I don't like intentional walks in general, but skipping Turner (who's been awesome this year) to face Muncy isn't totally insane.
Third option, pitch around him, get him to swing...
You HAVE TO at least give Turner the chance to swing at a pitcher's pitch. It's absurd to just point at first base.
"Totally insane" isn't the standard I'd need to fire my manager. Repeatedly doing "totally stupid" things would be enough.
I think that La Russa’s treatment of Yermin Mercedes in 2021 was the most compelling sign that the Hall of Fame manager is out of touch. Mercedes started the season 8-for-8. He continued to do well for several weeks, and one day La Russa used him as a pitcher in a lopsided game. I thought to myself, “Let’s hope he doesn’t injure himself as Jose Canseco once did.” Mercedes came through that ordeal pretty well. But not long thereafter, he homered on a 3-and-0 pitch In a game in which the White Sox had a very large lead. La Russa ripped him to shreds publicly for violating some unwritten rule. It was ugly. Mercedes soon returned to the minors. La Russia (an auto-correct that seems to fit) should return home.
Yes--and then the next day, when the Twins "put a hit" on Mercedes, LaRussa supported the Twins at the press conference.
As a Cardinal fan I watched Tony La Russa closely for the 16 years he managed in St. Louis. Many times he made moves that seemed inexplicable when he made them. However, he could also give an explanation after the fact that would make some sense. He had good success - 9 playoff teams in 16 years and 2 World Series titles - but I always felt like they could have won more if he was willing to be more conventional or use "common sense".
The intentional walk to Turner on a 1-2 count sounds like an unconventional move infused with confusion about the game situation. Shouldn't the bench coach pull him aside and remind him of the situation (maybe that did happen, and maybe TLR overruled him)?
This is where the manager shouldn't matter. He should have a bench coach that firmly tells him what to do in every situation according to agreed upon analytics of how to approach various situations. (Although you shouldn't have needed analytics at all in this situation). The problem is either that the bench coach is terrible or LaRussa doesn't listen to his bench coach.
One 77-year old has as much business managing a baseball team as another 77-year old does managing a country.
A dead guy could run the country better than idiot Trump. Literally; he could and would.
I assume you are talking about both septuagenarians who managed the country this decade. Then I might agree with you.
I honestly don't understand the American obsession with septuagenarian leaders. I believe President Obama is the only person born after 1947 to represent either party in a presidential election.
I was born in 1947, and Obama is the first president that was younger than me at the time of his election. Clinton was close.
That’s a little recency bias. Trump and Biden were the only Presidents inaugurated in their 70s for their first terms. (Reagan turned 70 sixteen days after his first inauguration.) GW Bush and Al Gore were both only in their mid-50s when they ran in 2000. Using 1947 as a birth year wasn’t as bad a baseline 22 years ago.
It was meant to be recency. In 2020 the the winning candidate was 78 when inaugurated, and the losing candidate would have been 74. Though Trump was really the only Republican candidate, the Democratic runner up was Bernie Sanders, who would have been 79, (75 when he also finished 2nd in 2016) a distant third was Elizabeth Warren, who would have been 71.
Of course, when Trump was inaugurated in 2016, he was 70, and if Clinton had won she would have been 69, the baby of the recent group. Romney would have been a young 65, but still a senior citizen had he won, and Mccain in 2008 would have been 72.
Yeah, in 2004 both Presidential candidates were under 60, but Obama is the unicorn since in a field of other presidential candidates (just the nominees) other than him who would have had an average age of 71 at inauguration had they won. Bill Clinton is younger than Trump, Biden and George W Bush, and his tenure ended more than 21 years ago.
During the 2020 election, I took to asking people (based on the age of leading candidates and nominees the previous two elections.) How many people they knew over the age of 70 that they would allow to run a small business they owned. The answers were mostly none. I am not trying to be as ageist as this sounds. Some of my favorite people are over 70, or even over 80, including my Mom. But not one of them has not had a noticeable downturn in their abilities and thought processes after 70. I just don't know why the electorate seems to be focused on such aged leaders.
Even long term, for 36% of the time since 1980 (assuming Joe lives out his term) the President has been over 70, 16 out of 44 years, and it very well could have been 11 more, as losing candidates (to younger opponents) Bob Dole in 1996 and John Mccain in 2008 were both over 70, and George HW Bush would have been 70 for the majority of 3 years of his second term had he beaten Clinton.
It could change, of course, but at this point the presumptive candidates for 2024 are both over 70 as well. To me, that is just way too many.
Speaking of age, by the time new blood gets injected into Congress in January 2023, 94 members of the House (21.6%) will be at least 70. 18 of those 94 will be over 80. 37 members of the Senate will be over 70, (since there are 100 Senators, that is the percentage as well) and 7 of those will be over 80. Many of the Senators will continue serving past that date as only about one third of the seats are up for election, and an additional 19 Senators will be between 65 and 70, meaning 56% of the Senate are senior citizens.
You'll get no argument from me.
Yes, La Russa is old and you don't like oldsters. We get it already.
Cheap shots by Joe bordering on outright meanness
Being old and thinking old can be two different things. La Russa is well behind the times.
Perhaps. But Joe says nothing about the younger managers (Girardi and Maddon) who have been such unmitigated disasters that they have been fired (already!) this season. Yet he goes hammer and tongs after La Russa...because he's old? La Russa hardly has the market cornered on managerial incompetence, but he's Joe's favorite whipping boy!
You might be right about Girardi. Joe did criticize Maddon pretty hard after the intentional walk with the bases loaded ("Maddon's Madness", https://joeposnanski.substack.com/p/maddons-madness?s=r). At least Maddon didn't try to defend it as a statistically better option, instead saying it was a non-traditional way to fire up his team.
Good catch, I stand corrected. I can't help but observe that Maddon himself is somewhat older--68 (still younger than TLR though). The ageism seems to be a trend.
I don't want to seem uncharitable--I mostly enjoy Joe's writing immensely! But he does have a well-documented antipathy to TLR that relates to his age.
Most peculiar, mama.
Thanks for the Lennon ref, Joe.
Great piece, Joe. Knowing how you feel about intentional walks generally, I was anticipating your reaction to TLR’s, um, “easy call.” I would note, though, that Reinsdorf at 86 is not much quirkier than he was at, say, 49 when he had the bright idea to have Hawk Harrelson, of all people, run the front office, and effectively gave Harrelson license to fire TLR for no obvious reason.
It still gets to me that Tony LaRussa was the White Sox manager on the day Tom Seaver won his 300th game, August 4, 1985. Tom Seaver has been dead for almost two years, while Tony LaRussa is still the White Sox manager.
RIP Tom Terrific (1944-2020)
He's not "still" the White Sox manager. He's "again" the White Sox manager.
"Isn’t it amazing how the people who most mock advanced statistics are the ones who rely on ultra-specific stats that could not possibly be more manufactured or meaningless?"
Another great blog--and very personal as I've been a Sox fan for as long as I've been "an object to myself," as the philosophers like to say--which occurred around the age of 5 (when Luis Aparicio was a rookie--and rookie of the year), making my "fan tenure" 65 years.
The old cliche is that when we reach a particular age defined as "old age" (in my case, 71), we are "getting old," but the strange thing is that deep down inside, we still feel that everyone else is getting old and I'm still that kid getting amazed by players such as Luis Aparicio.
As a septuagenarian, I have some problems with LaRussa (mentioned in the blog), but I've also become sensitive to how often his age gets mentioned--and how words (such as "grandpa") become used. Their use is humorous, but the ageism, however implicit and, (owing to real diseases that impede cognitive processes) potentially relevant, might also assume things that are not true.
When Bill Veeck promoted LaRussa to manage the Sox in the middle of the 1979 season, he basically made the "anti-Reinsdorf" move, abandoning his ties to old cronies (e.g., Paul Richards) and bringing in "fresh eyes" (or something to that effect), that could shake things up. What did he have to lose? The White Sox, broke and going nowhere, would finish at the bottom of the standings with or without any manager.
But then, stuff happened. Veeck sold the team to Reisdorf (and Eddie Einhorn); Rollie Hemond, the great baseball lifer and Sox GM had some resources to rebuild and refresh a farm system and by 1983, LaRussa and the Sox won 99 games (and looked like a team of the future). At the time, though, people thought LaRussa was too young to manage, but some of his "quirky moves" became innovative foundations (e.g., how to create a sequence of relief pitchers).
Eventually, Hemond left, Reinsdorf became distracted (he also owned the Bulls, who had drafted Michael Jordan) and let Hall of Fame announcer, Ken Harrelson, provide one of the all time great examples of "The Peter Principle," by advancing to a level of incompetence as the new General Manager and subsequently, firing LaRussa.
Now we're in the 21st Century, with an 80+ year old Reisdorf, seeking some sort of redemption, reuniting with a 70+ year old LaRussa. Neither have provided much assurance to Sox fans, especially the younger ones, that they get the concerns of Sox fans--and (it should be noted) the fans' desperation to "make hay" while there is still time (remember, this is a team that is known, mostly, for "blowing" the 1919 World Series).
The White Sox may go nowhere with LaRussa--just as they went nowhere with a list of "usual suspects' (with Ozzie Guillen in 2005 as an exception). LaRussa will be criticized as the old (read as senile) guy who shifted them in reverse (just as Jerry Reinsdorf went into reverse to make this drama happen). Sox fans will lament about "a window that closed" and we will continue to wait for a glory day--which for Sox fans, is not too dissimilar from the two old guys who waited for the guy that never showed up.
Terrific overview!
I have a corollary to the Peter Principle that states that if you pass your level of incompetence, the sky is the limit. Sadly, I’ve seen too many cases of this in today’s world.
Joe Maddon might be the bastard son of TLR.
Have you noticed that Tony has a new first name? It's 77YearOldTony.
He is giving septuagenarians a bad name.
The interesting thing here is that I didn't need the statistics to tell me that this was a dumb move. As Joe says, you don't walk someone with the count 1-2. Now, if it goes to 2-2 or even 3-2, you might say, put him aboard. But even the dumbest or craziest manager isn't going to do that ... unless he's a Hall of Famer, of course.
Come to think of it, since he never noticed steroids, maybe he didn't notice that the count was 1-2.
This is the first time I had seen that there was a passed ball (or wild pitch) that allowed the runner to move from first to second. Which doesn't make the intentional walk a smart move, but without that information it is even more ludicrous.