The Alex Cora Managerial Decision Thread

[a700hitter]

Today was the most poorly managed game of the season by Alex Cora.

There isn't even a close second.

[Maxbialystock]

If sale pitches the 8th like he should have we are 1 and 0..but he's a fragile egg and they must baby him ...this is not a good approach sorry .

 

Excuse me, but he also didn't pitch the 7th. Barnes did that. Sale had thrown 92 pitches after 6, which was the right time to pull him with a 4 run lead.

[jacksonianmarch]

It’s game 1. You don’t ride Sale through 100 pitches for the first turn or two. Do you want Sale to dominate the first half then tire again?

[Hitch]

There will be mistakes and things we don't take into account when it comes to decision making, and it's mental that people are going this crazy over decisions already, however, he did make some errors out there.

 

I don't blame him for taking Sale off. Perfectly fine decision. His issue was with Kelly and then Smith. He can't help that those two s*** the bed, and they should have been more then capable of shutting them down, but it was pretty clear early they weren't and Kimbrel should have at least been warming up. Come in, get us out of the 8th and then we can get somebody else in for the 9th.

 

JBJ didn't look like he was near getting a hit yesterday so I would have also pitch hit for him in the 9th to try and keep the inning going.

 

It's the way we lost which hurts. It's a long season and there's nothing to worry about yet, but it kind if feels like every game is going to count in the race with the Yanks, this year.

[cp176]

We always tried to convince our kids that it wasn't good to ever get to up or to down over a game. Stay steady. I had a hard time buying into this way of looking at things myself. Yesterday - the first game of a season that we hope is filled with good things. A game that we were dominating what looked for the longest time to be a much weaker team. First game - you get through it but boy oh boy this one was painful.

[Bellhorn04]

Welcome to Boston, Alex.

[mvp 78]

It’s game 1. You don’t ride Sale through 100 pitches for the first turn or two. Do you want Sale to dominate the first half then tire again?

 

Apparently that's what some people want.

[mvp 78]

Today was the most poorly managed game of the season by Alex Cora.

 

This is true.

[jacksonianmarch]

There will be mistakes and things we don't take into account when it comes to decision making, and it's mental that people are going this crazy over decisions already, however, he did make some errors out there.

 

I don't blame him for taking Sale off. Perfectly fine decision. His issue was with Kelly and then Smith. He can't help that those two s*** the bed, and they should have been more then capable of shutting them down, but it was pretty clear early they weren't and Kimbrel should have at least been warming up. Come in, get us out of the 8th and then we can get somebody else in for the 9th.

 

JBJ didn't look like he was near getting a hit yesterday so I would have also pitch hit for him in the 9th to try and keep the inning going.

 

It's the way we lost which hurts. It's a long season and there's nothing to worry about yet, but it kind if feels like every game is going to count in the race with the Yanks, this year.

 

I agree with this philosophy and I’m not sure why a veteran manager like Francona employs this and nobody else does. Francona uses his best reliever in the highest leverage situations (Miller). It might be the 7th or 8th, but that’s where the game may be won or lost. Francona does have the benefit of having Cody Allen as well who a top notch level closer. Most people would just stack them 8th-9th, but he’ll use Miller in the 6th or 7th depending on situation. I think we will eventually see a shift towards this. Pens with 2 closer level pitchers, one reserved each game for traditional closer role and the other as a swing guy capable of neutralizing jams before the 9th

[Bellhorn04]

These are the facts and the facts are undisputed!

 

Kelly Barnes Hembree average WHIP last 3 seasons 1.5 = 5million total payroll (Kelly 3.8). Gregerson despite a down year in 17, 0.9WHIP, 2 year deal 11 million. Reed 3 yr WHIP average 0.99 signs for a difference of +3.5 million? I understand Relievers are inconsistent from year to year but the 3 stooges in Boston have been a train wreck. That is not the fault of Cora, its the fault of DD not addressing the BP needs.

 

Where Cora is at Fault today is not his bullpen moves, its what Pitcher he decided to use minus Kimbrell and CSmith who I will give a pass to today only. Cora needs to find his identity as a Manager. His own Identity! If Pitchers that were not used today get shelled then so be it. Walden Maddux Poyner? Don't be afraid to use them. Lets try to find a diamond in the rough or make the GM go out and make a move for better talent than what we have seen the last few years with the stiffs DD has put in uniform.

 

Kelly and Barnes were fine last year and for that matter so was the bullpen in general.

 

Time will tell if DD has left us short-handed this season. We certainly need some of the no-name guys that didn't pitch last night to step up.

[Bellhorn04]

I agree with this philosophy and I’m not sure why a veteran manager like Francona employs this and nobody else does. Francona uses his best reliever in the highest leverage situations (Miller). It might be the 7th or 8th, but that’s where the game may be won or lost. Francona does have the benefit of having Cody Allen as well who a top notch level closer. Most people would just stack them 8th-9th, but he’ll use Miller in the 6th or 7th depending on situation. I think we will eventually see a shift towards this. Pens with 2 closer level pitchers, one reserved each game for traditional closer role and the other as a swing guy capable of neutralizing jams before the 9th

 

It's great in theory, but you need an Andrew Miller to make it work.

[cp176]

Kelly and Barnes were fine last year and for that matter so was the bullpen in general.

 

Time will tell if DD has left us short-handed this season. We certainly need some of the no-name guys that didn't pitch last night to step up.

 

Was there something dramatically wrong with the way Barnes pitched yesterday? Did I miss something?

[Bellhorn04]

Was there something dramatically wrong with the way Barnes pitched yesterday? Did I miss something?

 

Not at all. And this is the type of bullpen management Phil Mushnick at the NY Post keeps complaining about. Why wouldn't you let Barnes go out for a second inning when he looked so good in his first one. But the modern method is to limit guys to one inning and to base a lot of it on matchups.

[mvp 78]

Not at all. And this is the type of bullpen management Phil Mushnick at the NY Post keeps complaining about. Why wouldn't you let Barnes go out for a second inning when he looked so good in his first one. But the modern method is to limit guys to one inning and to base a lot of it on matchups.

 

Barnes has never been a multiple inning guy though. I think Cora's expectation that a combination of Kelly and Smith to get 3 outs and not give up 4 runs is reasonable. It'll be interesting to see how he works in the other bullpen arms early in the season. Bullpens are always a work in progress the first 2 months. Hard to get too angry over one loss.

[Bellhorn04]

Barnes has never been a multiple inning guy though. I think Cora's expectation that a combination of Kelly and Smith to get 3 outs and not give up 4 runs is reasonable. It'll be interesting to see how he works in the other bullpen arms early in the season. Bullpens are always a work in progress the first 2 months. Hard to get too angry over one loss.

 

Barnes has pitched more than 1 inning many, many times, including 7 2 inning stints last year. But I agree with you that we shouldn't be freaking out over one game.

[cp176]

I agree with both of you two to an extent. Tough calls to make I think. A shorter leash for Kelly I guess but Cora has to figure this out as he goes along. Regardless of all the hype and positives that we feel for him, the bottom line for me anyway is that he is still a first year manager. He has to find out for himself what these guys can do. Spring training doesn't help much in this regard. I will say though that Joe Kelly has always made me a little nervous.

Also, and you two guys know this as well as anyone, even if we had won the game there would have been plenty of people complaining about this and that. - Vazquez - the base running - whatever.

[Emp9]

Not at all. And this is the type of bullpen management Phil Mushnick at the NY Post keeps complaining about. Why wouldn't you let Barnes go out for a second inning when he looked so good in his first one. But the modern method is to limit guys to one inning and to base a lot of it on matchups.

 

I agree. Only in this situation, Cora limited Barnes to one inning and then threw matchups out the window. I still think the strike zone changed in the 8th and both Kelly & Smith were getting squeezed... like on a ridiculous level. Multiple times. That can frustrate any pitcher. Part of Cora’s job is to realize this and make multiple changes if need be before things get out of hand. It’s a tough loss. It sucks. But sometimes a bad loss is just what a team needs. We’ll see how they react. I hope they’ll be better for it.

[jacksonianmarch]

You don’t burn a reliever for the following day when up by 4 and you literally need three more outs before automatic kicks in.

[mvp 78]

https://www.overthemonster.com/2018/3/30/17178324/red-sox-alex-cora-managerial-decisions-joe-kelly-craig-kimbrel-carson-smith

 

It obviously didn’t go well, but I’m not sure you can put that on Cora for calling upon the righty at all. It was a four-run game, the Rays hadn’t done anything on offense all day, and Tampa had their bottom two hitters and Matt Duffy coming up. This wasn’t a tremendously high-leverage situation, and Kelly is at worst the fourth-best reliever in a bullpen that already used their third-best. Simply put, it’s a situation in which Kelly needs to come through, and he simply didn’t.

 

Cora allowed Kelly to face five batters in this game, and that was a mistake. It was pretty clear from the start that Kelly couldn’t locate his pitches in this outing, and while the umpire was squeezing him the control was a bigger issue than the strike zone. We know by now that Kelly has a tendency to lose the zone at times, and Cora needs to learn to be more proactive when this is the case. Ideally he would have been removed after the Duffy double, but he certainly should have been lifted after he walked Kiermaier.

 

Next, we have Cora going to Smith rather than going to Bobby Poyner with the left-handed Miller coming up. The manager’s reasoning for this was that it would have been too big of a spot for Poyner to make his major-league debut, and it’s a fair point. However, it does lead one to wonder why he was warming in the first place. I suppose it wouldn’t have been as bad if Kelly had gotten Carlos Gomez out, leaving two on in a three-run game with two outs against Miller compared to bases loaded and one out. It’s also fair to wonder why you’d put Poyner on the major-league roster in the first place if he’s not ready for this kind of outing, but that’s also not entirely on Cora. I think it probably would have been fine to go with Poyner, but at the same time Smith is a groundball machine who has never shown big platoon splits. He should be able to handle that spot, and arguably was a better choice than Poyner even if you don’t worry about the latter being ready for his major-league debut.

 

The biggest criticism of Cora, though, was not bringing Kimbrel in at all for the eighth inning. One of the Red Sox manager’s biggest talking points this winter has been a more aggressive usage of his closer and not being afraid to use Kimbrel before the ninth inning. However, according to Cora after the game, he and the Red Sox closer talked before the game and decided he would only pitch in a clean inning for Opening Day. That’s a bit strange, but once he and Kimbrel talked about it I’m fine not going back on that decision. Communication is key between relievers and a manager, and Cora needs to earn trust early in the year.

 

As for the decision to only use Kimbrel in a clean inning, Cora insists that this won’t be the case all year but only early on.

[cp176]

I hope Alex knew what he was getting himself into when he signed his contract. He should have for sure.

[Natick to NC]

It’s game 1. You don’t ride Sale through 100 pitches for the first turn or two. Do you want Sale to dominate the first half then tire again?

 

Sale gets the vapors regardless around the end of September .The guy is amazing for 5 months and has a long history of the vapors .

[Natick to NC]

This loss is square on Joe Kelly .I have never trusted this pitcher .Trade him the minute he has a run of two games without giving it up again .

[Emp9]

https://www.overthemonster.com/2018/3/30/17178324/red-sox-alex-cora-managerial-decisions-joe-kelly-craig-kimbrel-carson-smith

 

It obviously didn’t go well, but I’m not sure you can put that on Cora for calling upon the righty at all. It was a four-run game, the Rays hadn’t done anything on offense all day, and Tampa had their bottom two hitters and Matt Duffy coming up. This wasn’t a tremendously high-leverage situation, and Kelly is at worst the fourth-best reliever in a bullpen that already used their third-best. Simply put, it’s a situation in which Kelly needs to come through, and he simply didn’t.

 

Cora allowed Kelly to face five batters in this game, and that was a mistake. It was pretty clear from the start that Kelly couldn’t locate his pitches in this outing, and while the umpire was squeezing him the control was a bigger issue than the strike zone. We know by now that Kelly has a tendency to lose the zone at times, and Cora needs to learn to be more proactive when this is the case. Ideally he would have been removed after the Duffy double, but he certainly should have been lifted after he walked Kiermaier.

 

Next, we have Cora going to Smith rather than going to Bobby Poyner with the left-handed Miller coming up. The manager’s reasoning for this was that it would have been too big of a spot for Poyner to make his major-league debut, and it’s a fair point. However, it does lead one to wonder why he was warming in the first place. I suppose it wouldn’t have been as bad if Kelly had gotten Carlos Gomez out, leaving two on in a three-run game with two outs against Miller compared to bases loaded and one out. It’s also fair to wonder why you’d put Poyner on the major-league roster in the first place if he’s not ready for this kind of outing, but that’s also not entirely on Cora. I think it probably would have been fine to go with Poyner, but at the same time Smith is a groundball machine who has never shown big platoon splits. He should be able to handle that spot, and arguably was a better choice than Poyner even if you don’t worry about the latter being ready for his major-league debut.

 

The biggest criticism of Cora, though, was not bringing Kimbrel in at all for the eighth inning. One of the Red Sox manager’s biggest talking points this winter has been a more aggressive usage of his closer and not being afraid to use Kimbrel before the ninth inning. However, according to Cora after the game, he and the Red Sox closer talked before the game and decided he would only pitch in a clean inning for Opening Day. That’s a bit strange, but once he and Kimbrel talked about it I’m fine not going back on that decision. Communication is key between relievers and a manager, and Cora needs to earn trust early in the year.

 

As for the decision to only use Kimbrel in a clean inning, Cora insists that this won’t be the case all year but only early on.

 

Good post. I just want add, putting in your Closer in the 8th, then having him go out and pitch the 9th has yielded poor results as well, in the past. Kimbrel seems to feed off his adrenaline. He’s had poor results pitching 1/3 or 2/3 of the 8th, sit a half inning, then try and close out the game in the 9th. If Cora & Kimbrel had that conversation prior to the game, about pitching a “clean inning”, that’s probably what was being refered to.

[sk7326]

I agree with this philosophy and I’m not sure why a veteran manager like Francona employs this and nobody else does. Francona uses his best reliever in the highest leverage situations (Miller). It might be the 7th or 8th, but that’s where the game may be won or lost. Francona does have the benefit of having Cody Allen as well who a top notch level closer. Most people would just stack them 8th-9th, but he’ll use Miller in the 6th or 7th depending on situation. I think we will eventually see a shift towards this. Pens with 2 closer level pitchers, one reserved each game for traditional closer role and the other as a swing guy capable of neutralizing jams before the 9th

 

this is true, but even Francona did not do this on day 1. (to go back to the Boston days) He did not do that with Papelbon most of the time, but certainly did it as the season rolled on ... and had no qualms doing it in the postseason.

 

Really - there is an element of human stuff here. The only way to know your bullpen can handle high leverage spots is to put the dudes in those spots. The first 40-50 games of the season are about figuring out what you've got. It's not that the wins don't matter - but there is reason to not use a postseason bullpen strategy.

[devildavid]

Farrell would have won this game.

[mvp 78]

This loss is square on Joe Kelly .I have never trusted this pitcher .Trade him the minute he has a run of two games without giving it up again .

 

For a guy who throws 100+, it's sad to see his k/9 be under 9.00. His BB/9 is way too high as well. I'd rather just go with Hembree. Kelly's upside has never shown through.

[mvp 78]

Farrell would have won this game.

 

It would have been 0-0 going into the bottom of the 9th.

[mvp 78]

this is true, but even Francona did not do this on day 1. (to go back to the Boston days) He did not do that with Papelbon most of the time, but certainly did it as the season rolled on ... and had no qualms doing it in the postseason.

 

Really - there is an element of human stuff here. The only way to know your bullpen can handle high leverage spots is to put the dudes in those spots. The first 40-50 games of the season are about figuring out what you've got. It's not that the wins don't matter - but there is reason to not use a postseason bullpen strategy.

 

100%

[sk7326]

For a guy who throws 100+, it's sad to see his k/9 be under 9.00. His BB/9 is way too high as well. I'd rather just go with Hembree. Kelly's upside has never shown through.

 

100 mph without movement suddenly becomes a LOT less special.

[Maxbialystock]

I agree with both of you two to an extent. Tough calls to make I think. A shorter leash for Kelly I guess but Cora has to figure this out as he goes along. Regardless of all the hype and positives that we feel for him, the bottom line for me anyway is that he is still a first year manager. He has to find out for himself what these guys can do. Spring training doesn't help much in this regard. I will say though that Joe Kelly has always made me a little nervous.

Also, and you two guys know this as well as anyone, even if we had won the game there would have been plenty of people complaining about this and that. - Vazquez - the base running - whatever.

 

Agree. I like to do most of my complaining on the game thread. Postgame, I like to be a little less nasty.

 

About Vazquez. During the game I was torqued about the two passed balls even though the second one didn't cost us. I also wonder about his pitch calling with the bullpen. Kelly in particular did not seem to have good command of his breaking stuff. Also, early on, I think Vazquez should have gone out to the mound.