Quote:
Originally Posted by BishopMVP
No question.
In a vacuum, I'd rather have Koji pitching to those hitters. In that situation though, it made more sense to leave Breslow in and hope he could succeed. Breslow (who's probably our 3rd best healthy reliever) came in bottom 6th w/2 outs down 1-0, struck out a lefty, and then we scored 2 in the Top 7 to take the lead. At that point (Up 2-1 going to the bottom 7th, Longoria+ coming up), Farrell could've thrown Koji in, or mixed and matched 3 different relievers, but instead he trusted Breslow, and we had our 2 best relievers lined up for the 8th and 9th, with 4-5 more fresh guys in the bullpen if the game went to extras.
There's a continuum between managing for the long term and maximizing immediate results. Francona/Farrell lean a little too much for my tastes toward the long-term (mostly when it comes to their deference to veterans), but Maddon seems to be the poster child for swinging too far the other way (i.e. he'll burn multiple pitchers or sacrifice outs doing things like bunting so the Rays will be up by 1 after the inning they're in, instead of focusing on how best to win the whole game or series.) He's quirky, and he does a lot of things, so the media likes to give him credit when the Rays win, but I think Friedman is the one who deserves most of the credit, and it's not a huge coincidence that Maddon's lost 4 straight playoff series.
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I don't doubt that you watch a lot of games, but I also think you're probably either utilizing very small samples to determine what you think about Maddon and also buying into what the media thinks about Maddon. He actually does not bunt that often and also very often talks about not giving up an out. There are many, many times that sometimes I think he should be bunting and doesn't.
I also think that you have to consider his strategy probably doesn't change much going from regular season to postseason and they've won 90+ games the last 5 of 6 seasons with a payroll around $60m, give or take a few each year.