The start of a new week.
There was some great baseball yesterday. The Mets/Phillies game was one of the best you’ll ever see. And the Dodgers/Padres game was interesting if not a close game. I wanted to cheer for Teoscar, but I can’t cheer for a team whose fans throw at players. That mid-game player’s meeting, seemingly led by Manny Machado, is something I don’t think I’ve ever seen in a baseball game. He deserves much credit for getting his team back thinking about the game.
Today’s games are on the AL side:
- Tigers @ Gaurdians at 4:00 Eastern.
- Royals @ Yankees at 7:38 Eastern.
Matt Bush made news again, for the wrong reasons. Driving drunk, leaving the scene of an accident, ‘one count of an accident involving injury’ and evading arrest. The interesting part is that bystanders “chased him down and detained him’. Bush is not a small man, and athletic.
I have a hard time believing he could still have a driver’s license after spending over three years in jail for hitting a man on a motorcycle while drunk (and running over the man’s head while fleeing). And he’s had several other run-ins with the law.
With all this new trouble, the Rangers will want to sign him again.
Mike Wilner wrote about about what John Schneider learned this year.
Schneider said he won’t be beholden to such set roles in the future.
“You’re not always going to be a leadoff hitter,” said Schneider. “You’re not always going to be a No. 3 hitter. I tried different things. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t, but at the end of the day you have to trust people who have done it before, and if it doesn’t work then you have to make another adjustment.”
Well yeah.
I’m all for making a decision and sticking with it for a long time, but at some point, you have to say, ‘This isn’t working.’
Making decisions on small sample sizes isn’t a good idea either. Chasing hot streaks doesn’t do much. They tend to end as soon as you notice them.
Where Schneider couldn’t adjust was in the bullpen. Injuries and underperformance meant that more often than not whoever the skipper brought into a close game was the wrong choice.
Only eight teams needed fewer relief innings than the Jays, but nobody’s bullpen gave up more home runs. Only one had a worse ERA. Better tools are needed.
No one could have made anything out of the bullpen that Schneider had. He rode the guys throwing well as hard as possible (sometimes too hard), but sooner or later, he had to use someone else.
John Smoltz, during yesterday’s game, complained about pitchers who didn’t fair as well the third time through the order. Back in his day pitchers were as good the third time through as the first time.
Of course, he was wrong.
You would think that if you take a job as an ‘analyst,’ you should, you know, analyze. Study the numbers a little bit. At the very least, try not to say things that are not true.
Smoltz has been on that bandwagon for years:
I hate talking about third time through because it’s a moot point. Nobody ever does it. So you can tell me all the numbers you want, third time through. If you’re not trained to know how to pitch, then you’re showing the hitter everything you’ve got in the first two times so you’ve got nothing to give the third time. So elite pitching, take Musgrove, will figure it out. He trains well, he’s big, he’s strong. There should be no issues. But we just don’t give guys the opportunity to do it. So that stat, to me, means absolutely nothing. Because there’s just not enough opportunities to gauge it right.
Pitchers have had more trouble the third time through the order for years (stolen from the Baseball Prospectus article):
I know I shouldn’t let these things bother me (and old players always want to tell us how much better they were than today’s players). But we get told catchers can’t block pitches when they are on one knee, and yet they don’t mention that wild pitches and passed balls are way down. We get told that batters can’t hit because they have too much information without suggesting that pitchers are throwing harder, have better breaking pitches, and, of course, the pitchers have lots of information too.
Rob Longley, in the Sun, talks about how the Jays have to ‘believe in declining George Springer.’ I’m not sure that the Jays believe he’ll bounce back, I just think the team can’t say it out loud. They say, ‘he’s toast,’ then it ends any hope they might be able to move him (not that it is likely they could move him.
“I think George is still showing all the physical traits (of being an elite hitter),” Atkins said at his post-season media availability last week. “We’re not seeing anything concerning in his swing, from swing metrics to scout’s eyes, to coaches’ eyes. Cognitively, we’re not concerned.”
“We’re talking about process as a hitter and decision making as a hitter so we don’t see any red flags in any of those areas and feel like there’s a way back to the player that he’s been. Maybe how far back is debatable, but definitely see a way back closer to that player.”
This idea that we have, that reporters have, that the team is being honest with us, is just wrong. There are times when they have to stretch the truth.
Springer on heading lead off:
“That’s not my job (to decide on where he hits),” Springer said. “I know who I am as a hitter. I know how I’m going to navigate my at-bats. That’s up to (manager John Schneider). Obviously that’s what I’ve done my whole career and that’s what I’m comfortable doing.
“But if he wants me to hit or three or fifth or eighty that doesn’t matter … I’m here to win. I want to help the team either way.”
I’d rather he not bat third or fifth either, but getting him out of the lead off spot is the first step.