Preemptive justification for Ozzie-bashing

If you’ve followed the Chicago media since the start of spring training, it’s obvious why the White Sox will be better in 2007 than in 2006.

Less food.

...While their 90-72 mark last year wasn't good enough to keep them off their couches in October, however, it did give Konerko a full offseason to rest, as well as grow hungry again.

..."He should be more hungry," Guillen said. "He is not playing with kids any more. In college you face a good pitcher once a month. In the big leagues you are going to face the first week of the season five nasty guys.

...“This guy showed up hungry,’’ said White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen. “He’s the type of guy you like to have here. We used to hate each other when we played against each other, (but) we played the right way. A lot of people say he’s a grinder, he plays hard. Well, no, he’s a good player.’’

...''They got a little taste of the success and winning the World Series, and you want to get it back,'' he said recently of his players. ''They are mad because we didn't win it last year. They are hungry to do it again.''

I’m sorry. That’s less food and more bunting.

So what are the early returns on Ozzie’s Fun-damentals and food deprivation tacticts? From today’s spring training wrap:

Erstad, batting in the second spot, laid down a sacrifice bunt in the first inning Monday that helped set up the Sox's first run.Unfortunately for Iguchi and the Sox, he missed a suicide squeeze bunt that prevented the go-ahead run from scoring in the eighth.

Man, Tadahito Iguchi sucks. Not like that Gashouse Grinder Erstad. It sounds like Tad needs more time working on his Bunt-amentals. And he needs more in-game bunt attempts. Because it’s not like he’s a decent hitter or anything. All he’s good for is moving runners one base at a time. Ozzie should cut him. In both the literal and transactional way. And then Ozzie should curse him out and call him a seaweed-lover or something else racially insensitive. Because that’s what Ozzie does. Because Ozzie don’t take that sloppy fundamentals shit. And Ozzie dice lo que Ozzie damn well pleases, chingadores.

Ozz-ie! Ozz-ie! Ozz-ie!...

Now before I begin picking apart Ozzie Guillen’s flaws as a human being, I think it’s only fair that I confess to being a Cubs fan. But lest we let a potentially intelligent discussion devolve into bickering over arbitrary rooting interests, I will also add that the Sox have always been my second-favorite team, and I enjoy watching them win. I only bring this up because good critiques too often are cast aside over suspected emotional biases—especially in Chicago, where we think “listening” means yelling and name-calling. I insist this is not the case.

Having said that, I dislike Guillen. Immensely. Regulars know that Matt and I criticized Guillen frequently last season, and we will probably do so again this season. Hopefully this post will articulate our disdain, which is not aimed merely toward Ozzie’s general tactlessness.

Questionable baseball strategy is one thing. Its effects on the whole are marginal, and they don’t particularly pain me. What does pain me is seeing someone bask in icon status as direct result of his counterproductive stubbornness. In this sense, Guillen is the anit-Manny Acta (“I am not going to be running all over the place just because 25,000 people in the stands are saying I am aggressive while people are getting thrown out on the bases.”). Whereas Acta is willing to sacrifice his own name for the good of his team, Guillen’s priorities are seemingly the reverse.

But why are fans and managers so quick to fall in love with the bunting, base-stealing, hit-and-running style in the first place? Why will they defend it and continue to employ it, even in the face of strong empirical evidence against it? Why do fans automatically assume that being “aggressive” is preferable to saving outs—that is, proverbially waiting for the proverbial three-run homer?

It’s a matter of control. Being in control. Feeling in control. That’s all. I’d imagine control is among the most powerful instincts of any manager--and for that matter, any player or fan. It makes sense that we’d naturally prefer a style that brings us a greater sense of control. But that doesn’t make it better.

Managers like Guillen buy into their own lust for control and, at the same time, play into the fans’ natural predilections. That’s why the Guillens are so popular. It doesn’t matter if the team’s best fortune is realized. Fans will perceive it this way regardless.

So will the manager. Rather than analyzing different strategies on a realistic cost-benefit basis, the Guillens of baseball idealize the outcomes of these strategies, selectively remember the times they pay off, and justify them by their seeming simplicity—that is, “It should have worked”—even when they flop.

These rationalizations only distort the reality that A) sac bunts / hit-and-runs are not nearly as simple to execute properly as we would like to believe, B) the subsequent events necessary to render the strategy effective are equally oversimplified, and C) the expectation for all to go well, thereby fulfilling the idealized model, is far-fetched.

But again, these fallacies are fallacies that play wonderfully to our need for control. It’s difficult for any of us to accept when events are subject to innate impulses, muscle memory, and random chance far more than they are subject to our conscious decisions. It’s a feeling of powerlessness, and that’s the last feeling any coach or athlete wants to face.

A coach or manager like Guilen will defy, or at least postpone, that unsettling realization simply by employing more maneuvers, regardless of how effective any of them are. If the maneuver pans out, he’s done something. If it goes wrong, the blame is shared. Who’s to say that the call was wrong? At least he was trying.

As fans, we need our defense mechanisms just as badly. While we can’t ourselves call for a hit-and-run or pitching change, we can assert control by second guessing what the manager did or didn’t do. Sometimes this effect can be tangible in the firing of the manager. Most of the time it’s simply therapeutic scapegoating. Misfortune is never the result of random chance. It’s always Dusty Baker. Or a lack of “hunger.” Or a lack of preparation. Anything in the world. As long as it’s something we can understand and can control, we are satisfied.

Hence, we eat up the “Smallball” style. Running hard on the basepaths, cutting back on a swing, concentrating harder on game situations—these are all things we see as controlled by our conscious will. As a result, they’re so lauded that some casual fans might rate David Eckstein over a player like Aramis Ramirez. So when Ozzie says he’s out to kick his players’ asses and not expletive around, he’s a hero to fans who want to see those pampered, privileged pro athletes learning how to be accountable, work hard, take their vitamins, and salute the flag.

Therein lies the diabolical genius of the bunts drills. If Ozzie bunts a lot, he’s bulletproof from critics who might otherwise say he is not “aggressive” enough. And should his strategies result in too many outs, Guillen can’t be faulted because he drilled his players on these “fundamentals.” And after all, it’s the players who have to execute to make them work! Ozzie did his part!

Of course, that's all a bunch of bullshit. People often say that bad managing can hurt a team a lot more than good managing can help it. I think this is probably true. That said, the effect of “bad” managing has its limits as well, unless we enter the realm of consciously trying to lose. For the sake of this argument, let’s not go there. Let’s limit “bad” managing to misguided strategies aimed toward winning. By this standard, it’s important not to exaggerate the detriment of using too many sacrifice bunts.

However, Guillen’s style is no less forgivable. Putting his hubris before the success of his team is selfish and fruitless, regardless of magnitude. It’s as “bad” as “bad” managing gets, short of trying to lose.

Yes, it may be difficult to quantify the stupidity of having Tadahito Iguchi put down a sac bunt with no outs in the second inning, but the ambiguity doesn’t justify blind ignorance. It’s on Guillen to learn whether this strategy has merit beyond his vague, skewed projection of success. A person cannot trust sheer intuition when the disparity between cost and benefit is so terribly subtle.

In that same vein, a manager has the right—the obligation, even—to look upon statistical claims with skepticism. Were I to approach Guillen with quantitative evidence that a Tadahito Iguchi sac bunt is a poor strategy, I imagine Guillen would retort back, “How the [expletive] do you know? Where the [expletive] did you get your numbers? Once you’ve managed or at least played a [expletive] game in the majors, then you tell me something about [expletive] strategy. Until then, don’t tell me how to run my [expletive] team.”

Hypothetical Guillen would be right to question the methodology. Whether he would take the time to hear it out or trust it is a different issue. Of course, a good manager would heed the advice of an expert without needing to arrive at the method and the conclusion independently. Because—let’s face it—Ozzie Guillen would never arrive at complex stat-based conclusions himself. I’m not saying he’s dumb; his brain just doesn’t work that way. Most managers’ brains don’t, and no one faults them for that.

However, only an arrogant manager would put blind faith in his own intuition over sound evidence from a left-brained individual. Just because none of us know how our drinking water is treated, my friends wouldn’t say I was “old-school” or “tough as nails” if I ordered pure grain alcohol and rainwater at the bar. They’d say I’m an idiot. Yet in Chicago, hard-headed egotism gets you icon status and a five-part biographical miniseries.

Is Ozzie Guillen’s bunt-happy style going to cause the White Sox a ton of wins this year? I doubt it. Will Guillen get himself fired by the middle of next season once everyone sees through his bullshit and tires of his personality? Man, I hope so.