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Saturday, October 16, 2010
What mistakes did Washington (Ron, that is) make?
It has already been rehashed to death on numerous websites (FG, ESPN.com, and Hardball Talk), but Washington made two distinct errors which almost all managers make dozens of times a season. As with umpires and instant replay, I think that some day some or perhaps most managers won’t make at least one of these. Why will it change? Because these days when it happens, and the team loses (if it wins, no one remembers/notes the mistake or cares), there are immediately several articles on the internet that explain the errors in excruciating detail.
Anyway, what were they? I’m pretty sure almost every reader herein already knows.
A starting pitcher the 4th time through the order stinks. Plain and simple. Actually, it depends on their overall talent. More accurately, they are much worse than they are overall.
You could easily make an argument for taking C.J. Wilson out of the game after 7 innings, simply because you might need him to pitch in another game other than his normal, game 5 start, and throwing 98 pitches MIGHT be better than throwing 110 pitches as far as his next game is concerned. But, it is certainly defensible (I think, but I am not even sure about that) to leave him in to pitch to Gardner and THEN take him out regardless of what Gardner does.
It is not, however, defensible to leave him in to pitch to Jeter, the righty, the 4th time through the order. (Despite what Gleeman says in the above-mentioned Hardball Talk article, you don’t leave him in to pitch to Swisher and Texeira after that either.)
Now, in the regular season, the argument for leaving in starters who have relatively low pitch counts (Wilson was at 98 after 7) and have been pitching well, is that it saves your bullpen. In the post-season, that argument is generally not applicable, as you have multiple off-days and then 5 months off.
Why do managers consistently leave in starters the 4th time through the order? Three reasons:
One, they think that when a pitcher is “pitching well” (i.e., better than his true talent level) he will continue to pitch well. There is no evidence that that is true to any significant extent.
Two, they do not know or fully understand the “times through the order penalty”, or they simply ignore it. In fact, they actually believe that some pitchers “get better as the game goes on, and if you don’t get to them early, you won’t get to them at all.” Most managers think that if a starting pitcher is not effective towards the end of the game, it is because he is tiring. The evidence indicates that that is not true either - late game ineffectiveness is primarily due to the familiarity factor.
Three, they think, “If he gets in trouble, I am going to lift him anyway, and if he doesn’t get in trouble, it was a great move!” Fallacious thinking of course. Regardless of when you do or don’t lift him, and regardless of what he does or does not do before you lift him, he is going to pitch a lot worse the 4th time through the order than he does overall, period, and in most cases your relievers are better options, not even considering the opportunity to get as many platoon advantages as possible.
The second mistake that Washington made is more egregious and obvious, yet again, almost all managers do and would do the same thing. We ALL know that was. Not bringing in your best reliever in a high leverage situation in the 8th inning, regardless of the number of outs. Now, whether that was with runners on second and first and no outs or bases loaded and the go ahead run at the plate, I don’t know. But surely there was a time in the 8th inning where the leverage was extremely high. Had the Rangers been able to get into the 9th with a 3-run lead, Washington would have joyfully used his closer, Feliz, and that would be the ONE situation where he would not be needed (although it would be OK to use him) as the leverage with a 3-run lead in the 9th is low, as anyone who has read The Book knows (and you can probably guess anyway). Of course he never got to pitch at all and the rest (and the game, and likely the series) is/was history for the Rangers.