Wednesday, June 01, 2005
The Cubs Bullpen By Situation:
Dusty Baker's Credibility & Marketing Acumen
In the previous essay I wrote about management credibility, how that requires honesty in the general case and how, equally, management needs to judiciously use disinformation to gain temporary advantages (but without pasting their credibility). Knowing how to find the balance and when to execute this maneuver, which I'll call "a Dusty", is one among the trickiest and most complicated things a manager will ever have to calculate.
PICKING YOUR SPOTS
In that essay I referred to Baker's disinformation about
players taking walks. An e-mail correspondent asked if he always
disinformed/lied, and referred to the April 24 shift in the Cubs
bullpen when Baker claimed he was going to reformulate his relief
pitching routine by shifting to a strategy he labeled Bullpen
by Situation.
According to an A.P. squib:
After Saturday's ninth inning collapse, manager Dusty Baker said he had to make some changes in the bullpen, starting with RHP LaTroy Hawkins, who blew a save for the second time this season.
"Whatever's happening is happening, and we need to get it straight," Baker said Sunday.
He also defended Hawkins. "It's not all on him," Baker said. "We've got to tighten up our total game. If our game was tight, he wouldn't even be in that situation."
Baker said he'll probably go with a "bullpen by situation" philosophy.
So, two things worth talking about here. The first is, did he tell the truth?
Because this is baseball, the perfect mechanism for accountability, we have a hard record to examine -- the box scores for subsequent games. Like many (not all) situations beyond baseball, when you lie or disinform, it's not that difficult for people to expose you.
He did tell the truth. Here's the game by game line for Cub pitching subsequent to Baker's declaration to the press. He did use a bullpen by situation for 13 games until he got his starting pitching in a set up he wanted and then moved one of the starters, Ryan Dempster, into the closer role.
For each of the games, it's date, a short explanation of the pitching, and an abridged pitching line (including pitch count so you could see when a reliever's heavy use was enough to affect when Baker might use that arm next). When you look this over, you'll see he's being very flexible, even beyond the dictates of fatigue, in removing himself from the classic pattern of the last 20 years of having "6th inning guys" and "7th & 8th inning guys" and a "closer".
April 25 Scoreless through early
Pitchers IP
H
R
BB
SO
HR
PC-ST
M Prior (W, 4-0) 6.0
6
2
2
10
1
106-68
C Bartosh (H, 1) 0.2
2
1
1
1
0
22-13
M Wuertz (H, 3) 0.1
0
0
0
1
0
4-3
L Hawkins 1.0
1
0
0
1
0
17-11
C Fox 0.1
1
3
3
0
1
30-12
M Remlinger 0.2
0
0
0
1
0
5-4
April 26 Early departure
Pitchers IP
H
R
BB
SO
HR
PC-ST
C Zambrano 4.2
7
6
3
5
1
104-62
G Rusch 1.1
2
1
0
0
0
18-12
M Wuertz (L, 1-1; B, 1) 0.2
2
3
1
1
0
21-13
M Remlinger 0.1
1
0
0
0
0
7-4
W Ohman 0.2
2
0
1
1
0
18-10
J Leicester 0.2
1
1
1
1
0
12-6
C Bartosh 0.2
0
0
2
1
0
21-10
April 27 Late comeback
Pitchers IP
H
R
BB
SO
HR
PC-ST
R Dempster 5.1
8
6
5
7
1
97-54
W Ohman 0.2
0
0
1
0
0
7-3
R Novoa 1.0
2
1
1
0
0
24-14
G Rusch 1.0
0
0
0
0
0
7-4
L Hawkins (W, 1-1) 1.0
0
0
0
2
0
10-7
April 29 **Late win
G Maddx (W, 1-1) 6.0
7
2
1
3
1
87-55
M Wuertz (H, 4) 1.1
0
0
1
2
0
24-15
W Ohman (H, 1) 0.0
0
0
1
0
0
6-2
R Novoa (H, 1) 0.2
0
0
1
1
0
14-8
L Hawkins (S, 4) 1.0
0
0
0
1
0
13-10
April 30 Down 1 in 5th
K Wood 3.0
4
3
2
6
0
54-34
C Bartosh (L, 0-1) 2.0
2
1
1
4
0
37-24
M Remlinger 1.0
1
0
0
1
0
10-7
M Wuertz 1.0
2
3
3
0
0
30-11
R Novoa 1.0
1
0
0
1
0
11-9
May 1 Losing early
Pitchers IP
H
R
BB
SO
HR
PC-ST
M Prior (L, 3-1) 5.0
7
8
3
7
2
107-78
G Rusch 2.0
4
1
2
2
0
50-27
W Ohman 1.0
0
0
1
0
0
15-8
May 3 Lost low-score in 6th
C Zambrano (L, 2-1) 7.0
7
3
4
10
0
96-62
R Novoa 1.0
2
1
0
2
0
21-13
May 4 Close all the way
R Dempster 6.2
6
3
5
6
1
107-58
W Ohman 0.1
2
0
0
1
0
6-5
M Wuertz 1.0
0
0
1
1
0
15-7
R Novoa (L, 0-1) 0.2
1
1
3
0
0
22-7
May 5 Behind early caught up late
G Maddux 6.0
8
4
3
5
1
100-60
M Remlinger 1.0
0
0
0
0
0
6-4
M Wuertz 1.0
1
1
0
2
1
17-12
L Hawkins (L, 1-2) 0.2
2
1
0
1
0
14-10
May 6 Close until late lead
M Prior 8.0
4
1
2
10
1
105-68
L Hawkins (L, 1-3; B, 3) 1.0
2
2
1
2
0
25-14
May 7 Close all the way
G Rusch (L, 2-1) 4.2
8
2
1
3
0
81-51
T Wellemeyer 2.1
0
0
0
4
0
25-19
M Wuertz 1.1
2
2
1
0
0
33-18
M Remlinger 0.2
0
0
0
0
0
8-4
May 8 Close all the way
C Zambrano (W, 3-1) 9.0
5
1
3
5
1
136-88
May 9 Comeback in 6th
J Leicester 3.0
5
4
1
3
2
59-37
T Wellemeyer 2.0
0
0
1
3
0
26-17
C Bartosh 1.1
2
0
0
3
0
33-20
M Remlinger 0.2
0
0
0
1
0
5-5
L Hawkins (L, 1-4) 1.0
2
1
0
0
1
17-9
R Dempster 1.0
4
2
0
2
0
27-19
Baker did not waste his time trying to force his staff into slots when he knew that players on the disabled list would be coming back in a month or so and he would re-work it anyway. He didn't let the job title dictate the job description -- preferring to rotate people around, ride what he thought might be a hot hand (there weren't any). And when the time came to release Dempster from his starting slot, Dempster-as-closer became the next evolutionary model.
It's flexible, it's adaptive. Bullpen by Situation didn't turn the Cubs fortunes around, though Bullpen-by-Situation-As-Long-As-You-Don't-Let-LaTroy-Pitch seemed to work better than LaTroy-as-Closer.
Baker picked his spot for truth-telling, and sensibly, for two reasons.
The first reason is anyone can look at the record and see the pattern of what he's doing. He didn't declare Dempster would be the closer when the injured starting arms came back because that might have been a distraction to Dempster and it couldn't help anything. For Baker (and for managers beyond baseball) it's almost always necessary to tell the truth when the declaration is measurable and public. The exceptions are few, almost not worth measuring. If he hadn't delivered on this it would start a nasty cycle of mistrust with the press and his players, the kind of thing that derails many a managerial career in and out of baseball.
The second reason is there's no significant competitive advantage in disinforming, so if he had, he'd take a credibility hit of some indeterminate amount, and for no possible gain. Unlike the disinformation about hating walks, no opposing coach beyond a little league one is going to build a pre-game strategy based on an opponent's bullpen design.
POSITIONING: THE BATTLE FOR YOUR
SCORECARD
The second reason this move was worth discussing was Baker
used one of the immutable rules of marketing. He named his scheme
"Bullpen by Situation". He gave it a name -- it wasn't
just something that happened, it was a design, a plan, a theory.
And by giving it a name, he didn't let any legitimate
sportswriter name it "bullpen by committee", the term
illegitimate sportswriters gave a 2003 Boston Red Sox attempt to
apply a parallel form of flexibility to their bullpen.
"Closer by Committee" became a lightning rod, a
surrogate for a dozen bloody sectarian clashes between the forces
of experimentation and a the forces of tradition. Both sides
deployed their shock troops in a battle for the minds and souls
of baseball fans.
Baker had to say something about his plans -- for his players, at least. And that meant the plan would get to the press sooner or later, probably sooner. And if he didn't give it a label, they would have jumped on the "if it bleeds, it leads" headline "Closer by Committee", which this wasn't (if you think I'm wrong, read those pitching lines again).
In marketing, we call this move "Positioning". Discussed most usefully in the book Positioning: The Battle For Your Mind by Ries and Trout, positioning establishes an identity for something, a definition that if made clearly, can't be spun by competitors. It's the single most important valuable book about marketing available, and takes about two hours to read. I cannot recommend it strongly enough for any manager who wants a little bit of marketing ammo. If you follow the rules, you may not always succeed, but if you ignore the rules, you are almost certain to fail.
A few non-legit sportswriters tried very hard to label Baker's approach a "Closer by Committee", but it just didn't stick, both because it wasn't true and because Dusty had already labeled it something different. And the Cubbies continued to lose games, though not necessarily because the bullpen blew up, making his de-fusing of the subversive reporters even more amazing. Note, though, positioning something through a label is most likely to succeed if true -- if it really was a closer by committee, the reality would have outed him. You can't expect to label Matt Stairs a base-stealing phenomenon and have it catch a wave of popular support .
There was another lesson in this set of events, a lesson I'll write about next time that's a wonderful baseball illustration of finding a balance in people management, a balance between giving people what they want and giving the organization what it needs.
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