Baseball Is Amazing

by
April 18, 2010

Congratulations to Ubaldo Jimenez, and whatever the most extreme opposite of congratulations is to Tony LaRussa.





 

Dave is the Managing Editor of FanGraphs.

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B N
14 years ago

Condolences, I believe, is the word.

1
Chris
14 years ago
Reply to  B N

Condolences? He did it to himself. If anything he should be getting scathing remarks and should be torn apart by the front office.

3
B N
14 years ago
Reply to  Chris

Eh, I think people are blowing these things way out of proportion. Firstly, managers are generally running a double strategy in these late inning games: try to win it in the next couple of innings and make sure they don’t screw up their chances of winning other games too bad.

La Russa seemed to be heavily leaning towards the latter, which is fine. Is there another serious contender for their division? Bueler? Bueler? The Cardinals have gotten better, the Cubs have gotten worse, older, and less healthy, and the Brewers are only mildly improved. It seemed like his whole strategy in late game management was to place as little extra strain on his players as possible and assuming they would still be likely to win the game. Which honestly, was not a bad bet, statistically.

Sure, he ends up looking like a dummy when the game runs on for 20 innings because you were trying to avoid working an extra pitcher or hitter- but how often do 20 inning games really come around? Had he known it would run that long, I highly doubt he would have used up his extra hitters replacing other slots than the one behind Pujols. Just looking at each of his “great sins” in the game:

1. Taking our Holliday – He had to take him out. The guy did not look right all day long. I didn’t even know until after the fact that he had some stomach issue, and anyone could tell he wasn’t playing right. Not worth risking gassing him for a couple days just to keep him for a couple extra innings. If you got to take the guy out, and you need a guy to pitch- it doesn’t seem unreasonable to sub a pitcher in for the guy who needs to ride pine.

2. Leaving the pitchers batting behind Pujols – This prevented them from locking up the game. With that said, they used up basically all their bench guys by then except the backup catcher (and you never want to risk having no catcher). So basically, this now looks sucky in hindsight. But only in hindsight. It didn’t matter when you subbed because the game was likely to be over before this lineup spot came around again.

3. Taking out Rasmus – This was the real mistake, in my opinion. By blowing an extra outfielder, a bench player was lost that might have hit behind Pujols. But again, we’re criticizing things that were meant to win in the next 2 innings that came back to bite the Cards like 3 and 4 innings later.

4. Not pitching Lohse – I’m sure if it went on another couple innings, he would have. He clearly just didn’t want to and I can see legitimate health reasons why he shouldn’t have.

So in my opinion, the only truly bad move was taking out Rasmus (unless I missed an injury or something). The Holliday stuff seems like a prudent response to an unlikely situation. Sure, you could say that he should have pinch-hit for Motte with their backup catcher but that guy hit for 0.250 in AAA. You’re probably better off sparing yourself using an extra pitcher.

So what exactly warrants scathing again? The fact that he didn’t blow one his starters for an extra 10% winning percentage on a game he was likely to win anyways? That he played the odds that he wouldn’t go through his full lineup in an extra inning game? That he used up all his bench players on the presumption that the game would end, then had to take out Holliday because the guy was playing like a zombie? If you look at the odds inning-by-inning, most of these moves don’t look particularly bad in my book. They mainly only look bad knowing the consequences later in the game (which was unlikely to have occurred at all).

4
Cardinals645
14 years ago
Reply to  Chris

B N — Sending Ludwick running with Pujols at the plate was a big mistake. He looked like he might have been safe on the replay, but why risk it? He’s not a particularly good base stealer, and Pujols hits more extra base hits than just about anyone else, maybe ever.

I agree with just about everything you said, but this has to be included too, in my opinion.

1
Chris
14 years ago
Reply to  Chris

Gotta agree with Cardinals645 on this one. Ludwick running, regardless as to whether or not LaRussa sent him or not was a poor decision and ultimately falls on the manager regardless because his player isn’t listening if he ran on his own choice.

Pulling out Rasmus was another bad idea, though I do agree with you on not pitching Lohse. It’s never a good idea to burn through your SP’s to try to get an extra inning win unless you’ve got something on the line. But no RP went more than 2.1 IP the entire game, why wasn’t the long man in the bullpen left in? Hawksworth should have been given the chance to pitch an extra inning.

It’s far better to burn an extra bullpen arm for a day or two then to lose a game with third basemen pitching.

0
3rd Period Points
14 years ago
Reply to  B N

Flagellations, maybe?

0
Thomas J.
14 years ago
Reply to  3rd Period Points

B N is the only rational / logical poster in this thread.

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