ALCS Coverage: Scioscia Is Nutsier
A couple days ago, Dave Cameron suggested that, on account of some of the moves Joe Girardi was making, that he (Girardi, not Cameron) might be nuts.
Here’s a question: Is it possible that Mike Scioscia is nutsier? Some of his moves involving Mike Napoli in Game Six of the ALCS suggest that it’s possible. Regard:
SORTA NUTS: Scioscia starts Jeff Mathis over Napoli.
You know the drill here: Napoli is the superior hitter; Mathis, the superior defender. Does Mathis’s D make up for Napoli’s O? The numbers are inconclusive. My gut says no. That said, my gut does a lot of disgusting things for which I’m incredibly ashamed.
Yeah, Mathis had allofasudden become a doubles-hitting maching in the ALCS, but Napoli was more or less Saunders’ personal catcher during the regular season, having caught over two-thirds of the lefty’s starts. Here are this year’s splits (courtesy of Baseball Reference, with basic stolen base numbers):
Catcher G PA SB CS Jeff Mathis 9 253 5 1 Mike Napoli 22 552 13 6
Moreover, Napoli had started both of Saunders’ postseason starts — including Game Three of the ALDS, during which Napoli went 3-for-5 with two dongers and a HBP.
GENUINELY NUTS: Scioscia pinch hits for Mathis with Maicer Izturis.
This is only Sorta Nuts until you consider the fact that, after Izturis grounded out 6-4, Napoli replaced Mathis at catcher. To consider this a reasonable move, you have to believe three things:
1. That Izturis has a better chance of producing versus Mariano Rivera than Mathis.
2. That Izturis has a better chance of producing versus Rivera than Napoli.
3. That Izturis — the only middle infielder on the bench — will very probably not be needed later on.
Given the numbers, the first of these propositions is credible. Basically anyone, including Scioscia himself, would be a good bet in Mathis’s stead. The second, on the other hand, is hard to believe. Not only is Napoli both a more significant power and on-base threat overall, he also probably stood a better chance than Izturis simply by batting from the right side. As you may very well know, One Pitch Wonder Mariano Rivera has been more effective against lefties over his career. Regard:
Split PA BA OBP SLG vs RHB 2085 .218 .272 .326 vs LHB 2266 .206 .256 .261
As for number three, it’s not a huge deal. Still, it’s enough of a reason that, if you think Napoli is anywhere near the batter Izturis is, you should leave Izturis on the bench.
SUPER NUTS: Scioscia pinch hits for Napoli with Gary Matthews, Jr.
There’s barely even anything to say about this. Dave Cameron covered almost the same exact scenario earlier in the series, writing:
I don’t even really know what to say. Matthews is a bad hitter. Napoli is a good hitter. Add in the pinch hitting penalty (players perform below their true talent level when coming off the bench to hit), and the gap just grows to a point where it’s unfathomable to think that Scioscia really believed that Matthews was the better choice to hit in that situation.
But wait, there’s more! Remember how Dave wrote this?
As a bonus, by removing Napoli in a tie game, you were then forced to go with Jeff Mathis as the catcher if the game went to extra innings (which, of course, it did). Mathis’ career wOBA is .263. He’s got all the offensive punch of Rey Ordonez, yet because of the decision to hit for Napoli in the 8th, he’d have to finish the game behind the dish.
Well, in this case, instead of finishing the game with the punchless Jeff Mathis as catcher, the Angels (had they tied, or gone ahead) would’ve had to finish off the game with [cue drum roll] Bobby Wilson. It’s hard to say exactly how punchy Wilson is on account of he’s the owner of only 13 career plate appearances. I mean, his minor league numbers are fine (.271/.316/.398 this year at Triple-A Salt Lake, with some other, better Triple-A seasons in his past), but it’s certainly not an ideal circumstance under which to give a rookie his first taste of postseason baseball.
A sidenote: Because I care about these things, I looked around the interweb to see if maybe Scioscia hated Napoli on account of some simmering blood feud going back to the Old Country. No luck on that front, unfortunately. What I did find, however, was this (courtesy of Wikipedia, which is never wrong):
When I made Mike the No. 1 catcher, the writers came to me and said, “[Competing catcher] Steve Yeager said you made Scioscia the No. 1 catcher because he’s Italian.” I said, “That’s a lie. I made him the No. 1 catcher because I’m Italian.”
—Tommy Lasorda
Print This Post
With how aggressive these managers have been in the playoffs, I think everyone’s nuts. Too bad there’s so many off days in between games now, because otherwise think of how ridiculously conservative all of these managers would be in a “meaningless” midseason match-up with their bullpens and pinch-hitters.
“Too bad there’s so many off days…”
Sorry, I don’t feel like I was clear with my point here. If there weren’t so many off days, I highly doubt managers would be as aggressive as they usually are in the playoffs.
Yeah, Scioscia sabotaged the Angels’ chances of winning by playing a guy who OPSed 1.400 for the playoffs (Mathis), and not a guy who OPSed .497 (Napoli). Sorry, but from this Yankee fan’s perspective, who hasn’t seen the Angels play much, Mathis looked more like Joe Mauer than Joe Mauer did. We can fault Scioscia for many things in this series, but I hardly think playing Mathis, who had a much stronger series than Napoli, is one of them. I mean, at some point we have to look at how the move actually worked, not at how it statistically should have worked right?
Then Obama has no argument about the Iraq surge.
There are times when players are “in the zone” during which time they significantly outperform their true talent level. We know that over a large enough sample, their numbers will regress, but, as a manager, if you think a player is in one of these streaks, shouldn’t you play him? Napoli is like a long term investment that you know will provide better returns on average than Mathis. At this point, Mathis is the high risk, high reward short term investment. You gamble that in a short period of time, he will provide higher returns than Napoli. It’s a risk, but the Yanks were the better team, so Scioscia may have thought he needed to take it.
there is no way that Soscia could have possibly believed that mathis would ever hit better than napoli. Mathis sucks, really, really bad. Playing mathis over napoli has no upside. Mathis has no upside. He just happened to get all 5 hits that he normaly gets in a season over the course of like three games. But mathis sucks, reallly, really, really bad at hitting baseballs.
So does Gary Mathews Jr., wich is why i think that soscia hates napoli for some insane reason.
Sorry Bill, but I don’t necessarily think that the hot hand theory is proven. At least in basketball, in one of the early research books on stats in hoops, I recall seeing a study that pretty well debunked the idea in that sport. I suspect that it is similar in baseball, as well.
The explanation goes something like this — take away the feedback from a ballplayer (feeling of impact + visual information of ball’s flight) and they wouldn’t have any idea whether or not they put a good swing on the ball. The theory suggests that being hot or cold are psychological factors that are determined by the results of the hit, rather than the perfection of the swing.
Not that I completely buy into this, but I’m not yet willing to believe that the hot hand exists. Subbing anybody in for Napoli is just a stupid decision. About as dumb as pinch running for A-Rod.
Put it this way….If I won the Powerball, would you call me an idiot for playing? Or would you pat me on the back and congratulate me, and hope I donate a couple million to Fangraphs?
It depends on how big the jackpot is. I think that for Mega Millions, you start getting the odds to play at $175 million or so.
Make that $350 million. I’m drunk today.
Can you get me a job at your place of work Kevin?
You really don’t want to live in the North Shore suburbs of Chicago. And I’m a student. Day-time drunkenness is not only acceptable, it’s sometimes encouraged!
Carson, you write some funny/solid material, well done…
My head hurts worse for the reading….
Keep grinding that axe….
You slavish dedication is alarming even to the most intellectually incurious.
What complaints could you POSSIBLY have about this one?
Marcus, I’ve noticed you never seem to like Carson’s work. So my advice, and this may sound crazy, is to STOP READING HIS POSTS. Just a thought.
As literature goes, his “baseball writing” is the equivalent of listening to a typical phone conversation in a Charlie Brown holiday special….
You may get further by producing a well-reasoned argument as to what precisely is wrong w/ the article rather than simply hurling insults.
As literature goes, your “comments” are the equivalent of a 5 year old screaming “I HATE YOU!!!!!”
If you can’t recognize a well reasoned argument, you shouldn’t demand one of others…..
I think playing Mathis was defensible, if wrong-headed. I can’t believe a manager would deliberately put the better player on the bench while playing the weaker player in the biggest game of the year — “hot” or not. But the mistake is a minor one compared to the other 2.
The decision to pinch-hit for Mathis (which he wouldn’t have had to do if he had played Napoli, by the way) was the right one but he should have used Napoli, for all the reasons you pointed out. And that Gary Matthews, Jr. decision? Wow! He was just giving up there, conceding the series. We all knew that he had about a 1% chance of winning at that point but it’s pretty poor when the manager just concedes so that he can get Gary Matthews, Jr a PA in the deciding game.
Yes, yes. This was a very entertaining read. That Lasorda quote at the end really hit the spot and almost made me think I like the man. Not to mention putting a framework for understand why Scioscia tried so hard(successfully!) to lose this series. Compared to Girardi, Scioiscia is a box of Grape Nuts.
I see my gripe regarding ambiguous pronouns has been blatantly disregarded… damn you Carson!
I find that there is generally far too much ambiguity in language, even grammatically correct language. I applaud Carson for his attempt to minimize the ambiguity. Better intentional unambiguity than unintentional ambiguity.
Yea but it’s intentional ambiguity, that he then goes out of his way to fix, rather than just avoiding it in the first place. Not a big deal, just a matter of taste I suppose, but nonetheless I happen to find it annoying.