Why is this so complicated?
It doesn’t need to be.
When it comes to manager decision making — especially in the playoffs, particularly in dire situations or elimination games — whatever your opponent hopes you don’t do, do that.
Let’s take the fury of the first round, Game 2 at Target Field in which the Twins knocked out the Blue Jays. Because there is still enough playoffs left for organizations (note: not just managers) to at least consider this philosophy.
The Twins had won Game 1. So the Blue Jays were facing elimination Wednesday. The score was 0-0 in the bottom of the fourth, Toronto starter Jose Berrios walked Royce Lewis to open the fourth, and because two lefties — Max Kepler and Alex Kiriloff were to follow — Blue Jays manager John Schneider followed the script that had been dictated to him well before this game to go to southpaw Yusei Kikuchi.
Forgive an aside here, because I think it is necessary and will make sense in about 100 words.
The best improv artists train for years. They take classes, play games, learn how to listen and respond, train in acting, singing, body movement, etc. So when they get up on stage, they have this library of information from which to draw from. But then once up on stage, the best react to their scene partner(s) and what they are bringing that day and what the audience is responding to. They are armed with information, but recognize that in real time there will be new information that must be incorporated to have a winning scene.
Thank you for allowing those 100-ish words, because the best managers are the best improvisationalists. They take their training and the knowledge provided by their scouts and analytics department as a skeleton to the game, then new information is provided. They arm themselves with how they would like to see a scene/game play out, but adapt to what is occurring in real time.
Like, Berrios has great stuff. Through three innings, he had struck out five of 11 batters, walked none, and two of the three singles off him were weakly struck (all info unknown hours before the game).
Yes, he walked the leadoff hitter in the fourth. But it was an eight-pitch walk to the batter he was not going to let beat him. Lewis had homered twice in Minnesota’s Game 1 win. There was zero sense during that at-bat that Berrios was losing it. But a decision had been made hours before this moment to pull Berrios without the knowledge of how Berrios was pitching or that the baserunner was Lewis and how he got on base, and since it was Lewis moving slowly while still nursing a hamstring injury, it was going to take multiple non-homer hits to score him.
Yes, Kepler and Kiriloff hit righties better than lefties, and lefties hit Berrios better than righties. But what about against Berrios’ stuff that day? Kepler had grounded out and Kiriloff had struck out in their first plate appearances. More info that a good improv person would use.
Let’s now shift to the Twins dugout — read the audience. I have not polled them, I am making assumptions. But they were facing a binary decision (more on that in a bit) on who they would rather face at that moment — Berrios dealing or the guy warming in the bullpen? I would bet they were thrilled when Berrios was removed for Kikuchi, who had not pitched in relief all year and had not thrown off this mound since April 2021 — so an unfamiliar role and foreign mound in a heated pressure situation vs. Berrios dealing. If Schneider were in the opposing dugout, which do you think he would prefer? So, he should have put himself mentally into that dugout — that is, if his bosses even allow such ad-libbing.
If I were ranking what the Twins least wanted to see, it would be: 1. Berrios to stay in. 2. The Jays to go to Tim Mayza. 3. Kikuchi.
Remember that binary choice? Mayza was not part of it. But why? The Blue Jays were playing as if one run — even that early — could eliminate them. So what was the best way to stamp out that run? When they were coming up with this script, did the Blue Jays weigh a mid-inning switch? Because the lefty Mayza had come in mid-inning 40 times in 60 appearances, and 33 of them were with at least a runner on base. The southpaw reliever had not allowed a lefty hitter to homer since Shohei Ohtani on Aug. 22 last season — again, it was going to take three singles likely to score Lewis.
And Mayza’s numbers against righties were slightly better than Kikuchi’s. That should not be ignored. Kepler is fine vs. lefties, so he wasn’t going to get pinch-hit for. But Kirkiloff is terrible vs. lefties and, indeed, Donovan Solano hit for him, and after Kepler singled vs. Kikuchi, the righty Solano walked and the righty Carlos Correa singled in two runs and the Jays lost, 2-0.
Wouldn’t the wise choice if they were going to have this must-follow script be that if a lefty reliever were needed early to try to prevent a run during an inning, go with Mayza, leave Kikuchi for length and to begin an inning, and there was always Genesis Cabrera late if another lefty were needed? So I don’t even like Toronto’s script, and if the Jays didn’t think of this kind of scenario, then shame on them and enjoy your winter thinking about that.
But the bigger issue is no matter how smart you think you are — or you actually are — you cannot anticipate every nuance of a baseball game because, among other items (wait for it), humans play it, and stuff is going to happen beyond expectation. If you are not going to have a manager react to the context, why have a manager? Context is, of course, important.
For example, Twins starter Sonny Gray struggled way more in his five innings than Berrios in his three-plus. But Minnesota was not facing elimination. If it had been, I believe Twins manager Rocco Baldelli would have pulled Gray during one of the traffic jams he ultimately escaped.
Did the Blue Jays honor context enough, before or during that game? They decided that preventing any runs was paramount by their behavior. Yet, they never wondered for a second in real time, what did the Twins think was best to prevent that run — what did Minnesota not want to see? Thus, at the Waterloo moment of their season, the Blue Jays went with no better than their third-best choice.