Congratulations to me. Charleston, SC just got a new American League franchise (along with the NL's new entry in Indianapolis) and Swamp Foxes managing partner Mike Veeck has appointed me manager.
The bulk of managerial duties are practiced in the clubhouse, on the plane and in the hotel with the human beings populating the team. I'll be off-loading that element of the job to my chief operating officer Joe V. Uhl.
My forte is applying optimal game strategies, which means understanding the research, analyzing situations, maintaining a season-long time horizon, and knowing what makes the players tick. Joe will be by my side in the dugout for that last part.
What fans of the Swamp Foxes will notice, besides our awesome home uniforms featuring Francis Marion in full Revolutionary War regalia and our well-appointed neo-classical ballpark hard by the harbor in historic downtown, is that our team will operate differently than every other. Consequently, we will win games.
No Closer; More Platoons
First, when we break camp, only 10 pitchers will come north from Florida. Five starters and five relievers should be sufficient, particularly in the early months, as days off reduce the fifth starter to a utility role. Our best reliever is our fireman, ready to douse rallies whenever they occur. Securing the last three outs with a three-run lead, though recorded by the newspaper, will be neither particularly noted in our dugout nor assigned to a particular hurler. Let Joe deal with the fallout.
While I'm at it, I'll staff a couple of bullpen jockeys who can throw two or three frames at a time. That will provide the flexibility to scratch the starter early if he's scuffling.
The happy consequence, of course, is that 15 position players will leave our bench thick with pinch-hitters, defensive specialists and platoon-pairs. The flexibility that gives us will enhance the output at some positions and foil the use of LOOGYs and other pitching abominations.
Employing platoons means a roster soft on stars but packing punch nonetheless. An outfield platoon of Matt Joyce and Drew Stubbs (they aren't teammates, but my GM is working a 10-cents-on-the-dollar deal for each of them) doesn't sound too impressive, but Joyce rocks a 1.032 OPS against righties (versus .639 against southpaws) and Stubbs delivers .831 facing lefties. With six hitters riding my pine every night (loblolly pine: this is Charleston), I can afford to mix and match, yanking Joyce when the LOOGY makes a late-inning appearance.
A Sensible Batting Order
I'm not bestowing top billing to our speedy middle infielder with the whiffle ball bat. The guy who bats first bats most and that's the wrong place for a junebug who couldn't hit a beach ball with a kayak paddle. On-base percentage, not velocity, is paramount in the leadoff position, so my leadoff batter will be someone who gets aboard. Lumbering Jason Giambi (.403 OBP) trumps Zack Cozart (.290) as a leadoff prospect, but Giambi saw the top spot nine times in his 17-year career while Cozart has heard his song first in 101 of his 130 MLB games.
Generally after that, my best hitters will be at the top of the order and my worst at the bottom, adjusting to alternate lefties and righties when practical.
Bunting and Stealing Judiciously
Sacrificing trades a precious out and the opportunity to post crooked numbers for a skooch better chance at scoring one run. Consequently, we'll employ this strategy when one run wins the game, and only enough otherwise to keep the enemy on its toes. These decisions will also be affected by the batter-pitcher match-up, the fielding alignment and the on-deck batters.
Stealing is an asset when it succeeds but a little bit of death when it fails. We'll limit our attempts strategically, but we'll occasionally send the runner when we shouldn't -- just to confuse Ron Washington and other deep thinkers.
Customized Pitch Counts
Mark Buerhle's on the hill? Let him throw all night. Pedro Martinez starting tonight? Get him out around 100 pitches. History tells us he tires after 90. A 22-year-old coming off TJ surgery? Yank him as soon as he labors. Pitch counts are more blunt instrument than science, so I'll treat them with respect without allowing them to become my master.
Shifts and Other Customized Strategies
Oreos are yummy, but you wouldn't feed them to your dog. Likewise with fielding alignments: you don't defend David Ortiz the same way you defend Ichiro. I'd throw novel defensive arrangements at some enemy batsmen and challenge them to prove us wrong. A beneficial side effect is that it won't behoove a hitter to practice beating a shift until several teams employ it, so if we're first, we're most likely to succeed.
Use the Right Stats
You'll never hear this manager talk about a good RBI guy. He knows that a batter is either a good hitter in a position to knock in runs or a lucky hacker fronted in the lineup by mad table-setters. Ryan Howard didn't knock in 136+ runs a year from '06-'09 because he was a good RBI guy; he knocked in all those runs because he smashed 45+ homers and tallied 300+ total bases behind Jimmy Rollins and Chase Utley.
You also won't hear this manager justify a pitcher-batter match-up based on a handful of previous experiences. If I pinch hit for Juan Pierre against Matt Albers it won't be because of a career .125 batting average against the Indians' righty. Pierre has eight plate appearances against Albers. In fact, Pierre has essentially no lefty-righty splits for his career. The Swamp Foxes' skipper understands about small sample sizes.
I might trot out terms like on-base percentage, OPS, BABIP, range factor and other metrics that matter. The difference between Dusty Baker and me will be that one of us mouths atrophied old statistical shibboleths while the other flexes his muscular quantifiers, not that one uses stats and the other doesn't.
Don't Be Afraid to Innovate
Testing new ideas that don't work gets managers excoriated in the baseball media, providing a palpable disincentive to innovating. I already disdain the baseball ignorati, so I won't be swayed by their recalcitrance to unorthodox methods.
Here are some things I might try:
1. Take a pair of starters who lack stamina and platoon them every fifth day. One guy will pitch the first four or five innings and the other will know he's coming in for the last four or five. It might produce a #1 starter and save the bullpen some action.
2. Platoon position players not by handedness but by day/night or by ballpark or something else that might have an impact. Who knows better than a manager with whom this might work?
3. Give selected players whole series off to go home, see the family, take care of life business and recharge. At the cost of four missed games, they get five days of rest and emotional health. It wouldn't work for everyone -- maybe not even for most players -- but I'll bet there are those who would benefit.
4. (Ironically) practice bunting endlessly. Then employ the bunt for safeties. It forces the opposition to defend yet one more part of the field.
5. Instruct my team to strike out less and hit more home runs. I'm telling you, I'm an innovator.
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