The Third Base Coach Problem

teddywingman

Looks like Zach Galifianakis
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Jul 31, 2009
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I hope Febles can figure it out. He's been a coach or manager in the Red Sox organization for over a decade. Here's a chance for him to make a step in the direction of MLB manager, if he is inclined toward that one day. He's not yet 42 years old.

But all evidence in 2018 (which shouldn't be much, but shockingly it is) shows that he has no aptitude for coaching third. Tonight's game in Toronto (4/25) had at least two egregious blunders, maybe three.

1. Brock Holt hits a gapper that isn't getting caught, even if the left fielder (Pearce) doesn't trip. The left fielder DOES trip, but somehow, someway, Febles tells JBJ to slam the breaks and head back to second. This nearly results in Vazquez passing JBJ between 2nd and 3rd. Vazquez would have scored too. The play was in front of him, but it was also in front of Febles because he's a 3rd base coach and can position himself wherever the heck he wants.

2. Which would have helped Benintendi on that easy sac fly deep down the right field line. I guess Benintendi's view was impeded by the 2nd base ump, so he left the bag early and had to retreat. There's a guy standing nearby who could have helped. I remember from my brief playing days, it goes something like: "TAG! Wait... Wait... WAIT... GO!"

3. This one is debatable, but I think Vazquez could have scored on that fly ball in the 5th (to right field by Betts) on the play following the Holt gapper. If the philosophy is to put pressure on opposing defenses, this was the perfect scenario. It certainly wouldn't have been like the Nuñez send last night in the 9th inning. This would have been close, and I believe scores more than half the time. [Serious Analysis]

I'm not saying fire the guy. It's not an easy job. I guess he's done it before at Portland?

Febles is on my radar, and like others have said, it's probably best if you don't know the name of the 3rd base coach.

I hope this thread is dead in a week.
 
Last edited:

E5 Yaz

Transcends message boarding
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The problem with judging a third-base coach is that what he's judged on is out of his control -- namely the instincts of the runner in certain situations.

Additionally, we don't know what kind of mandate he's under from Cora in terms of being aggressive early in the season. They're judging everything, including the base-running of the players.

So, why while we can certainly look at base-running decisions, it's a bigger topic than just Febles.
 

teddywingman

Looks like Zach Galifianakis
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Jul 31, 2009
11,168
a basement on the hill
The problem with judging a third-base coach is that what he's judged on is out of his control -- namely the instincts of the runner in certain situations.

Additionally, we don't know what kind of mandate he's under from Cora in terms of being aggressive early in the season. They're judging everything, including the base-running of the players.

So, why while we can certainly look at base-running decisions, it's a bigger topic than just Febles.
Watch the play where he turned JBJ around. Report back.
 

CantKeepmedown

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Somebody was arguing with Lou Merloni on twitter about the AB tag play. Lou basically said that it's the major leagues, it's on the player to know when to go. Which I thought was odd since, as you said, the 3rd base coach could put himself in a perfect view to see the play.
 

DennyDoyle'sBoil

Found no thrill on Blueberry Hill
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There’s an angle on the JBJ Vaz play on the mlb condensed game where he comes off looking really awful. Just no idea what is happening. Small sample and an unusual play but definitely worth watching.
 

tims4wins

PN23's replacement
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Jul 15, 2005
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This doesn't have much to do with Febles, but for a speedy guy, Benintendi has to be one of the worst baserunners I have ever seen. I was hoping he would improve from his rookie year, but the early returns are not promising. He is horrible on the bases.
 

Pozo the Clown

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Sep 13, 2006
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What I find most disturbing about the Nunez send on Tues night is that according to Febles (as quoted in the article linked below), he'd made the decision BEFORE Holt made contact with the ball.

From the article:
Febles planned to be aggressive even before Holt's single went through into left. "To me at that time, I made up my mind out of the gate," Febles added. "I think if we get a hit here, we need to try to get a lead. That's exactly what I did."

Shouldn't a Major League 3rd base coach assess the situation in real time as the play unfolds?

http://www.masslive.com/redsox/index.ssf/2018/04/red_soxs_alex_cora_carlos_febl.html#incart_river_index
 

BaseballJones

ivanvamp
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Oct 1, 2015
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It's ok to have a plan before the pitch is thrown. You know the game situation. You think, I have Runner X on second and I know how fast he is, and I know the relative strengths of the arms of the outfielders. If this ball is hit to right or center, I'm probably sending him. If it's to left, unless it's softly hit or if the LF has to move a lot to his left or right, I'm not sending him.

But yes of course you adjust on the fly because maybe the fielder gets to the ball more quickly than you imagined. Maybe it takes a weird hop. Maybe the runner doesn't get a clean jump. Any number of factors can come into play, but it's good to start with a plan.
 

DeadlySplitter

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one problem there is Nunez clearly has lost a step (or more) on the basepaths. his value is torpedoing in front of our eyes unfortunately - hopefully a bench role, ~2 starts a week will help when Pedey is back (and hopefully healthy)
 

teddywingman

Looks like Zach Galifianakis
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Jul 31, 2009
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a basement on the hill
What I find most disturbing about the Nunez send on Tues night is that according to Febles (as quoted in the article linked below), he'd made the decision BEFORE Holt made contact with the ball.

From the article:
Febles planned to be aggressive even before Holt's single went through into left. "To me at that time, I made up my mind out of the gate," Febles added. "I think if we get a hit here, we need to try to get a lead. That's exactly what I did."

Shouldn't a Major League 3rd base coach assess the situation in real time as the play unfolds?

http://www.masslive.com/redsox/index.ssf/2018/04/red_soxs_alex_cora_carlos_febl.html#incart_river_index
That is so dumb, I can hardly believe he said that.
 

Reverend

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Somebody was arguing with Lou Merloni on twitter about the AB tag play. Lou basically said that it's the major leagues, it's on the player to know when to go. Which I thought was odd since, as you said, the 3rd base coach could put himself in a perfect view to see the play.
Merloni is obviously correct that at the end of the day, responsibility rests with the ball players.

But ball players should also be able to make effective use of useful base coaching. If Febles can't help, or the players aren't listening to him, or whatever, than there is an team issue which can and should be addressed to do better.

The good news is that this suggests that there might be some money on the table to be picked up by getting this right.
 

DennyDoyle'sBoil

Found no thrill on Blueberry Hill
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Well, there's an interesting part to what Febles was saying.

I think there is not enough situational awareness with respect to third base coaching. Very rarely do you even hear announcers talk about all the factors that I think are important to the decisions. They talk about the quality of the arms in the outfield and maybe about how many outs there are. That's the low hanging fruit. Then they fall back on platitudes about never wanting to make this out or that out on the basepaths.

And when criticizing these decisions, fans are equally superficial. The "was it a good send" seems totally results driven. Nobody ever takes a deep dive into situation. But ask yourself, what would Belichick do? Consider some situations.

Second and third, fast runner on second, no outs. Sac to medium center. What do you want to know? Well, do you care about losing a big inning? If it's 3-0 in the second it's very different from the bottom of the ninth in a tie game. Or the top of the 9th, down 1, but the other team has already burned its closer and you have a bullpen advantage not to mention playing at home. In that case, maybe you go for the win right there. Because the worst case, if the guy gets thrown out at the plate, is that the fast runner moves up to third and is there with one out and you get a second chance.

What else? Who is on deck? Who is in the hole with an intentional walk? Who do they have in the bullpen? How's your bench? Sending a guy with a ten percent chance to make it seems dumb, unless your worst hitter is on deck, your bench is short, you need one run right now, and they have a LOOGY in the bullpen who crushes lefties. Or what if that guy is in the hole but they can walk the guy in front of him to get to that situation?

I'm not saying Febles had any of that in mind. But I actually like that he had in mind situational factors, even if they were not particularly well thought out.

I actually think third base send decisions, in a perfect world, should be virtually entirely situational with virtually no impact for judgment factors. (Other than the judgment factor of "what is happening here" -- like the guy needs to know the difference between a fly ball and a ground ball or a pop up and a fly out.) Maybe 90/10. If you had a human supercomputer who could crunch the numbers and spit them out and do so based on some kind of matrix like go-for-two chart in football, I think the decision would indeed be largely made even before the pitch is thrown. Obviously if you get new information -- like a guy falls down -- you need to be there to incorporate it. Or if, say there's a popup but the guy can only catch it if he falls into the stands or something? And there's no such thing as a human super computer, so judgment still matters an awful lot on these, but I think there is still some room for considerably more situational awareness. I actually have a suspicion that Farrell was playing around with those ideas last year. We had some decent discussions about it in game threads at times but of course as with all things Farrell it got fucked up after a bit.
 

Reverend

for king and country
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Well, there's an interesting part to what Febles was saying.

I think there is not enough situational awareness with respect to third base coaching. Very rarely do you even hear announcers talk about all the factors that I think are important to the decisions. They talk about the quality of the arms in the outfield and maybe about how many outs there are. That's the low hanging fruit. Then they fall back on platitudes about never wanting to make this out or that out on the basepaths.

And when criticizing these decisions, fans are equally superficial. The "was it a good send" seems totally results driven. Nobody ever takes a deep dive into situation. But ask yourself, what would Belichick do? Consider some situations.

Second and third, fast runner on second, no outs. Sac to medium center. What do you want to know? Well, do you care about losing a big inning? If it's 3-0 in the second it's very different from the bottom of the ninth in a tie game. Or the top of the 9th, down 1, but the other team has already burned its closer and you have a bullpen advantage not to mention playing at home. In that case, maybe you go for the win right there. Because the worst case, if the guy gets thrown out at the plate, is that the fast runner moves up to third and is there with one out and you get a second chance.

What else? Who is on deck? Who is in the hole with an intentional walk? Who do they have in the bullpen? How's your bench? Sending a guy with a ten percent chance to make it seems dumb, unless your worst hitter is on deck, your bench is short, you need one run right now, and they have a LOOGY in the bullpen who crushes lefties. Or what if that guy is in the hole but they can walk the guy in front of him to get to that situation?

I'm not saying Febles had any of that in mind. But I actually like that he had in mind situational factors, even if they were not particularly well thought out.

I actually think third base send decisions, in a perfect world, should be virtually entirely situational with virtually no impact for judgment factors. (Other than the judgment factor of "what is happening here" -- like the guy needs to know the difference between a fly ball and a ground ball or a pop up and a fly out.) Maybe 90/10. If you had a human supercomputer who could crunch the numbers and spit them out and do so based on some kind of matrix like go-for-two chart in football, I think the decision would indeed be largely made even before the pitch is thrown. Obviously if you get new information -- like a guy falls down -- you need to be there to incorporate it. Or if, say there's a popup but the guy can only catch it if he falls into the stands or something? And there's no such thing as a human super computer, so judgment still matters an awful lot on these, but I think there is still some room for considerably more situational awareness. I actually have a suspicion that Farrell was playing around with those ideas last year. We had some decent discussions about it in game threads at times but of course as with all things Farrell it got fucked up after a bit.
I agree with all of this.

It also occurs to me that an enormous amount of this could be put into an algorithm and kept on a card like in football to have at least the basic framework to then just incorporate the tweaks for game situations.