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Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Letting pitchers bat: It never ceases to amaze me…
There are some (actually, many) decisions a manager makes that sabermetricians consider wrong. Or I should say, “the models that sabermetricians construct to model the relevant situation” say that they are wrong (sabermetricians have no “opinions” 
).
Anyway, some of these “wrong” decisions are “justified” by conventional wisdom, some are so close that it doesn’t much matter, and for some, perhaps, the manager is right, because he knows things that the model doesn’t.
And then there are things that a manager does that are just plain dumb. Things that almost everyone, other than, seemingly, the manager, knows are dumb.
Today in the Braves game, they are losing 4-3 in top of th 6th, with runners on 1st and 2nd and 1 out and the pitcher due up. Even the announcers said, “Reyes (the Braves starter) is on deck, but he won’t hit, especially if Prado (the batter) gets on (recognizing that the leverage goes up if he gets on).”
I thought to myself, “Don’t count out the ‘managers can be exceedingly stupid’ factor.”
Sure enough Cox, the Hall of Fame manager let Reyes bat, and the rest of the game is history.
I doubt I have to explain to the readership here how bad that decision is in terms of costing the Braves WE. I’m sure Tango can give us the numbers if he has the time. We went through a similar situation with the Padres a couple of weeks ago. In that game, at least it was Peavy pitching (not that it makes that much difference). But here, we have a back of the roation guy in Reyes who is probably only going to pitch for another inning at the most.
Pathetic. I feel sorry for Braves fans, but heck, almost all managers make really stupid decision like that all the time (or at least from time to time).