Maxbialystock

I don't see the Sox coming back. Lineup--one lousy single in six innings--and bullpen (22 pitches, 10 strikes) have "loser" written all over them.

Like I said. Interesting how many times Andriese shook off Vazquez before giving up that double.

Sox stink again. Perfect start to the season. 1 lousy hit combined with a rotten bullpen.

90--and that's an optimistic number.

I moved to Greensboro, NC last summer and discovered four things: 1) Blackout Restrictions apply here in a state that has no MLB team; 2) my "home team" is the Washington Nationals, which is 250 road miles away; 3) If the Nationals are playing, I am blacked out everywhere--cable, online, you name it--from watching the Sox play; 4) if the Nationals aren't playing but the Atlanta Braves are, I'm still blacked out from Sox games. I did some cursory reading and discovered that regional networks--I think that's the term--provide about $2.1B in annual income to MLB. Because of that, they insist that the entire country be divided up among them. There are no gaps. One article pointed out that five different MLB franchises have some claim on the residents of Iowa, which of course also has no MLB team. As for the Sox, only New Englanders can get Sox games live, and I think small parts of CT and RI belong to the Yankees (or Mets). Feel free to contradict or elaborate on the above.

Today's NYTimes column on the occasion of Mark Shields final show on the PBS News Hour-- One story sticks in my mind. In 2004, the Red Sox fell behind the Yankees three games to none in the American League Championship Series. The Sox miraculously won the next four games and took the series. Mark went to a bunch of those games, including the final one at Yankee Stadium. After that game Mark lingered in his seat. Memories flooded over him as sweet tears flowed — a lifetime of games with his mother and father, this magnificent victory they never got to see, the century of heartbreaks now overcome. Mark and the other Sox fans just sat there, refusing to leave, absorbing this new victorious feeling, a hint of justice in the universe. I like to think that was God’s way of saying, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

I am actually amazed that MLB, which is mostly seen on TV or online and not in person, has done as well as it has. I think a huge number of Americans enjoy actually playing the game--t-ball, softball, little league, over-60 leagues, whatever--because we are on the field and involved. To a degree that experience is repeated when we actually go to a ball park to see a game. But on TV we become aware that there's a whole lot of dead time in MLB. Not just all the little quirks and mannerisms of pitchers and batters which delay the game unnecessarily, but even when the ball is in play. I don't have the numbers, but if we assume 240 total pitches are thrown in a game--that's when the ball is in play--less than half involve anyone other than the pitcher, catcher, and batter. Relatedly, it occurs to me that showing that rectangle of the strike zone is probably a neat idea for TV viewing because we can all rant at any call by the ump we don't like. However we react to pitches inside or outside the strike zone, that rectangle keeps us focused on the time-honored confrontation between pitcher and batter and blissfully unaware that the other 7 defensive players are just sort of out there and the other 8 offensive players are just sort of in the dugout. If there are baserunners, sabermetrics now tells all managers to ensure that their baserunners do as little as possible to advance on their own: stealing bases is for dummies only. Oh, and let's not forget that most pitchers will throw to 1B at least once when a baserunner is there, with maybe 1 in 30 resulting in a pickoff. Contrast the above with hockey, football, soccer, and basketball--all sports which involve every player on both teams (within the allowed limits on players on the field or court) throughout the time when the ball is officially in play. I think most fans (like me) who basically only watch games on TV, have to buy into the notion that baseball is centered around that confrontation between hitter and pitcher. On the one hand, most of us remember what Ted Williams, one of the greatest hitters ever, said, that hitting a round ball with a round bat squarely is the most difficult skill in all of sports. On the other, we have to appreciate how very, very difficult it is for pitchers to throw hard, throw accurately (about as accurately as a knife thrower from 20 feet) from 66 feet, and throw with a variety of spins and motions. I frankly like that kind of baseball, and it is definitely one of the reasons why I got so mad when Cash pulled Snell. To me the freaking software, like a deus ex machina, had inserted itself into a great game and denied real baseball fans from watching baseball at its finest. Oh, and I do like this thread and it's title. And I had almost no parental influence on my baseball fandom. It was fate: I spent 15 months, two baseball seasons, ages 12-13 in West Springfield MA, while my dad was overseas, and I got to listen to every Sox game called by Curt Gowdy, with baseball cards in hand. 1953-54 were not good Sox years, but 1953 was the year Williams came back from the Korean War in August and ended up hitting .407 with 13 home runs and 34 RBIs in 37 games and 110 at bats. I did not become a real fanatic until settling, age 60, in N. Virginia and realized I could get all the Sox games on satellite tv (later verizon fios).

Well, it certainly looks as though my hyperbole has me boxed in--by you. Well done. I can't resist a story my dad loved to tell. He played HS football in western MA about 90 years ago. His story, which was made up, went like this. It was the end of the season with one game to go--between two teams which were arch rivals. One was heavily favored, the other was determined, and managed to keep the score tied until very late in the 4th quarter. Unfortunately, their backup quarterback was injured and taken from the game when they were deep in their own territory--on their own 20 yard line. Before sending in his very inexperienced third string quarterback, the coach told him: "Don't do anything fancy. On the first play I want Poznowski to carry the ball off tackle. On the second play, I want you to hand it to Jensen, who will run around left end. On the third play, you just take the ball right up the middle. And on the fourth down, punt. You got that?" The excited young quarterback acknowledged his instructions and went out to join his team. He handed the ball off to Poznowski, who went off tackle for 12 yards. Then Jensen went around left end for 20 yards, after which the young quarterback carried the ball all the way down to the other team's 15 yard line. With seconds to go in the game, the team lined up in punt formation, and the young quarterback punted the ball out of the stadium. His coach rushed out to the field with fire in his eyes and asked the youngster, "whatever were you thinking when you had the ball on their 15 yard line with seconds to go in the game and you punted?" The 3d string quarterback answered, "I was thinking I had a pretty dumb coach."

Meh. Despite my ineffectual ranting, I think he probably deserves it. The Rays had a small payroll but a great year, largely, I think, because of Cash's use of his bullpen, early and often. If anything, the vote was a thumb in the eye of the vaunted Yankees management with all those stars and not nearly as many wins. To rub things in, the Rays beat them in the ALCS.

And that, I would argue, is entirely a matter of perspective. I will readily grant that Cash stuck with his system, the system that Chaim Bloom and a bunch of analysts created for him and which worked well in the regular season. I will also grant that the Dodgers were favored because they deserved to be and that Cash could not really affect the final outcome--who won the WS. For example, even if Snell had stayed in game 6 and the Rays somehow managed to win 1-0, the Dodgers would still have been favored to win game 7. Indeed, the Dodgers bull pen in game 6 did something the Rays bullpen (at that point in the season) was completely incapable of. They held the Rays scoreless for the final 7.1 innings, a stunning display. So, yes, the deck was stacked against the Rays and their manager. And the Dodgers did in fact win the WS. All that said, and here I am being endlessly repetitive, I think it drives us to the conclusion that the Rays were never going to win the WS. Cash did everything right because he never strayed from the Rays carefully orchestrated system for positioning players, choosing starters, telling pitchers what pitches to throw and the manager what lineups to use, when to bring in relief pitchers, and so on and so on. It was in fact that system that made the Rays so successful--most games won in the AL--in the regular season. As far as we know, neither the players nor the manager did anything in any inning of any game that was not dictated by the analysts. They in fact played a perfect WS and lost. Romantic that I am, however, I prefer human mistakes but also human triumphs. I like bloody socks drama and Dave Roberts stealing that crucial base and Big Papi getting those clutch hits and the insane success of the 2013 Sox and especially the brilliance of Kojii Uehara who was absolutely fearless as their closer despite not having a great repertoire. I still remember Johnny Podres finally getting the Dodgers their first WS title against a better team, the 1955 Yankees. I even like hammering Grady Little for leaving Pedro in too long, and Buckner for that error. I was distraught to learn that Mookie Betts made that one catch for the Dodgers and then happily waved his positioning card on the way into the dugout. Why? Because what makes Mookie great in the field is when he deals with situations that analysts don't anticipate. The guy has great instincts to go with his athleticism and skills, and, when necessary, he uses those instincts on the basepaths as well. Speaking of which, does anyone else remember that, when Cash pulled Snell, Mookie was in the on deck circle and a big smile broke out on his face? The analysts were doing him one more big favor, only it was the Rays analysts who were doing it. Cash was of course completely blameless as indeed he was for the entire season.

I apologize for again belaboring a point, but aren't you saying you want to have your cake and eat it too? You: "The bottom line is, however, that a manager's decisions do not impact the outcome of the game that much." But you also say, "A manager who knows his players well will do a better job with making in game decisions." What's the point of a manager making "better decisions" if in fact those decisions will have no impact on game outcomes? That said, I suspect that Cash is the prototypical manager of the future. Even when your baseball instincts and what you see going on in a game tell you to leave a pitcher in, the numbers say that's just dumb. It's the 3d time through the lineup, midnight has struck, and Snell, who has been literally carrying his team on this back for 5.1 innings, is about to turn into a pumpkin. It also doesn't matter which reliever is sent to the mound because statistical analysis says one reliever is about as good as another. They all have the strength: they ain't the starting pitcher. I'm sure that's smart baseball, but I find it to be as mechanical as computer programs telling managers where to position their defensive players.

An interesting article that certainly makes a strong case for Cash. But I emphatically disagree for two basic reasons. The first one is that, if the article is right, managers are simply not needed anymore. Well, yes, they have to talk to the press after the game, deal with the players, etc, Thanks to those wonderful numbers spouted in the article, however, it's pretty clear that managers can leave game management to, wait for it, the GM and his team of experts who build the numbers system and sticks to it no matter what. Need I add that the Rays are exactly that kind of team? Or that after game six of this WS, Cash told the known universe he made the decision on when to pull Snell before the first pitch was thrown. The second reason I disagree is that that article on the 2017 WS is about a very different situation. In the 2017 game it was the 9th inning and the only focus was on the relief pitcher. The starter by then was irrelevant. Had Cash faced a similar situation in game 6 of this WS, whatever he decided would have been defensible because, as we Sox fans know too well from the 2018 WS, even sending in your ace closer can be a crapshoot. But this WS game (in 2020) was in the 6th freaking inning, not the 9th. And in this WS the Rays vaunted bullpen from the regular season was more vapid than vaunted. On top of that, and one can only sympathize with poor Cash having to endure such a calamity, the Rays starting pitcher, who had won the Cy Young award two years ago at age 25, was pitching magnificently. How magnificently? How many other times this season (or last season for that matter) do you think the top three hitters in the Dodgers lineup struck out all six times they faced any other pitcher in a single game? When he was pulled, Snell had not only done that, but had only thrown 73 pitches, had walked no one but struck out 9, and had given up two singles and no runs in 5.1 innings. I am not unaware that I am probably jousting at windmills. Beyond any question, the Rays system works. They have a crappy ballpark, few fans and not much revenue, but now seem to be able to acquire, develop, and field players who on average are paid far less that most other MLB teams but are still competitive and can usually expect to get into the postseason. Think back a moment to some of the things Billy Beane says in the movie Moneyball. Don't steal. Don't swing the bat unless you absolutely have to because a walk is as good as hit. Don't bunt. Slugging percentage is OK, but OBP is the real driver. Since that time, MLB teams have introduced computer-driven defensive formations. Implicitly, managers and players are simply cogs in a machine designed by computers and master planners. Up next: Robo umps because human umps make mistakes, and we can't have those in our wonderful, increasingly sterile national pastime.

Agree. Pulling Snell and inserting Anderson was indefensible. And just think. If Alex Cora comes back to manage, he won't have to worry about these difficult decisions because Chaim Bloom will just hand him the famous Rays' Book of Foolproof Plays and In Game Decisions. And, once that becomes a norm for MLB managers, the Commissioner can dump the umps and bring on the robots!!! If we fans can't have mechanically perfect baseball, why bother to watch?

Probably time to do this deed--at some point. While I agree Pedroia had more than his share of grit, he was actually a very good athlete and baseball player. Thus in 2007 when he first came up--to be the starting second baseman, no less--the FO was unconcerned when he couldn't hit for the first month or so. They knew he was going to be good, and he was that very year (ROY). Small body, big skills--and the attitude to go with the skills. Very competitive, maybe too much so. Remember the sign stealing caper he was part of? Or when he was taking grounders on his knees? You could not be a Sox fan and not be a huge Pedey fan. That last injury to his knee, the one he never recovered from, was by his good buddy Machado, whom Pedroia defended after that play knocked him out of the game and the season and the rest of his career. Some buddy.

I often forget the spelling, so, rather than google it, I just guess. And The Billy Beane is himself two guys--the very promising five tool player who bombed, and the scout who worked his way up to GM and VP for the A's. According to the movie, the young Beane (as Billy remembers his own experience as a player) convinced the GM Beane that scouts basically know nothing--ditto managers.

Bellhorn has compiled a pretty good list, which unfortunately tempts me to rant again. I agree on the length of games, which keeps increasing. I do not agree with Kimmi that commercials are part of the problem because they only occur when nothing is happening on the field anyway. In the NBA and he NFL, the refs will definitely call timeout for commercials, but in MLB they only occur between half innings, when relief pitchers get their warmup pitches on the mound, or when either manager calls for a replay. That said, I think MLB headquarters could do more to accelerate games, but probably like the additional opportunities for commercials. Moneyball, the book and movie, are based on real adjustments Billy Bean made as GM for the Oatkland A's, and the result was a good flick. But (here comes the rant) it also emphatically made the case that good general managers can and should make managers irrelevant because computer programs and video provide the best answer on almost every baseball decision, including lineups, when and who to use in the bullpen, how to pitch to specific batters, where to position every fielder for each hitter, telltales on opposing pitchers, when to pinch hit and with whom etc, etc. Thus it will be good to get Cora back in the dugout, but Chaim Bloom and the computers will probably be making almost all of the decisions. Another rant. I think umpires, including their mistakes, are an important part of baseball and always have been. Yes, some bad calls, including balls and strikes, are egregious, but most are not. More often than not, the hitters are wrong when they complain about calls. More to the point, the robots that people want used can see and display accuracies which the human eye cannot see, and that is a fact, not a surmise. But, because that strike zone is superimposed on the TV picture, we think those very close pitches, in and out of the strike zone, are the only acceptable standard. I do, however, like the opportunities for managers to challenge other calls, not because they are important in themselves (even though sometimes they are), but because they have gone a long way to minimize managers and coaches charging onto the field to challenge a call. Again, however I do think it is laughable when the announcers replay several camera angles before finally rendering their verdict--just as the officials in NYC are able to do. Me, I prefer the umpire's call to be final because that's why he is out there. I hate the shifts, of course, but I am more dismayed that computers or whatever have convinced players to hit over the shifts (launch angle) and not to hit away from the shifts. I am untroubled by the DH in the AL but not in the NL because I don't mind seeing pitchers hit or being pinch hit for. Also, isn't a pure DH an incomplete player? And, if you can do that for pitchers, why not for weak-hitting but brilliant-fielding shortstops and centerfielders? Heck, why not offensive and defensive teams? Despite my rants, the only thing I can definitely say needs to be changed is the length of games. I would enforce the 25 second rule (time between pitches), and I would take away almost all of the little stalls hitters use. Once you step into the batter's box, you can't call time, period.

You absolutely believe that? If you do, please tell me why MLB teams pay a whole lot more for some pitchers than for others. Because they are stupid and don't realize one pitcher is just as good as another and that the difference between pitchers is "incredibly small?"

I see nothing wrong with managers running thru scenarios before a game and tentatively deciding what they might do. Cash did that with Snell. But, as you say, Cash's problem was that he apparently didn't watch the game and especially Snell closely enough. Moreover, I think he was unaware that his bullpen was no longer as reliable as it had been. Maybe he even yearned to do what Dave Roberts was doing, sending out six relievers and holding the Rays to 0 runs. Surely you can't believe that "the difference between staying with one pitcher over another is not very significant." Dave Roberts actually did that, and it worked well, but Cash should have realized his bullpen wasn't nearly as good.

Definitely an overstatement by me (for dramatic effect). Yes, absolutely, the Rays have a system, maybe the best system in MLB for acquiring, developing, and fielding winning teams on a small budget. And, yes, Cash uses computer data. But I agree that now and then Cash does seem to be thinking. Nevertheless, I am not persuaded by anything said so far that his decision to pull Snell and bring Anderson out was anything other than terrible. Snell was not tired; Anderson was (and said so after the game). Snell was pitching the game of a lifetime against a tough Dodgers lineup; and the Rays bullpen in this WS was nowhere near as good as it had been in the regular season. And, as I have now said countless times, the key piece of evidence about Cash's thinking in the 6th inning was what he said after the game: he had decided before the game that he would not let Snell face the Dodgers lineup a third time.

I just said in my lengthy prior post that yes, I do think Cash was doing some thinking on his own. That said, it is clear to me that he believed far more in his bullpen--largely because they had been so good in the regular season and he got in the habit of relying on them--than they deserved in this World Series. Snell was far and away his best pitcher in the WS, had won the Cy Young Award two years earlier, and was pitching superbly, with no sign of tiring (he'd only thrown 73 pitches), when Cash pulled him. And, after the game, Cash explained why he did so. He had decided before the game started that Snell would not pitch against the Dodger lineup a third time. You claim that was only a tentative plan, subject to change, but Cash himself disagreed with you in the post game interviews. Looking back, I think the best defense of Kevin Cash is that the other team was simply better. They have better hitting, better fielding, better base running, and better pitching (even though the Rays took game 4 by a score of 8 to 7). Indeed, game 6, which was so very close because of the brilliant pitching by Snell, was a stunning display of what a great bullpen can do. Gonsolin started and gave up the 1 Rays run, and six Dodger relievers held the Rays scoreless for 7.1 innings. I think that reality preyed on Cash's mind during the game and that he yearned to show what his bullpen could do, regardless of how brilliantly Snell was pitching.

A fair question. My impression of the entire World Series is that both managers absolutely loved bringing in a "fresh arm" because both were living every manager's dream: I'm responsible for whether we win or lose games, not the players. Kind of like an old TV show where the MC got to say, "you're fired." This approach in fact worked beautifully for Dave Roberts who used 7 pitchers to hold the Rays to 1 run in the same game 6. Of the six games, three were won by the starting pitcher--2 by Kershaw (who pitch 6 and then 5.2 innings) and Buehler. No Rays starter got a win. In his 2 starts, Snell's ERA was 2.70. In Kershaw's 2 starts, his ERA was 2.31. All managers use computers a lot these days, and I do think they influenced Cash's decision to pull Snell after going thru the Dodgers lineup twice. However, in the previous game he kept his starter in for 102 pitches while facing 24 Dodger batters, so I have to agree there was some internal reasoning going on with respect to Snell in game 6. Game 2 is worth a revisit. First point: game dynamics were completely different--Rays had a humoungous (for them) 5-0 lead going into the 5th. Second point: the damage done in the 5th inning was by the bottom of the Dodgers order--#8 Barnes walked and #9 Taylor homered for 2 runs. So, if Cash was using game 2 to inform him about how long to leave Snell in in game 6, he should have pulled him at the beginning of the 6th inning. Third: in game 2 Snell in fact pitched slightly better than the Rays bullpen, giving up 2 runs in 4.2 innings vs. 2 runs in 4.1 innings. Fourth: Snell was not pitching lights out in game 2 because he gave up 4 walks--3 of them before the 5th inning. Relatedly, Snell didn't strike out Betts or Seager--the top 2 hitters in the Dodgers lineup-- in game 2, but struck them out 4 times in game 6. Another big difference from game 6 was that in game 2 Indeed, I would argue that in this World Series the Rays bullpen overall was mediocre and that this was obvious before Snell stepped to mound in the first inning of game 6. So, yes, I can agree Cash was doing some of his own thinking in the WS and in game 6. But you cannot convince me that his situational awareness before, during, and even after game 6 was all that good.

I agree game plans change for some managers. But Cash assured one and all that in this game he absolutely, positively stuck to his game plan--get rid of the guy having a great game and bring in the tired arm because he dare not let Snell face the Dodgers lineup a third time. So let's talk about Snell's first outing vs. this one. I get that Snell did give up those 2 runs in the 5th inning, but you seem to overlooked a much bigger fact, that Snell--beyond any possible doubt--pitched way better against the Dodgers in the second game than he did in the first. Before he was unwisely removed from game 2, he had given up 2 singles, no runs, no walks, and had struck out 9. He struck out the Dodgers top three hitters all six times he faced them. And he did all that in game 2, when the Dodgers should have been able to hammer him because it was the second time they had faced him in a week. Kevin Cash showed absolutely zero flexibility in this game and, in my opinion, zero awareness of what was needed to win the game. He was just going thru the motions that worked before and refused to believe that Snell was actually pitching well. He also was unaware that Anderson, not Snell was the one out of gas.

Take another look at the box score. Snell gave up 2 runs in 4.2 innings, and the bullpen gave up 2 runs in 4.1 innings.

And I disagree with you because at the moment Snell was pulled off the mound and Anderson was brought in, the Rays were leading, 1-0, and Snell was not tired and was pitching brilliantly. Snell was the Rays best hope of winning that game. Bringing Anderson in, as we now know, guaranteed the Rays would lose.

Then why did you bring up the top of win probability if it was not pertinent to this discussion? Of course we don't know what Snell would have done, but we do know that, right up until the moment Cash jerked him out of the game, he was feeling great with excellent command and stuff and was pitching the game of a lifetime. To me that's sufficient evidence to say Snell--who had already struck Mookie and the next two Dodger hitters twice apiece--was a much better choice than Anderson, who said after the game he was tired and did have his good stuff, which is why he gave up the double, the wild pitch, and the groundout that brought Betts home with the go ahead run. But let's ignore all that and just focus on the simple fact that after the game Kevin Cash told reporters that he decided before the first pitch that Snell would not be allowed to face any Dodgers hitter a third time.