One of the better articles on Donnie's time in LA,.... http://www.dailynews.com/sports/201...m=newsletter&utm_campaign=los-angeles-dodgers If we could all mutually agree upon a lasting impression of Donnie Baseball Manager, all wrapped up in a Dodgers straitjacket, what would it be? How about that awkwardly defiant moment when he defended his honor sitting next to a horribly uncomfortable then-GM Ned Colletti after the 2013 season blew up? That tenacity was worth a three-year contract extension. Then there was the awkward but loyal insistence that really no one was to blame — not even himself — for the fact third base was left uncovered during a defensive shift that punctuated the decisive 2015 Game 5 of the NLDS against the Mets. The obfuscation likely didn’t sit well within the current front-office boys, who wanted no part of awkwardness when they muttered something Thursday about Mattingly mutually agreeing to leave. (Cue up Willie Wonka telling the kid who wants to be zapped into the TV set: "Stop. Don't. Come back.") Remember Mattingly’s post-game press conferences, for those who could see them on SportsNet L.A.? They were often a series of shrugs, hand-wringing, hemming and hawing. There was some concern he was going to strangle himself as he rubbed his neck, searching for a simple answer to a question, without a lot of conviction. Remember some of Mattingly’s in-game confrontations — not just the ones that were on national TV? He tried to appear far more stoic, if not emasculated, as players like Clayton Kershaw and Andre Ethier appeared as if they wanted to wrap their hands around his neck. That feeling, apparently, was mutual, too. • The Don Mattingly who came to L.A. as a package deal with Joe Torre in 2008 is sent packing after posting one the most impressive regular-season winning percentages (.551) in franchise history, albeit in just a five-year sample. It’s that nagging 8-11 postseason mark (.421 percent) that did him in. Although, by comparison, Dusty Baker had similar numbers in his 20 years as a manager (.526 regular season, .422 in the playoffs at 19-26), and it’s not far behind Mike Scioscia’s current 16-year-run (.546 regular season, .438 in the playoffs at 21-27). And those are two guys who fans have mentioned they’d like to see next? Check the flux capacitor again. You know it’s not 2002, right? • Mutual Inductance, for you Mark McGwire, Big-Bang followers, is a basic property of physics that has to do with the magnetic field of two or more coils close together producing some notable voltage. Let’s at least mutually agree that Mattingly and Dodgers loyalists had no such connection, and there was never going be inductance into a Dodgers Hall of Fan Fame. AC/DC could have held concerts after every game and it wouldn’t happen. Advertisement For various reasons, Dodgers fans seemed to recoil around him. There was nothing Lasorda-esque magnetic about him. (Fk Lasorda) From our vantage point, Mattingly The Manager came across as an affable concierge at a high-end hotel who knew how to use the phone book, sort the mail and be responsible for a set of master keys. He just didn’t make everyone around him real confident he knew how to use them in an age of cell phones, emails and thumbprint identifications. "I have confidence in myself," we recall him saying when Frank McCourt handed him a primo parking pass in 2011. “I’ve been around the game a long time, not necessarily in the manager’s seat. I know people are going to question it, and that’s understandable. But I know I can do it.” A guy who watched a lot of Yankees World Series celebrations next to Torre but never came close to one as a player was cool and kind and commanded respect for his baseball accomplishments — which came with that now somewhat ironic nickname. But something didn’t translate. As a motivator, a leader of a clubhouse with all kinds of factions, one who never could quite figure out this Yasiel Puig deal, he came off as more a caretaker than someone who wanted to take an extra base. • Based on the resume he has built in the skipper department, would a franchise like Washington, Miami or San Diego benefit by taking him in? Perhaps. It depends on their urgency to win versus a dependency to field a competitive regular-season team that keeps their fans satisfied. The L.A. fans, asked to pay much more for tickets, food and souvenirs and still get shut out from TV access, won’t keep subsidizing a franchise with an obscene payroll when there’s nothing more than another NL West flag to brag about. It’s a warped, unrealistic scenario that’s been created. Mattingly just may be the first of several to get swept under the mat because of it. • So now, with all the names thrown out there, the 40-year-old Gabe Kapler, by all intrinsic measurements, appears to be the prime internal suspect in succeeding Mattingly? Whiz kid president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman spotted Kapler’s talents back when he played for his Tampa Bay Rays (2009-10), and GM Farhan Zaidi is confident in his metrics know-how and on-field experience. Born in Hollywood and schooled at Taft High in Woodland Hills, with stops at Cal State Fullerton and Moorpark College, here’s a 57th-round draft choice who grinded out 12 years of big-league playing experience with six teams as well as a season in Japan. Note that Kapler was actually cut by Mattingly from the Dodgers’ 2011 spring-training roster. Kapler also recently helped run a company where Mattingly’s son, Preston, was one of his key employees. The Malibu resident expounds about his life values on his website www.kaplifestyle.com. Seen it lately? There are blog pieces that state: To build a winning culture “you need to clean the gutters.” Or: “If you want to encourage your athlete’s motivation, don’t praise innate talent. Focus on behavior instead.” Also: “Today’s players don’t blindly follow direction. They want to know the answer to the question ‘why?’” He’s either got a future as a Dodgers clubhouse motivational speaker or a fortune cookie writer. More questions on the blog at insidesocal.com/tomhoffarth
This is even better of an article IMO- —Just when I thought I could relax until the end of the World Series, the Dodgers pull me back in by firing, I mean "parting ways," with Mattingly. The news brought much rejoicing among Dodgers fans, most of whom did not like Mattingly as a manager, though they thought he was a pretty good guy. But was it a good move? Let's break it down. —When pointing to why they didn't like him, most fans who emailed me said he was horrible at filling out a lineup. He would often have his worst on-base guy at the top spot and bench guys who were hot in order to give someone like Chris Heisey a start. And those fans are right. The lineups the Dodgers trotted out were often poorly thought-out, with no consideration given to who was pitching for the Dodgers or who was playing well, or to any number of things a manager should consider. But here's the bad news: Mattingly had very little to do with the lineups. The Dodgers’ front office gave a great deal of input into who should play, and when and where they should bat in the lineup. Andrew Friedman and Farhan Zaidi are still here, so look for more odd lineups next season. —Here's the problem with the front office having the main say in the lineups: They just look at raw numbers. That only gives you part of the picture. Statistics are effective tools in helping you make decisions, but they should not be the only thing you consider. Friedman and Zaidi don't know things that Mattingly, or any manager, knows before any given game. They just look at numbers. But the manager knows if Chris Heisey's dog died that morning, so maybe his head isn't entirely in the game. He knows if Kike Hernandez faced the opposing pitcher in the minors, and that the pitcher hit Hernandez with a pitch intentionally, so Hernandez has extra motivation that day. The manager knows which player had a fight with his girlfriend or wife that morning, and which player has his family at the game that night for the first time in a long time. So, by all means, give the manager all the data you want, but if you don't let the manager ultimately decide the lineup, then you don't have a manager at all. You have a puppet. —The Dodgers’ bullpen failure. This one can't really be pinned on Mattingly at all. Friedman and Zaidi gave him little to work with. When Chris Hatcher finally became a reliable setup man for Kenley Jansen, Mattingly stuck with him. Sure, he picked the wrong guy to come in with the bases loaded in Game 1 of the NLDS, but it's not as if any option he had was great. —Mattingly's seeming lack of emotion. Hey, I wish Mattingly showed a little more emotion too, but the days of Tommy Lasorda (thank fkng God), are over. Look at the most successful managers of the last 20 years: Joe Torre,Bruce Bochy and Tony LaRussa. All pretty emotionless. Besides, with Andre Ethier on the bench, there is already plenty of emotion in the dugout. — Seems to me that Mattingly was just as tired of being a puppet of the front office as anyone and wanted to go, hence the "mutual parting of the ways." I would not be surprised if Mattingly gets hired in the off season and has success wherever he manages from here on out. I hope he does, because he seems to be a good, stand-up guy, whose players loved him (most of them anyway). So good luck to you, Don Mattingly, and best wishes against every team except the Dodgers. — How can we rate Mattingly as a manager? Well, one way is to look at how many games the Dodgers were expected to win each year and how many they actually won. You can do this by using the Pythagorean theorem for managers. What is that? As explained by baseball-reference.com, Pythagorean winning percentage is an estimate of a team's winning percentage given its runs scored and runs allowed. If a team has a better record than its Pythagorean winning percentage, you can give some credit for it to the manager. If it is worse, you can give some blame to the manager. The formula is runs scored times 1.83 divided by the sum of runs scored times 1.83 plus runs allowed times 1.83. Is it a perfect tool? Of course not, no stats are perfect. But it gives us just one more way to evaluate managers. Using this method, here's how Mattingly looks: 2011 Pythagorean W-L: 84-77 Actual W-L: 82-79 Credit: -2 2012 Pythagorean W-L: 86-76 Actual W-L: 86-76 Credit: 0 2013 Pythagorean W-L: 89-73 Actual W-L: 92-70 Credit: +3 2014 Pythagorean W-L: 92-70 Actual W-L: 94-68 Credit: +2 2015 Pythagorean W-L: 89-73 Actual W-L: 92-70 Credit: +3 With this formula, Mattingly's Dodgers finished a combined six games better than they should have, with his worst season coming in his rookie season. Now, how does that compare to other managers who led teams from 2011-15? Let's take a look: Clint Hurdle (Pittsburgh), +17 Buck Showalter (Baltimore), +13 Fredi Gonzalez (Atlanta), +11 Bruce Bochy (San Francisco), +10 Joe Girardi (Yankees), +8 Mike Scioscia (Angels), +7 Don Mattingly, +6 Joe Maddon (Tampa Bay, Cubs), +5 Ron Roenicke (Milwaukee), +4 Mike Matheny (St. Louis), +2 Bud Black (San Diego), +1 Ned Yost (Kansas City), 0 Kirk Gibson (Arizona), -1 Robin Ventura (White Sox), -1 Terry Francona (Boston, Cleveland), -3 Terry Collins (Mets), -3 Bob Melvin (Oakland), -21 Yep, that's Mattingly sitting in seventh place.
"Bums" died a long time ago and so did their part of history when they were "the people's cherce" (Brooklynese) along with their endearing historical status as the lovable team battling two more successful big time franchises within the same city. NY Giants had a prior history of "winning" while Brooklyn struggled along in the earlier decades, and of course the Yanks were also doing quite well before the Brooklyn Dodgers finally broke through and won the only WS for "Brooklyn", in '55. The "bums" don't exist anymore - they are and have been the Hollywood Dodgers and for a time were aka carpetbaggers until the older generation began to fade away. There isn't anymore mystique.... no more romanticism. They are ....The Hollywood Dodgers! IMHO.
If one was born in the time period, when Brooklyn's moniker was "The Bums, " you'd still be calling 'em The Bums......!!! Some things never change, even with a change in venue, locale, et al. They will always be the bums in my book..........so be it......!!!
