Managerial Report Cards: American League Division Series
This postseason, I’m trying out a new feature: managerial report cards. After each postseason round, I’ll look at the losing managers and assess their performance when it comes to in-game management. Pinch hit for your MVP candidate with a pitcher? Not that it would ever happen, but you’d get an F for that. Bring in your best pitcher in a big spot, only to have him give up a three-run homer? That’s still an A, results notwithstanding.
These grades don’t cover everything that a manager does. Deploying your best players in the biggest spots and hiding their weaknesses where possible is a big part of a manager’s role, but it’s definitely not the only part. As an example, Kevin Cash and the entire Rays staff deserve a permanent A for their work in getting their pitchers and hitters ready for flexible roles all season long. Likewise, Dave Roberts and the Dodgers coaching staff benched a former MVP and seem to have kept the clubhouse roughly in order, always a tough task. None of that will be reflected in these rankings, but it’s absolutely important managerial work — it’s simply work I don’t have much insight into.
Kevin Cash, Tampa Bay Rays
Lineups/Pinch Hitting: C
Cash mostly used his lineups creatively, matching his players’ strengths with the opposing pitcher’s. The Red Sox went heavily to lefties in this series — Eduardo Rodriguez started two games and Chris Sale one. That meant a heaping helping of Jordan Luplow, Manuel Margot, and Yandy Díaz, three players on the team for their ability to hit left-handed pitching. When Nathan Eovaldi started Game 3, all three of those hitters were out of the lineup, replaced by Austin Meadows, Ji-Man Choi, and Joey Wendle.
That’s classic Rays maneuvering, but two things hold me back from giving Cash a better grade. First, when the Red Sox sprung a gambit on him in Rodriguez’s first start, pulling him after nine batters and using Nick Pivetta for bulk, I don’t think Cash responded quickly enough. The Rays won comfortably, so it’s hard to fault him too heavily, but there were some weird at-bats in there: Luplow got plenty of run against right-handed pitching and Meadows didn’t appear in the game.
Those two decisions led to an adjustment before Rodriguez’s second start. This time, Meadows was in the starting lineup, with Margot left on the bench. I’m not sure either configuration was “correct,” but I do fault Cash for playing into Boston’s hands somewhat — my second complaint. The Red Sox had a clear lefty tilt in the starting rotation and a righty tilt in the bullpen. Their only lefty relievers were Josh Taylor, Martín Pérez, and Austin Davis, none of whom set the world on fire this year (Taylor was the best of the bunch).
Given that, if I were Cash, I’d get my lefties in as soon as Boston’s starting pitching departed and dare them to use their lefty relievers. Platoon advantages are just that — advantages, not set-in-stone matchups. I’d rather have a lefty-lefty matchup featuring a so-so reliever than a righty-righty matchup featuring, say, Tanner Houck. Yet Houck barely had to face the Rays’ platoon lefties; he faced Choi twice, but he also got Díaz and Margot twice each, and other right-handers besides. Díaz got 16 plate appearances in the series — 10 were against righties. Six of Margot’s eight PAs were against righties. Only Luplow had a more normal mix — five shots at lefties, against only three tough matchups.
Meanwhile, the lefty bats barely got to play. Wendle racked up only four PAs, Choi seven, and Meadows nine — this in spite of the fact that the Red Sox used righties against 114 batters and lefties against only 44. There was time to play the lefty bats — but more often than not, they had either already been used or remained on the bench. Overall, Cash didn’t do enough to put his batters in the best position to succeed, though Boston’s roster construction made it a tricky situation overall.
Pitching: B+
Cash is almost always great. I have the utmost respect for his ability to manage a bullpen. I have only one quibble: I think he got too cute with Collin McHugh in the last game of the series. McHugh started the game for Tampa Bay, but he’s a reliever: he topped out at 11 batters faced in an outing this year. He cruised through two innings — seven batters faced and only 18 pitches.
The Rays planned on going the bulk route and bringing in Shane McClanahan, and they stuck with their plan despite McHugh’s efficiency. I wouldn’t have. Even if you only want McHugh to face the order one time through, let him face the last two righties in Boston’s order, then bring in a single-inning reliever to close it out. Let McClanahan start the fourth with a clean inning (a worthy goal for sure), and go from there.
If you want to keep McHugh on a tight leash, that’s fine — but I’d rather get extra outs out of my cruising pitcher and figure the rest out later in an elimination game. Given that you’re still using most of the same pitchers, it’s not a game-swinging decision — but little edges matter, and letting McHugh record more outs sounds like a good move to me. It’s a small quibble, and perhaps McClanahan just didn’t have it that night, but I would have handled it differently.
Tony La Russa, Chicago White Sox
Lineups/Pinch Hitting: A-
The White Sox didn’t have many levers to pull in this one. They have two spots that resemble a platoon: DH, where Gavin Sheets and Andrew Vaughn are a straight platoon, and second base/right field, where two of Leury García, Adam Engel, and César Hernández usually play, with García being La Russa’s first choice.
The DHs alternated based on the handedness of Houston’s starters. Engel started the first two games, went 0-6, and didn’t bat again until Game 4 was all but decided. I’m fine with that — I don’t see much daylight between Hernández and Engel, and I’m certainly not against swapping one out for the other at the slightest sign of discomfort or injury.
That’s basically all the substituting that the White Sox did. They ran their players out and lived with the consequences. I would have liked to see slightly more willingness to pinch hit when they were behind, but it’s not like they have obvious upgrades just waiting on the bench to come in. For the most part, I think this was handled well.
Pitching: C
Liam Hendriks pitched three times in this series, and never once when the game was in question. That sounds bad, like it augurs an automatic F, but I really don’t think that’s the case. The White Sox simply got their butts handed to them, and at a certain point, there just aren’t enough close spots to properly use Hendriks (and Craig Kimbrel).
In the highest-leverage Astros at-bat of the series (bottom of the fifth inning of Game 2 with the bases loaded and the White Sox ahead by two), Garrett Crochet faced Yuli Gurriel. That sounds like a marginally bad matchup — Crochet is a solid reliever, but he’s a lefty, while Gurriel is right-handed and would single to score a run. But Crochet wasn’t in the game for Gurriel — he was in the game for the fourth-highest-leverage at-bat of the series, the previous one against Yordan Alvarez. That’s a good matchup for Chicago; Alvarez simply drew a walk.
Another big spot: Alvarez faced Aaron Bummer in the bottom of the seventh in the same game (runners on first and third, two outs, tie score). Alvarez singled to break the tie. In the tightest spots all year, the White Sox called on two very good left-handed pitchers, and they lost to Yordan Alvarez and Yuli Gurriel. That’s no knock on La Russa.
On the other hand, I wasn’t enamored with his willingness to leave his starters in. Lance Lynn faced 20 batters in the first game of the series, and while he didn’t have a great day, it didn’t need to be as bad as it was. Through three innings, he’d allowed three runs, and when he came back out for the fourth, he got to two outs with a runner on first. I would have grabbed Lynn already — but he faced Jose Altuve for a third time, and Altuve lined a double to left — second and third, two outs.
This isn’t actually a huge-leverage spot, because it’s hard to come back from down three runs. On the other hand, a single essentially ends the game. Why not bring in the big guns rather than let a clearly laboring Lynn take on professional hitter (™) Michael Brantley? Brantley did what he gets paid for, two runs scored, thanks for playing Chicago.
Those high-leverage Crochet battles? They came after Lucas Giolito faced the Houston order a third time and walked two of the three batters he faced before La Russa pulled him. Giolito had been scuffling with command — three walks and four strikeouts his first two times through the order — and the White Sox have a fearsome bullpen. With a day off imminent and most pitchers rested, it wouldn’t be crazy to piece together five innings with Hendriks, Kimbrel, Bummer, Michael Kopech, Ryan Tepera, and Crochet (who had pitched the day before). Instead, Giolito stayed in, and then the first reliever out of the ‘pen was the one who pitched the day before. Not how you’d draw it up!
One last iffy starting situation: in the fourth game of the series, Carlos Rodón was sometimes overpowering but sometimes scattershot. This was it for Chicago, win or go home. The second-highest-leverage at-bat of the series for Houston was Carlos Correa, with the bases loaded and Chicago up by one.
I would have pulled Rodón, and I said so at the time. But I thought it was a close call, much closer than the other times La Russa left a starter in, so I’m not surprised he stuck with Rodón. This early in the game, with Rodón looking mostly rejuvenated, it’s not an obvious call to the ‘pen by any means. Correa doubled, the Astros never trailed again, and that was the series.
Chicago’s starting pitchers were great this year but awful in this series. How awful? They threw a combined 12.1 innings in four starts. They struck out 13 and walked 12. Their aggregate ERA? A putrid 10.22. You can’t manage your way out of that.
I’d like a manager to try to manage out of that, though. There’s no magic spell that prevents Hendriks from occasionally coming into a game early. There’s no ban on early Kimbrel appearances, though I know he’s not fond of them. You can’t fix disastrous starts like the ones that doomed the White Sox, but I think leaning more on a strong bullpen was the smart play.
Tony La Russa out-pointing Kevin Cash? I didn’t expect to file a card that came to that conclusion. I still think Cash did a better job — La Russa didn’t have much agency in running his offense, which means it was hard for him to get anything but a solid grade. On the pitching side, which undoubtedly matters more in the AL, Cash came out ahead. But both managers had their ups and downs, and I don’t think either did anything egregious. It’s really hard to manage the myriad situations that come up in a short, high-pressure series, and that’s the real takeaway from this.
Ben is a writer at FanGraphs. He can be found on Bluesky @benclemens.
Great piece as usual. Perhaps I missed it, but did you do something similar for the WildCard games? Perhaps not enough content from just two games, but then why not toss them into this piece?
There wasn’t a lot to write about the losing managers in those series, so I skipped it. The other two managers haven’t lost yet — when/if they lose, I’ll include all the series they played in their wrap-ups.
Makes sense. Appreciated!
Managers definitely play a large role but more often than not it comes down to the players executing. Pitchers getting outs, hitters getting hits. The team that does those things usually wins. Interesting read though. Managing these games is tough and from growing up the child of a coach, I can guarantee you that these guys are even more critical of themselves and their decisions than we, the fans, are.
I disagree with LaRussa’s A- on lineups and pinch hitting. He pinch hit Hernandez for Engel in the top of the 7th of game 2 with the game tied. As you pointed out, that’s a marginal (if any) offensive upgrade but it necessitated moving Garcia out to RF which is a big defensive downgrade. Sure enough, Garcia played a 2 out fly ball poorly in the bottom of the inning that allowed 4 runs to score and put a 5 – 4 game out of reach. That was one of two PH situations in the series, the other being the Vaughn for Sheets no- brainer, and he biffed it badly. This also is not hindsight as I expressed these concerns when Hernandez came up to bat. I don’t have an online chat, so only my dog can back me up on that.
Also, you didn’t evaluate defensive positioning, but Chicago’s was very vanilla and the Astros had enough ground balls go through the infield for base hits that I wondered if they could have done better. I know it is very hard to evaluate, but the White Sox are 27th in baseball in shift rate per Baseball Savant and even in DP situations, their middle infielders seemed to be somewhere between standard position and double play depth against Houston which really just puts them in No Man’s Land and reduces the odds of them making any kind of play.
TLR didn’t lose that series, the players did. But he didn’t put them in the best position to make plays both literally and figuratively.
Yeah, the first thing I thought of when I saw the title for this article was about the call to move Garcia to RF, and how that was the game. To be fair to TLR, Garcia *should* have caught that ball… but he didn’t and a better defensive player might have.
I thought the crucial Correa double in game 4 was actually the pitch call fault, whether Grandal or Rodon, not TLR’s. Correa’s first PA— slider called strike, slider swinging strike, single to left on another slider. Correa’s second PA— fastball top of the zone fouled off, fastball top of the zone called strike, fastball top of the zone double to left. Correa didn’t need a trash can or buzzer to know what was coming— as he said about that double after the game, he was selling out completely for that fastball and a slider would’ve embarrassed him. You cannot be that predictable to that good a hitter, EVEN IF you have the literal best fastball in the majors— as Rodon did by pitch value.
The White Sox starting rotation was the best in the American League by a huge margin, and not far behind LAD and MIL overall. There’s very likely something systematic to how badly they fared in this series. The cynical take is that the Astros are back to sign stealing, which can’t be ruled out based on their history and lack of consequences for it, but I think there’s also some clear issues with CHW’s staff. The first is, in a word, command; none of their top 4 starters looked comfortable or in control of the strike zone, none of them “on” like McCullers was. Maybe that’s postseason nerves and inexperience at work. Maybe it’s being worn down after a long season without building up the year before. But the other thing I hated was how predictable they were. Lynn— almost all fastballs (in reality almost all 4-seam or slider/cutter). Giolito: slider was very ineffective so he was reduced to FB/CH. Cease and Rodon: only FB & SL.
I remember Lincecum developing a brand new slider and suddenly deploying it in the playoffs, which opposing hitters extremely did not enjoy. Chicago’s staff has incredible raw stuff, but if that stuff isn’t as sharp as in July, you gotta have something in your back pocket. They didn’t and they paid the price.
It is hard to know what they were thinking and what the coaching was, but they looked tentative. Like they were afraid to throw strikes and trying to get Houston to chase, which is not a good plan against the team with the lowest swinging strike rate in baseball by a big margin. I think Katz is good, but maybe a call from Don Cooper telling them to “trust your stuff” would have helped.
Lynn in game one was a fatal mistake from the jump. The Astros have always mashed him since he was with the Rangers. I was puzzled that TLR went with him in game one, considering how the Astros struggled against Gioliti historically.
For Giolito I think a big part of the problem was his inability/refusal to throw the slider in the strike zone. He used it exclusively as a chase pitch, and most of his pitches when he was ahead in general were way out of the zone. I mean, 11 of his 21 batters faced got at least to a two-ball count. Lynn is just a bad matchup for the Astros AND he was off, which is a bad combination. Cease had his common “cannot throw a strike” issues flare up, plus he came through with a modern starter classic: maxed out in the first inning, diminished stuff after.
Good stuff. I thought Cash should’ve hit for Zunino late in Game 3 because he was just about an automatic out after the halfway point of the game and there were a couple of important ABs he took that essentially got thrown away. Also, if they were going to use a rookie starter on three days rest, why not start him instead of bringing him out of the pen?
TLR honestly couldn’t have done much more, aside from one big thing: using Hendriks in the spots he used Kimbrel in. It was puzzling to me how TLR mentioned after Game 2 that Kimbrel is a natural closer and using him with runners on before the ninth is not the right spot for him, not because that isn’t true (it is, as Kimbrel has shown throughout his career), but rather because he said it… and then kept doing it! You can also argue that he shouldn’t have used Kopech in Game 4, but they were already down at that point. At the end of the day, the White Sox starters were horrendous in the ALDS, and that’s what did them in.
The Kimbrel thing is so weird because you’d think TLR of all people would understand that bullpen roles can really matter to some guys, and he has an elite reliever in Hendriks who legitimately does not care when he pitches. Kimbrel should’ve been the traditional closer right away and Hendriks should’ve slotted into the fireman role.
I agree re: Kimbrel closing, Hendriks as the fireman in general (thought that as soon as I learned about the trade) and especially in the postseason. If Hendriks were used in a critical situation early, there’s still a guy closing in on 400 career saves available to get those last three outs that are “different than the first 24 outs,” as the saying goes.
I think you have to ding Cash for the decision to bring in McClanahan on short rest. McClanahan is plenty good on normal rest but he clearly wasn’t ready to pitch again. Quite literally, even someone like Wacha (or Yarbrough, not only the ALDS roster) would have been better. It was a tough call but he read that one wrong.
Aside from that moment–inconveniently timed to be the last thing that we remember–I think he did fine.
Come on Sad, you’re better than this. This is no time for Monday morning quarterbacking. Yarbrough wasn’t on the roster and Wacha is nothing but cannon fodder. I understand that McHugh was only going to go a couple but with two right handed hitters coming up, and having only thrown 18 pitches, it was time for Cash to adjust to the situation and let McHugh start the 3rd then bring in McClanahan when Schwarber looms.
I don’t think I’m better than this, no. For a team that gets lauded for its depth, Cash got really weird about using his whole team at that point.
I don’t really have a problem overall with Cash but I was incredibly surprised he went back to McClanahan on short rest. The only real defense was that the other options were worse…but were they? I am not certain.
I stopped reading your analysis at “Lineups/Pinch Hitting: A-”
( See comment from MikeS)
i know we’re not talking about cora here yet but i feel like this is a good enough place to mention this: did anyone see where he let schwarber face the lhp to lead off the 8th and then put dalbec out there as a defensive replacement at 1b in the bottom half of the inning? what was that about?
Even Cash had that Oh S**t look as McClanahan struggled, but your grade on his lineup use is more damning and spot on. Of course I can believe that he has access to mounds of data that I can’t comprehend, but sitting Meadows for as much as he did has got to be a strategic mistake.
Missed the Kevin Cash letting Zunino rack up 4ks and 6 LOB in game 3. Zunino, redeemed himself a little bit in game 4 with the double to start the 8th. Any one of those Zunino ABs in late game 3 with runners on base could have featured Mejia…