Is because Tracy managed fairly aggressively for pretty much the whole season and then just started doing a whole mountain of stupid crap in the season’s last couple weeks and in the playoffs. It just seemed like we entered the Twilight Zone and Hurdle had done some sort of Freaky Friday body switch with Tracy.

but that one’s overblown.

and won’t come back.

but no one yet appears to have read their Hess or Weigley.

Basically the worst President. Ever.

or SHOULD BE. But many times the Bench Coach is just a “Yes Man” buddy hired by the Manager.

And it just really seemed to happen once the rosters expanded, and he could make many more changes and tinkerings. That tinkering attitude carried into the playoffs.

under Hurdle, then under Tracy is prove that your claim that any numbskull can get the same results out of players is just not true. I mean, the records/resulsts aren’t even CLOSE to being the same.

as much as everyone around here wants to just give him a one year deal, it’s not going to happen. He has leverage. He is coming off a season in which he is viewed as incredibly successful. He will parlay that into a multi-year deal, whether it be in Colorado or somewhere else. And as much as giving him a multi-year deal here is probably not a great idea, we all should probably accept that it’s going to happen.

We can all agree on a couple of things:

a) Tracy performed far far better than Hurdle;
b) Tracy managed this team well enough to get to the playoffs;
c) Tracy’s decisionmaking in the playoffs left quite a bit to be desired

Okay, so I understand why people want to see him get a one year contract. But I really think “a” and “b” have to outweigh “c” here, because if all we offer Tracy is a one year extension, someone else is going to come along (Houston, perhaps Cincy or Cleveland) and offer him three years, based solely on his record this season. And then where does that leave us?

Seriously, what managing candidate currently available would do a better job with this ballclub than Tracy. If the answer is “none”, then you make a grave mistake offering him a 1-yr deal, which he will turn down to get three years elsewhere. And then you’re stuck with Ken Macha as your manager, and we don’t even sniff the playoffs.

You have to get there to win there.

But the issue is that Tracy ignored the percentage play – the overwhelmingly smarter percentage play – because the guy pitching was the “OMG CLOSAR”. If, say, it were the 8th inning and Daley were pitching and the same situation came up, Beimel would have absolutely gotten the call. It shouldn’t be different just because the inning and the label of the pitcher changes. Play the percentages with the game on the line. Even Monty Burns knew to pinch-hit for Strawberry against a lefty.

he’d have real talent to work with here.

a completely garbage organization, run by nincompoops, and he had them near .500 2 seasons ago.

unless I think I can get in to the hall of fame if I admit to it.

Atkins/Stewart scream L/R platoon split. With the lefties that the Phillies used, I’m ok with this.

Same with Iannetta/Torrealba stats they also scream L/R platoon split…..um….wait a sec

but the manager, that pushes them around is responsible for their failures and that’s not allowed?

My self editing ability seems to be going out the window in this discussion, sorry.

Not Purple Row specifically, but blogs in general, where opinions flow freely and seem to generate a lot more legit discussion than what you find at newspapers. Newspapers feel that in order to sustain their business model they have to stoop to our level a little more. Unfortunately for them, blogs don’t really have much of a business model, period, stooping to our level probably won’t generate paper sustaining revenues.

Manuel’s use of all his starters in Game 2 was beyond stoopid, and he has only the weather gods to thank for the Game 3 postponement. His 2-6 bats won that series.

And the only reason he doubleswitched to bring Francisco in (who robbed us of a key hit and perhaps more runs in the 8th of Game 4) is that the pitcher’s spot was due up next. Notice he pulled Francisco for a PHer during the ninth and had to go to another defensive replacement in the 9th, because he burned his. Ibanez catches that ball around 3% of the time.

Tracy was not outmanaged in this series, even with his mistakes.

and agree with you here, there was no gaurantee that Howard wouldn’t have hit Beimel too, the guy is a GREAT hitter. But I like the odds a lot better with 2 runners on than an imploding Street. Clearly not too many managers would have made that switch, as evidenced by the Franklin blowup, the Nathan blowup, the Papelbon blowup. Guys all left in by Managers that most consider the best in the game.

In the sense that “Howard hits like Albert Pujols against righties and Rey Ordonez against lefties,” it’s the right percentage play 100% of the time.

Just looked up Ryan Howard’s OPS Against Beimel for his career:

1.362

He probably had a 3 in 10 chance of getting a it off street, 2 in 10 off beimel. So only 10% of the time is there a difference. And even then, it could have been a single. Street might get werth out and finuto

But I can’t believe people want to get rid of him. (I’m glad to see from the poll that only 12 percent feel that way)

I disagree with those who say we would have made the playoffs with Hurdle. Here are a few things that Tracy did that I think helped turn this team around.

1) He created stability. When hurdle was the manager the lineup sometimes looked like he threw all the names in a hat and picked some out. As much as we all like to rip on Clint Barmes his defense and 23 HR (16 of which came between June 6th and August 25th) did help this team in the middle of the season. Jim Tracy needs to get credit for starting him and Stewart everyday because their defense and power helped fuel this run. (And blaming Tracy for going away from Stewart when it mattered most really is unfair. That .178 average against LHP is pretty ugly. Remember that the tear Stewart went on in June was against the Brew Crew and Cards, teams loaded with RHP.)

2) He made the team "not afraid to fail". I remember Tulowitzki saying this in an interview. The team loosened up and stopped playing scared when he took over and doing things like giving the players the clubhouse because it’s "their space" I think helped them buy into this concept.

3) Changing Tulo’s stance. I don’t remember exactly how it happened but I remember reading somewhere that Tracy told Troy that he wanted him to stand more upright at the plate. Tulowitzki took a huge gamble and completely altered his stance in the middle of the season. From this point on, Tulo became a rock in the four spot and put up near Pujols numbers. I can say with confidence we don’t make the playoffs without this one thing happening.

4) Allowing the starters to go deeper into games. This kind of goes along with the whole trust thing in number two but this defiantly helped the team. The starters were not afraid they were going to be taken out after one bad inning and this helped their confidence immensely.

5) Giving everyone in the bullpen a roll. (I can’t believe I’m including this because the idea pitchers need a specific inning or role to go out in is ludicrous to me. I always think, your role is to get batters out; go do it) Anyway I don’t know if it was luck or what but when Tracy did this everything seemed to fall into place. It burned him with Street in the postseason but Houston only blew three saves regular and postseason combined. I could argue he was unlucky here.

6) THE PLAYERS LIKE TRACY. This to me is the most important point of all. If a group of guys has to spend 162 games together, it’s going to help if most of them like the manager. I know there are probably examples of managers players hated in baseball history and still won but you can’t find many recently. Bottom line if the players like him that’s a lot of weight in Tracy’s corner.

Sorry I wasn’t around most of the day to debate this. Looks like I missed a lot of fun. :(

The real question is whether we will overall, because April and May already provided some leveling out for us. And while the pitching should take a step back, the offense should actually take a step forward overall.

I can’t think of a manger available who is better. I don’t want tony and his mind games. As far a s regressing? Not sure I think Jimenez can improve,DLR is the question if he can go 16-9 again we are in decent shape. While i would love to see Francis make a comeback I feel we need and insurance policy on that. This team has the talent to win 90 games and only once(2004) since 03 has that not made the playoffs

And trying to come up with ways that they could rescue him. So far all I’ve got is giant net. But that doesn’t seem practical, given the altitude and the unpredictaable trajectory.

and I’m sure it faded immediately for you as for me…

…and to be fair, I don’t really hate the Phillies…just most Philly sports fans, generally.

ETHIER!!!!!
/shaking fist..

preemptive fist shake