DDDWTF for 5/27: Another round of reliever roulette

Dave plays fantasy baseball and has Bergesen on his team.

at the beginning of the year, I was on DT’s side. I figured you couldn’t blame him for players not performing well (that’s Terry Crowley’s fault), but this is idiotic. I’ve done a complete 180, he needs to go. This man should not be managing an MLB team. It seems like he’s playing 1950s-style baseball. I don’t care that ‘traditionally’ a lefty gets a lefty out, how is THIS particular pitcher against lefties? Why yank a guy when he’s on a roll? I can not believe the bone-headed moves I’m seeing from DT. He is over-managing this team – almost like he is afraid that if doesn’t make a bajillion moves a game, people are going to think he’s not ‘managing’. Sheesh. You’ve already lost your job Dave, it’s not going to make any difference now.

I am positive that most of the Orioles fans on this site could manage this team FAR better than DT has.

I guess in the plus column you’d have to put somebody like Tony LaRussa, whose reputation is one of a tinkerer. Does it ever work for other teams that have actually been good in recent years? Maybe it works when you have above average relievers rather than just a mediocre assortment that generally succeeds only due to luck.

I don’t have a problem with pulling Bergesen there. “So he could get the win” is a stupid reason to pull him, though. He only had 93 pitches but the first two guys looked like they were dialed in and he looked like he wasn’t fooling anybody for the rest of the night. One might also argue that the young pitcher needs to learn how to get out of a jam and I would accept that line of thinking too.

For all the rest you can only ask: why? (And Trembley does not have an acceptable answer.) Why yank Berken after one batter, ignoring his platoon splits for the year? Why bring in Hendrickson after Berken, also ignoring platoon splits? Why bring in Castillo for one batter in the 9th?

Unfortunately, I think we all know this won’t be the last time this season we deal with a similar situation the day after a game.

really appreciates receiving a no decision instead of a win. Keep up the good work, Dave.

Here are the career splits for the two pitchers.

Berken
vs. left ab: 36 avg: .194 obp: .216 slg: .222
vs. right ab: 52 avg: .327 obp: .357 slg: .481
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/players/splits?playerId=30363

Hendrickson
vs. left ab: 38 avg: .342 obp: .386 slg: .474
vs. right ab: 62 avg: .306 obp: .353 slg: .435
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/players/splits?playerId=5295

We’re not talking about a ton of at bats, but the picture is pretty clear. Hendrickson just isn’t good against anyone. Let him pitch when the O’s are out of the game, he’ll get plenty of chances. Berken is a BP candidate with some decent stuff and we hope he can figure it out. Plus he’s better against lefties.

was not a good manager in the first place and his understanding of modern baseball thinking has been limited, at best, from day one. To paraphrase Rawls from The Wire:

“We are trying to build a baseball organization that relies on computer generated data in its decision making, not your fly-by-your-fucked-up-ass intuition.”

But it’s been clear for a couple months now that he’s simply lost in the woods. The Lineup Bingo every night or so and inexplicable bullpen decisions are doing nothing more than making a bad situation even worse.

has never struck me as a thinking man’s man, let alone manager, and hes showed time and time again his ineptitude to adapt to adversity and make any type of decent decisions game time, but what he lacks upstairs he tries to make up for off the field with stoicism, cheesy anecdotes, and calling people strictly by their last names.

but i dont think we’ll have to worry about seeing him too much longer. give me Mike Bordick, Chris Hoiles, or BJ Surhof, in there round july and start putting the pieces in place for 2011

Please join the fray and defend yesterday’s events.

1) DT has always managed like this from day one. He always he burns though relievers like a chain smoker.
2) If you’re going to bring in a lefty to face Barton, why not use Ohman who is actually good at getting lefties out? Instead, he saves Ohman for large leads.
3) As Palmer immediately pointed out last night and as pointed out above, Hendrickson isn’t good at getting lefties out.

playing ’where’s the DDDWTF?’ each night is kinda fun. Even though I knew I would be pissed in a half hour, but I had a moment of pleasure when Dave came out of the dugout for Berken — THERE IT IS! Tonight’s WTF! Like spotting Waldo.

I was curious how many folks are talking about this, so I news-Googled “trembley berken” .

Turns out DDDWTF is getting picked up by the Googlebots! All the better:

I will not be sorry to see him go.

But I have two questions:
1. Who is out there to replace him?
2. Will that replacement actually have any better grasp of the things that we’re complaining about here? Bunts, h&r, misuse of the bullpen, over-reliance on ‘veteran presence;’ all that crap is pretty deeply ingrained in the old school baseball culture, and Andy doesn’t strike me as the guy who is gonna go and hire a manager who isn’t already part of the old school baseball culture.

Maybe it’s because I live in the Bay Area, and I’ve seen every manager that’s come by (for the A’s and Giants) get continually dumped on by the fans, but I really don’t think managers are generally as dumb as the fans think. Some Giants fans kept a count of “Dusty losses” in which they counted games in which Dusty Baker had cost the Giants a win, even as the Giants were going to the playoffs every year. Felipe Alou was also considered inept, and the McCovey Chronicles folks are all over Bruce Bochy. Art Howe was mercilessly criticized during the A’s run of success in the early 00’s, and Ken Macha and Bob Geren after him.

Managers have to make decisions. When they do, some fans will think it’s the wrong one. The fans can never be proven wrong, because their scenario doesn’t play out. But the manager’s decisions will go wrong every now and then, and given that every baseball team loses quite a few games, the manager will seem wrong.

I’m not talking about any specific fan, any specific manager, or any specific decision. It just seems to me that a lot of baseball fans think that the dumbest baseball person in the stadium is the one managing his or her team.