Just jaw-droppingly horrible
I’m on record as stating that, by and large, managers don’t matter. They’re basically all the same. They all do pretty much the same things in the same situations, and with only a few exceptions, they all make decisions that will lead to the least amount of public criticism, regardless of whether it’s in the best interests of the team. Good teams can, and often do, win in spite of their manager.
But sometimes, if they’re nutty enough, managers can have a big impact on a ballgame. Today, Mike Hargrove has been a disaster. As mentioned in the game thread by Dave Clapper, “If Pete Rose had managed this way, they’d have used it as evidence that he was betting against his own team.”
I mean, just look at this:
Seattle – Top of 3rd
Y Betancourt doubled to left.
I Suzuki bunt popped out to first.
Ichiro’s hitting about .800 the last few weeks. Betancourt’s already in scoring position with nobody out and the top of the line-up coming up. Bunting in this position is absurd. The Mariners didn’t score.
Seattle – Top of 5th
Y Betancourt reached on infield single to third.
I Suzuki singled to left, Y Betancourt to second.
J Lopez sacrificed to third, Y Betancourt to third, I Suzuki to second.
Jose Lopez, in his first two at-bats, homered and walked. He leads the team in homers and RBI’s. There is already a man in scoring position. The run expectancy in this situation, on average, is 1.6 runs. With Lopez/Ibanez coming up, it’s higher than that. The M’s came away with one run.
Seattle – Top of 7th
I Suzuki tripled to deep right center.
J Lopez bunt popped into double play, pitcher to third, I Suzuki out at third.
The infield was in, making a hit far more likely than normal and the squeeze far less likely to succeed than normal. Any ball in the outfield likely scores Ichiro. Bunting here with Lopez, again, is absurd.
Seattle – Top of 9th
W Bloomquist singled to center.
R Rivera sacrificed to first, W Bloomquist to second.
Y Betancourt grounded into fielder’s choice to shortstop, W Bloomquist out at third.
Y Betancourt caught stealing second, catcher to second.
After a leadoff single, the run expectancy with average hitters coming up would be .94. In other words, if the M’s just swing the bats, they’re pretty darn likely to score, even with Rivera and Betancourt due up. Bunting the runner to second reduced the run expectancy to .73. Rivera’s a pretty bad hitter, so that might be defensible if it was an isolated incident. Bloomquist’s baserunning gaffe, certainly a result of the Agressive Baserunning philosophy Hargrove has pounded into the team, made the entire bunt useless, though. And then more Aggressive Baserunning ends the inning. Just an abomination of an inning.
Seattle – Top of 10th
I Suzuki reached on infield single to second.
J Lopez singled to center, I Suzuki to second.
What’s not shown here is that Lopez attempted 4 bunts before swinging away. That’s right – he was having Jose Lopez, the team’s best hitter to date, lay down a third consecutive sac bunt. Thankfully, he couldn’t get it down, and he then got a base hit on his only swing of the at-bat.
Seattle – Top of 11th
Eddie Guardado pitching for Seattle
L Ford homered to right center.
Guardado has had a severe problem with the longball. Putting him into a tie ballgame on the road, where a home run ends the game, is just foolish. Especially with J.J. Putz just twiddling his thumbs in the bullpen.
This was just an amazing display of out-wasting by Mike Hargrove. Mismanaging your job that poorly, in any other environment, gets you a reprimand and possibly terminated.
Mike Hargrove earned his pink slip today. When he’s fired, they simply have to show him tape of this game, because no amount of excuses can wave away just how terrible he was today.
Just astoundingly bad. Fire Mike Hargrove.
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Absolutely great summary, Dave.
I don’t understand Hargrove’s logic of bunting with your best hitter, his unwillingness to rest veterans, the stupid baserunning calls, etc. etc.
It’s an absolute nightmare, and if the FO wants to try to save face (which I doubt they won’t), he needs to be fired as of today.
Er, meant doubt they will.
Bravo!
I recall semi-clearly the reviews of Hargrove when he was hired, on this site, that basically said, ‘He was ok in Cleveland, he’ll probably be ok here’. What didn’t we know then? I agree he’s a disaster here, especially in having our best hitter bunt over and over in some misguided service to ‘smallball’.
Ooh, my first citation! I’m half-tempted at this point to try to plant a rumor in the press that Hargrove IS betting against the M’s, just to force the FO to fire him.
In Cleveland they had Ramirez, Belle, Lofton, Baegra, Thome, so on and so forth. They had so much talent that they gave away Sexson and Giles because there was nowhere to play them.
Can’t wait to hear Grover’s thoughts.
“We’ve run the bases well this year”
-Mike H.
What is it going to take for someone in the media to ask him, “Why do you keep calling for your best hitter to bunt?”
This team STINKS, and everybody associated with it in the managment from managing CEO in-hiding Howard Lincoln to lickspittle Chuck Armstrong to clueless Mike Hargrove should be relieved of their jobs.
Yep, Hargrove, in the post-game interview, seems completely oblivious to the damage he’s wrought.
I’d be happy if all we get is hargrove at the moment
Going into today’s game, Mauer has thrown runners out at a 43% rate for his career, and Betancourt has gotten caught at a 42% rate. A not great base-stealer against a catcher who’s great at controlling the running game? I don’t see how that’s defensible even if you don’t believe in such things as run expectancy tables.
8
They just did.
13
So what did he say?
Don’t forget that Ibanez tried to bunt the runners over after Lopez singled in the 10th.
What is it going to take for someone in the media to ask him, “Why do you keep calling for your best hitter to bunt?â€Â
First, someone in the media is going to have to realize that Lopez is the best hitter on the team. For them to notice, Lopez might need to be given the chance to swing away now and then.
what did the say i didnt catch that
he*
Don’t forget that Ibanez tried to bunt the runners over after Lopez singled in the 10th.
And with strikeout machines Sexson and Beltre due up next against strikeout machine Joe Nathan.
Someone asked why he would have they best RBI guy on the team, to which Grover responded something like, “He’s our best bunter.”
oh my gosh what a loser!
Here’s the thing; Hargrove is convinced that he made the right moves. Why?
Because conventional baseball wisdom is all about creating an opportunity for a player to “execute” relatively easy plays in lieu of asking them to do something tough like “hit”. Almost every move a manager makes is designed to create an environment where the hitter has an easier job.
Sac Bunting or Sac Flying is theoretically easier than getting a base hit.
Hitting to the right side is theoretically easier than pulling a pitch.
Lefties have an easier time hitting against righties, and vice versa.
Lefty pitchers have an easier time retiring lefty batters, and vice versa.
Grover looks at the moves and sees situations where he created easier opportunities for his players, and if they had just executed, the team would have won.
Making these moves, in his mind, relieves himself of any responsibility for the team’s failures. He asked the players to do simple things, and they failed. We lost because they couldn’t do Easy Thing X or Easy Thing Y.
It’s blame management. He can’t be blamed because he didn’t fail.
It’s also absolute crap, and we can prove it factually. If Mike Hargrove wants to try to defend his actions on merit, I guarantee you I can prove him wrong. Call it arrogant, call it whatever you want, but I, and pretty much everyone who reads this blog, understands baseball strategy better than Mike Hargrove.
But reall i swear my heart dropped when he hit that home run!!! it kills me how bad he manages this team
Grover was doing nothing more than trying to make something happen, yet despite his best efforts, he cannot get Bavasi to fire him
The pop-culture definition of insanity is to repeat the same action over and over expecting a different result. What then are we to make of the decision to let Eddie deliver another walk-off game winner? Folks, what I don’t know about baseball fills lots of books, but when I saw that name come up I went downstairs to switch the laundry over knowing full well that the game would very likely be over when I was done hanging 5 shirts up to dry. If even an ignorant schnook like me can figure this out, what the HELL is going on in Hargrove’s head? There is no sport in the world that relies more heavily on statistics than baseball, to the point that we track situation-specific batting averages to 3 decimal places and occasionally put stock in statistically meaningless differences. So when something this glaringly obvious is staring you in the face, I don’t understand why putting poor Eddie in a close game in a pressure situation is anywhere near a defensible action. “Maybe this time it’ll work,” doesn’t seem to be sufficient.
At least this loss put us in last place again, thank heavens. It’s harder to fire your manager when you’re only 3 games back and in third place, and the general incompetence in the AL West this year has been Hargrove’s saving grace so far. But I’ll start scanning headlines and sports tickers with renewed hope and interest now that we’re once again back home in the cellar.
Sorry, Mike, ’cause I think you’re probably a pretty nice guy. But dude, you gotta go.
Lopez is our best bunter says Grover whilst he fails to note in the same sentence that he realises that Sexson and Beltre are our best strike out victims. Takes years of experience to make such observations!
#22: Dave, knowing what you know of Bill Bavasi, do you believe him to be smart enough to see through this  and if so, do you believe Bavasi can fire Hargrove on his own, or does he need Chuck Armstrong, Howard Lincoln and others to sign off on such a move?
Had we but world enough and time, we could check out the following contentions:
1. JOSE LOPEZ has the highest SAC/RBI ratio in baseball history.
2. The Mariners have missed more scoring opportunities than any team in baseball this year. *
3. The Mariners have made a higher percentage of their outs on the bases than any team this year.
BTW, are you sure that I can’t post about Guttormson’s no-hitter?
BTW, MAR, MAUER wasn’t catching today. He was DH-ing. That was REDMAN.
__________
*Scoring opportunity – Less than two out; runner on 2nd.
Lopez is the best bunter on the team? A team with Ichiro? And Willie? You’ve GOT to be kidding me.
Oh man. Had I started reading the game in the third, I’d probably have had an aneurism. I didn’t know about that managerial gem. Had Ichiro of the .380 BA last week swung away, at worst it would have been a typical worm burner to second, good enough the move the runner and safer than a pop-uppable (?) bunt.
I also didn’t know Ibanez attempted to bunt in the 10th. That, I agree with. Because we are playing for one run with a reliable reliever (that’s Putz, to remind those who aren’t M’s “managers”). Yes, Sexson strikes out a lot. But he’s also a flyball hitter. If neither Sexson nor Beltre execute with what should have been Ichiro on third with one out, well, that’s baseball.
But in each of the instances expertly outlined, a bunt should not have been in the playbook.
He might be, so what? If I remember right, George Brett wasn’t bad either but why would you????
BTW, MAR, MAUER wasn’t catching today. He was DH-ing. That was REDMAN.
That’s true, it was Redmond back there. Brain cramp. Even so, Redmond has been a pretty average catcher at throwing runners out for his career, at a rate of about 34%, so with a below average base stealer, you’re asking for trouble.
Dave, knowing what you know of Bill Bavasi, do you believe him to be smart enough to see through this  and if so, do you believe Bavasi can fire Hargrove on his own, or does he need Chuck Armstrong, Howard Lincoln and others to sign off on such a move?
There’s no way Bavasi wasn’t sitting there, watching this, wishing he had hair to tear out of his head. Unless he was smart enough to be out scouting someone for the draft and not watching this debacle.
But no, knowing how the M’s front office works, termination of the manager isn’t something Bavasi would be able to do without talking to Lincoln first. If for nothing else, he’d have to get approval for the new manager’s salary from those guys just for the budget, and there’s no way they would keep their opinions to themselves once the idea was broached.
Bavasi has enough pull to go to them and say “hey, I think we need to make a change”, and it will probably happen, though. He’s got the most say in the matter. He just doesn’t have the whole say.
You cannot even forget that Lopez 2nd bunt came AFTER he got it to a 2-1 count.
This was just stupid.
Also, Ibanez has been batting .233 the past month.
If Hargrove stays, and he’s determined to continue his one-run strategy ways, why not have Pentland teach Sexson and Beltre how to bunt? It’s not like they can do much of anything else. And an occasional bunt from a big bopper might shock the opposing infielders out of their jocks and socks.
You cannot even forget that Lopez 2nd bunt came AFTER he got it to a 2-1 count.
Before Lopez got to 2 strikes in his 3rd bunt attempt, he also got into a 2-1 count.
One I was amazed I didn’t see above:
Top 10th:
Ichiro on second, Lopez on 1st. None out.
Ibanez – Hard liner/fly to deep right. Ichiro goes halfway then trots back to second rather than tagging (so that he can jog 135 feet rather than 180 if the play isn’t made).
Sexson – Towering fly to center-field warning track. Ichiro not only not in position to score easily, but he goes halfway and trots back to second, rather than tagging. /AGAIN/.
Aggressive baserunning? Pshaw.
I have to think that if the M’s lose ground to Texas in that coming series, that is the end for Hargrove.
What would you do with the rest of the coaching staff?
Id leave all but Dan Rohn in Texas
I don’t think Ichiro did anything wrong on the bases in the 10th. That ball Ibanez hit was a bullet – if he’s hanging out around second base and they don’t catch the ball, there’s a great chance he doesn’t score, and then we’re all going nuts about him not scoring from second on a base hit to deep right field. Coming off the bat, I certainly didn’t know if it was going to be caught. Going halfway was the right move.
On Sexson’s fly ball, yea, he probably could have tagged up. But the run value of moving from 2nd to 3rd on the second out of the inning isn’t very high.
Dave, I think you and I are in the minority on the Ichiro issue. Ibanez smoked that ball, that was a no win situation for Ichiro.
Had he of been “tagging up” he likely wouldn’t have scored on that anyways and people would be complaining about that.
Earl Weaver always said that if you play for one run, you will only score one run.
Or in the Mariners’ case, 0 to 1 runs.
Coming off the bat, I certainly didn’t know if it was going to be caught. Going halfway was the right move.
Also, if Ichiro had been paying attention to Cuddyer throughout the series, he’d notice that Cuddyer doesn’t get particularly good reads on the ball or have blazing speed. There was a pretty good chance the ball was going to fall.
This game was an exemplary failure of Hargrove’s invocation of conventional baseball wisdom. Conventional wisdom says you bunt the runner along. Conventional wisdom says you play your big salary guys (i.e Sexson, Beltre, Everett, Guadardo) unless and until the season is lost. Hargrove simply lacks the imagination to realize when conventional wisdom should be disregarded.
Will Bavasi fire someone because they manage “by the book?†I doubt it. I hope I am wrong but I don’t think I am.
Mike Hargrove earned his pink slip today. When he’s fired, they simply have to show him tape of this game, because no amount of excuses can wave away just how terrible he was today.
The whole Twins series has been the best example I’ve seen of bad management. One minute the AGGRESSIVE! baserunning ends the inning, the next minute they’re too timid to send guys.
I don’t think Ichiro did anything wrong on the bases in the 10th. That ball Ibanez hit was a bullet – if he’s hanging out around second base and they don’t catch the ball, there’s a great chance he doesn’t score, and then we’re all going nuts about him not scoring from second on a base hit to deep right field. Coming off the bat, I certainly didn’t know if it was going to be caught. Going halfway was the right move.
But he did have a shot, and close and late you might as well go for it, even if it wasn’t on the warning track. If he moves up, he scores on the fly ball to Torii Hunter. He should have at least come back from halfway.
What’s even more baffling is why Ichiro wasn’t running in a game where everyone was running themselves out of the inning.
Because Ichiro is thinking: “No way in hell I’m setting sail on this ship of fools.”
Today, I became a fire mike hargrove believer. don’t know why it’s taken me so long, but my ‘zen’ moment came when i heard myself calling out, “don’t bunt!” and next thing you know ichiro is pegged at the plate. Absolutely horrible.
then, the 10th, probably the worst inning of baseball for mariners fans this year that should dispel any notion that this team is a contender.
I don’t need to recap what you’ve already said, but poetic justic would describe eddie g giving up the blast in the 10th. By that time, i’d already left the game for dead and gotten into my car to listen to the final blows on the radio.
Besides Hargrove, i blame the players…..sexson at the plate looks lost, confused. beltre is an easy out, no pop, but I will say he looked mad on the tv.
ichiro is my goat for today. For not getting his butt to third in the 10th.
He had four opportunities, count em, four to get over there 1. on the basehit to right by jose lopez (excusable for the ball might have been caught). 2. on the should have been a sac fly by ibanez (awful) 3. not stealing the base and 4. sexson’s fly ball to the wall.
Does anyone else know why Ichiro’s baserunning instincts are so poor? he runs when he should hold and he holds when he should run. The man is an enigma.
I’m another in the club that finds no fault with Ichiro’s baserunning in the tenth.
Th difference between Ichiro and Willie is that he has instincts to go with his skills. He is genertically engineered baseball player, while Willie has manufactured himself into one in the absence of top-drawer talent.
And don’t forget … when it comes time for changes to be made, bring up Michael Garciaparra. He’s hitting .324 right now in Tacoma, and is 1-1 with 2 RBI and a walk. Talk about an OBP juggernaut!
jim and dave are letting ichiro off too easy. i think ichiro’s lacking the game situation instincts that would have gotten him to third in any event with less than two outs in the tenth. he had opportunities. just saying that a little aggresiveness would’ve helped big time…ie w. bloomquist.
On the left and right side of your keyboard are keys labeled “Shift” and probably have an upwards-pointing arrow. If you press and hold one of them while typing a letter normally, you’ll be able to use upper-case letters, like J and D and I and so forth.
i hate the fact that i can see that the ball is gonna caught but ichiro cant when he is on the field!
jim and dave are letting ichiro off too easy. i think ichiro’s lacking the game situation instincts that would have gotten him to third in any event with less than two outs in the tenth. he had opportunities. just saying that a little aggresiveness would’ve helped big time…ie w. bloomquist.
Yea, because what this team needed was more outs created by trying to advance on the bases in this series.
If you think Ichiro lacks game instincts, thats your problem, not his.
Willie’s aggressiveness, by the way, killed us in the tenth.
Actually, I’d attribute Ichiro’s 10th to the managerial edict of aggressive base running. If Ichiro is conservative, he sticks by 2nd and tags up. But instead he aggressively bet that Ibanez’s liner would drop. One more poor decision I put squarely on to Hargrove. (So, I flip flopped from my post in the game thread. Don’t vote for me.)
The sad thing is, if the M’s decide to fire Hargrove, I bet they do it just before the KC series at Safeco. That way, when the M’s beat the lowly Royals, the local media will credit the FO for “shaking things up” and bringing a “new attitude” to the clubhouse. It will also fool the fans into thinking that the M’s might still be a playoff contender. Then the FO can proceed with their yearly charade of publicly waffling about whether to be a buyer or seller at the trade deadline. Sadly, this sequence of events to come is all so predictable.
I’m figuring if Hargrove comes out with a series win in Texas, he probably ekes out a few more weeks, as long as the team stays close, but a win by Texas or, even worse, a sweep, and he’s toast.
With all the sturm und drang…a sweep of the Rangers puts us two games behind them. Pity I have no confidence in the manager of actually executing this.
It will also fool the fans into thinking that the M’s might still be a playoff contender.
This might be the year where 85 wins gets you the West. Oakland has a LOT of injuries and looks offensively feeeble, ditto Anaheim, and Texas isn’t a great team.
The Padres basically made the playoffs last year by having ONE good month (May). We don’t need to punt the season yet (unlike last year). Felix still isn’t pitching as well as he can, and Beltre and Sexson have LOTS of room for improvement.
A losing record may well win the West.
Add to the list, reed should have been put in CF as a defensive replacement for bloomquist late in the game. Especially when they brought in a RHP (8th). It’s less of an issue because we didn’t get burned on it, but still, if they were hitting singles to center off eddie we might have found ourselves wishing we had a real CF out there.
In general, I prefer a manager who puts people in the lineup who are playing well, as opposed to people who ought to be playing well, or people who at one time were playing well. Ditto for positions in the batting order.
I think Hargrove would be okay as the manager of the annual All-Star Game. I’d love to hear the national media interview him afterward.
“Why did you have Pujols lay down the bunt with runners on first and second and nobody out in the first?”
“He’s our best bunter.”
A losing record may well win the West.
Hasn’t happened yet, but the Padres came AWFULLY close last year- and that entire division has Pythag projected records under .500.
Texas, OTOH, has their pythag record matching their real record- a shade over .500. They look like your standard issue Texas team- all bat, not enough pitching to be really good. When they have enough bat and some pitching, these teams win 85-90, when they don’t have enough bat and have terrible pitching they win 70. I think they might be the first case with Padilla and Millwood.
Don’t forget the lineup Grover stapled to the dugout. It’s like bizarro world — Morse can’t field (or hit, for that matter), so you replace Beltre (who can field) at third; take Beltre, who can’t hit, and have him DH instead of Krazy. I assume we didn’t see Petagine because he hanged himself in the locker room.
I can understand having morse play 3b for a day and giving beltre a break. But when you combine that with playing sitting rivera, reed, and everett, you end up with 3-8 hitters who are very good at making outs.
#65 that should be sitting johjima.
Did I read someone complaining that one of our players lacks sound baseball instincts – and that player was Ichiro? Really?
I mean, say what you like about him, but I can’t think of many in the game anywhere in the world with better baseball instincts.
I thought he should have tagged on Sexson’s blast, too, but I hav no idea what it looked like from second in the dome.
Conspiracy theory alert:
Hargrove wants out. Ichiro and Grover have bumped heads a few times. The 10th was just Ichiro helping Grover find the door a little sooner so he and all of us can be rid of him.
Dave/DMZ/JMB: who would you like to see replace Hargrove, assuming he’s going soon?
Took the train out to beach today (it’s eighty in NY), missed the entire game. Good grief. Baseball Tonight’s about to show how it ended. Don’t think I wanna see it. …
Y’all forgot one. Why is Morse starting at 3B and Beltre DHing. Whatever fault we might find with Beltre’s performance, his defense has been pretty damn good. If he wanted to rest Everett (please!), why not have Morse DH, or, God forbid, Petagine? What was he saving Petagine for anyway? The prom?
69: I think Dan Rohn is the popular opinion around here.
71: That’s not even worth fretting about. Any change to Beltre’s daily routine is an OK move by me.
Eric Chavez is DHing today for Oakland.
I’m sure Dan Rohn would be fine, but, honestly, I think Little Leaguers would know you don’t bunt with your best power hitter in the 5th inning, even if you Do think he’s the best bunter on the team.
I’m not sure Dan Rohn is the popular choice (IE if you could have anyone who would it be), I think he is just the obvious choice that is going to happen. At this point anyone would be better.
That’s not to say Rohn won’t do a good job, or be a good choice. Its just so obvious that he is going to be the one to take over.
Quick Question:
I’m not familiar with the definition of run expectancy; does it mean the expected run outcome for the entire inning given the stated situation? If so, how does a 0.94 run expectancy mean it is likely the M’s will score a run? Doesn’t it mean the situation is very close, but not quite likely, to yield one run?
Thanks so much for posting this thread. I nearly lost my mind listening to and watching this game. If Hargrove was close to getting fired after the Oakland series then this series should be the nail in his coffin. This sweep was worse because Minnesota isn’t as good as Oakland and the M’s always play like ass in Oakland.
28- If you want to talk about a local boy and former Mariner minor leaguer making good in japan, go for it. I think, after today, we all could use a feel good story. Of course I have zero say on what you post…
As for Grover, why replace him? It seems the only reason he’s still here is to save face, the F.O. and Grover’s. They should just install Rohn on the sly and he can give the real signals from the press box while Grover can pantomime and pretend he’s doing something.
As for the line-ups, anybody could do those better. If Hargrove feels left out while the line-up is being made just give him a box of crayons and a coloring and with a pat on his head send him on his way.
No. It means on average, given a runner on first and nobody out, you will score .94 runs.
As a stat it does not cover what the likelyhood of scoring 1 run vs. 0. The distribution could be that a small number of times you will score a lot of runs in an inning with a leadoff single, but the bulk of the time you score nothing, and the average could still come out to some normal looking number.
Here’s an article which talks about it a bit more with regards to sacraficing:
http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=2844
sigh. I had to leave just as the bottom of the ninth started, and frankly, I expected the Twins to win it then…. to come back and find that not only did they manage to hang on for the 10th, but somehow top the idiocies of the play in the 9th….. man.
I wonder…because when I play my MVP Baseball Games, and I get a speedster like Ichiro on third, I will generally do a squeeze bunt with a guy who is a good bunter and the run always scores and everybody is safe.
I wonder if Hargrove has been playing too many video games?
Seriously, how do you know that? I hear that kind of thing a lot about players, and it doesn’t strike me as the kind of thing you can infer from watching a professional player’s performance.
Okay I’m watching Sunday Night Baseball on ESPN. Joe and Jon are talking to Buck in the Texas dugout. They ask him something about injuries are affecting him. His response is that obviously injuries are affecting everyone in the AL West, them, Oakland, Anaheim and obviously Seattle. Um….who from Seattle is on the DL? Aside from call-ups and demotions who is on the DL from the M’s opening day roster? The only injury I can think of is Hargrove’s brain damage, but I mean aside from that?
dan makes a good point in #79 – the chance of scoring 2 or more runs factors into the run expectancy. So, if you decide to play ffor one run, you might do best by bunting, even though the run expectancy is may be higher if you don’t.
That said, I agree that made no sense in this game (when the b;lown squeeze happened in the top of the seventh, IIRC, not the fifth).
I was also lamenting the absence of Petagine today after a righty came in, but Hargrove is just not going to pinch hit for Beltre.
#83 — Joe Morgan does no prep for games. He admitted in an online chat, and I doubt he has watched an M’s game this year.
And thanks for the Ichiro/tagging analysis everyone. I did not see the play, but it does not sound as bad as they made it appear on the radio-postgame.
83
I can’t say his name. But he plays the outfield, swings a mean stick, and is not from around here.
Oh! I know! I know! Is he on the sidebar?
His name rhymes with Bliss Helling.
Yes! I guessed right!
Too bad I’m fresh out of gold stars.
No offense, I love him as much as the next guy, but, the boy you’re discussing went 0-4 in Tacoma again today, and 3 of those were strikeouts, swinging, on 3 straight pitches each time (the other was a super weak little infield pop up). I don’t know what’s up with him, but his average is dropping wildly (I think it’s below .250 now)
Back ON topic, if Bavasi is the guy who probably has the most (but not complete) say in how long Hargrove sticks around, when’s the magic date at which the disgust with Hargrove becomes disgust with Bavasi for not canning him?
Snelling wouldn’t be able to save Hargrove’s job, obviously. But, I’d still rather see him struggle in Seattle than suffer the dull grind of mediocrity.
I too am grateful for this thread. I don’t post much, but today’s game was the worst example of managerial incompetence I have ever witnessed. From the lineup decisions to the baserunning gaffes to the bunting calls….WOW!!!
Worst of all, you could see it coming. Every time.
If Snelling did get called up, it couldn’t save Hargrove’s job because he’d only play one game a month.
What more can do to catipult some action by FO? Bloging is not enough. Write our congressmen. Do a march. Blow up Safeco. Lets get some attention somehow for this worthy cause!
Doyle’s not going to come up unless he can get regular playing time.
I’ll walk to Seattle if it will get Hargrove fired.
Do it, Corco. We could turn it into a media event. “I’m walking to Seattle to raise awareness of what a crappy manager Mike Hargrove is.” We could get Dave to make little info packets to hand out to the press.
I am totally willing to if I could guarantee it would get Hargrove fired.
#94 — In other words, Doyle would be “petagine-ed.”
Petagine: (verb) To take something useful and relevant and relegate it to second class, non-descript status while simultaneously harming your own endeavor. To use in a sentence: “The dinner host petagine-ed the fresh rhubard-strawberry compote fruit dessert and served stale oreo cookies to his guests.”
The other night I was going to watch the M’s, checked the internet, and saw our first 3 hitters all went 1-for-1 to start the game, yet no runs scored because our 4-5-6 hitters all went 0-fer. Decided not to watch the rest of the game. Today I turned on the radio and heard Niehaus talking about Bloomquist going back to catch a fly ball in centerfield. Shortly thereafter the Twins tied it. Decided not to watch. Hargrove is seriously costing the M’s fans now because what he’s done to the team is make them unwatchable. I am NOT going to spend my holiday weekend watching Adrian Beltre and Richie Sexson ground out/pop up/strike out 5 times a game and watching Willie Bloomquist try to learn centerfield, while Petagine and Reed ride the pines. This is all Hargrove’s fault. With a decent manager this isn’t a great team, but at least they’d be fun to watch. Why does he have to spoil that with his crappy lineups and awful bullpen moves. Guy is just killing me. He is sucking my will to live. 3-day weekend and I haven’t had the stomach to watch a single ballgame.
And the reason he didn’t start Everett today? He wanted to rest his “weary” legs by not playing him on the turf. Hello? How much time does he spend on the turf anyway? He is the designated hitter, isn’t he?
Isn’t the surface at the Metrodome FieldTurf? I’ve run around on that stuff quite a bit and it’s softer than grass. Also, Hargrove is a moron.
I only had to read the reviews, and not be tortured by this truly stunning display of bu–sh–. I never got more than annoyed at the last managerial impersonator, appropriately initialled B.M. (he did little harm, after all). I cannot stand following a Hargrove game even through Gameday, however. Yesterday was the pits, and today was far, far worse even to read about. It actually has me blaming the manager, fully, for the play on the field.
Enough.
I’ll just be checking the box scores and rooting from a fuzzy distance till this Human Reef is removed from the Mariners course. I wish the players the best, and promise to return when they can play w/o obstruction from evidential the worst manager in baseball, for many, many years.
I was so fed up by this crap that I felt the urge to send feedback via the Mariners website. Completely useless but a bit cathartic. Man, and since I get to be up in Seattle for about the next month, I was looking forward to going to some games. Now I guess I’ll watch them from the hotel bar and boo Hargove and hope that a foul-ball renders him unable to coach for several months or manages to fix what is so obviously wrong with his head that calls for Lopez bunts. And WFB starting in CF. And Sexons starting at 1b all the time…
I’ve heard people say very positive things about Corey Brock, so I wanted to see what he wrote about the game. After I read his recap of the game, I began to wonder how much he has to toe the party line or else be relieved of his job there. No mention of the excessive bunting by Lopez, only that he is one of the best bunters. ARGH!!
MLB.com writers essentially can’t write bad things about players or teams. So if you’re a Royals writer, you can’t say that Baird’s done a horrible job — you have to skirt the whole issue.
Corey did a stellar job writing for the Tacoma News Tribune earlier this year before he got hired for MLB.com, but this is a different job.
The P-I labels Ichiro’s choice in the 10th inning as a “gaffe”:
Ichiro pointed fingers only at himself.
“I second guess myself on that one,” he said.
“I put too much thought into the score. If (he tags up), at worst I’m at third base with one out if the ball is caught, and if the ball isn’t caught, the bases are full.”
Third base coach Carlos Garcia said the line drive was a tough read. But the play had to be made.
“I knew he had to tag up and go to third,” Garcia said. “Everybody in the stadium knew it.”
Hmm. The good run expectancy tables I have seen also show the odds of scoring at least 1 run. That makes more sense, there are times you play for one run (if it’s the bottom of the ninth, tied…you don’t have to maximize runs, you just have to score). From previous years going from a runner on first and no outs to a runner on second and one out increases the odds of scoring 1 slightly while lowering the overall run expectancy. But if a runner is in scoring position giving up an out only hurts your chance of scoring 1, on top of screwing your run expectancy.
And everything has to be adjusted for the person at the bat, because run expectancy is an average of players. Any manager who bunts with Pujols should be shot, but when a pitcher is at the plate bunting can become a great idea. Everywhere in the middle is a gray area, but in general the bunt is the most self-destructive strategy in baseball.
Bob Finnigan weighs in:
“But the biggest miss on the bases seemed to be Ichiro’s failure to make third on Ibanez’s deep line drive.
“We said this before: It’s the toughest read on the bases,” Hargrove said. “As hard as that ball was hit, it was a difficult decision for Ichiro, to tag up or go halfway. The worst thing that can happen is you don’t advance to third, which is what happened.”
Ichiro said, “On a play like that, you consider the score. And I put too much thought into the score, which was my mistake. If the ball falls in, you can go to third. But you can score, too, on that play.”
Would he second-guess himself or let it go? “Both,” he said.
Finnigan bizzarely editorializes at the end of his game story:
“But how normal can it be when fate decrees that Seattle’s leading run producer, Lopez, comes up three times to bunt?”
Fate decrees?
What a great relief it is to know that it’s Ichiro, not Hargrove, who’s killing the team.
Isn’t the surface at the Metrodome FieldTurf? I’ve run around on that stuff quite a bit and it’s softer than grass. Also, Hargrove is a moron.
I’ve been on the Metrodome’s old turf for their fan fest during the offseason a few years back. That stuff made my (completely healthy) lower back and knees ache after just walking/standing around on it for three or four hours. While I’m sure the FieldTurf is better, I think you have to keep in mind that the FieldTurf there is still essentially sitting on top of a big slab of concrete. The FieldTurf I’ve been on outdoors is just as good as, if not better than real grass, but it also wasn’t sitting on a big slab of concrete.
That said, the better reason to keep Everett out of the lineup today is that he doesn’t hit lefties particularly well. Giving him a day off is a bonus. And while I’d like to see Petagine play more, having him hit against one of the best lefties in the game isn’t really an ideal situation either.
If Beltre and Everett were going to get a day off during this series, it seems like it would’ve made better sense to give them Saturday night off, let Morse play 3rd against a pretty mediocre right-hander and let Petagine DH against that same mediocre right-hander. Then, maybe have Beltre play 3B on Sunday, when you know you’re going to want to play good ‘D’ because you’re facing Santana, and let Everett get his hacks in against Santana, because the difference between Morse and Everett against Santana probably isn’t very big.
Of course, that means you have to plan ahead and can’t just follow the lazy “give the regulars some rest on a day game following a night game” by-the-book strategy. Sometimes it really baffles me how much managers could seemingly optimize by just looking a couple days ahead.
“We said this before: It’s the toughest read on the bases,†Hargrove said. “As hard as that ball was hit, it was a difficult decision for Ichiro, to tag up or go halfway. The worst thing that can happen is you don’t advance to third, which is what happened.â€Â
Actually, Mike, the worst thing that can happen is that he gets thrown out trying to advance.
Hargrove’s post game quotes are just awful. He sounds like a deranged lunatic trying to defend his actions.
Hargrove has gotten so bad that he’s outside even his own bubble now.
#111 – obviously, Fate dictated The Book, and in particular Hargrove’s unique Appendix to The Book.
Corey did a stellar job writing for the Tacoma News Tribune earlier this year before he got hired for MLB.com, but this is a different job.
Speaking of writing for MLB.com, what is the going rate for putting lipstick on a pig these days?
Why would they hire anybody with particular writing talent to work for MLB.com? All it takes is the ability to summarize the manager’s statements and present them as fact.
so far, the only person who expresses an opinion about the squeeze (other than just saying it failed) is McGrath, who has a column about Hargrove…
“Felix Hernandez’s best start of the season was wasted on Friday, the triple play turned by the Twins is all that’s needed to describe Saturday, and then came Sunday, when the manager probed the bandbox dimensions of the “Homerdome†and put down a baffling procession of bunt signs. The third-inning squeeze play with Ichiro Suzuki on third base and Jose Lopez at the plate might’ve been the single-worst strategic move since Coca-Cola briefly decided to change its recipe 21 years ago.”
I totally agree that while Hargrove should and probobly will be fired soon, not all base running moves are his direct fault. However, he can be held responsible for creating an atmosphere of acceptance when they happen. The lack of tagging up by Ichiro last night was on Ichiro, that was a slam-dunk mistake, he could have crawled to third which would have obviously changed the game. Other people making stupid decisions on the bases should not affect the decision there. Third base coach needs to help but ultimately Ichiro needs to know time and situation and get to third base.
I think by the 10th inning of the third mismanaged & played game in row, a certain amount of desperation might hamper clear thought….
120 – “However, he can be held responsible for creating an atmosphere of acceptance when they happen.”
I would go one step further than that – he is responsible for creating a “philosophy” of aggressove baserunning.
I haven’t gone through the game threads, but I know this sent a shiver up my spine the second I heard the words and that it was criticized the moment the season started. It is a philosophy of losing clubs and of desperation and it *never* makes a club better… by defition it is not *smart* baserunning, which is the ONLY baserunning philosophy any team should ever have.
It was a disaster from game one (possibily two, but right from the start) and I have never, ever, watched a team self-destruct on the bases like this one.
That’s on Hargrove. Either because it was his idea, or because he accepted it.
122- Agreed, that was an embarrassing display of little league base running, aggressive and stupid are different things. Just have to re-assert that at least the 2 instances that I noticed, Ichiro, and the triple-play were just boned up by the runners on base. Beltre should have better recognition of where the ball is hit and freeze, making sure that at least the Twins turn the the play honestly, and Everett, judas priest, there is just no way he should round third base for any reason,(base coach should be screaming to stop and pointing at the bag). Will beat the dead horse on Ichiro, extra-innings, ball hit to warning track in right field, tie game, few steps off, then tag up.
This is way late, but I’m responding to the poll about getting Hargrove to not bunt with Lopez. One of the options was for Hargrove to watch himself batting on ESPN Classic.
That option would have drawn more votes if it were more specific. Namely, forcing Hargrove to watch himself bat against Diego Segui.
As most of you know, Hargrove used to the called “The Human Rain Delay.” Segui had just as many twitches and idiosyncrasies as Hargrove. They didn’t face each other all that often, which is a good thing, because some of those games might still be going on.
After a pitch Hargrove would step out and proceed through his rituals. By the time he stepped back in, Segui would be tired of waiting and go through his rituals again. This sequence was repeated often, much too often.
If you have any hyper snowboarder friends that you’d like to drive crazy, I recommend scouring the archives for one of their longer at bats. Play it over and over and pretend to be fascinated at the psychological intricacies of two master baseball strategists as your friend squirms with impatience and a sudden desire to pee on your shoes.