The Keeper Reaper: Fir... (10/21)
Prospects Will Break Y... (10/22)
62 comments have been left for this article. BP Comment Quick Links
| |
|
|
October 21, 2011 The BP BroadsideIn Defense of Tony LaRussa
As those pundits who reflexively criticize we sabermetric types like to remind us, baseball is not a tabletop game. As Bill James pointed out on more than one occasion, you can actually learn a lot about baseball from running through a few hundred simulated games, but leave that aside for now. The key here is the one thing you cannot get out of two-dimensional player-cards: an insight into their current ability to perform, an instinct, a feeling. The card is always ready to go, but the actual player the card represents is not nearly so dependable. He might have a cold, or a mild groin strain, or a bitter divorce, or a hundred other things that aren’t visible from the press box or your living room sofa. Motte didn’t allow a hit to the Mets, but he walked leadoff man Willie Harris, saw Nick Evans reach first base on a Rafael Furcal error that aborted a potential double play, and walked Jason Pridie. The bases loaded, Motte capped a memorable afternoon by walking pinch-hitter Justin Turner to force in a run. At that point, quick-draw LaRussa, who had not been as quick as one might have expected in this series, finally brought the hook, but neither Fernando Salas nor Marc Rzepcynski could stem the tide that had now been unleashed. The flood was exacerbated by some shaky defense from the Cardinals, not only Furcal’s error but also bad positioning on the part of left fielder Shane Robinson, who had come into the game for Allen Craig and was caught playing shallow on a drive to left field by Ruben Tejada that went for a double and tied the game. … When a pitcher like Motte, with good control, starts walking the ballpark, the manager’s radar should be set off by the uncharacteristic behavior. Leo Durocher used to say, “I wasn’t nailed to the bench,” meaning that when the game was in jeopardy he was free to act. LaRussa was nailed to the bench.
Motte wasn’t nearly as bad on Thursday night. Ian Kinsler popped a ball just past Rafael Furcal into no-man’s land to lead off the inning, then Furcal—barely—stole second base. Elvis Andrus followed by turning a fat off-speed pitch into a sharp liner to right-center that moved Kinsler to third base, Andrus taking second when the throw-in either wasn’t properly cut off or was off line, depending on how you saw the play. This brought left-hander Josh Hamilton to the plate and LaRussa out of the dugout to go for 1,000-year-old situational lefty Arthur Rhodes. That’s where the first-guessing begins. Just because a move doesn’t work out doesn’t mean it was the wrong move. Sometimes a manager pushes the right button and gets the wrong result. In this sense, the argument for a move, the soundness of the thinking behind it, is in many ways more important than the outcome of the move itself. A manager can’t control outcomes, but he can utilize his players as best he can so that the chances of a good outcome increase. As the Hall of Fame manager Miller Huggins once said, “After all, managing is not so difficult. You just figure out the things of which your players are capable and then try to get them to do those things.” Standing on the mound in the ninth inning last night, LaRussa thought that Motte was not capable. Keep in mind, the Cardinals were in deep trouble no matter what decision LaRussa did—keeping a one-run lead when you’re facing runners on second and third and no outs is a difficult stunt no matter who is pitching. After the game, the manager gave several reasons for making the change, including his feeling that Hamilton, strong against fastballs, would have a harder time against Rhodes's geezer-southpaw stuff. No doubt he felt this way despite the groin injury that constrains Hamilton’s swing. He’s aware of it just as much, if not more so, than you are.
He’s also more aware of Motte. In that game back on September 22, he had kept his faith in Motte and paid for it with a loss that could have dropped the Cards right out of the pennant race. LaRussa isn’t going to tell the media this, but I strongly suspect that, in this case, once bitten equals twice shy. Even if that wasn’t his reason, he has been watching Motte for four seasons now, and I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt as to the pitcher’s capabilities, particularly when Motte hadn’t been sharp. If after the game you caught the postgame show on the MLB network, you saw Mitch Williams arguing that LaRussa had now irreparably shattered Motte’s confidence for the rest of the postseason. Williams has certainly been in the position to know, but even if he is correct as to the condition of Motte’s psyche, what would he have had LaRussa do if he believed that keeping Motte in the game would lead to a loss? Chalk up a World Series game to experience because it might hurt someone’s feelings? If Motte stayed in to fall apart as he did against the Mets, or even simply allowed the tying and the winning runs to score via his own inability to execute, would that not damage his confidence as well? Perhaps in a regular-season game there is room for a manager to gamble on a pitcher’s confidence, but this is the World Series, Motte is 29 years old, and if he doesn’t know where he stands by now, he’s not going to know. LaRussa had his conviction about Motte’s chances against Hamilton at that moment, and neither you, nor I, nor Mitch Williams will ever know what would have happened had Motte stayed in the game. We can only know, and accept, that he had his reasons and they cannot be comprehensively argued with. Prior to the game, LaRussa had predicted this kind of second-guessing: “It comes down to you make a move, and if it works, 'Hey, what a good move.' If it doesn't work, 'What was he thinking?' That's just the name of the game.” As long as there have been managers, there have been first-guessers and second-guessers, and since most managers are no smarter than the rest of us, quite often the doubters have had a good case. This isn’t one of those times; it isn’t even close to being one of those times. Save your ammo for when someone does something worth arguing about.
Steven Goldman is an author of Baseball Prospectus.
|
I'm just stunned that Rhodes is on a World Series roster right now -- regardless of the actual outcome of this game. Tony: step away from the 42-year-old, 89-mph-fastball, 5.90 FIP reliever. However bad LaRussa projected Motte to be vs. Hamilton, I fail to see how that projection could be worse than that of Rhodes pitching. Oh, and calling his heater 89 mph is being very charitable when you look at http://www.fangraphs.com/pitchfxo.aspx?playerid=1097&position=P&pitch=FA. He was in massive decline this year and was throwing about 86 mph by the end of the season -- unheard of for even the softest of LOOGY relief pitchers.