Postseason Managerial Report Card: John Schneider (Part 1: Batting)

This postseason, FanGraphs is continuing its tradition of writing report cards for the on-field decisions made by playoff managers. Excluding the managers who lost in the best-of-three Wild Card Series, we cover every round of the playoffs for all eight managers. It’s detailed enough that I’ve begun enlisting some help. So far this year, I have graded the efforts of A.J. Hinch, Aaron Boone, Craig Counsell, Rob Thomson, and Dan Wilson. Dan Szymborski scrutinized Pat Murphy’s performance. Today and tomorrow, I’m taking a look at John Schneider. The Blue Jays played enough games that we decided to split his report into two. Michael Baumann will follow with a review of Dave Roberts. It takes a village to get the kind of in-depth coverage we aspire to provide you.

Our goal is to evaluate 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 the 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 or unconventional bullpen usage behind closed doors is a skill 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 it.

I’m also purposefully avoiding vague qualitative concerns like “trusting your veterans because they’ve been there before.” Playoff coverage lovingly focuses on clutch plays by proven performers, but guys like Trey Yesavage and Addison Barger were also excellent this October. Forget trusting your veterans; the playoffs are about trusting your best players. George Springer is important because he’s great, not because of the number of playoff series he’s appeared in. There’s nothing inherently good about having been around a long time; when I’m evaluating decisions, “but he’s a veteran” just doesn’t enter my thought process.

I’m always looking for new analytical wrinkles in critiquing managerial decisions. For instance, I’ve increasingly come to view pitching decisions as a trade-off between protecting your best relievers from overexposure and minimizing your starters’ weakest matchups, which means that I’m grading managers on multiple axes in every game. I think there’s almost no pitching decision that’s a true no-brainer these days; there are just too many competing priorities to make anything totally obvious. That means I’m going to be less certain in my evaluation of pitching than of hitting, but I’ll try to make my confidence level clear in each case. Let’s get to it – well, at least, the hitting half of it.

Batting: C-
The Blue Jays offense seems pretty easy to run. You put your good guys out there, they score a million runs, the other team’s pitchers look sad, end of story. But “easy to run” is not how John Schneider works. The man is a born tinkerer, and his roster is tinker-friendly, with multi-positional whiz Ernie Clement fronting a group of versatile defenders. With Springer (and later Bo Bichette) limited by injury, there were also plenty of offense/defense switches to consider. In the first two games of the ALDS against the Yankees, the Jays scored an aggregate 23 runs, and they did so while changing three starters from one game to the next. Isiah Kiner-Falefa, Davis Schneider, and Myles Straw all platooned in against lefty Max Fried in the second game, setting a tone that the Jays would use their entire roster.

That configuration didn’t last long; the Jays faced another lefty the next day and subbed in Anthony Santander for Straw. Kiner-Falefa only lasted two innings; when the Yankees brought in a righty reliever to replace a laboring Carlos Rodón, Barger came in off the bench. That was a little early for my taste, especially because it stacked the lefty-hitting Barger in front of the lefty Andrés Giménez. For the lefty-light Jays lineup, that provided the Yankees a natural place to use their lone lefty reliever, Tim Hill. True to form, Hill turned Barger inside out with a runner on base at a key spot in the game. Fortunately for the Blue Jays, though, it didn’t matter. Their guys beat the Yankees squarely in the run of play, and Game 4 went Toronto’s way without any roster shenanigans or pinch-hitting, only the standard defensive substitutions. (Straw and Kiner-Falefa were both preferred late-inning options with a lead all October, rightfully so.)

Facing a righty-only Mariners rotation in the ALCS, Schneider had to mothball his multi-lineup plan. Straw got into Game 1 when Nathan Lukes fouled a ball off of his knee, but the Jays really didn’t want Straw hitting against righties, and Schneider ended up pinch-hitting for him with Davis Schneider, who was on the roster as a lefty-masher but is still a better option than Straw against righties. Luckily, Lukes was able to return the next day. Unluckily, Santander was unavailable due to back tightness, which meant Davis Schneider (managers and players with the same last name should be illegal, thank you for coming to my TED Talk) got more run in some subpar matchups.

This time, the Jays got blown out 10-3, and John Schneider eventually subbed out catcher Alejandro Kirk, a key offensive option, to give him the ninth inning off. I might have done it even earlier, to be honest, but I loved that move and think that managers don’t do this often enough. Catching is hard! Catching every day is particularly hard. The game wasn’t in doubt. I’m not sure how much an inning of rest helps – but presumably it helps a non-zero amount.

The Santander saga came to an unhappy end once the series shifted to Seattle. After three plate appearances, his back injury forced him out of the game again, this time for the rest of the postseason. Fortunately, the Jays won by nine and Straw’s 0-for-2 line in the cleanup spot didn’t matter at all. Santander’s replacement in Game 4 was actually Kiner-Falefa plus some defensive pivots, which meant Barger in right field and a natural offense-for-defense switch later on, with Straw pinch-running and playing the field. It worked like a charm, and Kiner-Falefa even provided an offensive boost.

The biggest problem I saw was that bunts starting to creep in. Giménez dropped down a pure sacrifice, to be fair against a very tough lefty in Gabe Speier, and it worked out in the sense that not only did the runner he advanced score, but the guy who drove him in scored because the Jays just score a ton of runs overall. Later in the game, Kiner-Falefa gave himself up as well, but the Jays were already up four, and there were two runners on, which feels like a better spot to bunt to me. I still didn’t love it, though. I hate bunting when you’re a team that makes very few outs overall; it’s just wasteful given how likely Toronto was to hang a crooked number up anyway. More on that later.

After two uneventful games from a decision-making standpoint, the ALCS reached a climactic Game 7. The biggest offensive decision was another sacrifice bunt. With runners on first and second and no one out in the bottom of the seventh, the Jays trailed by two runs. Giménez dropped down a sacrifice bunt that moved runners to second and third with one out. It was a bad play by win probability, because it increased the Jays’ chances of leaving the inning with only one run. It was a confusing play based on the run of the game; Giménez had the platoon advantage, he’d already walked against opposing pitcher Bryan Woo, and again, the Jays put hits together in bunches. They scored six runs a game this postseason despite playing against some of the best pitching staffs in the majors. The next two batters after the bunt both got hits, and one of them was a massive home run. Stop giving up outs!

The World Series made Schneider’s job easier. The Dodgers had almost no relievers of note, so he didn’t have to carefully separate his best right-handed hitters to avoid running into a righty relief ace. He stacked the top of the lineup with his best righties, and even better, Bichette returned from injury to play second base, which lengthened the lineup even more. The lineup against Blake Snell in the opener featured five righties in a row at the top, and after they chased him from the game, Schneider got to deploy his trusted lefties in good spots. Lukes and Barger each drove in runs in a nine-run sixth that blew the game open. Barger’s was a grand slam against Anthony Banda, a lefty specifically summoned to counter him. Banda had to stay in the game after that, and gave up another two hits to the scary righties who followed. Excellent game of managing here; the Jays were a nightmare matchup for Snell and the Dodgers, and Schneider made things even harder on Los Angeles with prudent managing.

Game 2 was quiet, with Bichette back on the bench and Lukes back in the lineup against a righty. Game 3, an 18-inning classic, was full of levers to pull, though. Bichette started again. Springer departed early after tweaking his oblique on a foul ball, and 18 innings meant plenty of substitutions for the switch-happy Jays. Kiner-Falefa pinch-ran for Bichette in the seventh. Straw ran for Barger in the eighth. Davis Schneider ran for Ty France, Springer’s replacement, in the 10th. Tyler Heineman, Toronto’s 34-year-old backup catcher, ran for Kirk in the 12th. That gang of four pinch-runners then went a combined 1-for-14 as the game dragged on and the Jays failed to score against an endless array of so-so Dodgers relievers.

Contingent on a game going this long, some substitutions will end up looking bad, so I’m trying not to be too harsh on Schneider. But I wasn’t enamored with his decision-making. When Bichette departed the game, Toronto was already light on the offensive end because of Springer’s departure; the team was also up by only a run, and with two outs, a pinch-runner wasn’t particularly valuable anyway. Bichette was likely to bat again even if the game didn’t go to extras, and one run just isn’t a lot against a Dodgers team with so much power, so extras were definitely in the equation. It was just a defensive substitution, really, but I thought it was too early to be playing for defense. The Dodgers are scary because they put a lot of balls over the wall; I don’t like removing good hitters as a counter.

I liked the decision to pinch-run for Barger more – it occurred later in the game, and this time it was a tie ballgame with a weak reliever, Jack Dreyer, on the mound. This was more of an offensive substitution – the run really mattered and Straw is a lot faster than Barger. It didn’t pan out, but I understand the thinking at least. In a real bummer of an outcome, though, Kiner-Falefa and Straw made two of the three outs in the bottom of the ninth, sandwiched between all of Toronto’s best remaining hitters, who mostly reached base.

Schneider’s need to make moves bit him almost immediately. When France singled with two outs in the bottom of the 10th, it was an obvious spot for a speedy pinch-runner. The problem was that Schneider had already used everyone fast. He had to go to Davis Schneider, who has about average footspeed, and he ended up getting thrown out at the plate on a play where Straw or Kiner-Falefa probably would have scored. Now, the Jays were working with a disastrously bad lineup. When Kirk walked to start the 12th, John Schneider dug himself even deeper by first pinch-running with Heineman, making the offense even worse, and then having Straw try to sacrifice him to second. Straw softly lined out his bunt attempt, but then, the Jays being the Jays, they loaded the bases in the inning anyway. Unfortunately, a bunch of soft spots in the lineup were due up and they couldn’t capitalize. With no hitters left on the bench to bring in and a remaining lineup so weak that there were never baserunners to bunt over, Schneider was done making decisions for the game, and after the Jays failed to score for 11 straight innings, the Dodgers finally won in the 18th.

With Springer out temporarily, Schneider moved everyone up a spot in the lineup, putting Vladimir Guerrero Jr. second. Then he proceeded to make almost no substitutions for two straight games, with the Jays winning both convincingly. That sent the series back to Toronto for the final two games, and even better, Springer returned. Game 6 was a Yoshinobu Yamamoto washout, though I do have one note on that game: The Jays put runners on second and third with no one out in the bottom of the ninth inning, looking to tie the game at three. The first of those runners was Straw, in for Kirk. The second was Barger, who frequently got replaced by a pinch-runner throughout the playoffs, but for whatever reason stayed in the game this time, even with Kiner-Falefa still available. (Kiner-Falefa is no longer fast, but he still grades out as an above-average baserunner.) Barger promptly got doubled off of second base to end the game on a poor base-running decision. It is definitely not a good look to be wildly pinch-runner happy and yet have a guy you frequently pinch-run for making a huge base-running blunder in a crucial situation.

For Game 7, Schneider stuck with his best lineup and also his tinkering tendencies. In the top of the first inning, he put the banged-up Springer in motion and ran into a strike-em-out-throw-em-out double play against a clearly compromised Shohei Ohtani. Hate it, hate it, hate it. In the bottom of the third, Schneider had Lukes sacrifice bunt, and come on, why? You trusted this guy enough to bat second in Game 7 of the World Series. He had the platoon advantage. He hadn’t bunted all postseason. Ohtani was getting hit hard – he’d faced 10 batters and half of them had reached. Stop giving up outs! Three more Blue Jays reached base in the inning, obviously.

A pretty good spot for a bunt came up in the bottom of the eighth inning, with a runner on second and nobody out, and Schneider obviously wasn’t going to miss the easy bunt opportunities given how frequently he was calling that particular play. Giménez faced a nightmare matchup in Snell, and after a foul bunt attempt, the Dodgers brought the corner infielders in. Noticing this, the scrappy second baseman made a great adjustment, electing for the slash-bunt play instead; he showed bunt, pulled it back, then swung away and rifled a line drive at third baseman Max Muncy, who reflexively snared it for an incredible play. This was the rare spot where I actually liked the initial bunt call, and I really liked the flexibility that Schneider gave Giménez to slash when the defensive positioning changed. It didn’t work out, but the bad outcome doesn’t change my confidence that this was good decision-making.

Without extra innings, that would have been the last decision Schneider made on offense. But this game couldn’t end without another bunt, obviously. Trailing by a run in the bottom of the 11th, the Jays got things started with a Guerrero double. Schneider immediately called the sac, this time by Kiner-Falefa, who was in the game after pinch-running for Bichette. He got it down to advance Guerrero to third, but the Jays hit into a series-ending double play, what with one and two making three outs and all. Stop giving away outs! This particular bunt is awful because it’s playing for a tie when the second run is just as valuable as the first. A one-run inning moves your odds of a victory from 0% to 50%. A two-run inning moves them up to 100%. When every run is worth 50% of win probability, it’s a terrible idea to sacrifice outs to make that first run more likely to score. You still have to go win the game, and as we got accustomed to in this series, the Jays were playing with a compromised lineup by this stage and really should have been interested in getting as many bites at the multi-run-inning apple as possible. The simple math says that the successful bunt lowered Toronto’s odds of winning by three percentage points, an enormous blunder. I think it’s even a little worse than that considering the situation, though.

At the end of the day, many of Schneider’s offensive moves seemed to come down to him liking to make moves. The minor defensive substitutions, the pinch-runners, the hit-and-run, the bunts; in watching these games live and then reviewing them for this article, I got the impression of someone who just can’t sit still. Some of these moves were good. Many of them were bad. I have a hard time getting too worked up by the substitutions, even though I didn’t like how aggressively early Schneider removed his best hitters for defensive improvements, but I’m willing to call that just a matter of taste. But the bunts… there, I cannot give him the benefit of the doubt.

The sheer volume of bunts – seven of them plus Giménez’s slash – is baffling to me. This team led the playoffs in both OBP and slugging percentage. They scored runs at will. Their outs even tended to be productive, because they also had the lowest strikeout rate in the playoffs. Stop giving away outs! I didn’t scream at my TV very often this October – only three times, in fact. Two of them were directed at Schneider (one you’ll hear about in the pitching section, and then the 11th-inning bunt). I had to give him a bad grade as a result of that. I’ve said it a lot in this section already, but stop giving away outs.