Tony La Russa Is at It Again
I thought this week couldn’t get any better. I got to write about bunts, one of my favorite things to do, and about the Giants picking up tiny edges, another personal favorite. I got to write about Yordan Alvarez and how people underrate him; now I can cross that off my yearly to-do list. But Thursday took the cake. Have you seen this nonsense?
"When was the last time you saw somebody intentionally walked on 1-2?"
"Doesn't happen often."
*Boom* pic.twitter.com/LNR52guBkG
— White Sox Talk (@NBCSWhiteSox) June 9, 2022
I love writing about bad intentional walks. I love writing about bad managerial decisions. But I can’t really wrap my head around this one, hard as I try. Let’s try to do the math, such as it is, while keeping in mind that no amount of math is going to make this make sense.
Let’s start at the top. Trea Turner is an excellent hitter, and Bennett Sousa is a lefty. Turner boasts average platoon splits for his career. Sousa has hardly pitched in the majors, so let’s just consider him an average lefty. With a runner on second and two outs, passing up an excellent righty hitter against your lefty pitcher is standard operating procedure.
Only, the runner wasn’t on second base at the start of the plate appearance. You can see Freddie Freeman standing on second looking confused in the clip above, but he’d advanced there on a wild pitch. In the meantime, Sousa got ahead of Turner 0-2 before bouncing said wild pitch.
Put a runner on second base on an 0-0 count, and an intentional walk to Turner makes good sense. Turner and Max Muncy, the hitter on deck, have roughly equal career lines and projections for the rest of the year in terms of wRC+, but that’s not a great way to look at it. Turner gets to his production via hits, which are much more dangerous than Muncy’s blend of walks and dingers to a team that really wants to avoid allowing another run to score. Muncy’s also been bad this year and may still be hurt, to say nothing of the platoon advantage.
Again, though: there were two strikes. Do you know how hard it is to hit with two strikes? After a 1-2 count, the league as a whole is hitting .167/.220/.258. Hitting is hard! Pitchers are good! Batters strike out 42.5% of the time after a 1-2 count. Trea Turner is hardly immune; he’s a great hitter, and in his career after a 1-2 count, he’s hitting .231/.280/.349. In his career against lefty pitchers – and in a sample so small you should regress it heavily anyway – he’s hitting .258/.310/.390 after a 1-2 count. Take any great hitter, put them down in the count, and they’ll be worse than league average.
Muncy, meanwhile, isn’t exactly helpless against lefties. In his career, he has a 132 wRC+ against lefties and a 125 wRC+ against righties. He bats for a much higher average against lefties, even, which matters when you’re talking about a runner on second. Regress his splits toward the mean, and he’s a hair better against righties than lefties, but more or less a split-less hitter.
That’s the situation as it stood on 1-2: face a diminished Turner or take a fresh crack at Muncy. I fired up my trusty intentional walk decision matrix to crunch the numbers. It works quite simply; you give it the likelihood of each outcome for the hitter against a generic pitcher of the correct handedness, the likelihood of each outcome for the pitcher against a generic hitter of the correct handedness, and league average for that situation. Plug in those numbers and the game situation, and you can find the likelihood of a White Sox win after each possible outcome. Do that for both Turner (assuming no intentional walk) and Muncy, and presto, I can estimate the likelihood of the South Siders winning with and without the walk.
To simplify things even further, I’m removing Sousa from the equation. With so little time in the majors, his projections are probably pretty noisy. Instead, we’ll just be considering Turner and Muncy facing a generic left-hander, which is essentially what the White Sox use Sousa as.
A few more details on the specifics I used: I took Turner’s career production after 1-2, then applied platoon splits to those numbers, rather than use his production against lefties after 1-2, because the sample size is so small in the second case that I’d have to regress it pretty heavily back towards average platoon splits anyway; the end result would be roughly the same in each case. Fortunately, I didn’t have to apply any further adjustments to match his rest-of-season projections; he has a career .362 wOBA, and a projected rest-of-season .362 wOBA. I love when math works out like that.
Here’s the likelihood of those outcomes:
| Outcome | Odds |
|---|---|
| 1B | 15.9% |
| 2B | 3.5% |
| 3B | 0.8% |
| HR | 2.1% |
| BB/HBP | 6.7% |
| Out | 71.0% |
On a single, I then used the league average rates for scoring from second with two outs, stopping at third, and being thrown out at the plate. I think that’s a fair estimation of Freeman’s baserunning ability; he’s slower than average but a good baserunner, which works out to roughly average in my book. For the record, that’s a 79% chance of scoring, a 4% chance of being thrown out at the plate, and a 17% chance of stopping at third.
Work out the win probability in each of those situations (which I approximated using our WPA Inquirer), and the White Sox stood to win the game 23% of the time if they pitched to Turner. I then did slightly better and adjusted for Muncy hitting next, which moved it down to 22.9%. If you want to see how that looks for each possible outcome, here’s that earlier grid but with win probabilities added:
| Outcome | Odds | CWS W% |
|---|---|---|
| 1B | 15.9% | 16.2% |
| 2B | 3.5% | 14.0% |
| 3B | 0.8% | 13.8% |
| HR | 2.1% | 9.1% |
| BB/HBP | 6.7% | 21.9% |
| Out | 71.0% | 25.5% |
Next, we need to do the same thing, only for Muncy facing a lefty in a fresh count. As I mentioned above, Muncy has reverse splits in his career, but I’m regressing that data towards the mean (with 1,000 plate appearances of ballast) and calling him a marginally worse hitter against lefties than righties.
Here are the odds that Muncy would achieve each individual outcome, using those splits and his rest-of-season projections. Again, I used league average scoring rates from second and appended win probabilities after each outcome:
| Outcome | Odds | CWS W% |
|---|---|---|
| 1B | 9.9% | 15.3% |
| 2B | 3.5% | 8.3% |
| 3B | 0.3% | 8.2% |
| HR | 5.3% | 5.2% |
| BB/HBP | 16.1% | 20.3% |
| Out | 65.0% | 25.5% |
Interestingly, if your only goal was to prevent a run from scoring – if, say, it was a tie game in the bottom of the ninth – you could argue that La Russa’s move was correct. Assuming that the Sox escape from the inning at a roughly 65% clip if they walk Muncy, my math says that the Dodgers score fractionally less often in the inning.
If they do score after the intentional walk, though, they’re more likely to do so in chunks. More runners on base, and a more powerful hitter in a better count, is a tough combination. Net of all of that, the math says that the Sox win 21.9% of the time if they intentionally walk Turner to face Muncy, and 22.9% of the time if they don’t.
What happened next? You’ve probably heard – the White Sox had to go and get it out of the ocean:
Intentionally walk the batter to get to Muncy? Bad idea. pic.twitter.com/L2Z7fh2DKm
— SportsNet LA (@SportsNetLA) June 9, 2022
Ex post reasoning is always dangerous, but c’mon. Tony La Russa cited Turner’s batting average with “oh, one, or two strikes” against left-handed pitching in explaining his decision. It’s true! Trea Turner is a good hitter. The problem is, the Dodgers are just good hitters all the way down, and that means you have to capture every edge possible against them. Going from a two-strike count to a zero-strike count is very much not capturing every edge.
Could you construct situations where walking Turner would be the right move? Sure! It would involve making Muncy worse, naturally enough. But you’d have to make him a lot worse. I plugged in Muncy’s stats from this year, when he’s been awful. Coming into Thursday’s game, he was hitting .150/.327/.263. Give him the same marginal platoon splits, and… the White Sox would figure to win the game 22.7% of the time after walking Turner. That’s still worse than they would have done by taking their chances with him, good hitter and all.
You can obviously tweak the numbers enough to make it work. Assume Sousa has enormous platoon splits, and that helps ever so slightly. Assume Turner is better than his projections, and that helps ever so slightly. Assume Muncy is even worse than he’s been this year – which seems like a bad assumption to me, but whatever, we’ve left reasonable assumptions well behind at this point – and that helps a bit. But walking someone with two strikes almost never makes sense. Just bounce three curveballs and hope he swings, at the very least. This is an unconscionable decision.
I’m not entirely sure what to say about La Russa’s defense of it. To quote him, “that wasn’t a tough call.” I agree with La Russa on that, but I disagree on which call he should have made. I don’t know any analyst who would agree with La Russa on this decision. I’m confident that the Chicago front office wouldn’t agree with this decision. For him to think it’s an easy call – the other way – befuddles me.
I’m not really a hot take kind of guy. I don’t think that managerial decisions ever matter that much. Heck, I just ran the math and came up with 1% of a win. That’s tiny. You’d have to make 100 decisions like this to cost yourself a single win in expectation. But that’s just deadweight loss. You could save that 1% of a win simply by not making a bad decision. The players on the field are trying their hardest to win. The manager not helping them out is just about the worst thing he can do.
I don’t expect La Russa to care what I think. He probably doesn’t read FanGraphs. But if he is reading, let me just say this: be curious, but not judgmental. Let the numbers guide you. If the numbers are somehow pointing the other way, I’d be surprised, but happily admit that I’m wrong. But I don’t think La Russa checked the numbers. His answer didn’t suggest that he was thinking the situation through fully. It wasn’t a tough call for him. If you’re going to do something that seems so counter-intuitive, you should think it through. There’s a reason that the last intentional walk on a 1-2 count was in 2014. That one was in extra innings, with a reliever on deck and no hitters available, after the runner on first stole second. That’s an exceptional circumstance, and a good time to consider going against conventional wisdom. This wasn’t, and yet La Russa didn’t even think about it much. It wasn’t close to him. I’m shocked that a major league manager would have done this 15 years ago – let alone today.
Note: there’s been a more recent intentional walk on 1-2 that my query missed. On April 3, 2021, the Rockies walked Corey Seager on a 1-2 count (after the runner on first stole second) to face Chris Taylor. On April 16, the Twins walked Mike Trout after an 0-2 wild pitch, choosing to face Justin Upton. Both Taylor and Upton delivered extra-base hits.
Ben is a writer at FanGraphs. He can be found on Bluesky @benclemens.
Maybe it’s just me, but it seems like there’s something wrong with the Muncy outcome table – it shows the White Sox having a better chance of winning after a Muncy HR than a Muncy 1B, which can’t be right.
Pasting issue. I typed up the charts from the data manually and flip-flopped HR and 1B probabilities. Fixing it now.
“Assuming that the Sox escape from the inning at a roughly 65% clip if they walk Muncy” (Should Muncy be Turner here?)
Thanks for the write up. Wild it’s only 1%
Nope, that should say Muncy. As in if he walks to load the bases, I made an assumption about how likely the Sox are to escape the jam without allowing a run.
Given the situation was Dodgers up by 2 with a runner on 2nd in the top of the 6th, the 1% difference isn’t as surprising. It it were tied in 9th, that would be a value worth calculating.
“Home runs kill rallies” was a real thing that people actually used to say
A-Rod still does
Ironic.
I hope they find the guy in the crowd who screamed right before the pitch was thrown and make him the manager.
Next time Turner came up it was with the bases empty and someone (sounded like the same guy) yelled “first base is open, Tony!”
LaRussa is a dinasour, you are shocked he did this without think thinking it over? I’m not , he won’t care and he will go in the Hall of Fame which shows you how much that is worth. He’s old school and does 10 things a week that reduces WPA,Tigers fan but still surprised Sox hired him. Reinsdorf seems to love him even though he reduces chances of winning with decisions like this so I hope he gets an extension and more things to write about for you, win all around.
Speaking of dinosaur managers making inexplicable intentional walk decisions during what I will charitably call “senior moments”, I hear Joe Maddon is available as marginal upgrade.
He’s already in the Hall of Fame. A bad decision doesn’t negate three championships and 32 years of managerial success (pre-White Sox). White Sox administration, though, may want to send La Russa back to the Florida golf courses.
For some reason, I like dinasour better than dinosaur.
Who doesn’t? Try one at your local watering hole soon!
Exactly. It isn’t that this cost him 1% of a win, it is that he costs them 1% of a win several times a week. Wednesday, the Dodger’s announcers were dunking on him for leading off Leury Garcia, accurately pointing out that hitters at the top of the lineup get to hit more than hitters at the bottom and you want better hitters to hit more often than worse hitters. He has led off Leury and his career .295 OBP 4 times this year. He has also hit his .357 career SLG second twice and third twice. I think Passan did the math and showed he had the lowest OPS of any third hitter ever, minimum 1000 PA.
Hot streaks are mostly statistical abnormalities, but the team has been bad at hitting all year long and it seems like every time somebody has a couple of good games in a row he gives them an off day. He won’t let the hitters generate any momentum at all.
Yesterday was also an example of his bullpen usage. They were only down a run or two, but he goes to guys like Souza and Crick who are not his best relievers. He rarely uses his best relievers unless they are ahead by 1 – 3 runs in the 6th inning or later. He does this all the time, even when guys like Hendricks and Graveman are fresh and there is an off day the next day. He ends up turning a lot of narrow deficits into routs and that’s a big reason for their awful run differential.
David Laurila asked in Sunday Notes a while back if some of the LaRussa hatred was ageism. I can’t speak for everybody else, but it isn’t for me. I would be just as unhappy if a 30 year old manager were doing this stupid stuff.
“He ends up turning a lot of narrow deficits into routs and that’s a big reason for their awful run differential.”
This is also a good case for why record in close games isn’t a great stand-in for managerial success.
Yeah, all of that. He’s just really really bad, there’s nothing more to say. He’s the worst manager I’ve ever seen to be honest. Watching this team most every day, they are underachieving and a bit lacking in fundamentals. They look like a poorly managed team. I don’t agree with attaching 1% to a managerial decision. One really mind boggling move that results in an unfortunate 3-run homer is not in fact a 1% decision, it’s a game-losing decision.
I hated him when we had him in STL. Just got fed up with his boneheaded moved. He invented the closer in the 80s and coasted for 40 year
You may not dislike him for ageist reasons, but I detect among many a certain glee about putting down old man LaRussa. As the whole “Okay Boomer” thing revealed, there is a bit of young folk dismissiveness of older folks out there, but as the boomer’s old “don’t trust anyone over 30” thinking back when they were young shows, that’s nothing new!
It’s only because he touts his age and experience as making him infallible. I’ve seen a thing or two, whippersnapper, so you don’t have a right to question me.
I’m in my 50’s and want him out! He just makes dumb moves. Walking someone on a 1-2 count just because the next person is left handed is not his worst move of the year, in fact it might not even be in the top 10. He might have ruined Souza though. Did you see him after Tony walked the guy? Tony basically said – “You suck”.
I heard some people saying before the post-game press conference that TLR many have lost track of the count. It seemed more like a joke at the time but the “one or two strikes” line from the press conference makes me think that it may have actually happened.
I think you’re right. I’m guessing it “wasn’t a tough call” to him because he saw first base empty and a lefty/lefty matchup on deck with a struggling Muncy. Now add in the fact that he said “one or two strikes,” would this make sense if the count to Turner was 1-1 or even 2-1? Maybe he completely blanked through a pitch, or thought a strike was a ball.
I’m not a White Sox fan nor a TLR apologist. This feels a lot more nitpicky than “OMG, what a terrible move!” Sure, the math favors keeping Turner’s AB alive, but it isn’t that egregious. Managers make marginal decisions every game; a difference in 1% win expectancy is hardly worth this much hand-wringing.
1% is a ton for a managerial move! The difference between a 6 WAR player and a 0 WAR player (per 600 PA) is 1% of a win everytime they step to the plate (roughly). This would be equivalent to a manager choosing to pinch hit for Jose Ramirez with a AAA callup (again, doing some approximation here but you get the idea)
I was surprised how little a difference – on average – such a single swap like this would make. But a back-of-the-envelope calculation affirms your claim, that is when you divide per PA per game. (In a game it is more like 4-5% improvement / decrement.) Obviously, the leverage of the PA will affect this value. A very useful nugget of info.
What would be the margin of error?
There were assumptions made about Sousa and the matchup with Turner.
It is (hypothetically) possible that TLR or staff are privy to more data and/or could have seen something on the field in that PA, or earlier in the game, or in warmups that would affect the odds slightly.
Hard to measure that directly, but it was still a bad decision if you think Muncy is the .150/.327/.263 hitter he’s been this year instead of the .230/.358/.457 we project him for. That’s a 50-point wRC+ gap. That’d be SOME data they saw on the field.
how much of the 1% is the baked in stupidity of basically any IBB? It seems like most of the emphasis in the coverage is about the 2 strikes aspect but it appears thats not a huge driver. if TLR had just IBBed TT at the start of the count its still dumb but its not a twitter meme or media story.
But it likely would’ve been a good move had the runner already been on 2nd base and the IBB was given at the beginning of the plate appearance.
There are plenty of situations where an IBB makes sense.
You know, the more I think about it…it’s not the move that’s quite so bad. A 1% probability shift isn’t that big. But what happens when the clubhouse loses faith in your ability to manage? Because I suspect that is happening. I know that players generally are most successful by not worrying about this stuff at all but when it’s this egregious…how do you ignore it?
tend to agree. a 1% shift in WPA is not exactly the punch line I was expecting here. but this became the rare regular season baseball story and assuming TLR is already not loved in the dugout the soft factor impact is probably greater
This is equivalent to a driver stopping at a red light, seeing that it’s a red light, proceeding through it, and then claiming traffic would have been much worse and it would have worked out fine if not for the 3 car accident that was simply bad luck.
This is a page by and for people who think they’ve reinvented the wheel, and that everything that ever happened before Tom Tango published The Book is completely and utterly useless. (Actually, Tom Tango is probably a useless dinosaur by now.)
I would say hand-wringing over stuff that doesn’t matter is why we all pay to subscribe to this site, but it’s also kinda what being a sports fan is all about.
Tango is literally the guy coming up with the most cutting edge stats. He essentially runs the Baseball Savant/Statcast side of things for MLBAM. He is about as far from a dinosaur as you can get.
I do notice and appreciate you are a paying member for a website whose very ethos you seem to loathe. So kudos for that I guess.
Even if TLR wanted to make sure Turner did not beat them, what’s wrong with going to the unintentional intentional walk? Have Sousa throw his nastiest breaking pitch 8-12 inches off the plate the rest of the way, not risking giving Turner anything to hit, and see if he swings himself into an out. I mean, come on, use your head, Tony.
What’s the signal for “unintentional intentional walk”, because with no remaining mound visits remaining, it’s either give the signal, or scream it. I doubt there is a signal, and if you scream “throw balls that are unhittable”, you risk a wild pitch with no upside. Not defending LaRussa, but defending the hypothetical “maybe he should have just…” that doesn’t seem possible. But honestly, if there ever was a manager who demanded both the pitcher and catcher stare into the dugout while the manager relays a sign that no one on the team would possibly know, it would be LaRussa. Then he’d blame his battery for not getting the sign, that would definitely have changed the outcome.
Every baseball team has a signal for this. They try to keep it secret.
source?
The problem with the unintentional intentional walk is the risk of wild pitch.
The reason that first base is open is because the pitcher had just thrown a wild pitch, and catcher, Grandal, has a propensity for letting balls get by him. He actually had already allowed a run earlier in the game from a past ball.
The wild pitch puts Freeman on third with two out. The strikeout puts the team back in the dugout batting.
Having laRussa is definitely not ideal and he probably costs the sox 2-3 wins per season but he is not the main reason for the struggles of the sox who have actually done better than their run differential suggests.
The biggest issue with the sox is they have been very bad in player dev and thus have very little depth in both majors and minors.
Their 8th to 15th best mlb or mlb ready hitter in the org is just very bad and while the top7 (anderson, abreu, moncada, robert, vaughn, grandal, eloy) are very good they can’t afford to lose many of them as the replacement is so bad.
This year a lot of the top7 have either been injured (tim, robert, even vaughn) or been terrible (grandal) or both (eloy, moncada) and that leaves too much pressure on the sox 8th to maybe 14th best hitter (pollock, burger, sheets, engel, leury, mcguire, Harrison) which are just not very good.
In an ideal world larussa would be replaced but we all know that those decisions are unfortunately made by jerry reinsdorf who cares more about money than winning and thus unless Tony steps down on his own terms the fate of the team will likely hinge on their top7 hitters getting productive and healthy.
The twins pitching is still likely to collapse and thus the sox have a good chance to reach the post season but for that to happen eloy, moncada and grandal can’t hit sub replacement level and robert and tim need to get and stay healthy because the sox player dev hasn’t produced any viable replacements, since the core guys are up even high picks like burger (I give them that as those injuries were terrible) , madrigal and collins didn’t produce much.
6 of their 9 starters were entirely internally developed (drafted or IFA’d by the team): Vaughn, Robert, Abreu, Burger, Sheets, Anderson. Three other starters, Garcia, Jimenez and Moncada, were not originally signed by the White Sox, but the Sox can claim significant credit for their player development.
Then 1 of their 5 SPs was entirely internally developed (Martin), with 2 SPs that the Sox played a significant role in the development (Kopech and Cease). Then there’s a number of arms in the bullpen (Bummer, Foster and Sousa) who were developed by the Sox.
Like 90% of this team’s WAR derives from players internally developed.
Without looking, the White Sox might be the best example of successful good player development in baseball right now.
Yes, the issue isn’t bad player development; it’s an unwillingness to spend on depth players. They didn’t need to sign Correa or Baez, but it would be nice if they had done more to sign guys like Jonathan Villar or Eduardo Escobar, or take chances on pitchers like Kluber or Hill to bolster the depth.
I don’t know, that’s kind of what they did. At some point it’s not the strategy, it’s the execution–Leury Garcia, Josh Harrison, Joe Kelly…it’s not great.
But Cueto has actually been okay. And Graveman has been pretty good. It’s not all bad. And it’s not like Villar has been good either.
The one guy I fault them for not going after is Brad Miller, who could have played 2B for them and would have balanced the lineup with a lefty. But that’s a pretty small thing.
I trace most of their problems back to the deadline last year, where they sent Madrigal for Kimbrel, and then traded for Hernandez. Hernandez played so badly they didn’t pick up his option, but now Hernandez has rebounded in Washington. Meanwhile, they signed Leury Garcia to a relatively healthy deal and he’s been even worse than Hernandez was while limiting the amount they could spend on depth or upgrades.
So somehow, the White Sox have wound up making the wrong move at 2B every single time. But even so that’s not a huge deal in the big picture, and wouldn’t have been an issue had everyone stayed healthy, but they didn’t.
For what it’s work, According to Szymborski’s Z stats, Leury is among the top 10 players in underperforming expected results in both BA and SLG.
But yes, I totally agree overall. Also annoying because Chicagoans have seen the Cubs struggle and flail at 2nd base for several years before trading for Madrigal.
Also seeing what Madrigal is doing now, I think I have the blame more on him, or his health, or his development than on Hahn.
It sure would be really really nice to have a fast, smart, good-fielding 2nd baseman who doesn’t strike out and has exceptionally high BA and OBP.
But doesn’t seem like Madrigal is that guy.
Most of the guys whom they acquired already were in the high minors, moncada and giolito even had a cup of coffee in the majors.
I wouldn’t call those success stories of player dev, those were mostly absolute top prospects who were expected to be good.
They sox don’t really have any developed from nowhere stories like max muncy with the dodgers for example, they just traded for a lot of almost finished top prospects who worked out reasonably well.
Muncy was a free agent signing and NRI to spring training with the Dodgers after being released by the A’s. He actually got close to 100 PAs with the A’s. He is actually very much like Giolito in that he as a guy who hadn’t been successful and then switched organizations and found success.
Aside from the minor fact that
Muncy was never even a top 10 prospect in his team and was outright released when Dodgers signed him on a minor league deal as a 27 year old when ZiPS projected OPS+ 86 and WAR -0.1
and Giolito was a MLB top 10 prospect a year before he was traded as a 22 year old main piece for Adam Eaton (who was very valuable back then) when ZiPS projected WAR 1.5,
yes, Muncy and Giolito are very much alike.
point is neither one was a product of their current organizations development teams
Unless you have a freakishly good development team, you have a ceiling of three guys who on your team who (1) weren’t accompanied by a lot of fanfare and (2) you had and can take all the credit for developing them and (3) develop into major contributors. Let’s look at the top teams in projected WAR and the players who could fit that description, with maybes as players who there’s some question whether they were “highly rated prospects” depending on when you look at them or whether they’ve become major contributors:
Dodgers: Gonsolin, maybe Bellinger and May.
Yankees: Montgomery, Cortes, King (and two of them just broke out this year).
Astros: Altuve, Framber Valdez, Luis Garcia (and Altuve was a while ago)
Blue Jays: Santiago Espinal, Danny Jansen, and Alejandro Kirk.
Mets: Pete Alonso, Jeff McNeil, Brandon Nimmo (maybe Tylor Megill if you’re feeling generous)
Braves: Austin Riley, maybe Ozzie Albies although he was pretty highly rated once he hit affiliated ball
White Sox:
Padres:
Red Sox: Christian Vazquez, Tanner Houck
Angels: Jared Walsh, maybe Brandon Marsh
Phillies: Rhys Hoskins, maybe Ranger Suarez and Zach Eflin
Rays: Kiermaier, Lowe…maybe Yarbrough if you’re feeling generous.
Cardinals: Edman, Bader, maybe DeJong if you’re feeling generous.
Brewers: Burnes, Woodruff, Peralta (this is probably the best three on the list, but it’s only 3)
Giants: Brandon Belt, Brandon Crawford, Logan Webb (and the first two were a very long time ago).
Guardians: Jose Ramirez, Shane Bieber, Stephen Kwan (this is probably the second best group on the list but Ramirez was also a long time ago)
Mariners: Julio Rodriguez, Logan Gilbert, George Kirby
These are the best teams in major league baseball, and pretty much all of them have three or fewer.
Pretty much everyone who does well does it through high draft picks, trading for close-to-the-majors types or guys who have recently graduated, extending their homegrown guys so that their team control overlaps with younger players, and to a lesser extent free agency. So yes, the White Sox haven’t been great on this front…but there are very few major contributors to an MLB roster who were drafted and developed by the same team who weren’t well-regarded.
there are so many names missing from this list…
Guys that weren’t really considered top prospects, spent their career with the organization, and turned into major contributors? This knocks out a lot of players. Let’s take a look at the Dodgers. The Dodgers had several top prospects including Walker Buehler, Will Smith, Clayton Kershaw, Gavin Lux, and Julio Urias; they also had guys who already had MLB experience in Justin Turner, Chris Taylor, Max Muncy; and high profile stars they acquired such as Freeman, Betts, and Trea Turner.
Let’s look at the Astros. I left out Jeremy Pena on that list, so I think you can add him to make 4. But top prospects include Bregman, Tucker, McCullers, and Alvarez (Alvarez was a $2M signing on the international FA market). Verlander was acquired as a star; Gurriel and Brantley were already well established.
Let’s look at the Yankees. Torres was acquired as an upper-level minor leaguer, and a well-regarded one at that. Aaron Judge was a first rounder and widely considered to be a Top 100 prospect, as was Severino. But all of Cole, Stanton, Chapman, Donaldson, Taillon, LeMahieu, Gallo, and Rizzo were acquired later. Maybe you add Loaisiga to the list, since was a major contributor last year, but he’s not really been at any other time, so it’s hard to say they have 3 this year even.
The standard for getting an amateur to sign with you, you doing 100% of the development, and then them turning into a major contributor is a ridiculously high standard that is nearly impossible to meet.
I think by taking out top prospects you kind of miss a big piece of what an organization does on development and scouting. 2018 draft and how many of the top 100 picks are in the majors and contributing? The Sox have had a history of drafting plodding hitters. The bust rate for all prospects is high and you have to weight how successful teams are on identifying even them.
I mean, the whole exercise is ridiculous. The White Sox got a ton of young talent and is going to have it for quite a while thanks to some shrewd moves. You can make many teams look bad if you say “well, they didn’t do this well…” The White Sox had one of the most successful rebuilds in recent memory, and quibbling with how they did it doesn’t really change that.
It’s just tough comparing to the Astros…
The Astros managed to draft George Springer, Carlos Correa, Alex Bregman, & Kyle Tucker,
and sign Yordan Alvarez,
and develop Jeremy Pena,
AND still had enough development pieces left over to be able to trade for both Verlander and Cole.
You’re missing all the developed guys who were traded for the experienced player
In an era when foreign-born players make up like a third of the major league rosters, the scouting and signing of these players is one of the most important things out there (and gets remarkably little attention from the analytic community).
I mean, whoever signed Juan Soto provided more value to the Nationals’ franchise than entire annual draft class, you know?
The White Sox have (over the last 20 years) been pretty good at developing pitchers.
They have been really, really bad at developing position players.
Outside of the current group, I can’t think if a single good hitter developed by the White Sox in the last 20 years.
Anderson is really the best example of good development. But should that credit go to him or to the Sox? His significant development came years after being in the bigs.
Maybe Vaughn, but Vaughn was also considered close to a sure thing as a hitter. Seems more of a try not to screw this up situation.
Robert is still more potential than product. He’s been compared to Trout and Mays, he was expected to be an MVP candidate – his current production is pretty disappointing by those comparisons. But we’ll see. He could be a big win for the development department.
Definitely not Abreu (he was a fully developed pro when signed).
Jimenez is not that good… though can’t really tell because he’s never healthy. But sure seems like there’s more talk about his potential than his actual production when he’s on the field.
Moncada’s development has actually been very disappointing. (70fv prospect who still strikes out waaaay too much with very little power). And he was probably more Boston.
Burger is still unknown. But could be a bright spot.
Sheets seems to have been a flop.
Zack Collins (on Toronto) was a high draft pick flop.
Madrigal seems to have been a flop.
(and can’t help but note what happened to Tatis Jr after he joined a different development system).
They draft very badly. I believe that prior to Anderson, the last player they drafted and developed who put up 10 WAR for a career was Aaron Rowand, who was drafted in 1998.
I disagree with your Robert assessment. Health has been an issue but he has played 165 games and put up 5.9 fWAR. Anybody who does that to start their career is going to be in the MVP conversation in the near future.
Good points.
I will correct myself on Robert. He is definitely a good player and development success. It can be frustrating watching him, though, because of the missed time and because he has been super streaky as a hitter. I do think he and the league are still figuring each other out.
I’m not saying the sox should get no credit for finishing the development of those top prospects but fact is sox produced good homegrown players when they traded away stars and had top draft picks and stopped developing guys once the high picks stopped and they couldn’t trade away stars anymore.
The real good development orgs like the dodgers, rays or astros continued to produce good players despite not having high picks and not selling a lot of stars in trades.
The sox rebuild is a success story but it was mostly built on the great contracts they were able to give sale, quintana and eaton which gave them insane trade value.
Without those 3 trades which gave the sox moncada, eloy, giolito, cease and kopech the sox rebuild would have ended like the phillies rebuild.
Now those trades did happen and sox did well on them but having those 3 contracts really was what allowed to get that great value.
Giolito should be in there too for the SPs they did most of the player dev with— although he went outside the org to break out, they then hired the guy he went to as their pitching coach. Engel and Mendick, credible bench players, were all internally developed too.
Not sure Abreu should be credited as CHW player dev tho— it was good scouting and a good signing, but he was a fully formed well-above-average hitter at age 26 coming from Cuba, he never spent a second in the minors.
“Going from a two-strike count to a zero-strike count is very much not capturing every edge.”
The one time TLR tried reading Fangraphs his humors were out of balance for weeks.
Too much black bile
I realize that with a manager as accomplished (and old) as TLR you’ve got a high probability of him ignoring whatever advice he gets. But I was curious to know who the bench coach is–it’s Miguel Cairo, who is in his 2nd year as bench coach but doesn’t exactly have the wealth of experience to challenge TLR on this.
On a related note, I can only imagine that Shelley Duncan (who, per his interview here, definitely reads Fangraphs) is tearing his hair out.
The only advice he needs to worry about is Reinsdorf’s. He was an ownership hire and I’m pretty sure only ownership can fire him. Since Reinsdorf hired him to correct what he saw as a mistake – firing him in 1986 – I think it is unlikely he fires him for fear of making the same “mistake” again. Since the White Sox claimed to know of his DUI in February, 2020 before they hired him, I doubt there is anything he could do off the field short of ending up in prison that would make them fire him.
TLR is going to be here either until he doesn’t want to be or when either he or Jerry dies. At some point, a reporter is going to ask Rick Hahn if he has the authority to fire LaRussa and Hahn will grit his teeth, say all the right things, and lose a little more hair.
Not as bad a decision as I thought, yet still a terrible one. I just happened to check in on this game via Gamecast at the time it happened and couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I had to turn on the broadcast to see if there was something I was missing and nope, every single person watching this live thought it was as bad of a decision as me.
Your math seems accurate, but you might need to run your work past the company statistician. You structured the ‘event’ as if the AB will end on the 1-2 pitch. If that happens, all your analysis is fine. However, by FAR the most likely event outcome is not ‘in play’ but ‘ball 2’. I’d guess the 2nd most likely pitch outcome is ‘foul ball’, but that is really not an outcome so should be dismissed. Your entire number crunching should be weighted by what I would guess is a 10% or so probability that the 1-2 pitch resolves the at bat. Then you’d have to run the outcomes as conditional probabilities based on all the other possibilities of what count was in place when the at bat is expected to end. Here is an example of what I mean using fabricated numbers.
10% (13%) AB ends on 1-2 pitch, in play (your work)
65% (87%) Ball two (need full work based on a 2-2 count)
25% Foul ball isn’t an event which changes the analysis, so this 25% just gets ‘spread’ back to the two meaningful outcomes of the pitch.
Conditional probability is why true math geeks get paid a lot more than you and I. However, the article itself was a great read and I love to hate LaRussa for other reasons.
Every single one of these probabilities is ‘after 1-2’. As in, the odds of that event eventually happening at the conclusion of the PA, whether that’s the next pitch or six pitches later. That’s how our count splits work here, and how they should work everywhere.
This actually raises an interesting point- the article assumes that the Sox either walk Turner on 1-2 or finish the plate appearance, but they actually have the option to issue the intentional walk at any point. So LaRussa could keep pitching to Turner, but walk him if he gets to 2-2 or 3-2.
On one hand, hitters are a lot better on 3-2 than on 1-2, so the ability to avoid finishing the PA if you get to a full count makes Turner a bit less dangerous, and thus makes the 1-2 walk slightly worse. On the other hand, the biggest thing Turner gains from getting to 3-2 is being more likely to walk, and walking him intentionally doesn’t help you escape from that.
I doubt it moves the needle much, since it’s just a slight change to what’s already just a 1% difference in win probability, but the truly optimal decision is probably buried in here somewhere.
Your calculation accumulates exactly the right amount, but you will probably lose by the statistics of the robot. You are structuring an “appendix” and you will have to do it with 1-2 points. “I won’t say I’m sorry,” he said. The result of the day of the funeral emotion is “in the game”, which is “match 2”. “Fall ball”, but this action is not the result, so stick to it. Whith. your chrysanthemum butine chislo fabric calls you, 10% on a cart near Togo, 1-2 things crocodiles. Then he will give you a residual outcome based on the fact that you will not be able and you will not be able. He is a real person, and he is like a fictional character.
10% (13%) SEAL AB for 1-2 crocodiles, per game (your robot)
65% (87%) Second Ball (2-2)
25% of this method does not support the outcome, so 25% simply reduces the “spread” of two significant outcomes.
Conventional emoӕrnӕstu – this, choma drive math prodigies pay much better than us. Tim did not want to make LaRusa a great reader, but he also did not want to meet LaRusa for good reason.
This gimmick died years ago.
I had to triple check but yes, that’s Chicago’s broadcast Twitter account roasting Tony. And! The clip goes on jussssst long enough to hear that fan yell. This is brutal and I absolutely loved to see it.
The broadcasters back and forth is priceless. Pretty darn good for spontaneous discussion.
Fun fact: the “Go get it out of the ocean” game was also played on June 9th! Maybe don’t pitch to Muncy on 6/9, my dudes.
This article is extremely my jam. I love it.
Would you guys consider doing an article explaining how you run these simulations? Or would that be too inside-baseball? (heh heh). I understand the numbers in table form, and I understand the explanation of how you got to those numbers. But I haven’t the slightest clue how you run a simulation using specific inputs to create win probabilities as outputs. It’s wizardry, as far as I’m concerned.
You can find more of that in some of Ben’s earlier articles. Often he even links to his code for it, or an Excel sheet with the data. Really great stuff!
(But also would 100% read a walkthrough of this type in the offseason!)
Even if you look past the math, the psychology of this move seems very bad to me. Imagine being Sausa here and you get a 1-2 count and then your manager ties your hands behind your back with that intentional walk. I’d be like “what the hell, man?” If the walk were actually the smart move but he let his guy compete, I could halfway understand that. But this decision is bad from every angle.
Joe Maddon: Let the record show that I am the master of using an intentional walk in an unconventional way to win ballgames!
Tony LaRussa: Hold my….nevermind.
User name checks out
It’s an interesting situation, but too many are taking Larussa’s response at face value. It’s possible that he lost confidence in Sousa against Turner and felt Sousa had a better chance to succeed against Muncy — but Larussa is not going to walk into a press conference and openly undercut his player.
The intentional walk on 1-2 seems a pretty effective way of undercutting his pitcher.
Why must people be so arrogant and confrontational? I get not liking Tony La Russa, but Tony La Russa still has 2847 more wins, six more pennants, and three more World Series titles than every single one of us here, combined.
You should probably not assume that all of the commenters here have zero wins and pennants to their name (I, personally, have zero…but others do).
If you say so.
I was skeptical too, but I’m not anymore. Only a couple that I know of.
Who?? I’d be satisfied with handles if not actual IDs.
I know of one who has about a half dozen or so parody accounts here, but no wins or pennants 🙁
Cause he’s an untreated addict who’s endangered people’s lives multiple times without remorse and has a job purely because of nepotism, and a lot of us are tired of seeing institutions we care about destroyed by men like this
Yeah, I’m sure Fangraphs is really a morally righteous community that holds people to the highest standards of personal conduct.
It’s hilarious you expect people to believe the hatred of Tony La Russa has to do with their deeply held disdain for his alcohol use and DUI’s.
I just want to be clear, I don’t care about Tony La Russa one way or the other. But acting like the reason people are bashing him has to do with their moral righteousness is sad and funny to me.
People don’t like Tony La Russa here because he’s old. He’s old, and they’re young and they have the Internet and they know everything.
The nepotism and DUIs have a lot to do with why people hate him, actually. Dusty Baker is old, yet he’s beloved by baseball fans everywhere, including, I’d have to imagine, most FanGraphs readers. TLR is only managing the White Sox because Jerry Reinsdorf regrets firing him 30+ years ago. And he’s as poor a cultural fit for that young, brash, exciting (if underperforming) team as anyone in the game.
Dusty Baker, Buck Showalter, hell, people want Bochy to come out of retirement in SF *and* SD. Ageism is real; this is not it.
Tony La Russa still has the second-most wins of anyone in the history of Major League Baseball, and the only person ahead of him started in 1894. (I’m not going to address the personal and drug issues, as we could discount dozens of managers and players on these criteria.)
His .536 career winning percentage is pretty good. It’s better than Dusty Baker’s, Tommy Lasorda’s, and a lot of people’s.
The 2018 White Sox went 62-100.
The 2019 White Sox went 72-89.
2020 was the COVID season.
The 2021 White Sox went 93-69, La Russa’s first season.
Again, I don’t have any particular affinity for Tony La Russa. I just find it funny – in a sad way – the way people who haven’t accomplished anything anywhere close what La Russa has accomplished thinking they’re so high & mighty.
The White Sox were widely regarded as the best landing spot for any manager heading into 2021. It does not take a skilled tactician to win 90+ games in a weak division with a pitching staff that featured 5 dominant relievers and 4 starters with an ERA+ of 112 or better. They also had a solidly above average lineup with only two holes (2B and RF). He deserves no credit for that. In fact, he probably hurt the cause with all the drama with Yermin and “playing the game the right way.”
I guess you could say “anyone” could have managed the 2021 White Sox to 93 wins. But Tony La Russa did it. It was the eleventh time a team La Russa managed won 93+ games and the thirteenth time a La Russa-managed team won 90+ games.
I’m not President of the Tony La Russa fan club. I wouldn’t have hired the guy. But it is really funny the way people pretend he’s this incompetent, feeble-minded fool.
Your analysis of Tony La Russa is as old as sports fandom: “When the team wins, it has nothing to do with the manager. Anyone could have won with that team.
“When the team loses, it’s the manager’s fault due to his incompetence and poor decision-making.”
Nice little gap in your statistical line there. The 2020 White Sox had a .583 record. The 2021 White Sox had a .574 record. No other team in the division was over .500. They had a losing record on the road (under Renteria they had nearly identical home and road records), and they didn’t have homefield advantage for the playoffs. The standard of what commenters have accomplished is a basic red herring. The standard of what Renteria accomplished is not.
Many readers here are middle-aged or even older than that. Much of the writing staff seems to be, as well. Heck, Bill James is among the most respected thinkers in sabermetric circles and he’s 72 years old. The dislike for La Russa has nothing to do with his age.
It definitely has something to do with his age. In the 1980’s, Tony La Russa was one of the first managers I remember applying the theories of Bill James. Back then, he was the one being criticized for always having his head buried in binders and letting charts and diagrams make his decisions.
Bill James gets to be respected because he can offer his analysis after the fact. It’s way different than taking the slings and arrows for making decisions that don’t work-out in real time.
May you never have a loved one injured or killed by a drunk driver, while drunk drivers like TLR go untreated and unpunished, and while internet blockheads hector you about how your moral indignation, sadness, and pain are gross.
I’m not playing that manipulative game.
Your conflation of Tony La Russa’s drunk driving with people complaining over a decision he made in a baseball game is what is gross.
The most gross part of your statement is how you think you’re gaining the moral upper hand, as though my opinion that Tony La Russa’s decision to intentionally walk a batter isn’t an earth-shattering event means I condone drunk driving.
I’m sorry so many people have been killed and injured by drunk drivers. I really am, and I know more must be done to punish drunk drivers and prevent them from killing and hurting people.
I don’t think that’s relevant to this discussion. We’re discussing a decision in a baseball game. That you feel you can imply that a person who doesn’t agree with your opinion on a decision in a baseball game (in June) must, therefore, condone drunk driving is inappropriate and absurd.
Amen, Smiling Politely.
Harold Baines has 2866 more hits, six more All-Star Game appearances, and twelve more votes from the HOF Veterans Committee than every single one of us here, combined.
I’m sorry, what was the point of this post?
My point? OF COURSE I would take Harold Baines’ opinions about hitting and baseball more seriously than I would some doofus in the comments section.
Why should such foolishness butinam in conflict? The men will not listen to Tone La Russa, but Tonø La Russa has won 2847 victories, and pennants insight, three titles from the feast service of the World, than the skin of us here, together.
You have a great gimmick.
I hate appeals to authority like this. Can accomplished people never make mistakes? The numbers say he did. It was an incredibly rare baseball event. This site writes about interesting baseball events. Why can’t Fangraphs write about this, Charles Balter?
And appealing to the authority of a sports manager is one of the worst examples — the players are doing all of the work. Maybe I’d listen if this were about Bill Belicheck, but this is about a baseball manager. How many terrible managers need to take their team to multiple playoffs, like Mike Matheny, before we realize their effect on a win is miniscule? Their effect on a loss, however, is much bigger.
That is such typical fan logic: “The Manager has zero impact on a team’s victories, but is to blame for the team’s losses.”
I’m not appealing to anything. Honestly, I think it’s funny how much the fact that Tony La Russa is still managing bothers people. I almost want him to manage until he’s 100-years-old just for the entertainment I find in how much people hate him.
That’s an appeal to authority. The point being that the perceived success in your field should not be used to dismiss valid criticisms rooted in computational findings. Moreover, if you are so intent on deference to authorities, fangraphs is far from the only outlet or figure that criticizing the move. It was pretty widespread.
Also, tdouglas didn’t claim a manager has zero impact on victories. Quibble with the word choice all you want, but a manager has a far bigger impact on losses than wins. That doesn’t negate the value of a good manager or steady clubhouse presence, but it does put it into perspective.
1.) An MLB Manager is a position of authority.
2.) I wouldn’t have made the move, either. However, it’s one move of many in a game. Not every move a manager makes works out, even the moves sound in logic and backed by statistics.
3.) I’m struggling to understand the part about “perceived” success. That Tony La Russa has been a very successful manager isn’t a matter of “perception,” but is a statement of fact.
The whole point of baseball is to win games and championships. Tony La Russa has won the second-most games of all-time, and the most games of anyone who started managing in the the twentieth century.
He has won six pennants, three in each league, and has won World Series in both leagues.
in his first season back, La Russa’s White Sox won 93 games and won their division.
I could argue a statistic like xwOBA is a matter of perception. La Russa’s accomplishments are a simple matter of fact.
I find your statement interesting on a philosophical, if not a baseball, level.
Honestly, from a perspective of schadenfreude, I derive amusement from Tony La Russa being a manager specifically because of how much people hate him. If I had to choose a character, real or imagined, who would really piss off adherents of Fangraphs and other metrics-based baseball sites, I would cast Tony La Russa.
On a philosophical level, you critique me as appealing to authority, in this case that “authority” being Tony La Russa’s experience and résumé.
Could I argue that you, too, are appealing to authority, but in your case, the authority to which you appeal is WPA, RE24, WPA/LI, etc…?
How man baseball articles have you had published? Seems pretty arrogant to question those who have had hundreds and hundreds articles written and published!
#logic
My comment was directed more to the people in the comments section, although I wish the authors wouldn’t encourage them.
“What even is a logical fallacy?” —Charles Balter
I wanted a reporter to ask LaRussa if Turner got ahead 3-0, then is he a worse hitter than 1-2 and you pitch to him?
Everyone know Turner is not allowed to swing 3-0 😉 so…of course you take that free strike.
Bad decision? Yes. But not as bad as his vote to put Harold Baines in the Hall of Fame.
TLR – at this point, you can be amazed but you cant be surprised.
Throughout the sportsiverse, fandoms everywhere decry their teams managers. After every remotely questionable but in actuality hardly worthwhile decision, “Fire The Manager!” is yelled repeatedly and often.
No more. You can say this no more. Your team’s manager is now safe from ire. As long as LaRussa is managing, people who think their manager sucks cannot complain, unless they’re White Sox fans, in which case – hahahah @ you.
Everyone else though? Stop yelling to fire the manager. Tony LaRussa is employed, and he should get fired first, because he is, in fact, the absolute worst.
please god just fire him
This is good reasoning that shows the decision didn’t really affect the chances of a win for the White Sox. But that may not be the best lens to look at it. Sox were already down and their chances were already low, so the needle can’t move too much. However, the whole point of doing this is to prevent further damage. With 2 outs, the Sox are looking to get out of the inning without causing more damage.
So it may be better to look at run expectancy change going from pitching on a 1-2 count to Turner, to putting him on base and then pitching to Muncy. That shows bad the decision was.
If intentional walks were still done manually, they could’ve started to do it and then tried to sneak a strike past him for the strikeout.
Snuck the Ted Lasso “Be curious, not judgmental” in there. Nicely done.
There’s smart metrics and probabilities – and then there is recognizing that human beings who are very talented are playing the game. LaRussa really gets on my nerves.
Listening to TLR after the game, it sounded more like he was trying to save face than that he was actually that convinced he made the right decision.
The count is getting most of the pub here, and rightfully so thanks to that amazing fan comment audible on the clip, but WTF are we doing intentionally walking guys in the 6th inning of a 2-run game? One run doesn’t lose the game for you there, but a 3-run bomb likely does. It was waaaaaaaaay too early to be playing explicitly to prevent even one more run.
deleted
He was drunk!
Good discussion. I love the analysis, and putting objective analysis against decisions. The thing that doesn’t get captured in managerial decisions is that players are human beings. They have good games, bad games and emotions. Managers manage by the numbers but also know when a close decision by those numbers is skewed in some other direction by a hard to quantify intangible factor. This intangible factor is probably subject to a lot of biases and over managing but it exists and is the reason managers exist. If they weren’t needed the front office could make all the calls, and the players could self manage.
As for walking Turner my general feeling would be never with two strikes but the analysis shows it’s closer than I would have thought and if you think Muncy sucks on game day and the pitcher is nastier… the analysis is close to neutral…
From a human perspective, I think the battery would be more encouraged by being told to pitch tough and be at peace if the result is a walk, than to be told to IBB a batter with a 1-2 count.
The NO SPITTING sign in that lead photo has gotta be a joke, right?
The decision was likely poor but at least Tipsy Tony was awake.
What’s your problem with La Russa? All 30 MLB managers make bazillions of bad moves, and you toss out an article titled “Tony La Russa is at it Again”. Sounds like you have a personal dislike for the guy. With that type of biased “reporting”, you want us to support FanGraphs (and all the mistakes you make)? Uh … no supp for you.
Tony La Russa is old and he’s still alive, which are the main reasons Fangraphs hate him. That he won 93 games last year bothers them, and they want more than anything to see this year go badly so he’ll get fired and they can write more articles claiming vindication.
That Tony La Russa’s alive and managing in MLB presents a threat to their way of thinking. It’s really silly, because there is no threat. OOA, WPA, and xwOBA aren’t all going to vanish because Tony La Russa manages one of thirty MLB teams.
I’m curious, given the response LaRussa gave, “do you know what Turner hits with 2 strikes?” if he might be drawing ridiculous conclusions from super tiny sample sizes. You said that Turner has a very small CAREER sample size of 1-2 at bats against lefties, just in the name of figuring out what in god’s name LaRussa could possibly have been thinking, I’m curious what Turner is on the YEAR in a 1-2 count vs. a lefty. If Turner is 2-3 or something, maybe LaRussa concluded (absurdly) that Turner is a .667 hitter in that situation?
In what game did this occur?
Awesome. I love when I am the only person curious about something!