wes_mantooth;1141077 wrote:They had good pitching, and guys that hit for average and power. I am just one of those guys that doesn't believe that baseball managers make much of a difference.
Depends on the time of the game and how close it is. I read a good blog entry about Charlie Manuel's bad managing possibly costing the Phillies a game or two in their series with Pittsburgh to open the year. It kind of went hand-in-hand with the Grantland article about how closers are overrated that was posted on the Tribe thread.
In that one, it mentioned that because Chris Perez is Cleveland's closer, they were determined to put him into save situations right away EVEN THOUGH he missed most of the spring training stuff. Because he's labeled the closer, he gets put into those situations even if he might not be 100% ready and/or the starter had things under control and should have been given a chance to finish the game.
In this one, it mentioned how in the second game, with the score 1-1 going into the 9th (and 10th) inning, they didn't bring in Papelbon after paying him $50 million...because it wasn't a save situation. Philly lost due to long reliever Joe Blanton giving up the game-winning hit. In the third game, Philly had a 4-3 lead late with their relief faltering. Manuel didn't bring in Papelbon in the eighth inning with two outs and Pittsburgh tied it in that inning off one random relief guy and then won it in the 9th against another random guy when Manuel still didn't use his big-money, late-innings guy.
That's where a manager can hurt you, I think. When they use "conventional wisdom" to make decisions even though logic and reason says that might not be the best idea.