FG on Fox: Matt Williams Screws Up
There is so much more to managing a baseball team that what we see during the games. We only see the line-ups, the batting order, and the pitching changes; we don’t see the human interactions, the coaching, and all of the work that goes into keeping so many large personalities pointed in the right direction. Managing a baseball team is about a lot more than just in-game strategy.
But in-game strategy is part of the job, and on Tuesday night, Matt Williams failed at that part of the job in the most important game of his team’s season. And while we cannot know what would have happened if different decisions had been made, we do know that maybe the best team in baseball just got bounced in the first round in part due to a series of decisions that strain credulity.
Let’s just walk through the pivotal seventh inning. Bryce Harper had just tied the game in the top half of the inning, so the score was tied at 2-2 with the top of the Giants order coming up. The Giants #1 and #2 hitters both bat left-handed, so Williams countered with Matt Thornton, the team’s only remaining left-handed reliever. Perfectly logical.
Thornton got a groundout from Gregor Blanco, then gave up a single to Joe Panik. That put the go-ahead run on base for Buster Posey, the Giants best hitter. The Giants best right-handed hitter. Here is what Buster Posey has done against left-handed pitchers in his career.
631 at-bats, 210 hits, 53 doubles, 2 triples, 32 home runs, 61 walks, 77 strikeouts.
That’s a .333/.393/.578 batting line, which when you account for his home park, translates to a 168 wRC+, meaning that Posey’s vs LHP performance has been 68 percent better than a league average hitter. Do you want some context for that? In 2012, when Miguel Cabrera won the Triple Crown, he had a 166 wRC+. Posey’s performance against left-handers has basically been the equal of the game’s most feared hitter, when he’s having a great year, even by his own standards.
Dave is the Managing Editor of FanGraphs.
Just about everything Dave writes in this article is correct, of course. Yet Williams made yet another mistake in the fifth inning, with the bases loaded and one out and Pablo Sandoval due up. Williams allowed the right-handed Roark to pitch to Sandoval, who (as Dave points out) bats much better left-handed. At that point, the left-handed Blevins was already warming up, and in fact Williams would bring him in to face the next batter, who was also left-handed.
The Nationals dodged that bullet when Sandoval popped out on a 2-0 changeup, but unfortunately, when you keep playing Russian Roulette, you’re bound to shoot yourself at some point.
Williams on which relief pitchers would work the seventh inning: “During the seventh inning? Because those are our seventh-inning guys. That’s how we set this up. We had to two lefties at the top of the inning and if we got the righties, we were going to go with Barrett. That’s what he’s done for us all year long. We are certainly not going to use our closer in the seventh inning, so that’s why we went with it.”
Nats got #Yosted last night at an almost unprecedented level.
I count at least seven counts of criminal bullpen negligence:
1) Leaving Roark in to face Panda as a LHB when Blevins was ready (worked out…minor fail)
2) Leaving Thorton in to face Posey (MAJOR fail)
3) Bringing in Barrett (MAJOR fail)
4) Letting Barrett face a 2nd batter when he was clearly rattled (MAJOR fail)
5) Bringing in Soriano to clean up Barrett’s mess (worked out…minor fail)
6) Letting Soriano pitch the entire 8th (worked out…minor fail)
7) Running out 5 innings of relief work without even getting your two best relievers (Clippard, Storen) warmed up. MAJOR fail.
1B) Never allowing the best available arm, Strasburg, to throw a single pitch all night in a game where the starting pitcher lasted only 4 innings
Funny, that’s the exact same reason Ausmus gave for using Chamberlain and Soria instead of Alburquerque. Quite the coincidence that Williams and Ausmus will both be watching the rest of the playoffs from their couches.
THIS.
Let’s not forget Scoscia’s bullpen crimes, going with the Angels’ worst relievers after yanking CJ Wilson in the first inning of their elimination Game. As both a Nats and Angels fan…FML
Reporter: “Did you have a scenario in mind when you were going to [Strasburg]?”
“It’s irrelevant,” Williams said. “Doesn’t matter. He didn’t pitch.”
(From here: https://twitter.com/Tom_Schad/status/519729169756741632 and http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/baseball/giants-score-late-wild-pitch-top-nationals-advance-nlcs-article-1.1966956 )
I mean, technically, the Nats’ season being over, it is irrelevant at this point.
But yeah, even if Williams was absolutely unwilling to make Clippard and Storen deviate from their roles, there’s no reason not to go to Strasburg in the seventh, with a runner in scoring position and the season on the line.
Strasburg is the harder sell actually. He allegedly takes a considerable amount of time to get warmed up, and an appearance would have to be planned more than a batter or two in advance. He was the “in case of extra innings break glass” option only.
That being said. There was no excuse for not having a RHP warming up the moment Thornton went in. There was no logical reason to use Barrett when there were three RHPs more trustworthy than him in the pen (Clippard, Storen, Stammen), and even if you like Barrett you have to plan for the possibility of failure and be warming up a replacement immediately.
It wasn’t the 9th inning, but with a man on and the heart of the order coming up that 7th inning was about as high leverage as you’re ever going to see.
Even if we forget the asinine “7th-inning guys” rather than “out guys”, Matt Williams didn’t even follow his own plan. When Posey came to bat, the Nationals didn’t even have a righty warming in the pen (Side note: did Barrett even have enough pitches in the bullpen to get fully warmed? It seemed really rushed.)
How in the world do you not get a righty ready for Posey when the plan is ” if we got the righties, we were going to go with Barrett” and Posey is up 3rd in the inning?
I’ve come to three conclusions:
1) Matt Williams forgot to tell anyone the plan.
2) Matt Williams forgot when Posey (and Pence) were due up.
3) Matt Williams thinks Posey is a switch hitter.
I give up. Spend millions on players, facilities, and their development, and then you fail in BOTH managerial planning AND execution when no one is even trying to stop you.
Sportsball is stupid.
The other conclusion is that Williams was lying in his interview after the game and there was some other reason for using Barrett.
This decision (indecision) Williams made (committed) under discussion by Dave Cameron was a PITCHING decision (boner). So was the one add in Comments by Uninterested Cat.
But there was another, more directly interested Cat involved: the Nats pitching coach, Steve McCatty. So, did Williams cede or defer to or even consult McCatty? And if not, why not? Because that would suggest Williams froze, as badly as Barrett in his attempted walk concession pitch.
It could be worse: maybe Williams DID cede or defer to or consult McCatty. Because that would mean the Nats field managers formed a confederacy of dunces.
It’s really starting to feel like a major characteristic of this new wave of managers is that they played in the beginnings of the rigid role era, and thought so much of it that rigid roles are now carried in their managerial blood. (Ned Yost is just ahead of his time.)
Which leads me to a question I’m not sure how to answer: If you were forced to choose from Williams, Matheny, Mattingly, Ausmus, and Yost to manage an elimination game, who would be your best and worst choice?
If those were my only 5 choices…
I’d call Bobby V.
He’d piss everyone off and miss the playoffs by 15 games, but damn would he be fun to watch anyway.
ridiculously tough choice. I didnt think anyone left could be worse than Yost after he got away with the stuff he got away with in the WC game, but Williams really tried to beat him out in this series. I hate to give Mattingly any credit after tonight though, and then that means I’m choosing between Matheny and Ausmus for the best. I feel like this would be easier if I saw Ausmus for any part of this season, besides the LDS…I think I’ll go Matheny, Ausmus, Mattingly, Williams, and Yost. Normally, I’d probably switch Mattingly and Williams, but you cant ignore Games 2 and 4
On a side note, watching these playoffs has forced me to take back some things I’ve said about Mike Redmond. Now I’m not as sure that he stands alone as the worst manager I’ve ever seen in my life
It’s a Hobson’s Choice — and I don’t mean Butch Hobson, who was worse at managing than any of these options.
Hobson sure did stink. Although he was matched up with an equally inept set of players provided by an equally inept front office.
Guess I’d have to go with Matheny, even with the memory of him not bringing in Choate against Ortiz at a critical juncture in last year’s WS.
It’s not a Hobson’s choice, it’s a dilemma.
Of course, 2 of these options are managing teams still active in this season’s MLB play-offs: Matheny & Yost. But I wanna consider the managers of the other 2 still-active teams.
Bochy & Showalter are close in age: 59 and 58. Bochy at least had a few cups of coffee in the Show (including a single PA in a World Series game, and the distinction of being the catcher for Eric Show when the latter gave up Pete Rose’s 4,192nd MLB hit; but otherwise their respective ‘glory days’, such as they were, passed in the minors. It’d be a surprise if they hadn’t spent at least one season in the same league, and, no surprise: in 1981, Bochy was with Tidewater (Mets) and Showalter was with Columbus (Yankees), having in common also that it was for each of them his definitively worst minor league playhing season.
Each has a reputation for being systematic in taking truly bad teams to pennants within a short period more than once. Each has been Manager of the Year; each COULD NOT UNREASONABLY end up MotY this season, since each has succeeded with a team racked by seemingly disqualifying player injuries, requiring an awful lot of personnel management. The father of each was in civil service, Bochy’s with the U.S. Army, Showalter’s as a high school teacher & football coach. Each got his start in organized amateur baseball in Florida, in high school & college. Each has had a brush with big time TV comedy: Bochy once played on the same high school team as Saturday Night Live alumnus Darrell Hammond, tho Showalter himself has appeared, as himself, on an episode of Seinfeld. Twice teams Bochy managed have won the World Series; twice teams Showalter has managed went on to win the World Series … the season after he was fired (Bochy’s never been fired, tho his release from the Padres after the 2006 season bears resemblance to when the Yankees released Casey Stengel for being ‘too old’.).
If things continue as they have so far this play-offs, I’d expect their teams to meet in the World Series. Tough to pick, but at least it’s not a Hobson’s Choice.
Bochy had more than a few cups of coffee in the majors. Since I watched a lot of NL West games in the 80s, I remember him well as a player. He was the Padres’ backup catcher (behind Terry Kennedy) on the ’84 pennant team and stayed in that role through 1987 (behind Benito Santiago in his rookie year). He caught 35-45 games a year.
Yikes, that is a tough choice. I think Mattingly is the worst, but not by much. And the “best”…. maybe Matheny??
Matheny arguably was worse than Mattingly in Game 4. Letting Shelby Miller go a third time through the order without having your bullpen ready is just dumb, especially when there’s a possibility that you may only be facing Kershaw & Jansen in the game. If Kemp had hit that one pitch he got middle-middle, Matheny would have looked pretty bad.
I agree. I’m a Cards fan who was screaming to have a lefty face the lefties who were coming up in the Dodgers lineup. Matt Adams, or short rest, or Mattingly, (maybe all 3) bailed Matheny out.
I’d probably go with the one who had the best roster and hope they played well enough to negate all the managerial screwups that might occur.
Matheny is now 19-15 in his 2+ years managing in the postseason, and 4-2 when his team could be eliminated, so I’ll take him without hesitation. As playoff resumes go, that’s a not insubstantial body of work. (His teams are 53-30 in September as well, so it would appear he knows how to keep his players generally fresh and effective for the 6th & 7th months of the season, for whatever that’s worth.)
I think that the only way Matt Williams managing tonight could be worse is if he instantly got presented with the Manager of the Year trophy afterwards. I can’t imagine what the Nats owner must be feeling right now: My guess? Matt got a severe tongue lashing right after. How do you even explain these moves to the owner paying you to manage his team?
I knew I could count on fangraphs to mention all of the things I was thinking while watching the game
Something else I kept asking throughout the series…Why was Ryan Zimmerman continuously wasted in such low leverage ABs? I could ask other questions about the lineup, but that was one that kind of stuck out to me even more than leaving it as is…
Also, and I realize how much we all hate bunting, but I thought playing for 1 run in that spot with the bottom of the order coming up made sense, what was that Wilson Ramos AB in the 5th inning? You have the tying run on 2b, who has speed (Bryce Harper), with nobody out. Dont you have to get him to 3b with less than 2 outs with Cabrera and the pitcher’s spot coming up? At least try to get a pitch to hit if you are worried about Ramos not bunting for 3 years, which didnt seem to be a problem in game 3 when it was a tie game, instead of a 1-run deficit. Instead, Ramos swings at the first pitch, and hits a soft pop to the SS. Cabrera then grounded out to the SS, which would have scored a run. Instead, it was a wasted spot and remained a 2-1 game until Harper hit that HR.
wow…fail by me lol. I was remembering the basehit that barely got past Crawford in Game3 after the Ramos bunt. Totally forgot Cabrera walked
I’m going to really enjoy watching the Orioles now after that display last night.
Another mistake Matt Williams made this whole series: making Nate Schierholtz his #1 pinch-hitter. He consistently chose to hold Ryan Zimmerman until the latest possible inning, regardless of leverage. Once he was able to burn Schierholtz and bring RZ in immediately, but otherwise, he was consciously gambling that a replacement-level fourth outfielder could get the job done while the best hitter in franchise history was saved for later.
Is this the first historical use of “He’s My Eighth Inning Guy” as applied to batters?
Oh, and ANOTHER one: letting Adam LaRoche face a parade of lefty relievers. Everyone but Williams knew how those plate appearances would end.
Schierholtz in his 3 PH appearances hit a double and drew 2 walks (1 intentional). Hard to find any fault in that.
Smaaaaaaaaaalll samples, getcher smaaaaaaalllll samples heah…
Too soon to call for his firing?
No. He shouldn’t be given 24 more hours.
Considering this is the same guy who gave Kevin Frandsen more PAs from the 2 spot than Bryce Harper, no. Not too soon. This game just showed MW’s in-competencies on a national scale, but his bullpen use and lineup construction has been AWFUL all year.
Too late.
Sucks that Matt Williams threw pitches that got hit or went to the backstop. Been saying for years that that guy should retire.
“But part of his job is also to make decisions during the games that give his team the best chance to win, and in the biggest game of his managerial career, he made a series of poor decisions that directly led to the run that eliminated his team from the postseason.”
Having Barrett in there instead of at least 4-5 better options did not give the Nationals the best chance to win – a primary component of a manager’s job is getting the right players in the right situations/positions to succeed. Williams most certainly failed miserably at this not only last night, but all season.
He did retire several years ago.
Maybe you’re thinking of Mitch Williams? No, he retired, too.
Anyway, you’re thinking of someone else.
Sandy, you’re a douche but you also happen to be a Rays fan. Is there a snow ball’s chance in hell that Joe Maddon ever commits the type of managerial atrocities that Williams committed last night? You, of all people, should know better.
Nats lost because Span, Werth, and Laroche didn’t hit in the series. Nats lost three one run games so the managerial blunders, umpire blunders, and fielding blunders were magnified. However when your lead-off hitter, three-hole hitter, and clean-up hitter don’t hit you’re going to have trouble winning no matter the quality of the pitching.
Hey at least he had Harper batting 6th and 7th, that showed that brash young punk.
And even with all that, they were tied in the 7th inning yesterday. It’s also tough to win when your manager fails Bullpen Usage 101 so miserably.
At least the Nats will have most of their guys coming back next year and should still be contenders. Hopefully they fire MW and find a manager with a little bit of intelligence in in-game strategy.
How can you force somebody out at home on a wild pitch? I could guess you could say so if the wild pitch occured as a dropped 3rd strike with the bases loaded, but then the force out on the play would cancel the wild pitch.
Giants have been underestimated from the start, when this is clearly an even numbered year and the Giants always win the WS in even number years.
Except for 1962.
And 1208. To be fair, Istanbul fielded a helluva team that year.
I believe you mean Constantinople.
That was a huge team! They might be Giants!
It drives me crazy when a team doesn’t use their best relief pitcher(s) during the highest leverage situations (especially when the score is tied). And while the bullpen management last night was completely inexcusable, there might be a reason why this “strategy” is so deeply ingrained in manager’s minds.
Another thing about baseball that is unparalleled in any other sport is the lack of off days. In regular season baseball, managers need to be careful not to overuse their best relievers. I think we can all agree that you are sacrificing a little bit of tomorrow by using your best reliever today.
I think the thought is, if you have a relief pitcher who is more likely to give up some runs, you might as well put him in earlier so you can find out if it’s worth using up your best pitcher.
And since there are too many of these high leverage situations, the ideal solution would be to not use your best pitcher in the lower leverage +2, +3 run save situations so that they are more available for the -1, 0, +1 higher leverage situations.
Williams was awful in the series. Why the duck was Harper batting 6th against Vogelsong?? Why did he bring in a rookie to hold the game. Obviously a genius/ sarcasm
As a contrast and an example of the right way to handle late-inning pitching decisions in a crucial playoff game like this, recall the late innings of Game 5 of the 1998 NLCS between the Padres and Braves.
The Braves were down 3-1 in the series, but the Padres also treated the game urgently because they wanted to close out the series at home. So the Padres brought in ace starter Kevin Brown to relieve in the 7th and 8th, and the Braves brought in Greg Maddux to close the game in the 9th after closer Kerry Ligtenberg allowed the first two batters to reach base. Brown got beat in the 8th by Michael Tucker’s three-run homer, but both managers made the right decisions to bring in their aces when they needed them.
The Padres’ manager that year? Bruce Bochy.
I’m sorry, but if Brown gave up a three-run homer, I’m not buying that he made the right decision.
Right decision does not mean that you always get the result you want. It’s a numbers game.
For the sake of fairness, it seems prudent to mention that managing people and managing in-game strategy are two distinctly different skills. In fact, I’d venture to say that, in general, being good at one makes you less likely to be good at the other. Showalter and Bochy seem to have a preternatural ability for handling both simultaneously, but there is an easy fix for teams stuck with the Yost’s and Williams’ of the world…hire or appoint someone else to take care of in-game strategy!
I’ll agree with you that they’re two different skill sets but I see no reason why being good at one necessarily means that one will be bad at the other. In fact, don’t managers in all walks of life have to do the exact same thing — manage people and manage strategic decision-making? Doesn’t Dave Appelman or Dave Cameron have to basically do the same thing here at fangraphs? People are successful at both of these things all the time in all walks of life. There’s no reason to think that major league managers can’t be expected to do both.
For Showalter, the managing people part is completely developed and any but preternatural. The guy got run out of New York and Arizona, despite the fact that his teams were quite successful, because his people skills sucked. His players hated him and hated playing for him. He clashed with upper management. He was prickly with the media. He even admitted that the one of the biggest factors in his success in Baltimore has been his willingness to learn from past mistakes with regard to how he treated people.
sure, this time Matty made a string of poor decisions. But let us not forget that Bochy sent in an inexperienced right hander, who had already allowed 2 HR in the series, to face Harper. Bad things happened for the Giants. If we want to use these standards (which I mostly agree with), lets use them for everyone. I thought the Strickland decision in Game 1 was worse than the Storen decision in Game 2 by a long shot, though ultimately luckier. And I think Bochy is a high quality manager. Bounces determined who is a hero and who is a goat.
when he came into face Desmond in Game 1, I had no idea who he was (which never happens to me). Then he proceeds to go 99-99-100-100-99-100 and struck him out. I started laughing immediately…I definitely questioned Bochy going to him when he did in this game as well. It felt uncharacteristic from him to do something like that. It either speaks to his faith in Strickland, or his lack of faith, for whatever reason, in his other options. We didnt see Lincecum even one time out of the pen in this series, and I dont remember seeing Jeremy Affeldt either
and god forbid we are forced to see either one in the Cards series.
both have been horrible this year.
ya…not gonna lie, I didnt pay that much attention to the NL West this year lol…it ended up turning out almost exactly as I thought though. I had both final win totals of the Dodgers and Giants correct, and got San Diego on point as well…so I guess scratch those 2 guys, but they do have other useful relievers right?
Right before the first wild pitch in the bottom of the 7th, FS1 had a great overhead shot that showed the Nats bullpen with nobody throwing. That’s when I knew that the series was over. The replay on the Posey home plate slide allowed Soriano to get up, otherwise that was looking like a four run inning.
Why is the manager even allowed to make such terrible decisions?
Why isnt there someone up in a booth with the GM, with a statistical database on hand, to make sure the best option is used at the best time?
At the very least, why didnt the GM and his staff go over every single scenario with Williams and make sure he had the optimal pitching flow chart burned into his memory, or barring that available in hard copy inside the dugout? makes no sense to allow your incompetent manager to burn you so badly.
What you folks missed is that Clippard is a flyball pitcher. Getting grounders only 28% of the time.
Any sort of flyball to the rightside and it is runner on 3rd with 1 out. When one base hit would have done the damage. Giants would have 3 tries to plate the winning run on 2nd.
Barrett and Thornton gives Nats the best chance to turn a double play and get out of the inning giving up 0 runs, only giving the Giants 2 outs if one of the outs is a grounder that is turned.
The difference between those 3 are not huge either.
The lead off hitter was retired. There was already 1 out.
As a Nats fan, at least I can take comfort in the fact that Clippard, Storen and Strasburg are well-rested for game 5.
I’m so ready for the intrasquad beer league softball game tomorrow! Stras/Storen vs Zimm/Clippard!
I understand fully the frustrations of Nationals’ fans, and I don’t care for Matt Williams, tactician…but I have to say I never thought I’d see a Fangraphs article enthusiastically excoriating a manager for using his reliever with the lowest regular season FIP in a very high leverage playoff situation.
Bringing in Barrett seems much more like a gray-area decision to me, based on his tremendous .529 OPS v. righties, his overall season FIP & ERA, and his solid September performance (no earned runs and fine control with just 2 walks over 26 opponent plate appearances).
How about Game 2? Williams brought Drew Storen in for J. Zimmerman with only one more out to get in the 9th. Storen is literally shaking and hyper-ventilating. He gives up a hit to Posey. Then Williams leaves Storen in to face Pablo Sandoval, who hit .314 against right handers vs .197 against lefties in 2014. And Williams has Matt Thornton and Jerry Blevins in the bullpen. Storen gives up a double; the game is tied and Posey gets thrown out at the plate on a close play or the game would have been over in the bottom of the 9th. Of course the anemic hitting Nats would go on to lose. But why did Williams pitch to Sandoval’s strength in that situation???