Managerial Report Cards: National League Division Series

Ah yes, the postseason. As Jay Jaffe noted yesterday, it’s nothing like the regular season. Here, managers have to grind out every edge possible. Continuing a series that I started last year, I’ll be assigning managerial grades for each vanquished team. They’ll cover on-field managerial decisions: chiefly, lineup construction, pinch hitting, and pitcher usage.

My goal is to rank each manager in terms of process, not results. If you bring in your best pitcher to face their best hitter in a huge spot, that’s a good decision regardless of outcome. Try a triple steal with the bases loaded only to have the other team make four throwing errors to score three runs? I’m probably going to call that a blunder even though it worked out. Managers do plenty of other things – getting team buy-in for new strategies and unconventional bullpen usage behind closed doors is one I find particularly valuable – but as I have no insight into how that’s accomplished or how each manager differs, I can’t exactly assign grades for that.

Another thing I’m trying to avoid? Relying too much on “leaning on your trusted veterans.” That’s never really been a strategy I love without knowing the underlying data, but mentioning it lets me drop this delightful statistic: “proven veterans” Justin Verlander, Max Scherzer, and Charlie Morton each have a 13.50 ERA this postseason. That’s not in aggregate; each of them has that exact mark. The playoffs are about overpowering your opponent in big spots. Which pitchers and hitters teams use to do so is entirely up to them, but if the justification for a move is “but he’s a veteran,” I’m going to judge that decision harshly. Let’s get to it.

Brian Snitker, Atlanta Braves

Batting: D
There’s much less to say about managing lineups and pinch hitters in the universal DH era, so I’ll be brief. I’ll be grading errors harshly here. Pitching decisions are frequent, and it’s often unclear which of multiple strategies is better. Lineup-based errors are more glaring. I didn’t agree with Snitker’s decision to use Marcell Ozuna over William Contreras against Zack Wheeler and Aaron Nola – particularly Wheeler. Ozuna was the worst Atlanta batter when it came to hitting high-velocity fastballs, while Contreras was one of the best. Ozuna is also just a worse hitter than Contreras, whether you’re looking at projections or 2022 statistics. In fact, I don’t even think I would have had Ozuna on the roster – and his hitless, walkless eight plate appearance line suggests that I might be onto something.

I also felt that Snitker misused Eddie Rosario, who is on the roster strictly to hit right-handed pitching. Rosario started all three games against righties, which is good. But he batted ninth, which limited the number of cracks he got at opposing starters. Additionally, Snitker left him in to face Brad Hand in Game 4, with a two-run deficit and a runner on base. The thinking here, I suppose, is that the Phillies could have countered with a right-handed pitcher in relief, but so what? If you’re going to have Ozuna and Vaughn Grissom on your roster, you have to use one of them in that situation to get a slightly better matchup.

One decision I don’t hold against Snitker: waffling between Orlando Arcia and Grissom at second base. I’m not quite sure what the thinking was here, and it was extra strange when Arcia pinch hit for Grissom with the opposing starting pitcher (Nola, if you’re keeping track at home) still in the game. I just don’t think there’s much daylight between the two, so it’s hard to do anything other than shrug. But the process sure felt weird to me there.

Pitching: B+
I’ll be honest with you: it’s hard to come up with a mark for Snitker in this one when Max Fried, Spencer Strider, and Morton combined for 7 2/3 innings pitched and 14 runs allowed. That’s assuredly not how the Braves drew it up. The Phillies scored 24 runs in the series despite being shut out in one of four games; it’s safe to say that Atlanta’s starting pitching let them down.

That said, it’s still worth taking a look at Snitker’s bullpen usage because in my opinion, he remains one of the best playoff managers around. In Game 1, playing with a huge deficit after the Phillies tagged Fried for six runs, Snitker used Jesse Chavez and Dylan Lee to soak up innings. When the Braves rallied for two runs to close the game to 7-3, Snitker called on Collin McHugh in relief of Lee, using a better reliever as befits a closer game. But after Atlanta failed to score in the sixth or seventh inning, the game felt distant again, and Snitker gave Jackson Stephens, the last man in the bullpen, the final two innings. Good work all around in a lost game, in my opinion.

In Game 2, Snitker lined up A.J. Minter to face Bryce Harper, then used his other two bullpen aces to close out the game. In Game 3, things got out of hand so quickly that it was again time for Chavez, Lee, and surplus starter Jake Odorizzi. That just leaves Game 4, when Morton left after two innings, three earned runs, and a bruised elbow (he was hit by a batted ball). With seven innings of no-safety-net baseball, Snitker aired it out. He gave McHugh two innings, pulling him to again lean on the Harper-Minter matchup.

Snitker tried to stretch Minter for two innings as well, as the bottom of the Philadelphia lineup is dotted with lefty batters. When the Phillies put two runners on with two outs, he countered with Raisel Iglesias against Rhys Hoskins. Iglesias proceeded to give up a bloop single (63.2 mph exit velocity), a nubber (30.4 mph), and a single through a shift-vacated infield (76.3 mph). I liked the process, but the result was the end of the line for Atlanta.

My only demerits for Snitker: he’s an aggressive user of intentional walks and I’m not a fan. The worst offender, in my opinion, came in the third inning of Game 3, with Philadelphia leading 1-0. Kyle Schwarber batted with a runner on second and two outs. Snitker walked him intentionally to face Hoskins. With Strider on the mound, that’s a better handedness matchup, but it’s really early in the game to give up free baserunners against a homer-happy top of the Philadelphia lineup. Hoskins, of course, hit the home run that broke the game open, and Strider didn’t finish the inning.

In Game 4, Snitker tried the same maneuver and won. With McHugh pitching and Philadelphia leading by two, Schwarber batted with runners on second and third and two outs. Snitker walked him again, and I think this one is more defensible. The Braves trailed by more, which made Schwarber’s run less valuable, and there were more runners on base, which means getting a marginal advantage at the plate matters more. This time, Hoskins flied out to end the threat. Points for consistency, even if I thought the first walk was overly aggressive. I like seeing consistent processes from managers, because it suggests that they have a well considered plan. That counts for a lot given the amount of time teams spend game-planning and thinking through matchups.

Dave Roberts, Los Angeles Dodgers

Batting: B
I just don’t have much to say here. The Dodgers ran two platoons in their lineup: Cody Bellinger and Gavin Lux started against righties while Chris Taylor and Austin Barnes stepped in against lefties (with some quintessentially Dodger-y positional switching chipping in). Would you play Barnes as a big righty bat? I wouldn’t, but I can see why they chose to try it, and he left the game in favor of Lux against the first righty reliever the team saw. I personally would have gone with Miguel Vargas, who might as well have stayed in the minors given the way they used him.

By Game 4, Roberts had abandoned one side of that platoon, opting for Taylor over Bellinger against a righty. Is it ideal to bench Bellinger against his best matchups? No, but he’d looked completely lost in his seven plate appearances in the series, striking out in four of them, and his 83 wRC+ this year hardly inspires confidence.

The decision to pinch hit with Barnes instead of Taylor has been much discussed, and I buy what Roberts is selling: he used Barnes because Taylor’s swing shape lines up poorly against riding fastballs. Fine with me. At the end of the day, the team has to hit enough to win; no amount of lineup machinations by Roberts could change the fact that the best offense in baseball managed only 12 runs in four games.

Pitching: C-
These report cards started as a way to question Roberts’ bullpen management. He’s made an art form of bringing starters in as relief pitchers in big moments, usually to the team’s detriment. This year, his bullpen was so stacked – and his starting rotation so thin – that he had no choice but to use real relievers. I’m just not so sure he used those relievers correctly.

Evan Phillips was the team’s best reliever all season and also the reliever used in the highest-leverage spots. In Game 1, he came in to face Juan Soto and Manny Machado with a two-run lead, exactly how you’d draw it up. Phillips didn’t pitch in Game 2, which I don’t hate; the Dodgers were down when he would have made the most sense, against Soto and Machado in the seventh inning, and staying away from him on a back-to-back with the weaker Dodgers starters still to pitch in the series seems reasonable to me. You could have used him there, of course, but with three games in a row coming up and high bullpen usage expected in at least two of the three, using your best reliever while trailing is a judgment call.

In Game 3, Phillips entered with two on and two out in a one run game, facing Machado. He struck him out, then pitched a clean inning before departing. He was clearly the reliever the Dodgers trusted in the biggest spots. Cue Game 4: two on, nobody out, Dodgers clinging to a two-run lead. Tommy Kahnle exited the game after allowing three straight baserunners, one of whom scored. Yency Almonte replaced him to face the top of the Padres lineup.

Wait, what? Why wasn’t this Phillips’ inning? The Dodgers were setting him up against the best Padres hitters all series, and he was more than a match for them. Almonte is a nice reliever, but uh, he’s not Phillips. Ha-Seong Kim doubled, Soto walked, and suddenly it was a tie game. Alex Vesia came in next – another non-Phillips reliever – and gave up a two-run single that provided the winning margin. Phillips ended up pitching the last inning of the Dodgers’ season and striking out the side to keep the team’s deficit to 5-3.

That one hurts, because the Padres scored in only one inning all game and still made it stand up. It’s not that Phillips was a lock to get out of the inning with no damage, but he’s there for exactly these spots. Use him that way!

That aside, I didn’t hate the rest of Roberts’ bullpen management. He trusted Kahnle and Almonte quite a lot relative to their regular season contributions, but I don’t fault him for that; they both look like excellent bullpen options to me. Chris Martin and Vesia got big innings; again, that makes sense given how good they looked this year. Brusdar Graterol surrendered a crucial run in Game 2, but I would have brought him in there, too, and he acquitted himself well in the series. The Dodgers have a pile of good relievers and they used them all in this series, with the exception of maximizing Phillips.

That said, not maximizing your best reliever is a huge problem. This year’s edition of the Dodgers was built with a deep bullpen in mind. That bullpen needed to pitch important innings; with Walker Buehler, Dustin May, and Tony Gonsolin all compromised in one way or another, scoreless innings of relief were mandatory. Even that wasn’t easy; Blake Treinen barely pitched this year, Daniel Hudson wasn’t available, and Craig Kimbrel was available but unwanted. With that much pitching churn, getting the absolute most out of Phillips was a necessity, and Roberts failed at the task.