Avoiding Managerial Pain

Travis Sawchik talks to three MLB managers about how they make decisions:

So in reading the studies of Kahneman and Tversky, what interested me is how major league managers avoid the trappings of their human hard-wiring. How do they avoid acting against their own club’s own interest? For example, how do they avoid shying away from making bold call —- a decision that might be unorthodox though it would increase the probability of a win — but could yield much more second-guessing if it fails? How do they stick to what they believe is the best decision when thinking about a situation in the quiet of their office before a game, but a decision that could be swayed by the in-game emotion in the dugout during a game?

This reminds me of two conversations I had with different former players about Tom Glavine. Once I asked Ray Knight about why left-handed batters hit Tom Glavine so well. Knight explained to me that Glavine threw a “dead fish”, a soft pitch that moved away from RHB but into the hitting zone of a LHB. I then asked if baseball people knew this why didn’t managers start more lefties against Glavine? Knight said the managers didn’t want to face the press if they lost the game after ignoring the platoon advantage.

Sometime late, I asked former Glavine catcher Greg Olson the same question, and he pretty much gave the same answer, nearly word for word. So it was clear that in the early 1990s managers were executing strategy to avoid harsh press questioning.

from baseballmusings.com http://ift.tt/2pVeR2Z