OT: The Toronto Blue Jays

Jays are trying hard to blow what was a 12-5 lead.

Just watched the game in 30. That was an ugly ugly game.

In other news, Gibbons is the worst manager in the game. Up 4-1, Sanchez at 96 pitches and the top of the lineup due up, first and second nobody out, they not only let Sanchez come to the plate, but also tell him not to bunt.

Not quite as dumb as the hockey trades today, but man, can we get a manager who can actually manage?

Osuna's turn in the bullpen gong show

finally caught boston.

**** Boston.

UWHabs said:

In other news, Gibbons is the worst manager in the game. Up 4-1, Sanchez at 96 pitches and the top of the lineup due up, first and second nobody out, they not only let Sanchez come to the plate, but also tell him not to bunt.

Not quite as dumb as the hockey trades today, but man, can we get a manager who can actually manage?

Click to expand...

If Sanchez gets hurt we're in trouble. He didn't want him running the bases either.

Bleedsblue&white said:

If Sanchez gets hurt we're in trouble. He didn't want him running the bases either.

Click to expand...

But I don't get why you even send him up to the plate! I mean, I know the bullpen is a steaming pile of crap, but you have a golden opportunity to pot insurance runs there. You're basically asking "would you rather Sanchez pitch the 4th time through the lineup, up 4-1, or a reliever come in in a 6-1 game". I just don't understand the thinking in letting him bat but not even letting him bunt.

Since you can't guarantee the extra runs the question is, do you want Sanchez who had been pitching really well, pitching a 4th time through the lineup, or risk using a BP that has trouble holding a 5 run lead? I'll take my chances with Sanchez and Osuna, though Osuna almost coughed up the game.

Sanchez had already had one bad tumble running the bases. I think it was prudent to have him just stand there and let the balls fly by.

UWHabs said:

But I don't get why you even send him up to the plate! I mean, I know the bullpen is a steaming pile of crap, but you have a golden opportunity to pot insurance runs there. You're basically asking "would you rather Sanchez pitch the 4th time through the lineup, up 4-1, or a reliever come in in a 6-1 game". I just don't understand the thinking in letting him bat but not even letting him bunt.

Click to expand...

If he bunts he runs in Mile High, the way he was pitching it was obvious JG wanted to be able to go from Sanchez straight to Osuna...you can't be thinking he was going to trust the bullpen?
Besides, I think Gibby was giving him a pat on the back. Did you see Sanchez hugging Gibson in the dugout?

You can't buy that loyalty.

Loyalty be damned. I want to win, and what he did there was absolutely the wrong way to win. If you're afraid of your pitcher running to first base on a bunt, you should not be managing in the majors, period. I know you don't want to take risks with your stars, but you can't be a chicken about it.

And I mean, if the first 2 Jays went out, and it was 2 outs nobody on base, then the mentality is different. I can somewhat understand sending him up then. Or even if Sanchez was rocking through and only at 70 pitches. But he just came off an inning where he walked 2 guys on 4 straight pitches, and only escaped because he just barely got a DP out of it. And then even in the 8th, he was a slight change in wind from giving up a leadoff HR to Blackmon. Thankfully he battled back to get through it (by the way, Sanchez is awesome, don't let my ranting get in the way of that). But I'm sorry, with the guys we had on the bench, in the situation we had, even with our shitty bullpen, even if we had Kershaw on the mound instead of Sanchez, you absolutely pinch hit there without a second thought. And if you decide to let the pitcher go to the plate, you're in the absolutely only situation in which everyone, old school or sabr nerd, will tell you you should bunt.

I work on AI for a baseball game. If I had the computer do what Gibbons did there, I would get massive complaints about stupid AI. It's completely uncomprehensible what he decided there.

are you crazy?

pull our dominating SP with a healthy lead with our bullpen imploding left right and center and overworked to boot?

great job by gibby to not **** around and win the series.

Yea the bullpen has reverted back to full trash mode. Luckily Cecil and Morales are on their way back shortly

UWHabs said:

Loyalty be damned. I want to win, and what he did there was absolutely the wrong way to win. If you're afraid of your pitcher running to first base on a bunt, you should not be managing in the majors, period. I know you don't want to take risks with your stars, but you can't be a chicken about it.

And I mean, if the first 2 Jays went out, and it was 2 outs nobody on base, then the mentality is different. I can somewhat understand sending him up then. Or even if Sanchez was rocking through and only at 70 pitches. But he just came off an inning where he walked 2 guys on 4 straight pitches, and only escaped because he just barely got a DP out of it. And then even in the 8th, he was a slight change in wind from giving up a leadoff HR to Blackmon. Thankfully he battled back to get through it (by the way, Sanchez is awesome, don't let my ranting get in the way of that). But I'm sorry, with the guys we had on the bench, in the situation we had, even with our shitty bullpen, even if we had Kershaw on the mound instead of Sanchez, you absolutely pinch hit there without a second thought. And if you decide to let the pitcher go to the plate, you're in the absolutely only situation in which everyone, old school or sabr nerd, will tell you you should bunt.

I work on AI for a baseball game. If I had the computer do what Gibbons did there, I would get massive complaints about stupid AI. It's completely uncomprehensible what he decided there.

Click to expand...

Well, you're wrong, but that's okay, you keep going.

1st and 2nd with nobody out has a 1.4(ish) run expectancy. 1st and 2nd with 1 out is around 0.9.

Letting the pitcher bat there without bunting or swinging away you're basically guaranteeing a strikeout, meaning that AB cost us 0.5 runs over an "average" batter (which our guys off the bench would certainly be, even with the pinch hitter penalty). Sanchez is a 3.45 FIP (3 ERA) pitcher. The 4th time through the lineup, he is assuredly worse than that. Even being generous and using ERA, let's just call him a 3.5 ERA pitcher for those batters. Even if you give him some sort of magic "he's pitching well today" voodoo (which given that he just walked 2 batters on 4 pitches the inning before, is almost assuredly not the case at that point), you're not going to argue that he was better than a 3 ERA pitcher in that situation.

So since his bat cost us half a run, as long as we have a bullpen arm that can pitch with an ERA less than 7.5 (0.5 runs * 9 innings = 4.5 ERA, plus the 3 from Sanchez), we come out ahead by pinch hitting for him. And even as bad as Storen has been, he's still running a 6.28 ERA this year, so we still come out ahead.

That's not even counting the fact that if you put better batters up in that situation, you're more likely to get down to Donaldson or EE batting with guys on base. Or the fact that one of the guys off the bench was Michael Saunders, who's sporting a freaking .930 OPS this year. He's assuredly a better than average bat in that situation.

And as I said, even if you want to keep Sanchez in, just have him freaking lay down the bunt. At least if you do that, if he can get the bunt down, that changes all the numbers above and makes it a more defensible decision. It was just such an idiotic decision in every respect.

I love the old timey thinkers in here telling people who know better that they're wrong.

UW is bang on here.

he's crazy off.

Do you take Sanchez out on 96 pitches with a 4 run lead in Coors with 2ip left when Osuna is the only RP that is a) trusted b) rested?

clearly no.

and the marginal difference between sanchez or goins batting is irrelevant to that.

as for his hamfisted run expectancy and era values, he's not counting either double play issues or reliever leverage.

He doesn't know how to bunt. And lookit that, there's ME right on schedule, and wrong again.

You never really played sports, did you?

That moment between Gibby and Sanchez is worth more than any nerd-number you can come up with.

zeke said:

he's crazy off.

Do you take Sanchez out on 96 pitches with a 4 run lead in Coors with 2ip left when Osuna is the only RP that is a) trusted b) rested?

clearly no.

and the marginal difference between sanchez or goins batting is irrelevant to that.

as for his hamfisted run expectancy and era values, he's not counting either double play issues or reliever leverage.

Click to expand...

The difference between Sanchez batting and Saunders batting is about 930 points of OPS. I'd call that more than marginal.