Quotes from Mark Feinsand:
“It was something I thought about, but Youkilis has had some success off Moose as well. He’s swinging the bat pretty good, he had a hit already, and you’d like to give your pitcher some wiggle room. It didn’t work out."
Youkilis had "some success off Moose"? Really? .267 with no HR and 2 RBI with a walk doesn't look like much success to me. And the fact that he got a hit off Mussina earlier in the game is irrelevant, Manny hit a ball that still hasn't landed off Moose only a few innings earlier.
Having Mussina pitch to Manny Ramirez in a one run game with runners on 2nd and 3rd isn't giving "your pitcher some wiggle room," it's more like giving your pitcher a death sentence. You can't let Manny Ramirez beat you.
“We were going to pitch carefully to (Manny). The idea was not to give him a pitch to hit, but if he got behind and we got him to chase something, Moose could try to put him away.”If you're trying to pitch around someone, just walk the, this way you don't put your pitcher in a spot to make a mistake like Mussina made today.
“You have to live by your decisions,” Girardi said. “There are a lot of decisions you’ll make over the course of the year, and hopefully 95 percent of them work out. That’s not the case in this game.”If you make the smart baseball decisions, even if they end up backfiring, your decisions will be easier to live with, and the fans won't be as angry as they are now.
Feinsand also wrote:
His decision to pitch to Manny Ramirez made no sense to me or anybody else in the press box as we were watching the sixth inning unfold.It made no sense to me or anyone I've spoken to today either. This was clearly the wrong move, for some reason Girardi did not realize this.
Here's some stats to look at (from Peter Abraham):
But no, don't walk him to face Kevin Youkilis.* He’s a .356 career hitter with runners on second and third.
* He has more RBI against the Yankees than any other team.
* He’s third among active players in RBI, trailing only Ken Griffey Jr. and Frank Thomas.
*He’s hitting .456 against the Yankees since the start of the 2006 season.
8 Comments:
Second guess nation is in full effect.
Greg,
I have to comment here and respectfully disagree with your opinion. I think Joe made the right call to pitch to Manny. James Click over at Baseball Prospectus has done some work figuring out the situations where it is advantageous to intentionally walk a hitter with runners on second and third with two outs. His conclusions is that the batter faced must be significantly better than the batter backing him up to justify a walk (James gives actual numbers).
If you look at AVG/OBP/SLG for both Manny and Kevin over the last three years, Manny has a slight edge, but it's not enough to justify a walk in that situation (according to Click's numbers).
With runners in scoring position, Manny's advantage shrinks even further. With runners on second and third, Kevin actually is the better hitter. From 2005-2007 Manny has a negligible advantage vs. right hand pitchers and in 2007 Youkilis batted better than Ramirez vs. RHP. Kevin has also been hitting slightly better than Manny so far this season.
Looking closely at the numbers, Manny doesn't have enough of an advantage over Kevin to justify walking him in that situation.
The only issue in my mind is whether or not Joe should have brought Bruney in sooner.
Cheers,
Jeff
Also, thanks for adding me to your blogroll!
Nick,
You never pitch to Manny in that spot, and I knew that before Mussina threw a pitch.
Jeff,
OVERALL NUMBERS
Manny
career: .313/.409/.593
last 3: .302/.404/.565
Youkilis
career: .281/.384/.436
last 3: .283/.386/.438
Remember Manny was hitting with 2nd and 3rd, Youk would have hit with them loaded.
For their careers
Manny w/ 2nd and 3rd: .360/.553/.726
Youkilis w/ bases loaded: .333/.352/.511
Vs. Righties last 3 years:
Manny: .304/.392/.563
Youkilis: .284/.380/.450
To me Manny's advantage is more than enough to justify walking him.
Then there's the human side to this; Manny Ramirez is a Yankee killer, he's better when he plays the Yankees, and always seems to get the clutch RBI against us. And as a Yankee fan I'm sick of seeing Manny Ramirez beat us.
Joe Torre was sick of this too, which is why he always walked Manny in these spots.
Even though I disagree with you, thanks for the great comment, hopefully it sparks some interesting conversation.
And you're welcome for adding you to the blog roll it's no trouble at all.
Working on the assumption that James Click was on to something in his article, the numbers he crunched indicated that the second batter had to be 60 points worse in AVG, 95 for OBP and 175 worse for SLG.
So using his criteria, based on lifetime averages, the difference isn't enough. This is assuming you trust Click's number crunching - I don't have the resources to give an accurate analysis of his methods and so this is a big leap of faith.
You're right to point out that Youkilis would be facing bases loaded. The comparison between these lifetime stats shows Manny with a BIG advantage.
Looking at the most recent 3 years is a little different.
Manny w/ 2nd,3rd: .227/.486/.318
Kevin, loaded: .324/.349/.486
The most recent 3 years are usually a better predictor of future performance. However in split situations you are dealing with a smaller sample size which makes the data less accurate.
There's a good line on a recent commercial that says:
"90% of all statistics can be made to say anything...50% of the time."
There's a bit of truth to that statement in that you can look at a lot of different numbers in a lot of different situations to come up with a wide variety of conclusions, which may be what I'm doing here.
On a more instinctual level, I can certainly see the desire to walk Manny - there are a lot of intangibles that the numbers don't account for.
Thanks for the reply!
"Manny w/ 2nd,3rd: .227/.486/.318
Kevin, loaded: .324/.349/.486
The most recent 3 years are usually a better predictor of future performance. However in split situations you are dealing with a smaller sample size which makes the data less accurate."
In the last three years we're talking about 22 ABs for Manny and 37 for Youk, and like you said, it's too small of a sample size. At least it is for me to base a decision off of it. Especially when you consider Manny's fluke down year he had last year - probably because he was out of shape, which is isn't this year.
And again, Manny raises his game against the Yankees, and he proved it once again yesterday.
Greg you're right on the money with your assessment of Girardi's decision to have Mussina (career about over) pitch to Manny in that spot. Joe Torre would have never let that happen and I predict Girardi will continue to make more of these bonehead decisions down the line (he did the same thing with the Marlins).
Next thing to watch is how Girardi handles the NY media and try to explain his ridiculous maneuvers.
Yankees will end up in second place again.....count on it!!!
I have to side with the "he never should have pitched to Manny" crowd on this one.
But c'mon Anonymous, you can't give up on the season already.
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