THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

Friday, October 23, 2009

What was Mike Scioscia thinking?

Seven years ago, in a post I called “Dear Mike, You should walk Barry Bonds when...”, I put out an easy to read chart as to when to walk Barry Bonds.

With the Giants on the road, in the ninth inning, 2 outs, and bases empty, Giants down by 1 run, I said: FACE HIM.  That is, you do NOT walk the tieing run on base.  I had plenty of situations where I give a “go with gut”, meaning I give the manager an allowance as to perhaps he knows more than I do.  But, in those cases where I say “face him”, that means there is nothing he knows that I don’t know that could possibly affect my decision.

And ARod is no Barry Bonds.