Monday Morning Quarterbacking
by StonewallPDS on Dec 21, 2009 2:02 PM EST
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PrintDo Royals BigWigs read those websites critical of their decisions?
Would you read sites like this if you were a Royals BigWig? The likely answer is no--you and I would be tempted to chalk up much of the jabber that goes on around here as good old fashioned Monday Morning Quarterbacking.
The technical term for Monday Morning Quarterbacking is "hindsight bias":
Is the above quote what descriptive of what we have going on here?Hindsight bias is the inclination to see events that have occurred as more predictable than they in fact were before they took place. Hindsight bias has been demonstrated experimentally in a variety of settings, including politics, games and medicine. In psychological experiments of hindsight bias, subjects also tend to remember their predictions of future events as having been stronger than they actually were, in those cases where those predictions turn out correct.
I agree with a recent suggestion that Dayton Moore has been, perhaps, needless vilified. Baseball is merely a game, after all, and I find it difficult to muster vilification toward him, or anybody else, associated with it. Anybody can second-guess the moves of another, or, as Randy Travis might say, hindsight is 20/20, and I'm nearly going blind. I happen to be involved in a profession where hindsight bias is the order of the day, and it is a very real problem, and generally sucks when it occurs.
With that said, however, what is one to make of the following 2008 track record:
-- Acquired Mike Jacobs for Leo Nunez
-- Acquired Coco Crisp for Ramon Ramirez
-- Signed Kyle Farnsworth to a two-year contract
-- Signed Horacio Ramirez to a one-year contract
-- Signed Doug Waechter to a one-year contract
-- Signed Willie Bloomquist to a two-year contract
-- Signed Juan Cruz to a two-year contract
-- Signed Zack Greinke to a four-year contract
-- Acquired Ryan Freel for a PTBNL
-- Acquired Josh Anderson for a PTBNL
-- Acquired Yuniesky Betancourt* * *
-- Signed Luis Hernandez to a minor league deal
-- Claimed Tug Hulett off waivers
-- Signed Sidney Ponson to a minor league deal
-- Signed Bruce Chen to a minor league deal
As one wit has described the above Rogue's Gallery of moves, "that makes 14 players who made their Royals debut [in 2008]. (Greinke obviously isn’t included since he was already here.) Those 14 have a combined WAR of -0.7."
Is there really anything else that can or needs to be said about the 2008 season?
If we are Monday Morning Quarterbacks, then signing Kyle Farnsworth is an onside kick when leading by two with only one minute left, and adding Bruce Chen is a fake punt on fourth and 28, and with an aging left foot at that.
And the Yuni signing is akin to... well, I'll leave it to others to hash that one out in the comments, but let's just say it was no less than an ill-advised double-flee-flicker of some sort.
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The big issue with GMDM vis-a-vis, well, us
Is that we aren’t Monday Morning Quarterbacking. We’ve been Saturday Night Quarterbacking. With a couple of exceptions where the fanbase here has been somewhat divided, we’ve all pointed out Moore’s bad moves when they happened. The most sterling example of this was on Opening Day 2009, when about six of us in the game thread said in one fashion or another “Letting Farnsworth pitch to Thome? Here comes a home run.”
See, this is the problem with this organization. We can see what’s going to happen; they can’t.
The only cases where our reaction has been divided were with Guillen (we all agreed that the money was outlandish, but some people thought his production would at least be positive) and Crisp (who actually was a good pickup, until he got hurt). And we all missed the boat on the Juan Cruz deal, which is why almost nobody throws that one in GMDM’s face now (and when someone does, it takes about 27 seconds for a “Wait, that was a good signing, just didn’t work out” response to show up). And really, that’s the key; there’s no case where Moore made a move we thought was good (or even neutral) and then turned on him for later, which would be the hallmark of MMQ.
This space for rent.
by jonfmorse on Dec 21, 2009 2:50 PM EST reply actions 5 recs
You hit it on the head
This is exactly the point I was driving at, and even was going to use the term Saturday morning quarterbacking. I chose instead to “bury the lede”, so to speak. Sabermetrics is precise opposite of Monday morning quarterbacking. It actually constitutes foresight bias, if you think about it.
StonewallPDS
by StonewallPDS on Dec 22, 2009 10:18 AM EST up reply actions
I agree
This post was confusing. I wasn’t sure whether you were saying most people were just using 20/20 hindsight in bashing Dayton’s moves, or whether you thought there was some justified pre-move criticism.
"Now…put that in your [BLEEP]ing pipe and smoke it." -Hal McRae
"I was doing this when BJ was in his father's nutsack." -Renzo Gracie
by Sweep_the_Leg on Dec 22, 2009 12:18 PM EST up reply actions
I will try to do better next time
I hope you will find it in your hearts to forgive, especially during this season of giving.
StonewallPDS
by StonewallPDS on Dec 22, 2009 1:47 PM EST up reply actions
Its especially confusing
Considering there are football games played on Monday night!
Relive Royals History at royalsretro.blogspot.com
The Thursday and Saturday games were weird
mostly because I don’t get NFL network
My stories a lot like yours only more interesting because it involves robots!
but Wednesday morning quarterback
just doesn’t have the same ring to it…
"Shot by my own men."
by StonewallPDS on Dec 22, 2009 5:00 PM EST up reply actions
You're forgiven
but I missed the point the first time I read the post, as well.
It's pronounced Poo-ZHOLS in Catalan.
yea
alot of us hated these moves from the beginning, so people said, “give them a chance”
by Freneau on Dec 21, 2009 2:58 PM EST reply actions 1 recs
i said "give them a chance"
and look how right i was
You used to know me as benf.... Now you know my true identity...MacGyver
by SagehenMacGyver47 on Dec 21, 2009 5:12 PM EST up reply actions
When you can peg the move before he makes it
simply because it’s the worst move to be made, that’s pretty sad.
I believe we have at least a few readers here who have predicted the badness in advance, and I invite posters to reply with their prognostications come true. d_f, I’m thinking you had a big one. And most of us expect to trade for Willy Taveras any day now.
If we know it is bad, and see it coming, it is not hindsight bias. I’m wondering at what point you have to chalk it up to sheer stupidity and stubborness, because if the above average fan of baseball can tell you your move is horrible and be right with about 90% accuracy, you need to change how you build your team.
by AxDxMx on Dec 21, 2009 3:16 PM EST reply actions 1 recs
He's Not Building
A team, he’s tearing one down. In attempting to be competitive while strengthening the MiLB system he most often fails and would have done better doing nothing. Time will tell how well he has drafted, but most of his “big” trades and FA signings have actually hurt the team and/or entire organization.
I used to be an A's fan until they left town and got good.
by philofthenorth on Dec 21, 2009 4:11 PM EST up reply actions 2 recs
In hindsight,
I wish I hadn’t spent 2 minutes reading this post.
Long time posters here have most definitely been “Saturday Night Quarterbacking”, as opposed to Monday Night Quarterbacking.
In addition, poster here generally admit when they have been wrong and Moore has been right, too. Unfortunately for all of us, this has been far too infrequently, considering he is the professional, and we are a bunch of amatuers studying the game from our Mom’s basement.
Mr Glass, this is a pro sports team, not a retail store - run it like one!
by loyal2sdad on Dec 21, 2009 4:53 PM EST reply actions 1 recs
The Spiderman Pajamas
Give us superpowers.
I used to be an A's fan until they left town and got good.
by philofthenorth on Dec 21, 2009 5:35 PM EST up reply actions
Invisible Airplanes Rock!
I used to be an A's fan until they left town and got good.
by philofthenorth on Dec 21, 2009 5:39 PM EST up reply actions
Did you notice?
That what you are saying is the point of my post? Sorry to have wasted 2 minutes of your time, pal.
StonewallPDS
by StonewallPDS on Dec 22, 2009 10:20 AM EST up reply actions
Moore and needless villification
Attacks on Moore here are generally NOT personal in nature – they are merely critiques of his job performance.
Yes, it is “just a game” – but I want a GM that cares as much about the Royals as the avid posters on this site. Such a GM would not recklessly disregard alternative methods to player valuation, nor would such a GM be stubbornly close-minded. Should he get his ideas from a website like this, or even bother reading a website like this? Not necessarily – but he sure as hell shouldn’t dismiss what the comment on here might represent – an alternative way to look at his job and how to best get the Royals where they need to go.
There are examples of bloggers/amatuer statistical analysts who probably started out very small, yet managed to land important jobs with ML clubs. Tom Tango is a prime example.
We deserve better than an answer of “we have a sabermatrician on payroll”, followed by no further comments/explanation of what this alledged sabermatrician does for the team.
Heh, I’d love to hear that the Royals are doing something “ahead of the curve” – but if they are, they aren’t bothering to explain it, and it defies all current known sabermetric conventions.
Mr Glass, this is a pro sports team, not a retail store - run it like one!
The current market inefficiency is losing
It is extremely cheap to lose with crappy players. Unfortunately, DM misunderstood the principle of market inefficiency and decided to pay top dollar to lose by outbidding himself.
by AxDxMx on Dec 21, 2009 11:56 PM EST up reply actions 1 recs
Saying that someone is incompetent is not "vilifying" him
It is merely describing job performance. And, in the case of Dayton Moore, it is an accurate description of his job performance. This “needless vilification” crap is utter nonsense. When people say that Moore has done a horrible job and should be fired, is that “needless vilification”? How so? Because it is blunt? Is it because if he read it it might hurt his feelings?
Look, we’re not saying he’s a prick. We’re not saying he’s an asshole. We’re not saying he’s a douche. We’re saying that he’s a poor/awful/shitty MLB general manager. That’s it.
The immoderate moderator
It's Like Watching
An apprentice butcher perform open heart surgery and saying he should not do it again. Nothing personal.
I used to be an A's fan until they left town and got good.
by philofthenorth on Dec 21, 2009 5:46 PM EST up reply actions 1 recs
yeah it is.
I have to be honest, I loathe Dayton Moore with every fiber of my being. I hope every bad thing in the world happens to him and only him.
Now, how is the sarcasm font supposed to work here, again?…
I probably have been willing to defend some of DM’s transactions (ie, the Crisp trade) more than many people, and even I think his horribleness as a GM has reached epic proportions over the past 14 months.
I'm happy to defend his good moves
The only problem I have with the treatment Moore gets from some in the fanbase is that once they’ve decided he sucks, then they retroactively decide that all of moves have sucked andall of his future moves will suck too. Emotion shoves rationalism and reasonableness out the window. Every GM’s resume has a bunch of good and bad moves. This is true of DM, of course. Unfortunately there have been more and bigger bad moves than good ones. He will continue to make bad and good moves as long as he is the Royals GM. And the former will continue to outnumber the latter.
The immoderate moderator
by Scott McKinney on Dec 21, 2009 7:52 PM EST up reply actions
Agree with the concept
but perhaps not the reality. It seems to me that this portion of the fanbase, anyway, is generally willing to acknowledge the good moves. I mentioned above that it doesn’t take long for someone to come along and even in hindsight defend the Cruz deal, and it’s not like it’s the same three or four people doing it. I should add that the people who come along and attack the Cruz deal in hindsight… aren’t generally regulars here.
Which leaves the “not here” portion of the fanbase, who generally seem far more inclined to think he’s doing a good job than we are, and I can even recall people trying to defend Moore while at the same time “acknowledging” the Cruz deal as a bad idea. That takes some serious chutzpah.
This space for rent.
and I can even recall people trying to defend Moore while at the same time "acknowledging" the Cruz deal as a bad idea. That takes some serious chutzpah.
…or just plain ignorance. And there’s a lot of that in every team’s fanbase. And there is one Royals fansite which specializes in it.
The immoderate moderator
by Scott McKinney on Dec 21, 2009 8:10 PM EST up reply actions
Is It Us,
Lord? Oh, wrong Christian holiday.
I used to be an A's fan until they left town and got good.
by philofthenorth on Dec 21, 2009 11:30 PM EST up reply actions
I don't like calling for somebody to be fired
It strikes me as too easy, it’s done too often, and it’s graceless at that. Sorry if that is not enough piss and vinegar for your tastes.
StonewallPDS
by StonewallPDS on Dec 22, 2009 10:22 AM EST up reply actions
I don't like it either
when the somebody is a regular Joe just trying to get through the day like the rest of us. So I don’t like slamming marginal players who are making the minimum. Give the guy a break. But when the somebody is a highly-paid public figure who is responsible for a fiasco, I don’t see anything wrong at all with calling for his firing.
It's pronounced Poo-ZHOLS in Catalan.
I prefer half the piss and twice the vinegar
I also don’t like the knee-jerk reaction from fans that a manager or GM should be fired because the team is losing. But a careful, thoughtful conclusion that a manager or GM is poor and thus should be replaced is appropriate.
The immoderate moderator
by Scott McKinney on Dec 22, 2009 1:19 PM EST up reply actions
I tried very hard to think positive on the favorable moves that Dayton
has made. I hoped that Coco would turn into an all star lead off man for us and give us above average defense in CF. Bad luck turn that one into crap. I thought that the Cruz move was a good one too. I even thought the pick up of Bloomy as a utility bench player was a good one. Those two also turn to crap from injuries and overuse. All of the other moves Dayton made even I could see weren’t good ones. Regarding the vilification of Dayton, I think RR is one of the fairest and more knowledgeable of the KC blogs. We do support good moves, rare that they may be, and would like nothing more than to see Dayton Moore and thus the Royals succeed. I think that the negativity on this site comes more from Dayton’s blatant lack of responsibility for his moves and his constant referral to the this so call “process.” At some point the “process” has to produce. When it does, if it does, RR will be in the front row cheering for the Royals. Until then we will choose to be skeptical of any and all of what Dayton does. AND, yes… we will talk about it too.
by grudz96 on Dec 21, 2009 9:23 PM EST reply actions 1 recs
When I Decided
To start following the Royals more closely in 2007, I did some random searches for general info on the current state of the organization. Virtually all of the message boards and blogs I found were eye bleeding bad or just plain juvenile, scatalogical and insanely wrong about everything. This place stood out like a diamond atop a dung pile.
There are several other worthy Royals fan blogs, and I appreciate RR’s efforts to link us to them, but this is, on the whole, the most sane, objective look at the Royals I can find. The fact that it’s not just one person’s opinion creating the content is one of the most appealing aspects of this format, and while even I can post an entry the quality and tone is, by blog standards, exemplary. GMDM gets as fair a treatment here as anyone in his position could ask for. If you can’t stand the heat………
I used to be an A's fan until they left town and got good.
by philofthenorth on Dec 21, 2009 11:49 PM EST up reply actions
Yeah, I know royalsreview probably doesn't hear this enough, so
This is the best Royals blog ever. And I know how to use the sarcasm font, so rest assured the sentiment is genuine.
I have learned so many things here it is ridiculous. And the level of fan discussion is so intelligent I find it hard to believe I would ever leave. This is the best blog for a KC sports team. Keep it up RR!
I think bright people from the Heartland
are drawn to the Royals because Bill James writes about them all the time, and we all know that James is one of the most interesting thinkers about statistics (and lots of other things) alive. James influenced Neyer and Rany and, most importantly, Posnanski, who is a better writer than James. That gave us even more stuff to read and cogitate about. St. Louis may claim it has more tradition, but we have much better writers.
All us geniuses were naturally bound to come together on one Royals message board, and abandon others where the quality of discussion is not as high. It’s the invisible hand of competition and the free market: one has only so much time. That’s a scarce resource. Only the best blogs / boards are going to rise above and stand out among all the dreck floating around the Net. Credit goes to the administration of Royals Review for discovering a hole in the market and filling it well.
It's pronounced Poo-ZHOLS in Catalan.
I was drawn here because of the pain and suffering of Grass Creek ...
… Truly a town riven. Friends, families, and clans torn asunder. PTA meetings descending into chaos. People of all ages being thrown out of bars and denied accommodation solely because of the colors on their hats. Soccer moms running their Caravans, Windstars, and Odysseys at each other in the WalMart parking lot. Pious parishioners being denied communion.
Civil wars are the ugliest. One feels so helpless to stop the strife. For myself I felt that I should start by understanding more of the background and history. So I wound up here and at Lookout Landing, seeking to learn more about the passions and primal urges fueling such strife.
by Steve Nelson on Dec 23, 2009 10:27 AM EST up reply actions 2 recs
Me too.
I was behind Dayton (except for the horrible Guillén signing) until last off-season. I was even hopeful that Crisp would play well (which he did until he got hurt) and that Jake would be non-disastrous (oops).
But he signed Bloomy and Farnsy and Ponson, and we all knew those guys were awful, and then during the season he signed some even more awful players (see: Betancourt, Y.), and the whole world knew those guys were the cream of the crap.
Of all Dayton’s 2009 moves, the only one that worked out was signing Zack. Gotta give him credit for getting that done. As for the rest of them: well, I’d get fired from my job if my performance over one year was that bad. And you have to try really hard to get fired if you’re a native English teacher in Barcelona.
It's pronounced Poo-ZHOLS in Catalan.
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