State of the Indians: Part 1a of ??
October 22nd, 2009 | by johnhoyos |I was over on Baseball Reference looking up some of Bobby Valentine’s managerial stats. I know he’s a long shot for the job, but I figured I’d throw in some interesting numbers just for the sake of unreality. Specifically, I went into his full-season managerial record with the Mets from 1997-2001 to look at his proclivities for the stolen base and intentional walk.
<!– BODY,DIV,TABLE,THEAD,TBODY,TFOOT,TR,TH,TD,P { font-family:”Arial”; font-size:x-small } –>
| Valentine and the Mets | ||||||
| Year | SB | CS | SB-CS | LgA SB-CS | IBB | Lg Avg IBB |
| 1997 | 97 | 74 | 23 | 70 | 43 | 45 |
| 1998 | 62 | 46 | 16 | 54 | 59 | 40 |
| 1999 | 150 | 61 | 89 | 70 | 53 | 42 |
| 2000 | 66 | 46 | 20 | 56 | 42 | 46 |
| 2001 | 66 | 48 | 18 | 45 | 60 | 54 |
His SB success rate is a little disconcerting. Even more so when you consider that, in 1999 Roger Cedeno (66 out of 83 tries) and Rickey Henderson (37 out of 51 tries) combined to provide a +72 SB-CS for the team. That puts the rest of the team at +17 – right in line with the other full seasons that Valentine managed. My guess is he was putting the hit-and-run sign on a little too much.
He was also over the league average for intentional walks in three of his five full seasons. This is an indication that he’s more than willing to put a hitter on to play the better matchup or get to a weaker hitter.
On a positive note, the defense maintained a league average or better fielding percentage in all five seasons. He was also at the helm for the 1999 Mets that set a Major League record with only 68 errors during the season.
My analysis of this data indicates that he preaches fundamental baseball in all facets of the game. Looking at sacrifice hit data did not shed any light on his tendencies to bunt. Everything was right around league average.
Tags: Bobby Valentine, manager
