This Is Why Kevin Cash Pulled Blake Snell
LOS ANGELES — On Wednesday night at Dodger Stadium, Blake Snell took the mound with his team down 2-0 in the NLCS and made one of the best postseason starts I’ve ever seen. For six scoreless innings, he was nearly unhittable. At one point, he set down 14 Brewers in a row, striking out nine of them.
Only two baserunners separated Snell’s stretch from the historic postseason performances of Roy Halladay, or Don Larsen, or Josh Beckett. Both came in the second inning. Cooper Pratt fought off a 96.6-mph fastball up and in and rolled it, as if by radio control, through the 5-6 hole for a single. In baseball, results frequently bear only a tangential relationship to process — you will never find a better example of this.
Snell’s only real foulup was a four-pitch walk, issued to Garrett Mitchell the batter before. Oh well, no one’s perfect. Except Don Larsen, I guess. Eighty pitches, 55 strikes, nine punchouts, two baserunners, zero runs. When Snell is imperfect, he’s one of baseball’s most frustrating pitchers. He nibbles, his command wavers. He’s wobbly and out of step and dissonant, like a high school marching band that’s just gotten its drill.
Michael is a writer at FanGraphs. Previously, he was a staff writer at The Ringer and D1Baseball, and his work has appeared at Grantland, Baseball Prospectus, The Atlantic, ESPN.com, and various ill-remembered Phillies blogs. Follow him on Twitter, if you must, @MichaelBaumann.
Isn’t it a Jaguar that locks onto a Cayman’s neck? Not sure a leopard could take an African croc, those suckers are huge and grow to 4-5 metres.
Indeed, it is a Jaguar and a Cayman. The Cayman are strangely passive while sunning on the river banks.
I’m strangely passive while sunning on the river bank
I wouldn’t count a leopard out against any animal, except maybe a full-grown hippo.
To that point, I’d count out most animals against a full-grown hippo.
As best I can tell, the hippo is undefeated…
It’s refreshing when a pitcher makes no excuses but just says “good guy, been through hell and come back, beat me fair and square.” It will be interesting to see if the Dodger brain trust can come up with a plan to deal with Bauers in a high leverage situation if it arises in the rest of the series.
We have our answer.
I think the winner of the ALCS should just groove the first pitch to Bauers. Let him take a hack. He clearly needs to see ten pitches before he knows what to do. He’ll probably pop it up. I should be a manager!
I am astonished to see a guy who was at best a pinch runner for the most insufferable team in baseball history acting like an imbecile
It took me way too long to figure out you were talking about Dave Roberts. Anyway, leaving Snell in to face two lefties was defensible, even considering the ‘three times through the order penalty.’ Lefties have slugged only .298 against Snell for his career, and with the exception of SSS this year, Bauer has a typical platoon split. And Mitchell should be mostly a platoon bat. Considering the Dodgers’ pen (which butterfly effect aside would have lost the game anyway), I don’t think this remotely rises to imbecilic levels of managing.
How did it take you a while to figure out he was talking about Dave Roberts? It seemed obvious to me immediately.
If you want to know my cognitive process:
1) It wasn’t obvious that anyone was acting like an imbecile, so I looked to the players first.
2) It also wasn’t obvious which team was ‘insufferable,’ or if any of the players were better known as pinch runners on another team
3) Finally, made the connection to Dave Roberts’ famous ALCS steal. I’m not a Sox fan, but I don’t find that 2004 Sox team insufferable.
You’re welcome?
Because it references something from 22 years ago & someone who is much more famous these days for something else (being a very long term successful manager of a dynasty).
Dude, I’m a Yankee fan who absolutely loathes those 2004 Sox, and it didn’t come to me at all. I honestly spent a minute or so trying to figure out what the hell Jake Bauers did to anyone outside of this game.
thank you for taking the time to interpret this for the rest of us – you’ll never get that time back, but thanks nonetheless.
Are you two related?
haha – maybe FG third cousins, twice removed.
salty (layperson) vs dr salty, phd, head of salty lab at the university of sodium chloride, which researches novel ion batteries. no, not the kind you’re thinking of. heavily charged pitchers and catchers.
The ion cannon from Empire Strikes Back, in this scenario, is a metaphor for Dillon Dingler’s right arm.
Biologist, but I lol’d hard at this.
Not that I know of. I backronymed ASS, but everyone is too nice to use it.
so…you’re the ASSMAN!
Thank you.
TBH, I initially thought the post was talking about Yelich, who pinch ran for Vaughn right before the Bauers HR, but, then the rest of it didn’t line up & I didn’t see Yelich doing anything imbecilic.
Roberts managerial career has been so long & successful now that the initial post just seems unreasonable & petty at this point.
The irony of the creater of this comment calling others “insufferable”
not to mention that Dave Roberts had a pretty solid if unspectacular 10 year career.
I’m not sure if the article is suggesting Snell should have been pulled before the homer, or if it is just narrating the events. Mostly felt like narration, which is good, because pulling snell at that point would have seemed crazy
Every pitcher is going until they are not. Looking at Snell’s history, 4.6 ERA 3rd time through the order for his career, for context with cy young types, verlander is 4 scherzer is 3.6, if you want someone from the article Halladay is 3.4. His Cy young seasons are only 180IP and not 200+ even with 31 and 32 starts in those season, because if you let him pitch deep into the games he won’t maintain the run prevention. They mention when Cash pulled him out in 2020 in the WS but Cash also left him in like Roberts did earlier in the post season and the same thing happened, looked untouchable until he got 3rd time through and they started to shell him.
So many failed to mention, and no surprise fewer still remember, that Snell threw a very similar start earlier in the playoffs where he got whacked much like last night. Good on you to conjure that memory. Snell is one of the best pitchers in baseball when his command is sharp, but fatigue and familiarity can make that less likely later in games. With their backs to the wall and playing after a day off, I don’t understand how the Dodgers don’t go to the fresh horse. You play to win the game, you don’t just play to play. Who cares of the thoughts from those not out there making it happen.
not just earlier in the 2020 playoffs, but earlier in that very same World Series! game 2 I believe, Snell was left in after pitching quite well and then allowed a number of baserunners
I get all that…but there are stats/history and there is also context. He had just set down 18 of 19 batters (including three in a row to start out the 3rd time through the order) and was still comfortably under any sort of pitch count issues. He walked a guy to lead off an inning…it happens. The next two guys were lefties.
If Roberts had taken him out there and the Brewers had tied up the game, he would have been slammed. Just like Tracy was earlier in the post season. Obviously it didn’t work out, but this is not a decision that has to be second guessed at all in my opinion.
I disagree, this is a situation where the most relevant evidence (ttop) advises pulling Snell. I don’t respect the manager who is well established and makes critical decisions using the ole “I don’t want to get yelled at by the media so I will do what others did because it’s safer for me psychologically”
“I don’t want to get yelled at by the media so I will do what others did because it’s safer for me psychologically”
I was certainly not suggesting that is how Dave Roberts is making or should be making decisions. I assume you know that and are just being obtuse. In this situation, no matter which decision was made, it was going to get second guessed if it didn’t work out.
Yeah, this. Getting second guessed/yelled at by fans/media is an occupational hazard for managers. The fact is that either decision (pull him/let him ride) was justifiable. At which point the judgment will solely based on the answer to one question: did it work? Whatever the decision, if it doesn’t work, the manager will get roasted.
Which is why, in such situations, if I can see a rationale for either decision, I let it ride even if it doesn’t work, even if it’s not what I think that I would have done in the manager’s place.
There are zero possible LCS managing decisions that avoid getting yelled at by the media, so that can’t even potentially be a factor.
I think that’s the point. Taking him out could have backfired, as it did when Cash did it in 2020. Leaving him in could have backfired, as it did this time. Either way, if we criticize the decision, we’re using hindsight to second-guess it, because we don’t know what the other decision would have led to.
I mean, I think you can criticize it without using any hindsight at all.
I had an extra piece of this reply written but decided a TLDR was better: math does say to pull him. And the math in this case is in foresight, not hindsight.
I will simply note that the team has more knowledge/data to go into the equation than we do. So I wouldn’t be so absolute in your conclusion.
I agree — I honestly (depending on the reliever brought in) think either course of action was eminently defensible there, but as a manager, you only get to choose one.
As far as Tracy goes, I think he was 1/2 in pulling his starter — I wouldn’t have pulled Gray when he did, but as a Yankee fan, I was glad he did so.
I am unable to read the full article, but is there a part that mentions that beyond the two baserunners in the second inning, Jackson Chourio led off the game with a round-tripper on the first pitch? Seemed like that was an important thing to occur.
Yeah
Not sure the juice is worth the squeeze for the reveal.
Yeah, I couldn’t figure out why the lede is that he threw six scoreless innings before the 7th.
I see a mention comes later, just seemed like Indian framing.
I don’t know how “unusual” got autocorrected to “Indian”…thanks Apple?
I was wondering what “Indian framing” was. I thought either polio blankets or Yan Gomes may have been involved.
Suffer more Dodger fans.
Bauer for series MVP?
My position is clear on the usage of top of the rotation aces. They pitch until they lose it, which is, of course, subjective and hard to recognize before it is explodes in your face. Snell meets that criterion and if he showed the slightest signs of coming apart it was hard to see. Is the fact he didn’t strikeout anyone in the 6th enough to pull him, not in my opinion. I have no problem with Roberts sending him out for the 7th but the walk to Vaughn was a hint, but an ever so slightly weakening Snell is still a tremendous pitcher and Snell was certainly a better choice to face Bauers than Phillips. Then, in a great mano-a-mano battle, Bauers came up huge. That’s baseball and why I have been watching for 75+ years. Comparing pitches, the fastball that Chourio hit out in the 1st was 97.6 mph and the fastball that Bauers hit out was 97.8. Maybe the 11th pitch to Bauers moved slightly less but how can that be seen and foretold? It wasn’t like Snell was suddenly tossing meatballs up there. I am not going to attempt to compare Gasser to Snell but look at what happened just one inning before in the other dugout. Gasser was pitching beautifully but Murphy didn’t use his eyes, went blindly by the script, and how did that work out? Did Roberts make a mistake in leaving Snell in to face Vaughn then the two lefties? I can’t see how he can be faulted. You can’t predict baseball, Suzyn.
I agree that going into the LH Bauers at bat, not a single human being in Roberts’ place would have pulled Snell (even Cash). A reasonable argument could be made to yank him after that homer, though with another LH in Mitchell due up I see it as a horse apiece.
Respectfully, though, Murphy did use his eyes. If you watched the 5th inning as closely as he did, Gasser’s once-pinpoint command was noticeably faltering. He managed to escape an uncompetitive leadoff walk to the #9 hitter unscathed in spite of Betts and Edman tagging meatballs into loud outs but was certainly appearing highly vulnerable to the third time penalty.
I’m not saying it was a no-brainer to end his night there, and granted, pitching Uribe in every single game finally caught up to Murph. But honestly, that was the Brewers equivalent of pitching an ace until he loses it — just as you condone — it’s just their “aces” are mostly RPs.
Edman’s ball from the Statcast data (and the replay) looks like a pretty garden-variety middling fly ball. 91.7 EV/26 LA/.110 xBA doesn’t read as “tagging” a pitch to me. Location wasn’t great on it, but in the Betts PA, he dotted the corner once and placed a sweeper in a good spot before leaving one up that Betts definitely got into a little bit.
I understand the thinking behind calling on Uribe there in isolation, but a bunch of those guys were getting a second look at him in the series, and he had thrown a lot in the playoffs so far (96 P in 11 days doesn’t sound like a lot, but I couldn’t find any stretch this year where he exceeded that — he had one in September where he had clocked 95 P/11 days). I think the greater context called against it, but I don’t think it was indefensible or anything.
Gasser also had some blister issue, another reason to pull him.
I firmly agree with you in principle with aces. They have outsized impact in the postseason relative to their contracts so you really want to ride them.
My criticism of Snell has often been that he’s more of a pseudo-ace than a true #1. He is wildly inconsistent start to start and a significant portion of his career value comes from absolutely dominating teams the first 2 times through the order and avoiding the TTO penalty.
I do think that in some ways you should be managing him more as an overqualified #2 than as a true frontline ace because he does have limitations to his game that other players at his level really don’t.
Fangraphs playoff odds continue to see the Dodgers as really likely to win the World Series if they make it–about 76% now, which is about where it stood when the playoffs opened. That seems a little nuts to me–baseball just isn’t that determined by team quality.
Where are you seeing this? I see about a 13% chance they win the CS. 10% chance they win the WS
Right, but in order for the second to happen, the first has to happen. All of the 87ish% of the time they lose to the Brewers, they don’t win the World Series. The fact that their WS percent is almost 10% despite being down 3-0 in the 7 game LCS is silliness.
Quick math: the chances of them winning the WS per the odds are (chance win LCS)x(chance win WS if win LCS)=(overall WS chance). We’re “given” the first number and the RHS. So it’s (chance win if win LCS) = (overall WS chance)/(chance win LCS), which comes out to 0.761 and change. 76%
That implies that in the 13 times out of 100 they make the World Series, they win 10 of them. 10/13 = 77%
…which is totally insane. They won under 62% of their regular season games including those against good teams and the dreck of the league. There is no way in holy hell any playoff team should be a 77% favorite over any other playoff team in any series, bar none. That would be a 125-win pace if those two teams played over an entire season.
To play devil’s advocate, they shorten their rotations in the playoffs, so the lower-quality depth that even the best team must expose in the regular season can be more-or-less eliminated in any leverage situation. So I think you can talk yourself into a case that they would be expected to win at a higher rate vs. an average or even kinda-good team in the playoffs than they would against the whole league (which incorporates terrible teams) during the regular season. That becomes more complicated if you consider the Rays or Guardians to be good or very good teams, which the Fangraphs model does not (arbitrarily looking at the projections from 9/1/26, they saw the Rays as barely above a .500 team for the ROS, and the Guardians at .526).
But even so, I don’t think that can justify projecting the Dodgers as 76% favorites in a 7-game series. There just aren’t enough trials to be confident quality will win out in a short series, even if you think the quality differential between the Dodgers and their potential opponents is pretty large. A projection that aggressive is not allowing enough room for randomness, which is a bigger factor in baseball than most other pro sports.
Also, it feels like the projections are not accounting for a less than full strength Ohtani. They just look old without him doing heroic things.
Sure, it’s the same now as it was at the beginning of the playoffs because the teams haven’t fundamentally changed. But if baseball isn’t determined that much by team quality, how do you propose they project possible outcomes?
For those wondering, if you go to the Playoff Odds page you can divide the Dodgers World Series win percentage (9.6% today) by their NLCS win percentage (12.6%) to get their World Series win percentage if they actually make it through the NLCS to the World Series (76.2%). A week ago, on October 8, it was 77.5%, and two weeks ago on October 1, it was 76.4%.
Since the FanGraphs Playoff Odds are calculated using overall roster strength and general playing time projections, and don’t account for lineups or starting pitchers, you wouldn’t really expect it to react much to the results of seven games in which they’ve gone 3-4. I also suspect that actual playoff performance of individual players is not accounted for and only regular season performances are used, but again, it’s just 7 games of results, which don’t typically change projected player stats during the regular season much, either.
I don’t think it should have shifted much based on what has happened in the playoffs so far; I think 76% is just way too high a probability to assign to the result of a 7-game series. You use team quality to make the predictions of course, but it should be telling you which side has max 60 or 65% odds to win. Any higher than that and you are not incorporating enough uncertainty into projecting a game with as few scoring events as baseball.
If I was the Dodgers manager, I would simply pitch Blake Snell until just before he would otherwise get into trouble, then remove him. No earlier, no later. If you remove him when he *might* get into trouble (say, because he’s about the face the top of the order for the third time), you risk pulling him when maybe he would’ve kept pitching well. But if you remove him *after* he gets into trouble, it’s too late. Hence my plan to only remove him right before he gets into trouble.
Honestly, this seems like the best plan for every pitcher. First batter of the game and 3 batter minimum aside, I don’t really see why any manager ever allows the pitcher to give up any runs when they could simply have pulled him just before that happened.
Roberts fell victim to one of the classic blunders – the most famous of which is ‘never remove a starting pitcher when the game is on the line‘ – but only slightly less well-known is this: ‘Never leave in a starting pitcher when the game is on the line'”
I was trying to remember how many pitches Snell had thrown when Cash pulled him. It does seem like the right number was between these two.
Aside: Money can be exchanged for goods and services and I am delighted that my FG money is going to live game coverage.