November 3, 2016

There’s a Reason for Rest

I applaud Terry Francona‘s unconventional use of his pitching staff in the post-season. It allowed him to take a team with a starting staff diminished by injuries and come within a run or two of winning the World Series. The Indians shut down three great offenses, the Red Sox, the Blue Jays, and the Cubs for a while by pulling his starters early and letting his bullpen take over.

Joe Maddon‘s bullpen use, especially in the last two games of the series, struck me as motivated by fear more than strategy. He lost confidence in the bullpen other than Aroldis Chapman.

Both managers ended up pushing pitchers beyond their limits. Corey Kluber started two games on short rest, and had little in game seven. It was obvious at the end of the second inning, when all seven batters put the ball in play, and six of them hit fly balls. Kluber would give up four runs in four innings. The third inning would have been a good time to give Ryan Merritt a chance. It would be a bold move, but his ability to throw strikes and keep batters off balance might have worked well against the Cubs. Later, Andrew Miller, despite two days off, was not sharp. He allowed two runs, including the unlikely home run to David Ross. If Ross doesn’t hit that unlikely home runs, the Indians might have won in regulation.

Of course, Maddon did the same thing with Jon Lester and Aroldis Chapman. Lester pitched well over all, but his first inning in was hurt by bad defense. David Ross came in with Lester, and his bad throw and falling down on a wild pitch led to two runs. The same with Chapman. Having worked a lot in the previous two games, he was not sharp when he entered the game, and allowed the second unlikely homer fo the game as Rajai Davis took him deep. My guess is Maddon’s big mistake was not allowing Hendricks to continue in the game. He had thrown 63 pitches when he allowed a two-out walk. He led the NL in ERA. Maddon should have given him one more batter to finish the fifth, then he could have Lester start the sixth. Maybe Maddon saw something wrong with Hendricks, but it struck me as a panic move.

Despite all the mistakes, all the overuse, either team could have won the game. Maddon took a great team all the way. Francona took an injured team to the brink of glory. Overall, 2016 proved they are two of the best managers in the game.

7 thoughts on “There’s a Reason for Rest

  1. Bjoern

    I agree that pulling Hendricks look timid, especially with a decent lead.
    However, I wonder whether it was fatigue or rather repeated exposure to the Cleveland arms. At some point a lineup like the Cubs’ will make adjustments. Francona’s strategy worked because his team finished the Red Sox and Blue Jays quickly, but the Cubs were able to extent the series longer. Would be interesting to see whether Kluber’s stuff was really worse (were velocity and break down?).

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  2. Frank Ettinger

    It wasn’t so much that Kluber’s velocity was down, maybe a tick, but he wasn’t locating. Curves that were bouncing in games 1 and 4 were up in the zone. What do tired pitchers do? They leave the ball up.

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  3. Luis

    I live in Texas and the amount of middle aged Cubs and Braves fans here is quite large. This is due to the fact that these teams televised their games on basic cable on the Superstations for so long, which of course ended with the strike in 94 for the most part…Baseball is missing out on future fans by not having free baseball on every day in the summer for kids to watch. they could schedule one day game every day so that kids could watch baseball in the afternoon, then a night game…the extra innings packages are hard for some families to afford..

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  4. Devon

    I totally agree that Maddon’s pitching moves were more motivated by fear than strategy. During game 6, I felt he had an itchy trigger finger when it came to pulling pitchers and he showed that again during game 7. I really think Hendricks could’ve gotten at least 1 more out without giving up a run. I also thought he was giving Cleveland way way way too much opportunity to see Chapman pitching and get comfortable-ish with it. Maddon often acted like he didn’t trust his pitchers if they even allowed a single. I don’t think that means the Cubs need pitching, as much as I think it tells how good he felt the Indians batters were doing.

    Game 7 was one of the best games I’ve ever watched.

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  5. Steve T.

    I’m an (inconsolable) Indians fan, but the question of Kluber’s chances versus one team the third time around came up earlier in the playoffs when it was looking like that would happen should there be a seven-game series. I don’t remember the exact numbers, but it was like this:

    First Start: Decent
    Second Start: Very Good
    Third Start: Awesome

    Of course, two caveats would be:

    1) Most teams he faced three times this year were our Central Division foes, who we handled pretty easily overall.
    2) The starts would have been much more spread out than they were in a playoff series.

    I think he just didn’t have it last night, whether due to being tired or just having an off night. I’m going to resume my crying jag now…

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  6. pft

    It was starting pitching as much as the pen that allowed the Indians to go as far as they did. Kluber started in 6 of the Indians 15 post season games, and Tomlin pitched far better than anyone anticipated. Kluber and Miller were both overworked and faltered at the end as a result.

    I still feel they caught the Jays and Red Sox at the right time, both teams had not been hitting well before the post season. The Cubs were a much better offensive team with the DH, and perhaps some of their young guys were pressing early on. Indians offense was not great for much of the post season and relied on HR from guys you did not expect much from.

    Game 7 really was a case of both teams overcoming their managers mistakes. Maddon especially had a poor game. Bringing Lester in too early (with a runner on base) and pulling him too quickly (cruising until an IF hit). Chapman was on fumes too and is best suited to pitching 1 inning, and having him pitch the day before seemed panicky and costly. That squeeze with 2 strikes was also not a great move even w/o hindsight

    All in all, one of the top 5 World Series in over 50 years IMO

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