Ah Ha! Got You, Peter Jerk!

That's my new name for Peter King when he talks about baseball: Peter Jerk.
It's got a certain ring to it.

Here's what Mr. Jerk said in Monday Morning QB ("QB" referring to the position in game of American football, a game that is not baseball):

Mike Scioscia's a great manager [the Angels are 6-6]. Charlie Manuel's not. The Phillies [3-8] look like they never went to spring training.

Here are multiple reasons why this is a dumb thing to say:

(Preface) First of all, I'm going on the premise that PJ is basing his wise observations solely on the records of the managers' respective teams. Am I missing something here? Did Scioscia reportedly do something really inspiring or noble in the past week?....
And did Manuel kick Jimmy Rollins in the shins for only OPSing 1.177 in the first couple weeks? BP has no quotes from either in their weekly roundup, so I guess not.


1) Managers have little to no control over wins/losses. It's been estimated that the most influentialest managers affect the outcome of only 10-12 games per year*. That's less than one every 15 games or so. No team has played more than 13 games as of today.

Beep beep boop bop beep bop bup. I just put the numbers in my calculator and it told me that Mike Scioscia and Charlie Manuel have probably only influenced the outcome of 0.815 games so far this year (and that's rounding up). This means that they are not solely responsible for the performance of their teams.


2) But even if they were, the Angels are technically underperforming (keeping in mind #4 below). They're only at 6-6 and they were predicted by most to be in the World Series! How does that make Mike Scioscia a great manager?


3) I'm still confused; robot helping aside, how is Mike Scioscia a great manager?


4) Small sample-size, dickhead. And this is something that writers of ANY and EVERY sport should be aware of (and violate constantly even so), so several extra "you are suck"s heading your way, PJ. It's been two weeks; The Yankees are in 4th and the Reds are atop the NL Central. These things might change.


There, now you've had it, Peter King! Surely you have learned your lesson and will never try to write about baseball again. Surely!


*UPDATE:

References:

-"a team that has a good versus an average manager is likely to win several more games over a season, all else equal"

Singell, L.D. 1993. Managers, Specific Human Capital, and Firm Productivity in Major League Baseball. Atlantic Economic Journal 21(3): 47-59

-plus, a whole bunch of stuff in the article "Is Joe Torre a Hall of Fame Manager?" from the book from the Baseball Prospectus guys: Baseball Between the Numbers: Why Everything You Know about the Game is Wrong [check out a preview on Google books].