A CITIZEN'S BLOG

The rank-and-file Phillies fan has always liked Larry Bowa. The firey shortstop on the team’s 1980 World Series victory, Bowa’s return to coach the team was almost like something out of a Hollywood film: the hero returns to lead the team to the promised land. Bowa’s angry temper and constant riding of under-performing players led him to be hated by his own players, but beloved by the fans (prior to this season), who saw him as the personification of Philly’s grity, blue-collar toughness. Phils bloggers, however, treated Bowa with icy contempt. Bowa was an old-school manager to poo-poo’d statistical analysis for “gut feelings” and talked about “manufacturing” runs with bunts and steals (aka, “small ball”), conventional wisdom that Phillies bloggers rolled their eyes when they heard. The team’s poor performance in 2003 and 2004 put Bowa’s head on the choping block, something the Phillies made official shortly before the end of the season, firing Bowa as manager and hiring his antithesis, the easy-going Charlie Manuel.

As I said, Phillies bloggers disliked Bowa for his focus on small ball with a team built for getting on base and hitting home runs (aka, Moneyball) in a sluggers park like Citizen’s Bank Ballpark. I doubt a tear was shed in the blogosphere for Bowa’s untimely demise as manager, but how accurate was Bowa’s professed love of “small ball”? Paging through the 2005 Bill James Handbook, I found something surprising:

Larry Bowa may have preached small ball, but he really didn’t practice it in his last season as Phillies manager.

James lists a lot of things he kept track of during the 2004 season, like lineups used, defensive substitutions, etc. James also kept track of two stats under “tactics”: attempted stolen bases, and sacrifices attempted. Both are small ball tactics for advancing the runner: in the case of a steal the team takes the risk that the runner will be called out, losing an out and losing a potential run (I saw a nice illustration of this in September at a Pirates - Cards game when I saw Tony LaRussa send Edgar Renteria to steal second with Scott Rolen up. Renteria was called out, Rolen walked and Jim Edmonds homered. Wasted run). In the case of the sacrifice hit, when a team surrenders the out to advance the runner 90 feet they have essentially played for a single run, and run themselves out of the opportunity to play for a big inning.

AL Moneyball teams (Red Sox, A’s & Blue Jays) typically don’t attempt small ball tactics: the three teams were last in the AL in attempted steals and were three of the four AL teams that attempted the fewest sacrifice hits. I expected to see the Phillies lead the NL, or be near the top, in small ball tactics. Amongst managers who coached 160+ games, Bowa was sixth of thirteen in attempted steals with 127. How did Bowa rank with sacrifice hits? Thirteenth of thirteen. Dead last. Here are how the managers who coached all of their teams games did in a small ball index:
Small Ball Index: (Attempted Steal + Sacrifice Hit = Small Ball)
1. Robinson (Mont): 266
2. LaRussa (Stl): 245
3. McKeon (Fla): 241
4. Cox (Atl): 221
4. Howe (NYM): 221
4. Tracy (LA): 221
7. McClendon (Pit): 202
8. Hurdle (Col): 201
8. Bowa (Phi): 201
10. Baker (Chi): 200
11. Miley (Cin): 180
12. Alou (SF): 168
13. Bochy (SD): 152

Bowa tied for eighth on the list out of 13 managers. Bowa’s managing in 2004 was hardly a clinic on small ball: the Phillies tried a lot of steals but they have potent weapons in that category with Abreu (40 of 45 attempts) and Rollins (30 of 39 attempts), so we should be thankful that the Phillies resisted the urge to run more in 2004. Simply put, I don’t think that the numbers support the conclusion that Bowa was a small ball manager in 2004. He managed the Phillies more in the letter (if not the spirit) of a Moneyball team.

I think what made Bowa a bad manager were his leadership skills rather than his tactics: leading a veteran team like the 2003 and 2004 teams requires a lighter touch than Bowa was capable of giving. I look forward to Charlie Manuel coaching the Phillies in 2005 and I think that he had been the Phillies skipper these last two years, things might have been different (I certainly think they would have been the NL wildcard in 2003). But Bowa’s gone and he’ll likely be torturing us in 2005 on ESPN as a baseball analyst (I forget: did he turn down the Marlins offer or not?), talking about the importance of “manufacturing runs” and “creating opportunities” to score. God help us all.