Colin Cowherd and Bill Parcells
by thegunner on Dec 23, 2008 7:42 PM EST
21 comments
For those of you that think that it is going to take a long time to rebuild the Pirates, you should have heard Colin Cowherd talking about Bill Parcells today on ESPN Radio.
On five different occasions, Parcells has taken over a franchise and completely turned them around in his first year.
Oh, but you say that the NFL is different than MLB because every team operates under the same salary cap?
Bullpucky! Bill Parcells is a great, no-nonsense talent evaluator who makes things happen fast.
I am not a big Bill Parcells fan, but I also do not argue with success.
Pirates' ownership needs to turn the operation of the franchise over to people who have "fire in their belly" and who know what they are doing.
Things will turnaround quickly!
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Parcells does have a minor advantage in the fact that
in the NFL, you have a 50+ man limit (I don’t remember the exact number) for your roster. So everyone else is a FA, and you can find players there.
The Pirates, on the other hand, have the issue that if a team isn’t completely satisfied with a player, they’ll keep them and send them to the minors. It’s harder to acquire talent when they’re on a roster and not a FA. Parcells, at least in Miami, was able to acquire “his players” from Dallas for low draft picks (also a no-no in MLB) or players that didn’t fit “his system”. It’s hard for the Pirates to pull off deals for guys they like because the cost will generally be higher, and the Pirates aren’t really in a position to sell any of their players for they’d consider pennies on the dollar.
Not Only That
The Pirates have an organization bereft of talent. The Pirates could have gone on a one or two year splurge on free agents last season, competed, and then been in worst shape than before from there on out. The organization doesn’t only have to fix one team like Parcells does, they have to fix all their team all the way down the ladder to make the whole organization a strong one that can compete on a year in-year out basis.
How can people not understand this after a year and a half? If the Pirates wanted to, they could compete tomorrow, but it isn’t in the long term interests of the team. God, some people.
God Created the World Out Of Nothing, Paterno Built A National Superpower On Cow Fields...
by fugimaster24 on Dec 23, 2008 10:37 PM EST up reply actions
In the NFL...
…a bad team will typically have four or five of the picks from its most recent draft step into the starting lineup right from day one.
I’m not sure who the last guy was who went right from the June draft to starting in the majors. John Olerud, maybe? And before him, I think the last one was Dave Winfield… anyway, you get the point. It’s much easier to turn around a NFL franchise because their draft picks are comparatively finished products, while baseball prospects are works in progress for several years.
Ergo, as a comparison it’s pretty meaningless. And that’s without getting into the structural differences of working in a capped environment vs. an uncapped one…
Oh, and of course...
…it’s also much easier to produce a wild swing in winning percent with a sixteen game season than with one that’s more than ten times as long. The more games you play, the greater the role of luck in determining a team’s record, as opposed to team skill. Three lucky bounces can take a football team from winning 38% of their games and ending up in the cellar to winning 56% and a fighting chance at a wild card slot.
Oh, and there’s also the much greater number of NFL playoff teams to simplify the endpoint for the turnaround itself. With 50% more opportunities to play in the postseason, the bar for a successful turnaround isn’t set as high.
And if MLB allowed you to tag players, we wouldn’t have had to worry about Bay leaving as a FA after 2009, eliminating a lot of the need to do an immediate teardiwn.
Probably some other stuff I’m not thinking about, too. Parcells is good at what he does, but his ability to turn around NFL teams wouldn’t translate directly to MLB. The situations are just too different.
You left out
that for the most part the good NFL teams have to play the other good NFL teams until they lose to them; meanwhile, the bad NFL teams mostly get to play other bad NFL teams until they beat them. Kind of like an A league and a B league in the same league.
The Pirates don’t get to skip the tough opponents.
BTW, I’m simply amplifying Vlad’s point, not arguing with thegunner, which is pointless.
There are no Bill Parcells of the MLB
There are two ways to build winners in the MLB:
1. Pay a bunch of FA’s ridiculous amounts of money
2. Draft, train, coach, prep and pray
That is the way it is in MLB and all teams fit in either category. The GM position in my mind is over rated in MLB to a point. GMs with gobs of money to spend dont need to worry about their farm systems as much and can let the people they hire evaluate talent while they broker the “big deals”. GMs who have limited budgets must have everything go right from the talent they hire to evaluate talent to the actual players they acquire. Any mistake gets intensified because you dont have money to cover it up.
There are no Parcells in MLB. The PBC will have to be content for the “up and comers” in the GM space. PBC will always be a stepping stone if the GM is successful or cliff to banish the bad ones back to scouting in Cheboygan.
How could there be?
There is not, and will never be a Bill Parcells of the MLB. The reason, is because a team needs to develop players. When Parcells drafting Long with the #1 pick, did Long have to go through the minors? No. Huntington has had one year, and he got some great pieces to build around, in order for LaRoche, Tabata, and Alvarez to pan out, they should be given 4-5 years, then we can see what their career will be like in the bigs.
One more point, Parcells came to a team that didn’t really need too much, he signed a decent qb, he had 1 (and a half with Ricky Williams) good rb, he had Ted Ginn, a highlight reel reciever. On defense, he had solid players. You can’t say that Joey Porter’s big year has much to do with Parcells, and since there’s a salary cap in the NFL, all the decent players he traded for made the same difference as a big bat would make.
You, as a pirate fan, should know that trading for a bunch of role players is a terrible way to build a team. Were you happy with Joe Randa? Burnitz? No, Huntington actually got potential superstars this year, and he’s building the team that we haven’t had since Bonds left us, so put up with losing for another 3 or 4 years, and stop complaining about the way Huntington is rebuilding, because with a little luck, we could end up winning the World Series.
I give Parcells some credit for Porter
He moved him back to his original side, which might have helped.
There’s no denying that he was lucky to have Pennington hit the market, though. He gets some credit for being smart enough to make the deal when the opportunity presented itself, but if the Jets didn’t make a deal for Favre, then he probably ends up going into the year with someone like Luke McCown as his starter.
Your 2008 Miami Dolphis --- "The Team That Didn't Really Need Much"
Let’s see now …
Going into the final 2008 NFL regular season weekend, the 2007 Miami Dolphins were one win better than the laughable, hapless 2008 Detroit Lions.
Who went out and got Chad Pennington as soon as he became available, who oversawthe 2008 draft, who decided that Jason Taylor wasn’t really needed to dance for the Dolphins, who caused the dramatic turnaround in Joey Porter’s play?
Management makes the big difference.
There is a baseball Bill Parcells out there!
Any thoughts on who he is and
what moves he should make for us to be in the playoffs in 2009? Or is it already too late for 2009 since our GM already let Tex, CC and AJ slip through our grasp to the Yanks?
by WestCoastBuc on Dec 28, 2008 12:13 PM EST up reply actions
The Dolphins and Pyth:
Based on point differential, the Dolphins of 2007 should’ve been expected to win about four games, not one. They had six losses by three points or less, and no wins within that margin. Some of that is probably coaching, but some of it is also just bad luck that regression to the mean would’ve helped in ’08.
This year’s Dolphins are, in contrast, outperforming their point differential a bit. They came into the day at only +21, which usually translates to about eight wins, not ten.
Parcells helped, but luck is playing a big role here too.
Dolphin turnaround
In addition to being statistically unlucky, the Dolphins of last year also had a particularly difficult schedule (.539), and this year had a particularly easy one (.461). The main difference is that they played the AFC North and NFC East (average to very good divisions) last year while they played the AFC West and NFC West (two very bad divisions) this year.
A very similar thing happened 3 years ago when Eric Mangini turned the 4-12 Jets into the playoff bound 10-6 Jets. This year, the Jets missed the playoffs despite having a similar schedule to the Dolphins and an off-season spending spree and promptly fired Mangini.
Strength of schedule changes much more dramatically from year to year in the NFL, which is one of many reasons that statistics are not very good at showing what happens on a football field. Add in a very small number of actual games and a bit of luck, and a mediocre team can appear to be a contender or a below average team can appear awful.
charity standing orders
BadMaafala
Thanks for taking the time to write such a thoughtful post. Interesting points all around.
I'm Sorry --- The Dolphins Are Just Plain Lucky!!!
The Pirates should be so lucky -——- someday!
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