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Friday, August 11, 2006
Does Charlie Manuel know what he is doing?
Manuel insists on batting three lefties in a row, Dellucci, Utley, and Howard.
Leading off is Rollins and batting 5th is Burrell, a good hitter. If you watch a lot of Phillies games (and Philly Phans here?), you will see that opposing managers love to bring in their lefty relievers late in the game, sometimes twice, to face these three lefties. It is rare for a manager to be able to do that, as Manuel is the only manager I can think of off the top of my head who does not alternate lefties in the lineup as much as possible.
Dellucci’s career OPS is .503 versus lefties and .834 versus righties. For Utley, it is .762 and .867, and for Howard, it is .396 and 1.047!
My guess is that if you asked Manuel why he does this, he would respond that this is his best lineup and he does not want to upset it (of course, he just acquired Dellucci). There can be no other explanation.
My question is, how much do you think that this cost the Phillies, and can it be justified?
My guess (educated of course), off the top of my head is that it cost the Phillies a lot, maybe 3-4 wins a year, and of course, I don’t think that it would much matter if he tweaked his lineup a little in order to break up the lefties. Even he wants to keep Rollins at leadoff, all he would have to do is swap Burrell and Howard, which would still leave 2 lefties in a row, but not three. If it were me, there would be no question that I would completely alternate the lefties, by batting Utley or Dellucci first, then Rollins, then Utley or Howard, then Burrell, and then the last lefty.