Baseball Musings
Baseball Musings
April 26, 2008
Fire Gibbons

Joe Posnanski makes a very good case for firing John Gibbons. I have to agree.

I've never seen a more offensive walk than Friday night. Never. Toronto trailed the Royals 5-4 in the eighth inning. The Blue Jays trailed 5-4 because that gutty shortostop David Eckstein dropped a double-play throw from the pitcher. No matter. They trailed 5-4, and the Royals had runners on second and third, and there was still one out, and Tony Pena Jr. was at the plate. I mentioned this in the last blog post, I believe -- I like Tony Pena a lot. Great kid. Got a lot of the energy and joy for baseball his old man has. And he's a terrific fielder. And he's smart enough to adjust, at least I think so. But facts is facts: Tony Pena Jr., at this moment and time, is the worst everyday Major League hitter I've ever seen. I mean the worst. There are numbers to back this up -- .148/.172/.164 would be three of those numbers -- but this is truly a case where seeing is believing. His swing is now longer than the Bill Clinton autobiography. He starts it on a Tuesday, it ends on a Thursday. It lasts longer than that "Deal or No Deal" show. It's a long, long swing.

And with that sort of swing, he's an out. That's all. An automatic out. Every so often when a pitcher lets his mind wander, Pena Jr. will fights off a bad pitch, bloop a hit the other way, but it is almost always a mistake pitch. I assume (and hope) that he will make those adjustments I mentioned, shorten the swing, punch a few balls into gaps, and all that. But right now, at this moment, if you don't make a mistake to Tony Pena Jr., he's out. Period.

And John Gibbons, after pitcher Scott Downs fell behind Pena 2-0 count, had him walked.

Going back to my earlier post on Ricciardi, one of the things he's done very poorly is hire managers. Why Moneyball GMs don't hire Dave Johnson is beyond me.


Posted by David Pinto at 01:28 PM | Management | TrackBack (0)
Comments

When Davey Johnson surfaced in the World Baseball Classic, I thought he would pop up as a ML manager soon, or at least a bench coach.
What happened to make him so undesirable?

Posted by: Joe in Philly at April 26, 2008 04:22 PM

I just don't understand it myself. I mean...I've seen Gibbons do some silly things - as I've seen all managers do some silly things here and there - but this guy is supposed to be a major league manager. And at the moment, I don't see major league decisions being made.

Your point about the walk is a good one. I didn't see that game. But if I had, I would have been nearly as offended as you.

And nearly as offended as I was last week, when I watched Gibbons manage his bullpen during an extra innings game against Tampa.

The game went 13 innings. And thank god Shawn Camp, who ended up with the loss, finally decided to lose it for the Jays. Because had he not, the Jays would have been out of pitchers!

Most importantly, this was a preventable circumstance. Hell, Shawn Camp should have been three or four innings away from entering this ball game in the first place.

Jesse Litsch pitched 7+ innings. Seven real solid innings, his only blemishes being two home runs, for three runs. Jesse Carlson came in to mop up the rest of the eighth, after which the Jays miraculously scored 3 in the top of the 9th to tie it up.

So the Jays are faced with extra innings. And thus, what should Gibbons do? Well, Carlson had only thrown 2 pitches. That's right: 2 pitches. So you bring him back out in the 9th, right?

No...Gibbons goes to B.J. Ryan in the 9th. Ryan! In a tie ballgame that's about to go into extra innings for god knows how long. And he brings in his closer.

Worse yet, in the 10th, we see Jason Fraser, in the 11th we see Scott Downs, in the 12th we see Jeremy Accardo, and finally, in the 13th, we see the aforementioned Shawn Camp.

Not one of these pitchers threw more than 25 pitches. Most threw less than 15. None, until Camp, gave up a run or got into significant trouble.

And yet Gibbons just kept the revolving door of pitchers going, knowing full well that he didn't have a clue how many innings he might have to have pitchers for.

As I said: thank god Shawn Camp finally lost it for the Jays, because Halliday may have had to have been the next one in!

And so, yes, I concur: fire the hell out of Gibbons. The man is an absolute imbecile.

P.S. While the Jays used their entire pitching staff, Tampa countered with 2 pitchers in extra innings: both of whom threw more than 25 pitches each.

P.S.S. Burnett already had to cover extra innings once this season for the Jays, because of a similar circumstance. This is absolutely unforgivable.

Posted by: Matt Shane at May 16, 2008 10:12 PM
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