Micromanaging in Mexico

The Tijuana Hispanics currently roster 18 offensive players on their 25 man roster. That's 2 full line-ups. How is field manager Zachary Waddicor and team captain Brian Roberts dealing with the situation? And how is the strategy working out for these Mexican misfits?




Micromanaging In Mexico
By Max Powers; EhSPN


The Tijuana Hispanics dedicated their entire 2008 second half to testing out their new bullpen heavy strategy. They crushed some weekly records and started some debate in the process. After the 2009 EHCC MaDraft, the Hispanics again showed they were staying with their closer-heavy strategy by not selecting a starting pitcher until the middle of the 6th round (Doug Davis). In all, the Hispanics drafted 3 pitchers (all starters); none of which currently stand on their roster. The other 12 picks made by GM Peter Kantor were offensive additions, ranging from rookie Dexter Fowler to veteran JD Drew.

Entering Week 6, the Hispanics have 18 offensive players (at least 2 at each position except catcher) and 7 active pitchers, only one of which is a starter (Glen Perkins). Tijuana also has three starting pitchers currently on the DL (Kelvim Escobar, Shaun Marcum, and Noah Lowry) - all of which are expected to be dealt when healthy.

This type of roster has its advantages - the team can easily scrimmage for practice (though this has not been showing up on game days). The negative, besides the obvious strain this puts on their starting pitching staff, is that it has become very stressful for field manager Zachary Waddicor.

"It's a lose-lose situation really. No matter who I put in each game there's going to be someone on the bench that would have done it better. It takes a lot of micro-managing and there's a lot of criticism coming from all angles, no matter what I do," Waddicor told reporters.

A lot of critics say that GM Kantor decided to put Waddicor in the situation in order allow himself to start looking for a new field manager. Since the Hispanics haven't made the playoffs since moving from Texas to Mexico, Waddicor has yet to make himself "untouchable", and many think that putting Waddicor in this situation is the easiest way to for Kantor to bring in a new manager without a lot of Mexican media backlash.

"It's really too bad. We all really like coach in the clubhouse. He always brings in bottled water and filtered beer, two necessities when you play down here [Mexico]," said team captain Brian Roberts, one of the few offensive Hispanics that plays every day.

"He gets really stressed before every game," says veteran Mike Lowell, "he's got guys coming in his office before every game begging him for some playing time. There's only so much he can do."

"In some aspects it's a nice luxury," Waddicor told EhSPN, "I'll always know we'll have a full line up on days our opponents won't and I get to rest guys whenever they get tired, knowing I have a bench guy to take their spot. It's not going to completely do away with the possible injury bug, but it helps."

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How exactly has Waddicor fared since the start of the 2009 season? Let's go over the numbers - through week 5 of the 2009 season Tijuana starting line ups have logged just 277 more at bats than their bench players and have only scored 25 more times and batted in only 23 more runs, while actually stealing 13 LESS bases and hitting almost ten points lower.

Need more numbers? Probably not, but since I wasted my afternoon doing the research I'm going to tell you anyway - Tijuana starters score a run every 7.3 at bats to the bench players every 6.5; bat in a run every 7.7 at bats to the bench's 6.9; steal a base every 45.4 at bats to the bench's 21.9, and get a hit every 3.9 at bats to the bench's 3.8. The only area in which the starters have the bench beat is home runs, where they hit one every 32 at bats to the bench's 35.3.

If we theoretically gave the Tijuana bench players an extra 277 at bats they would have produced the following fantasy line for the Hispanics: 167/31/158/50/.263 - compared to the line the starters have put up in the same 1089 at bats: 149/34/142/24/.254

In Week 4 the Tijuana bench actually would have BEATEN the starters in total production and would have tied them in Week 1, regardless of the fact that they tallied an average of 55 less at bats each week.

Micromanaging might not be Waddicor's strong suit, but with a roster of 18 bats there's not too many that would be free of the critics and cynics.