ESPN on Leo

Thanks for those of you who pointed me to this weekend’s article about Leo Mazzone on ESPN’s E-Ticket. I get a nice mention in the article

There are those who suggest Mazzone’s success is based more on good fortune than anything else. Who wouldn’t look good coaching Maddux, Smoltz, Glavine, Steve Avery, Neagle, Mark Wohlers and the other great pitchers acquired by general manager John Schuerholz or developed in the Braves’ farm system? But the fact is this: Most pitchers get better when they join the Braves, and many get worse after they depart.

There is clear evidence. Economist J.C. Bradbury’s concludes from his extensive statistical analysis at the Sabernomics Blog, that “working with Leo shaves off between .55 and .85 points of a pitcher’s ERA.”

If you want to see the work I’ve done on Mazzone, the original article is here and the follow-up is on Baseball Analysts.

Thanks to Jeff Merron for the mention and writing a very good article.

Saturday, September 17th, 2005, by JC and is filed under "Braves, Managing, Pitching ". Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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5 Responses “ESPN on Leo”

  1. Rich Lederer says:
    September 17, 2005 at 2:22 pm

    Congrats, JC. Much deserved.

  2. Bell Curve says:
    September 17, 2005 at 7:45 pm

    Yeah, I was happy to see that.

    Gee, I wonder who this is referring to?

  3. Bell Curve says:
    September 17, 2005 at 7:46 pm

    Ack, the quote didn’t show up. Let’s try again.

    I had one pitcher tell me, one time, “I have to get back to what I was doing last year.” Well, the last year, he lost 20 games. I said, “What the [bleep] do you mean you’ve got to get back to what you were doing last year? You lost 20 [bleep]ing games.”

    A statement like that, to me, makes absolutely no sense at all. The reason why he said it is he couldn’t execute a very simple pitch. And after he found out that he couldn’t, he said, “I can’t pitch that way.” That guy’s never going to be any good. But there’s only been one or two like that.

  4. Tom G says:
    September 19, 2005 at 6:16 pm

    Incidentally, I’m not sure if it mentioned Sabernomics, but there was a chat today on ESPN with the author of the E-Ticket article….just a heads up.

  5. John W says:
    September 19, 2005 at 10:29 pm

    Great article, and congrats on the mention.

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