The Psychological Warfare of Buck Showalter

I didn't write about this when I originally saw it just because it seemed to be such a non-story. But Buck Showalter's comments in the April issue of Men's Journal seem to have caused shockwaves through the Evil Empires.

"I'd like to see how smart Theo Epstein is with the Tampa Bay payroll," he said. "You got Carl Crawford 'cause you paid more than anyone else, and that's what makes you smarter? That's why I like whipping their butt. It's great, knowing those guys with the $205 million payroll are saying, 'How the hell are they beating us?'?"...

"The first time we went to Yankee Stadium, I screamed at Derek Jeter from the dugout," Showalter told the magazine. "Our guys are thinking, 'Wow, he's screaming at Derek Jeter.' Well, he's always jumping back from balls just off the plate. I know how many calls that team gets -- and yes, he [ticks] me off."

Showalter has taken a lot of psychological tactics since coming to the team. He has let the team know last season that nobody is assured a job in Baltimore for 2011. Even in Spring Training, he will not commit to Jake Fox as the backup catcher, even in the face of 8 homers. Similarly, Zach Britton is almost assuredly going to Norfolk but Buck seems like he wants to keep him in camp as long as possible...perhaps to send a message to the other three young starters that nothing is decided yet.

Beyond that, his gamesmanship has been showing as well. The comments above poking the division Goliaths. His practice of not throwing Jeremy Guthrie and Chris Tillman against division rivals in Spring Training. 

Who knows if any of these tactics will have the desired effect? But he's trying to change the mindset in Baltimore. And that can't be bad in the long run.

"Let's face it," Showalter told the Bergen Record, "I know where we sit [in the East]. I just want my players to know it's not hopeless. That's the main thing I'm trying to do here. How is it going to pan out? We'll just have to see."

If it ruffles some Yankee and Red Sox feathers in the process, all the better.

Luke Scott: An Appreciation

Luke Scott has been under appreciated throughout his career.

Cleveland traded him as a minor league for pitcher Jeriome Robertson, a 26-year-old with a 5.18 ERA over 43 career games up to that point. He proceeded to hit like crazy in the Houston system. The Astros saw him as a platoon player only (even though his career splits were not crazy: .875 OPS against righties, .793 vs lefties) and threw him in as one of 5 players sent to Baltimore in the original Miguel Tejada deal.

Even after Scott had proved himself as a legitimate slugger (if a flawed overall hitter) with Baltimore, was he given the role of cleanup hitter in 2010? No. Coming into the season, Tejada was given that job, despite years of declining power.

What? You doubt he was a legitimate slugger? From 2008 through today, Scott has the 10th best ISO in the American League, right behind Evan Longoria, just ahead of Justin Morneau. He's 12th in slugging, tied with Shin-Soo Choo, just ahead of Paul Konerko.

But he is never mentioned with those players. Again, much of that has to do with the fact that he doesn't hit for a great average and hasn't ever hit more than 25 homers (although that looks to change this year). But he has led the Orioles in slugging over for the past three seasons, yet has batted cleanup only 49 times in his career (including the last 15 games for Baltimore).

In the absence of a Prince Fielder or an Adrian Gonzalez on this team, Scott should have been the obvious choice but was overlooked.

Chris Jaffe wrote an article for The Hardball Times (at the prompting of Dan from Camden Crazies) examining Buck Showalter and his manging style. This in particular jumped out at me:

Also, it's especially important that he get such good OBP from his table setters, because if there's one thing his teams have been good at over the years, it's slugging the ball. Twice a Showalter-managed team led the league is Isolated Power, on two other occasions they finished second, in a fifth year they came in third, and in two more campaigns they came in fourth. Not bad for an 11-year haul.


Thinking it through, there's a clear theme to everything above, a theme that represents Showalter's offensive philosophy. He isn't playing for one run at a time, but prefers going for the big inning. To that end, he'll try to put good OBP at the top of the order so his big boppers can drive runners in...

I don't want to overstate my case. Showalter's no magician who automatically makes everyone a better power hitter (Soriano, most notably, did not improve under him). My point is much simpler. Baseball can be like any other workspace in that employees respond to items their boss pays more attention to. 

Buck is going to find a way to keep his power bats in the lineup. I have a feeling that if Showalter had been hired in the offseason, Scott would have been given every chance to win the first base job instead of being relegated to DH by default. Scott won't be overlooked again...not while Buck is the manager.

New Faces, New Places

Lots going on in Birdland over the last 24 hours. First and foremost, is the hiring of new manager Buck Showalter. Showalter was probably choice 1a for me; I liked Eric Wedge a lot but evidently Andy MacPhail and I were the only ones. Reportedly, Peter Angelos liked Showalter a lot and the lengthy negotiation with him was in part to define Buck's role and how he would work with MacPhail.

It's probably a good thing for Showalter to take over before the end of this miserable season. Showalter and his staffs have a pretty good track record of talent evaluation and development and the more time Buck has to evaluate the big league roster and the September call-ups, the better.

Shortly after the Showalter announcement, the Orioles traded 3B Miguel Tejada to the Padres for a pitching prospect. Tejada was considered (correctly) expendable with Josh Bell sitting in Norfolk and garnered the team a fair, but not great, pitching prospect in Wynn Pelzer. Pelzer projects as a reliever but that's decent value for old man Tejada.

By the way, can the current regime come to an end soon enough? From the Baltimore Sun, Brian Matusz talks about the quick hook he received in Thursday's game:

"I was little bit shocked because it was so soon, and my first few innings I was so effective,” Matusz said. “Things were going so well. I still felt pretty good at that point. I was a little upset. Obviously nobody likes coming out of the game, especially when you have good stuff and that’s how I felt. Juan obviously felt that it was a game that we had, we had the lead at the time, and I wasn’t capable of finishing the job, so that was the move he decided to make and obviously I wanted to stay in there and keep going. But if I don’t like it I need to stop walking guys and pitch better.”


Hi there. Out of character for me but I'm about to curse...

Matusz is being just about as diplomatic as he can here but he's absolutely correct. Sure, if he didn't walk those guys, this problem takes care of itself. But Samuel (and Showalter) need to leave these kids in the game for experience, struggles be damned. Wins and losses mean fuck all for 2010. Samuel is managing for a win over the Royals at the expense of valuable innings for a potential future ace? What a cock. I have no doubt that this has at least a little to do with the Showalter announcement and the fact that Samuel is out for himself for these last four games.

From Samuel:

Samuel said after the game that Matusz has become a “major concern,” though he still expects the lefty to make his next start.



“My mindset with these guys is I just didn’t want to put them in position where they could lose the ball game and you end up overexposing these guys,” Samuel said. “We’ve seen it so many times where some young guys come up and they can’t find the plate. Like I said, if I can remove these guys earlier than late, I’m going to do it just so I can protect them. He was throwing the ball so good. We just think he lost focus there for one minute and we didn’t want to leave him out there any longer.”

Major concern? Douchebag, you are not going to be the manager by the time Matusz starts again. It's no longer your concern at all.

And then you show your ignorance by worrying about Matusz "losing" the game. You are managing the worst team in baseball. Matusz is smart enough to realize that even moral victories count at this point. He didn't want to come out. He didn't care if he "lost". He wanted to battle through it. That kid is ten times smarter than you and your slavish reliance on meaningless stats like pitcher "wins" and "losses". Especially on a team that is 30+ games out of first! You prick. You were protecting no one.

Tuesday can't come soon enough...