After a long, boring, offense-starved MLB regular season, it has been a pleasure to see some clutch professional hitting in the postseason so far. Whether it's the exciting and explosive Orioles, always-reliable Cardinals or scrappy situational-hitting Royals, offensive sparks have been flying throughout the opening week of the 2014 playoffs.
On the other hand, we've seen three of the worst managerial decisions in the history of playoff baseball. Read on to see Ned Yost, Matt Williams and Don Mattingly bashed to pieces.
The Tigers held a 6-4 lead late in Game 2 but Young, the oft-overlooked outfielder, gave the Orioles a one-run lead with a dramatic, bases-clearing double down the left field line off veteran reliever Joakim Soria. Young has always been an outstanding playoff performer, yet seemingly every offseason he has a difficult time finding his way on to a major league roster. There are likely two explanations for this: 1. His background as a "problem guy" -- a reputation that spawned from an incident in which he intentionally threw his bat at a minor league umpire and 2. His below-average defense, which stems from little-to-no range in the outfield.
Here's my issue with that: Delmon Young can hit. He hits the ball where it's pitched (uses all fields) and has raw, pure power. As ML front offices have over-emphasized individual defensive metrics and peripheral pitching statistics, bats like Young have continued to fall through the cracks. Young fell into the Orioles' lap, in addition to Cruz who is a legitimate AL MVP candidate, despite similar defensive shortcomings.
As for the Price trade...there's no question that Price is a better player than Austin Jackson -- the former probably ranks somewhere between 15-20 overall, including position players -- but he may not be the better fit for the Tigers' roster. Given that they already had strong starting pitching featuring Max Scherzer, Justin Verlander, Anibal Sanchez and Rick Porcello, I actually think Jackson's bat was more valuable to them than Price's arm. This is the very same mistake that Oakland's famous GM Billy Beane made when he traded LF Yoenis Cespedes -- arguably his best power bat -- for playoff-tested SP Jon Lester. The A's offense collapsed when Cespedes' presence was removed from the middle of their lineup (and the trade looked even worse when Lester couldn't hold two nice leads in the Wild Card game). In the Tigers' case, they really don't get much offensive production outside of Miguel Cabrera, Victor Martinez and JD Martinez.
Also, shame on top-tier GM Dave Dombrowski for thinking he could get by with Soria, Joba Chamberlain and Joe Nathan at the end of high-leverage postseason games. That's a trio of relievers whose primes are long gone. Their stuff lacks electricity. The Orioles should have little problem closing out this series and looking ahead Buck Showalter's boys have to be considered the favorite to win it all.
P.S. I think Showalter is the best manager in the game.
Ventura was consistently 97-100 throughout his start, and his tight breaking ball was nastier than ever. On the flip side, the Angels' highly-touted offense has been non-existent through two games. Megastar Mike Trout has been invisible (.000 BA), playoff veterans Albert Pujols and Erick Aybar have struggled and Howie Kendrick has hit into some tough luck. The result? After trailing 7-3 late in the Wild Card game against the A's, the upstart Royals are now one victory away from the American League Championship Series.
They've done it with clutch hitting -- i.e. Salvador Perez's game-winning single in the WC game, Mike Moustakas' late homer in Game 1 against the Angels and Eric Hosmer's dramatic two-run blast in Friday's extra-inning win -- and strong pitching from Jason Vargas, rookie left-hander Brandon Finnegan, Wade Davis, Greg Holland and Ventura (with the exception of his brief relief appearance that never should have occurred).
If the Royals want to pose a legitimate threat to the Orioles in the ALCS, they will need to continue to pitch well and hit late in games with runners in scoring position. Easier said than done.
Nationals starter Jordan Zimmermann, who threw a no-hitter in his final start of the regular season, was cruising along through one of the more dominant playoff performances of the past decade (8.2 innings, 3 hits, 1 walk, 0 ER) when Williams hustled out of the dugout to take the ball from him after a two-out walk on back-to-back fastballs that missed by a couple inches. The home crowd was completely behind Zimmermann and his stuff looked just as sharp as it did in the early innings, and yet Williams took him out as if he had nothing left in the tank. It was almost as if Williams was watching an entirely different ballgame. Immediately I tweeted, "Don't agree with this decision at all from Matt Williams. Jordan Zimmermann's stuff still looks sharp, no need for this."
And I was proven right just minutes later when Nats closer Drew Storen entered the game and immediately surrendered a single to Buster Posey, followed by a back-breaking, game-tying RBI double to Pablo Sandoval. What happened to the days when the manager went to the mound with confidence in his starter and said, "I'm not taking you out. This is your game to win or lose."? Bruce Bochy, the best manager in the NL, does that with his guys. Apparently this isn't a policy Williams subscribes to. He didn't even ask Zimmermann how he was feeling; he signaled to the bullpen before he was even half way to the mound. Not to mention the fact that Storen has always been a bit shaky.
Down 2-0 with Madison Bumgarner on the horizon? The Nationals' season is over. Nice work, Matt Williams.
Los Angeles Dodgers and St. Louis Cardinals tied 1-1: We're less than a week into the postseason and we've already seen three of the most mind-boggling managerial decisions made in a long, long time. Zack Greinke was absolutely dominating the Cardinals' usually-clutch bats last night, with a line of 0 ER, 7 K's and only 2 H through seven innings. His four-seam fastball was as explosive as I've ever seen it (hitting 94-95 far more often than usual), his slider off the outside corner was virtually unhittable, his two-seamer inside to righties was working and he even mixed in a few of his lollipop curves. Simply put, the Cardinals had no shot. The game was in the bag.
So Greinke heads out to the mound for the 8th and shockingly, Dodgers' manager Don Mattingly calls him back to the dugout so he can replace him with...JP Howell.
Yup. JP Howell. A soft-tossing, journeyman lefty who throws 86-88 MPH with a hanging breaking ball. Just think about what a move like that does for the collective psyche of the Cardinals' hitters -- one minute you're facing a superstar starting pitcher at his very best and the next, inexplicably, you're facing a weak lefty reliever who would likely have a difficult time succeeding in AA ball. Of course the Cardinals were salivating. Howell was greeted by a rocket single from Oscar Taveras, a crushing, game-tying bomb from Matt Carpenter (who has been the best hitter in the playoffs thus far) and another single from Jon Jay. A solid appearance for Howell.
But it's not his fault! It's Mattingly's fault! How can you take a superstar out when he's cruising along, and replace him with a scrub? Like my buddy Sam Ytuarte said, it shows a clear lack of logic and a disconnection from reality. I honestly believe both Williams and Mattingly should be fired after this season. That is not hyperbole.
Who knows what we'll see next...
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