We're losing some distinctive managers

Dusty Baker's teams averaged more than 100 sacrifice bunt
attempts in his 19 years as a manager.

The Monday print column — the last for 2013 — takes note of the novice managers being handed the reins of contending teams in Detroit, Washington and Cincinnati and offers the theory that this trend is rooted in the homogenizing of managerial strategy.

Everybody handles their pitching staffs the same way these days. Five-man rotations, adherence to pitch counts, a designated one-inning closer who seldom enters with men on base, specialist relievers ... that's not merely conventional wisdom, it is standard practice.

To do that, a manager needs an inflated pitching staff. In the 1970s and 1980s, teams seldom carried more than 10 pitchers on a 25-man roster. That started to change in the early 1990s, and today everybody has at least 12 pitchers.

The specialist relievers and the limited roster space for extra hitters have combined to essentially drive platoons out of the game.

The departures, at least for now, of grizzled veteran managers Dusty Baker, Davey Johnson and Jim Leyland takes out some of the more distinctive strategists. Baseball Info Systems has for several years published a "managerial record" in the annual Bill James Handbook, and Baker in particular shows up with a lot of boldfaced type, indicative of having led the league in a particular move.

Jim Leyland went longer with his starters than any
other current manager, a pattern that really started to
emerge in the past five years.

In 2013, for example, Baker's Reds attempted 110 sacrifice bunts. No other team reached 100. The average National League team (the NL does more bunting because its pitchers hit) had 80 sac attempts. Baker was 37.5 percent above that average. (Baker also led the NL in pitchouts, albeit by just one.)

Johnson and Leyland each led their league in what BIS calls "long outings by starting pitchers," defined at this point as starts exceeding 110 pitches. (When they started keeping track of this, the defining pitch count was higher, but there weren't enough starts of 120 pitches to make it meaningful.)

Leyland's Tigers had 50 such starts, Johnson's Nationals 27. (There were just 14 starts of 125 pitches or more in the majors this year; the Tigers had three of them, as did the Texas Rangers.)

My guess is that the new guys will be more conventional on bunting than Baker was, and likely to pull their starters earlier than Leyland and Johnson.

Jim Leyland retires. Again

Jim Leyland: 22 years as a manager, 1,769 wins, 1,728
losses, one World Series title, three pennants, six
division titles.

Jim Leyland announced Monday that he's walking away from the managerial job in Detroit.

This is his second retirement — he hung 'em up, so he said, when he decided he'd had enough in Colorado back in 1999. He was 54 then, 54 and frustrated after losing 198 games in two years. He's 68 now and has won three straight division titles. I think this one will stick — and for that matter, the first stuck for seven years.

There are now, oddly, three managerial openings for teams in "win-now" position: Detroit, Cincinnati and Washington.

I would expect the Tigers to view this as a short-term opening. The youngest of the 12 players who got the most plate appearances on the 2013 Tigers was 26. Miguel Cabrera is now on the wrong side of 30. Prince Fielder's numbers have fallen each of the last two years. Alex Avila has been ridden hard behind the plate.

This is not, in my mind, a team to be turned over to a managerial prospect with a learning curve.

One issue that the new manager, whoever he is, will have to deal with is the bullpen. Leyland's patchwork failed him this month. That might be relatively prominent on Dave Dombrowski's checklist as the Detroit general manager seeks a new dugout boss.

Let's see: Experienced manager for a veteran squad with a knack for assembling and deploying a bullpen. I know just the man. But Ron Gardenhire already has a job.

Notes, quotes and comment

Brian Dozier's home run tear this week — four homers
in five games — gives him seven on the year, while
Justin Morneau has just three long balls.

When the Twins reactivated Trevor Plouffe, I predicted here that Brian Dozier would return to the leadoff spot.

Instead, Ron Gardenhire gave Clete Thomas several games in that lineup position. Thomas didn't remind anybody of Shannon Stewart, much less Rickey Henderson, but he was more productive there than anybody else the Twins had deployed.

And then the Twins saw three straight left-handed pitchers — Chris Sale on Wednesday, John Danks on Thursday, Scott Kazmir on Friday — and the right-handed hitting Dozier was back atop the lineup, with the left-handed hitting Thomas dropping down to the eighth slot.

This is justifiable strictly on the general platoon rule. We're talking here about two marginal hitters. That Dozier entered Friday's game hitting .293/.388/.463 against lefties this year is nice but immaterial; those split stats came in a mere 50 plate appearances against southpaws.

Dozier homered in each of those three games, and it will be interesting to see if Gardenhire keeps him in the leadoff slot as the Twins start to see some right-handed pitchers again. Gardenhire has never been particularly interested in seeking the platoon advantage with his hitters (pitchers are another matter). I'd advocate getting Thomas the extra at-bats against right-handed starters; Gardenhire's habitual preference for a set lineup suggests Dozier will lead off for a while.

For what it's worth — which isn't much — Thomas has been a more productive hitter against lefties than righties over his major league time. It's not enough at-bats to establish that he's an exception to the platoon rule.

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The Jose Valverde experiment ended Friday when the Detroit Tigers designated him for assignment. I never really understood what the big idea there was; Valverde went from unwanted to closer to unwanted again, with no intermediate stops.

Some 25 years ago, Jim Leyland won a string of divisional titles in Pittsburgh without a designated closer. Since then, he's become far more conventional in his bullpen use. Perhaps he's come to equate the October failings of those good Pirate teams — they never reached the World Series — with the lack of a closer.

Anyway, Leyland indicated Thursday that Joaquin Benoit was his closer, kinda sorta:

"I'm not naming anybody closer. I'm just saying if Benoit was available right now, I would try to close with him." 

I'm not sure why Leyland's hesitant to anoint Benoit, but it's worth noting that Benoit (who's 35 years old, same age as Valverde, which just astounds me) has pitched on back-to-back days just four times this year and has yet to work three days running. The reference in the above quote to the pitcher's availability may be significant.

Another possibility is that the manager is hoping for a trade for a established closer. Or even former Twin Jesse Crain, a notion floated this week by the Chicago Tribune's Phil Rogers. Rogers generates a lot of  trade ideas that don't go anywhere, but trading Crain makes a certain amount of sense for the White Sox; this is the last year of his contract with the Sox, and the Sox certainly aren't going anywhere with him.

A phine Phillies team and other notes

That was a rather efficient dismantling of the Dodgers in the NLCS, wasn't it? Philadelphia took the Dodgers' strong suit — the bullpen — and whupped up on it.

The American League, I have said repeatedly for years, is far the superior league. But the Phillies are capable of beating the Yankees — and yes, the ALCS isn't over yet, but Anaheim isn't winning this thing — just as they beat Tampa Bay last October.

I'll write at some length about the World Series matchup another time, but my gut tells me that this guy might be the decisive player. He was the biggest reason the Phillies won the postseason tournament in 2008, but he hasn't dominated at all in 2009, and his 6.75 through three postseason starts isn't getting it done this year.

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The Twins' signing of much-hyped Dominican shortstop prospect Miguel Angel Sano became official this week. They're still not sure the kid's really just 16, and it's quite likely that he won't remain a shortstop, but it's one of a series of signings and draft picks this year that indicates the Twins are pushing harder for top-shelf amateur talent.

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Out in Detroit, Carlos Guillen popped off about Jim Leyland and playing left field, then he and Leyland had a phone chat, and supposedly everything's OK now.

Supposedly. The fact remains that Guillen is 34. He has a bad knee and a bad shoulder, a $10 million salary for 2010 and steadily declining numbers. That's the very image of a player in decline.

Leyland can say now that Guillen will be his nine-inning left fielder in 2010, but that doesn't make it so, or make it wise.

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A somewhat bewildering field of managerial finalists in Cleveland — Bobby Valentine, who would figure to be a win-now selection; Manny Acta, who was fired in midseason in Washington; and Torey L0vullo, who has been managing in the Indians farm system.

It seems to be me that Lovullo would be the logical choice. Given the trades GM Mark Shapiro has made the last two seasons, the Indians appear to be in rebuilding mode — trades of CC Sabathia, Cliff Lee, Casey Blake, Mark DeRosa and Victor Martinez had pumped an enviable amount of young talent into the organization. But it's hardly certain that Shapiro has the long leash to write off 2010.

Valentine makes no sense from any perspective for Cleveland.

(Corrected: Replaced Travis Fryman with Lovullo.)

The crybabies are out

A few quick examples:

* The St. Louis Cardinals lost Game 2 of the NLDS Thursday when (a) the always-overrated Matt Holliday let a routine fly hit him in the belly button with two outs in the ninth (above) and (b) closer Ryan Franklin apparently decided that absolved him of the need to throw strikes.

So the Cardinals, rather than blame their supposed stars, blamed ... the fans in Los Angeles. Starting pitcher Adam Wainwright:

I mean, that ball got lost in 50,000 white towels shaking in front of Matt’s face. It doesn’t really seem fair that an opposing team should be able to allow their fans to shake white towels when there’s a white baseball flying through the air. How about Dodger Blue towels?

Someday I'd like to see a Tony LaRussa team lose with some class. It may take a while.

* Jim Leyland is still moaning about the no-call on Brandon Inge in the top of the 12th inning Tuesday:

I'm really upset that it ended the way it did, having Brandon get hit by a pitch, because that totally changes that game. I can understand how the ump didn't see the pitch hit him, but to say video was inconclusive upsets me, because everybody in America saw that it did.

OK, Mr. Leyland. I'm willing to concede umpire Randy Marsh blew that call if you're willing to admit Marsh missed the call on Alexi Casilla's slide home in the 10th. It he gets that one right, there's no 12th inning anyway. For that matter, perhaps you would acknowledge that letting Gerald Laird swing away on 3-1 with the bases loaded was a mistake.

Oh wait. That would be your mistake. Better to pin it on the ump.

* Speaking of the Detroit Tigers: Detroit GM David Dombrowski, who had the pleasant chore of fetching his $153 million first baseman from police custody last weekend, implied during his end-of-season press briefing that (a) this isn't the first time Miguel Cabrera has had too much to drink and (b) that he urged Cabrera, in a meeting Wednesday with the slugger and his agent, to get treatment. Implied rather than stated outright, with a lot of talk about the team's obligations and limitations under the collective bargaining agreement and employee assistance program. In other words: We can't make him do anything about his problem.

It wasn't sweet Tuesday night hearing fans chant "al-co-hol-ic" at Cabrera. The only defense for it is that it's true.

Meanwhile, there is serious speculation that Cabrera may still have been legally intoxicated at the start of Saturday's game against the White Sox, in which he went 0-for-4.

Cabrera wasn't the first big star to play in a key game hungover or drunk or otherwise self-medicated, and he won't be the last. That doesn't mean he doesn't have a problem. And when the team's got a $153 million commitment to the player, the team has the problem too.