Coop admits he's an idiot

Most baseball fans love to quibble about the line-up, or which pinch hitter should have been used, etc. The fact of the matter is, however, that our fandom should have us hyper-critically analyzing not the line-up (for proof go pick up a copy of The Book or Baseball Between the Numbers) or pinch-hitter debates which, often center around who's hot and who's not, or platoon splits, or batter pitcher match-ups. Google all of those phrases with sabermetrics attached and you'll find definitive repudiations for everything but the platoon splits, making the pinch hitter debate pretty cut and dry.

The most important thing that a manager, in either league, does during the course of a major league baseball game is manage his pitchers. When to take the starter out, which reliever to go do, how to keep everyone's usage at maximum efficiency, while keeping everyone healthy. In a recent interview, Coop admitted that going with his gut has not worked well for him this season. Alyson Footer politely titled the article "Cooper Learns on the Job". Good for her, because I don't see much room for excuses. There is a wealth of information out there that would allow Cecil Cooper to make infinitely more effective decisions with pitcher usage if he were to be willing to check his gut -- or as he praised it in the interview, the search for a TLR sixth-sense. Really extra senses? That's what it takes to be a big league manager? In the mean time, Coop I'll give you some helpful hints: Win-Expectancy, Run-Expectancy, Leverage-Index (especially when taking out the starter, and deciding on which reliever to use). It would be a nice little plane ride of reading. There are plenty of charts that you could keep with you in the dugout. Just please, please don't take all season waiting for your sixth sense to develop, because I have news for you Coop, there are only five.

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