Month: September 2011

Managers Play their Best Lineups

Joe Girardi Mostly Ignores Roster Games; Yankees Still Kick Red Sox in the Teeth

Posted on by Jason Turbow
Mark Teixeira started -- and homered (twice) -- before everything fell apart for New York.

Prior to Wednesday’s game against Tampa Bay, Yankees manager Joe Girardi found himself in a terrifically sweet position. The Yankees had little to play for; they would finish with the American League’s best record regardless of the outcome.

A loss, however, would give the Rays a leg up on the American League wild card. More pertinently, it would provide a possible knockout shot to the Red Sox—and what Yankee wouldn’t enjoy that?

With so much on the line for his opponent, however, Girardi was, under the auspices of baseball’s unwritten rules, obligated to utilize his best players. So the question became, Would it be okay if he didn’t?

The answer: Of course. Winning, or putting your team in a position to win, trumps nearly every facet of the Code. It’s safe to assume that Girardi—a Yankees catcher for four years before taking over as manager in 2008—takes joy in any opportunity to stick it to Boston. On Wednesday, he could do so under cover of getting his own team ready for the postseason. The skipper had a playoff series to prepare for, and resting his players may well be vital to that preparation.

In fact, Girardi did exactly that against the Rays on Sept. 22, resting Curtis Granderson, Alex Rodriguez, Robinson Cano, Russell Martin and Brett Gardner in a game New York would lose, 15-8.

But with the season on the line for Tampa Bay on Wednesday, Girardi started what’s essentially been his regular lineup, and stuck with it until rain delayed the game in the seventh.

With New York holding a 7-0 lead, the skipper went to his bench: Eric Chavez replaced Mark Teixeira in the lineup, and took over at third base. Brandon Laird moved from third to first. Chris Dickerson took over for Nick Swisher in right field. Heck, A.J. Burnett—A.J. Burnett!—saw action in the seventh.

That strategy, of course, is covered by its own set of unwritten rules. With the game comfortably in hand, Girardi could have been accused of running up the score had he continued to play aggressively. Such a full utilization of his role players was definitely not that.

As it was, of course, we all realized exactly how far behind us the days in which a 4-0 lead was considered safe actually are. Tampa Bay tied the game with six in the eighth and one in the ninth, and won it—and the wild card—on Evan Longoria’s 12th-inning homer.

Boston fans might bemoan Girardi for his late-game lineup manipulations, but their manager didn’t. “They can do whatever they want,” said Terry Francona in a MassLive.com article published Monday. “They have played themselves into that position; they’ve earned the luxury. I have never had a problem with that.”

* * *

The piece of Code mandating that managers utilize their best lineups when playing contenders late in the season really comes into play when an also-ran rests its regulars against a club with playoff hopes—”to get a look at the kids,” or some such. Few issues will be taken should the occasional prospect be utilized for evaluation purposes, but generally speaking the rule is firm: Play the rookies against Pittsburgh; sit ’em against St. Louis.

Take 2004, for example. Going into the season’s final series, the Giants and Houston were tied for the wild card lead with 89-70 records. The Astros closed with three home games against Colorado, while the Giants visited Los Angeles.

Suffice it to say that members of the San Francisco clubhouse took note when Rockies manager Clint Hurdle trotted out a series-opening lineup featuring six rookies—Aaron Miles, Clint Barmes, Garrett Atkins, Jorge Piedra, Brad Hawpe and JD Closser.

The Giants managed to take two of three from the Dodgers, but it wasn’t enough; the Astros swept punchless Colorado.

“All we needed was for Houston to lose one game,” said then-Giants reliever Matt Herges. “We were watching that, yelling, ‘This is a joke.’ We couldn’t stand Clint Hurdle after that.”

“If we’re in that position, it means we stunk all year,” said Hall of Fame manager Sparky Anderson. “Well, let’s stink a little more if we have to, but we’re going to give them the best shot we’ve got.”

That, however, is not a universal view. For the flip side of the argument, we turn to Tigers manager Jim Leyland.

“Goddammit, if I’m that far out of the pennant race, the players I was playing weren’t worth a shit, anyway,” he said. “You might as well take a chance and look at some new players for next year.”

Which brings us back to Joe Girardi, who doesn’t have to worry about any of that. His players don’t stink, he could have gotten away with virtually anything he wanted in this regard during yesterday’s game and, as a bonus, he helped kill Boston’s season.

Not bad for a day’s work.

– Jason

6
Clubhouse meetings

When Teams Meet to Beat the Heat

Posted on by Jason Turbow

We’ve reached the point in the season at which good teams are looking toward the playoffs—and, to their horror, find themselves imagining some combination of absence or failure. Which is why managers have recently taken to the time-tested strategy of the closed-door meeting.

Last week it was the NL East’s turn. Monday afternoon, Braves skipper Freddi Gonzalez insisted that his team merited no such tactic, despite losing three in a row and 11 of 17. That very night, however, after watching his players go 3-for-20 with runners in scoring position during a 12-inning loss to Florida, he about-faced, closing the doors after batting practice on Tuesday, and gave his team a talking to.

The question, of course, is whether this type of thing has any affect. Overall, the results are decidedly mixed, but the tactic seems to be effective for Atlanta.

According to the Atlanta Journal Constitution, the Braves last met after a loss to the Mets on June 5, then won six in a row.

“It’s almost like therapy,” said Chipper Jones in the AJC. “You knew what was going to be said, but it still helps to hear it, to say it, to look in your teammates’ eyes and let them see your conviction and know that you can’t help what happens next year. This might be your only opportunity.”

For a historical reference, take the 1980 Philadelphia Phillies, who had an August loaded with meetings. After a 7-1 loss to the Pirates in the first game of a doubleheader that Aug. 10, manager Dallas Green tore into his players with such fury that reliever Ron Reed had to be restrained from going after him.

“What Dallas was saying went right to the core,” wrote Tug McGraw in Ya Gotta Believe. “Sometimes it’s not what’s being said as much as it is who’s saying it and when they’re saying it. By this time of the year, Dallas had earned a lot of respect. We all knew he was real and wasn’t just a blowhard. So after the meeting, we went out and won eight of nine, including five in a row from the pitiful Mets.”

Less than two weeks later, however, the team lost the final two games of a series at San Diego, earning another dressing-down—this time by general manager Paul Owens, who singled out Larry Bowa and Garry Maddox for their poor play. Rather than let a player come after him, Owens got proactive, offering to fight whoever was up for the challenge. Philadelphia, 5-7 since that Mets series, went 23-11 to close the season (including 12 one-run victories) and went on to win its first World Series in nearly 100 years of existence.

This year’s version of the Phillies has recently had its own challenges. The same night Gonzalez addressed the Braves, Phillies skipper Charlie Manuel “had a little talk” with his players following a poorly played 5-2 loss to the Astros, Philadelphia’s second straight defeat.

Manuel downplayed the incident afterward, but according to Comcast SportsNet Philadelphia, “he rattled some cages pretty soundly.”

Not that it did much good. Nearly every Phillies player who took the field the following day was utterly ineffective, as they managed just four hits against Houston starter Bud Norris and two relievers. Luckily for Manuel and the good people of Philadelphia, one guy rose to the occasion: Roy Halladay, who spun a complete-game shutout.

It’s not like this is a new tactic; May alone saw at least four such meetings. (Only one of them was unusual, when the Mets closed the clubhouse doors to discuss the inflammatory comments made by owner Fred Wilpon in a New Yorker profile.)

On May 16, Cubs manager Mike Quade lectured his team after Carlos Zambrano blew a four-run, sixth-inning lead in a loss to the Reds. (The message delivered, according to Quade, via the Chicago Tribune: “That was embarrassing. That (stuff) has got to stop. And it’s everybody that was in that room for that meeting. Myself, the players and the coaching staff. It’s just not going to cut it right now.”)

The Cubs lost their next game. After going 6-and-6 over the next two weeks, they then lost eight in a row.

On May 16, Rockies manager Jim Tracy tried to end a 4-11 streak by addressing his club. (The message delivered, according to Tracy, via the Denver Post: “We need to get back to playing the game the way we did in spring training and the early part of the season.”)

The Rockies won their next two games, then went 3-11 over the following two weeks.

On May 22, Padres manager Bud Black called a meeting after his team was swept by Seattle. (The message delivered, according to Heath Bell, via the San Diego Union-Tribune: “We’re major league ballplayers. That no matter who we’re facing, we need to have a chip on our shoulders to go out there and win every single day.”)

San Diego lost three of its next four.

Heck, Mariners manager Eric Wedge closed his clubhouse doors on April 16—two weeks into the season—to berate his hapless club, which had just gone 0-for-9 with runners in scoring position against the Royals to drop its 11th game in 13 contests. (The message delivered, according to Wedge, via the Seattle Times: “I want them to have the mindset that’s aggressive and such to where we’re up there ready for anything.”)

Unlike the above teams, the Mariners actually responded, splitting their next eight games before winning five in a row on the road against Detroit and Boston.

* * *

It goes without saying that struggling teams call such meetings with significantly more frequency than those that are winning. One trick to a successful meeting, according to the New York Daily News, is to “always hold your clubhouse meetings the day before your best pitcher is pitching.” That was written in 2000, in response to Mets manager Bobby Valentine, who aired out his team after a 12-4 loss to the Braves—one day before Al Leiter took the hill. (Sure enough, Leiter was perfect into the sixth, and the Mets beat Atlanta, 6-3, making Valentine look like a genius.)

Of course, not all such meetings are simply about playing better. They also serve as a forum for players to air out grievances. (In a 1990 meeting, San Diego’s Jack Clark, Mike Pagliarulo and Garry Templeton verbally ganged up on Tony Gwynn, accusing the star outfielder of caring more about his own statistics than the team. In 1997, Dodgers Eric Karros and Ismael Valdez had to be separated after Karros criticized the pitcher during a meeting.)

Occasionally, management will get involved. (During a meeting in 2006, for example, Blue Jays skipper John Gibbons challenged Shea Hillenbrand to a fight after the third baseman allegedly wrote “This is a sinking ship” on a clubhouse whiteboard.)

In 1983, Yankees manager Billy Martin called a team meeting—reporters included—so he could chew out New York Post writer Henry Hecht with extremely lively language for what he felt was inflammatory reporting. (In Martin’s defense, he was correct in his assessment.) The manager threatened to dump Hecht in the whirlpool if he so much as stepped foot in the manager’s office again.

“It was probably the best clubhouse meeting we ever had,” wrote Graig Nettles in Balls.

In 1971, Cubs manager Leo Durocher called a closed-door meeting in which he encouraged players to open up about what they thought was going wrong with the season. As it turned out, many of them thought the answer was Durocher himself; Ron Santo, Joe Pepitone and Ken Holtzman all criticized Durocher’s managerial style. Things got so heated that Santo had to be restrained by Billy Williams and Jim Hickman from going after the skipper. Team owner Phillip Wrigley responded by taking out a full-page ad in all four of Chicago’s daily papers, saying that it was Durocher’s team, and that anybody who didn’t like it could be moved in the off-season. He ended with the statement, “If only we could find more players like Ernie Banks.”

Durocher was fired midway through the following season.

Still, not all such gatherings are so morose. When Frank Robinson managed the Giants in 1984, he responded to an early-May slump by gathering the team for a talking to by “Dr. Johnson,” a local psychologist, with the message that “she will give you a good pep talk.”

When the “doctor” began to peel off her business suit in time to music pouring from a boombox in her briefcase, the skipper’s true intention became very clear.

“We still went out and lost that night,” said pitcher Mark Grant, “but we certainly had more fun.”

– Jason

0
Umpires Knowing the Code

And Like That—Poof—he’s Gone. Kershaw Tossed Without Warning

Posted on by Jason Turbow
Bill, Clayton. Clayton, Bill.

Call it bad umpiring, if you must, but many will disagree with you.

Legions of fans, in fact, consider it to be horrible umpiring.

It’s inaccurate to say that umpire Bill Welke’s ejection of Clayton Kershaw Wednesday night came from nowhere, but, considering the circumstances, it kind of did.

Those circumstances began Tuesday, when Dodgers reliever Hong-Chih Kuo sent an inside pitch buzzing past the head of Arizona’s Gerardo Parra. It was inside, but not dangerously so; that it came close at all was mostly a function of Parra’s squaring around to bunt.

Parra responded by staring down the pitcher. Moments later, he connected for a home run, then loitered in the batter’s box for several long beats. That raised the hackles of both catcher A.J. Ellis, who had words for Parra as he crossed the plate, and the Dodgers’ bench at large—with the leader of the agitated appearing to be Kershaw, who appeared to deliver a message along the lines of “Just wait ’till tomorrow, Gerry.” (Watch it all here.)

When Kershaw faced Parra to start the sixth inning yesterday—having already surrendered a double to him in the third—he sent an 0-1 fastball spinning inside, and clipped Parra’s right elbow. Wrote Steve Dilbeck in the Los Angeles Times, “[It] hardly appeared like Kershaw was intentionally trying to hit him.”

Still, it was enough for Welke, who ejected the pitcher on the spot. (Watch it here.)

Tuesday night: Kershaw gets fiery.

Never mind that the pitch only grazed Parra. Never mind that it was a 2-0 game, and that Kershaw is chasing 20 victories on the season. Never mind that 29,799 people paid good money to see one of the National League’s best pitchers square off against the presumptive NL West champions.

Never mind all that, if you’d like, but make sure to pay attention to an umpire who refuses to let baseball’s Code play out on its own terms—if that’s even what was happening. Kershaw had every right to send a message to Parra after the previous night’s display, and the only guy in the stadium who seemed oblivious to the notion was Welke. If ever there was a spot to warn the benches, this was it.

Or, as it turned out, not.

Perhaps Kershaw learned a lesson about stifling any animated displays in the dugout. Maybe he spent the rest of the evening thinking about how and when he can next come inside to a guy with whom he has history. Or maybe he just spent a few hours poking pins into his Bill Welke doll.

He shouldn’t have had to any of this. It was a display of over-umpiring at its most blatant, and Kershaw—hell, any major league player—deserves better.

– Jason

4
Gamesmanship, Nyjer Morgan

Big League Chew: Morgan Pulls Out All the Stops (Among Other Things) to Get into Carpenter’s Head

Posted on by Jason Turbow

This is what happens when baseball’s premier red-ass butts heads with one of the game’s loosest cannons. As if there wasn’t enough tension built in to St. Louis’ desperate chase of the Brewers in the waning days of the NL Central, Nyjer Morgan threw decorum—and his chew—to the winds Wednesday, shouting down Chris Carpenter as the Cardinals ace tried to finish a complete-game shutout.

After the right-hander struck out Morgan for the first out of the ninth inning, he directed an inflammatory comment toward the plate (at least according to Morgan), to which the hitter replied—and I lean here on my decades of experience reading lips via sports telecasts—“fuck you.” (Watch it here.)

Morgan, it seems, had been swiping at low-hanging fruit throughout the game, trying to rattle a pitcher who’s proved susceptible to such tactics in the past. To Carpenter’s credit, he didn’t cave.

“He was yelling at me at second base,” said the pitcher in an MLB.com report. “He was yelling at me down the line when he hit the double. The whole game he’s screaming and yelling, the whole game. I’m not going to allow it to happen. I don’t know if that’s the way he plays, to try to get guys out of their game or what. But I’ve been around too long to allow that to happen, I can tell you that much.”

As Morgan strode purposefully back to the dugout following his at-bat, he dismissively tossed his wad of chewing tobacco toward the mound. It didn’t come anywhere close to Carpenter, but that wasn’t Morgan’s intention. It was simply as dismissive a message as he could send in that moment.

Albert Pujols responded by charging in from first base, Prince Fielder raced to restrain Morgan, and the benches emptied. (No punches were thrown or shoves exchanged.) Morgan was eventually tossed by the umpires, at which point he could be heard on the telecast saying, “He said it first, he’s got to go, too.”

Were it only that simple. Morgan knows—and was likely trying to exploit—a history with the Cardinals that dates back to August, 2010, when the outfielder—then with Washington—went out of his way to senselessly collide with Cardinals catcher Bryan Anderson in a non-play at the plate.

That was followed this spring by an exchange that started when Morgan ran into Pujols in a play at first. Morgan and Carpenter got into a verbal spat during a series at Miller Park earlier this season. The teams also had tension over a tit-for-tat hit-batter exchange involving Pujols and Ryan Braun.

Ultimately, Morgan is either genuinely off-kilter or wildly canny, using the tactic of supreme annoyance to get his opponents off their collective game. (The former was bolstered by his recent run-in with fans in San Francisco. The latter has been ably demonstrated for years by A.J. Pierzynski.)

No matter the answer, it comes down to Nyjer being Nyjer. He said after the game that the confrontation “was over with”—but he wasn’t quite telling the truth.

Not long afterward, Morgan sent out a series of tweets referring to Pujols as “Alberta” and saying “She never been n tha ring.” (See below.)

Ozzie Guillen once described Pierzynski this way: “If you play against him, you hate him. If you play with him, you hate him a little less.”

Through Morgan’s tenures in Pittsburgh and Washington, that appeared to be the case with him, as well. The Brewers, however, seem to love the guy.

He’d be well-advised to keep it that way.

Update: Morgan is headed in the wrong direction. Brewers management is not taking kindly to his act.

– Jason

1