What I've told some Cubs fans about Joe Maddon

 As I was driving home from a Mavericks game, I realized that Joe Maddon could be the one person able to erase the misery of the last 106 years or so.

He could make the Cubs winners because that's what he did with the Rays. 

He didn't do it all by himself. He came along with a management that had a clue without thinking it knew everything. It was an enlightened management that realized you didn't have to give everyone the highest salary of anybody at his position if you treated the players well. 

With Maddon running the team, the Rays were able to find players who were better than even they knew. 

The last step was for Maddon to convince the players that they could win. It took a few years. 

The situation he'll have in Chicago isn't a whole lot different from what he had in the AL East. But the Cardinals and Pirates are hardly as entrenched as the Yankees and Red Sox, nor do they receive the benefits that the New York and Boston teams did from baseball's hierarchy and the media. 

So it might take Maddon two years to do what he did in three for the Rays. 

If he uses his tenure there as the template, he'll spend the first year convincing players it's possible for them to win as a group. He'll be firm but positive with the players. He'll get them working together without cliques in the locker room. 

In the second year, he'll take aim at the Cardinals. There will be a game when the Cardinals throw at a Cub, and the Chicago pitcher will come back to take out Yadier Molina or some other key player. Or maybe a minor character. With the Rays, he did it with utility infielder Elliot Johnson taking out Yankees catcher Francisco Cervelli. In spring training. The uproar at the time from New York was deafening. Who were they to do that to the Yankees? 

But at a time when another AL East manager told me his team was afraid of the Yankees -- and I observed that the Rangers seemed the same way -- the Rays had no fear of the Yanks. 

I heard Maddon in his farewell press conference saying how great a contribution Elliot Johnson made to the Rays' success. 

By the third year, here's how the Rays as a team showed me they were together from the top of the organization to the bottom. When they'd come to Texas in '09 or '10, it seemed that the music in the clubhouse was almost always a song called "Low" by Flo Rida. Kind of a hip hop song. The younger players -- most of them were young -- and the black players liked the music. But there in the clubhouse, singing along with the lyrics, would be 38-39-40-year-old Troy Percival. I never heard Maddon singing it, but I'm sure he approved.

Joe Maddon is my favorite major league manager to deal with. That's the case with most of the people who come in contact with him. He is one of the most genuinely interesting and interested people I've been around. He can carry on a conversation on just about any topic without coming across as a know-it-all. He knows what he doesn't know, and seems willing to listen to others who might have the answers. 

Managers have different reactions to their pre-game and post-game sessions with the media. Some treat it like a visit to the dentist, let's get it over with (Ryne Sandberg). Most tolerate it. Some can be prickly (Ned Yost). Maddon seems to embrace the time. He never seems rushed, he always allows enough time so he doesn't have to tell the writers and broadcasters it's time to go. It begins and ends on its own time, and it's a give and take.

Especially with Ozzie Guillen and Jim Leyland out of managing, Maddon has the most interesting media sessions.

I'm pretty sure he's the same with his players. Always having time and making time for them, and always hearing them out and learning from them.

A story. I was in one of Mike Scioscia's pre-game news gatherings in the dugout before a game a couple of years ago. I'd noticed in the media notes that a couple of players were nearly ready to come off the disabled list. He didn't say anything about them, so I asked about their status. He said something about one player, then he said that the other one, Sean Burnett, would be shut down and would undergo season-ending shoulder surgery. By that time, the clubhouse was closed to the media, but the Angels beat writers arranged to get an interview with Burnett outside the clubhouse. While we were waiting to talk to him, the Angels writers thanked me for asking. I said something about how I just figured it didn't hurt to ask. I don't think Scioscia neglected to tell us on purpose. But I told the writers that because I worked with a lot of visiting managers, there were managers who wouldn't tell you anything, some who would tell you just what they were supposed to say and others who would volunteer information. The writers didn't seem to believe it and asked, "Who volunteers information?" I said, "Maddon." Then they all nodded their heads and understood.

The defensive All-Stars

The All-Star ballot I outlined in an earlier post took only batting into account.

I didn’t project a better-rounded team because there aren’t established metrics that everyone can agree on for fielding or baserunning.

Fielding has Range Factor, a fairly simple metric that tells part of the story. By merely dividing total chances by games (or 9 innings), you can get a measure of how much ground a player covers. That way you can differentiate a player who can get to a lot of batted balls from another who makes plays on balls hit close to him.

What it can’t tell you is whether a player’s Range Factor is higher because he has more balls hit in his direction than other players at his position. For example, if he’s a third baseman on a team with three or four left-handed starting pitchers and a large number of ground-ball pitchers.

Other people will tell you about DWAR, Defensive Wins Above Replacement, even after your eyes glaze over from boredom and an aversion to math.

First basemen and catchers don’t have measurable range. For 1Bs, I’m using DWAR. Catchers do have a viable measure, catcher’s ERA, in addition to DWAR.

By combining the available metrics, I came up with this list of defensive All-Stars that I voted for on a ballot in addition to my "true" offensive All-Stars:

American League

C Salvador Perez, Royals

1B Mike Napoli, Red Sox

2B Dustin Pedroia, Red Sox

3B Josh Donaldson, Athletics

SS Alexei Ramirez, White Sox

LF Yoenis Cespedes, Athletics

CF Leonys Martin, Rangers

RF Nick Markakis, Orioles

National League

C Yadier Molina, Cardinals

1B Matt Adams, Cardinals

2B Brandon Phillips, Reds

3B Pablo Sandoval, Giants

SS Troy Tulowitzki, Rockies

LF Khris Davis, Brewers

CF Marcell Ozuna, Marlins

RF Jason Heyward, Braves

Three players are on both my offensive and defensive All-Star teams. I don't think you could come up with a good reason not to vote for Donaldson, Ramirez and Tulowitzki. OK, you're going to tell me Donaldson has more errors than anyone west of Pedro Alvarez, but at the time I checked the defensive metrics, Donaldson led major league third basemen in DWAR and the AL third sackers in Range Factor.

Rockies 3B Nolan Arenado and Athletics RF Josh Reddick would have been on my defensive ballot, but they're injured.

There were some ties. 

With only one metric, DWAR, at first base -- and precious little positive value, with just four 1B above 0.0 when I checked the numbers, there was little choice. Napoli tied with Kansas City's Eric Hosmer and Adams with San Diego's Yonder Alonso. I broke the tie the way Gold Glove voters seem to, by which is the better offensive player. In hindsight, I should have gone with Hosmer in the AL. He is a truly gifted defender. Don't talk to me about the Diamondbacks' Paul Goldschmidt. I haven't seen him in person very much, but when I have he has struck me as a good hitter but not a good fielder. At the time I looked at DWARs, Goldschmidt was at -0.5, or a greater negative value than any first baseman's positive value.

Speaking of defense, I just noticed that I made an error at second base in the NL. The Rockies' D.J. LeMahieu ranked ahead of Phillips in both RF and DWAR.

For the NL catcher, Molina and the Giants' Buster Posey had the same combined ranking. As a tiebreaker, I used DWAR, where Molina ranked higher, ahead of CERA, where Posey led the league.

Similarly, Ozuna's superior DWAR broke a tie with the Cardinals' Peter Bourjos and Heyward's major league-best DWAR in right field put him ahead of Marlins RF Giancarlo Stanton. By the way, lost among some pretty good offensive statistics, Miami has probably the majors' best outfield defense. LF Christian Yelich also ranked second in the NL in the combined metrics.

* * *

I also looked for individual base-running metrics that could help in establishing a list of well rounded All-Stars, but there didn't seem to be enough evidence (call it small sample size) to make an educated guess about one player over another. Baseball Prospectus' base-running metric (positive and negative runs) includes five different types of runs -- Ground Advancement, Stolen Base, Air Advancement, Hit Advancement and Other Advancement.

There could be some merit in the larger sampling of team base-running runs. At the time I researched this post, the Royals led the majors with almost 10 runs, 50% more than the runner-up Mariners. The Cubs led the NL. By far, the worst teams were the Red Sox and Athletics, with the old and infirm Phillies last in the National League. 

KC's base-running prowess could be a reason why the Royals stayed in contention despite some atrocious hitting. Base-running appeared to be just another problem for Boston, another aging team with injury issues. I was surprised to see the Rangers among the AL base-running leaders, because even during their recent contending days they have made miserable mistakes on the bases. Texas was slightly above 0. I'm guessing the positive ranking could have been built on Stolen Base Runs -- with a trio of base stealers in Martin, Elvis Andrus and Alex Rios. 

There didn't appear to be much correlation between good base-running teams and teams high in the standings. Four teams currently in playoff position ranked in the top third in base-running, but three "playoff teams" ranked in the bottom third.