jim leyland

Bad Ausmus

Ausmus eject

Brad Ausmus is the worst manager in the American League.

During the Sunday Night Baseball game on May 10 between the Royals and Tigers, Miguel Cabrera led off the bottom of the 9th with a walk. The game was tied 1-1, and Ausmus elected to use Rajai Davis to pinch run for Cabrera. Leadoff walks score 38 percent of the time, so removing your best hitter in a game that more likely than not will go to extra innings is facially stupid. The only justification would be if you can use that speed aggressively, i.e. a stolen base. A man on second with none out would score 60% of the time; a man on third with none out would score 85% of the time.

Davis apparently had a green light but did not run the first two pitches to the next batter Victor Martinez, then Martinez singled to left and Davis went to second. If Davis stole in the first two pitches, he would have scored on that single and the game would have been over, but fine, you could theoretically put the blame solely on Davis for failing to run. Then Ausmus decided to put the stop light on Davis when he was at second, even though (a) the increase in odds of going to third make a steal just as worthwhile as stealing second and (b) the Royals weren’t really holding Davis and he was able to establish a huge lead. What was supposed to be an “aggressive” move of pulling Cabrera for Davis ended up as mere station-to-station baserunning as the following hitters made meager outs and the game proceeded to extra innings.

Predictably, this decision would ultimately lose the game for the Tigers. The Royals scored in the top of the 10th, then the Tigers loaded the bases with no outs in the bottom half. Cabrera’s spot was due up, but instead, up to the plate strode Hernan Perez, who boasted an OPS of .211 for the season. Perez did just about the worst thing possible, bouncing into an easy 5-2-3 double play with the lead runner out at home. Game essentially over.

There are many terrible managers in the major leagues, but most of them happen to be in the National League: Chip Hale, Bryan Price, Walt Weiss, Don Mattingly, Mike Redmond, Ryne Sandberg, Matt Williams. In the American League, however, it really comes down to Ned Yost, Lloyd McClendon and Brad Ausmus. I am convinced McClendon is terrible due to his close affiliation with Jim Leyland, but have no real concrete evidence to support his awfulness. Yost seemed like the frontrunner until last night, when Ausmus snatched the title away. Afterwards, Ausmus expressed no regret and stated “it’s a move you have to make.” Congrats Brad. You’re the Bossmus…you’re the Ausmus Prime of sucking.

Ausmus Not Awesome

The Orioles now hold a 2-0 lead in the ALDS over the Tigers.  It’s not over, but it feels over.  For the third straight year, the Tigers have been handicapped by severe bullpen management and managerial incompetence.  In 2012 and 2013, it was Jim Leyland bungling things from the helm.  There was some hope that changing to a younger manager in Brad Ausmus would help to alleviate these issues, but that hope has already been smashed to smithereens.

In Game 2, Ausmus made three decisions regarding pitching changes, and they ranged between questionable and outright terrible:

– Left in Justin Verlander to start the 6th inning, then brought in Anibal Sanchez after Verlander gave up a hit.  Verlander looked absolutely done in the 5th, but Ausmus sent him back out to the mound in the 6th since he had only thrown 95 pitches.  Having Sanchez as the first guy out of the pen was clearly the correct decision, but given his lack of experience as a reliever, it would have been optimal to have him start an inning or come in with no one on base.  There was no reason to bring Verlander back out with the heart of the O’s order due up.  Luckily, Sanchez escaped the 6th without any further damage and pitched a perfect 7th, so no harm was done.  But as much as Verlander was battling all game, he was clearly toast, and I don’t understand the hesitance to switch to a pitcher in Sanchez who had been better than JV all year long.
Decision rating:  1 out of 5

– Removed Sanchez for Joba Chamberlain to begin the 8th.  This is the decision that will haunt the Tigers and their fans all winter.  Sanchez is a starting pitcher by trade, and he was looking stronger the longer he pitched.  Sure, he’d only had a single one inning appearance since he’d returned from the DL, but if Ausmus was thinking he couldn’t handle three innings, whose fault was it that Sanchez hadn’t been handed more work to get a bit more stretched out before the season ended?  This was slavish obedience to Ausmus’ set bullpen hierarchy, plain and simple.  Joba pitches the 8th and Joe Nathan pitches the 9th, never mind that both have been terrible lately and that there were superior options available.  Joba proceeded to give up two hits and hit a batter while getting a single lonely out.  His postseason ERA actually went down from infinity to 108.00.  Even if Ausmus was resolved to remove Sanchez after he had pitched two innings, I would have preferred to see Soria get a chance to start the inning.
Decision rating:  0 out of 5

– Removing Joba for Joakim Soria with two on, one out in the 8th.  This decision is probably the most defensible of the three, simply because Soria was having a great season before he was acquired by the Tigers.  He proceeded to walk J.J. Hardy and give up a game-winning bases-clearing double to former Tiger Delmon Young of all people.  Soria hasn’t looked sharp as a Tiger at all, but his usage since acquisition has been extremely inconsistent.  It appeared he finally shook off some of the rust to retire the side after the damage was already done, but a less rusty option might have been Al Alburquerque, who has yet to appear in the series.  As I’ve written before, Alburquerque has had the best and most consistent season of any Tiger reliever this year, and is a good option with runners on base due to his strikeout ability.  Given the lack of the options in the Tigers bullpen, Soria was an acceptable choice, but it appears that Ausmus doesn’t view Alburquerque as an option in the 8th or 9th inning regardless of matchup or situation.  It’s that kind of closed-minded thinking that is killing the Tigers right now.
Decision rating:  3 out of 5

Perhaps the worst part of all of this is that the Tigers bullpen has completely imploded and that’s even without the negative contributions of the highly flammable Joe Nathan (who of course is being reserved exclusively for save situations and hasn’t yet appeared in the postseason).  Sure, a postseason series is a small sample size, and there’s no need to deviate from a sound plan if things go wrong, but that’s only if the initial plan was any good.  Ausmus entered the postseason with a rigid and moronic plan for his already struggling bullpen.  Going forward, he’ll either overreact in the worst way possible (perhaps asking Phil Coke to get through a full inning or calling Jim Leyland for advice) or do nothing at all.  Either way, there is very little hope in Tigertown.

Detroit’s Ideal Postseason Bullpen Usage

Let’s face it: the Detroit Tigers bullpen has been a complete dumpster fire in 2014.  But as the Tigers prepare for the playoffs, the bullpen situation may not be as bleak as it seems:

– Thanks to a good starting rotation that pitches deep into games, Tigers relievers have thrown the least innings in the league.  The Tigers will likely lean even more heavily on their starting pitchers in the postseason, further minimizing the number of outs that will be required out of the bullpen.

– Anibal Sanchez’s injury may have been a blessing in disguise, assuming that he’s now fully healthy.  Without enough time to get stretched out to return to the rotation, Sanchez’s extended layoff takes a difficult question out of the Tigers’ hands.  Had Sanchez been healthy all year, the question at this time would be whether it would be Justin Verlander or Rick Porcello who would be demoted to the bullpen in the playoffs.  While moving Sanchez to the bullpen might cause a bit of an overall downgrade to the starting rotation, Sanchez has the tools to be a strikeout weapon out of the pen, unlike Porcello and this current incarnation of Verlander.

The Tigers have gone with a seven-man bullpen in the playoffs the past few years, and it seems unlikely that they’ll deviate from this number this year.  Here’s what that bullpen should look like (but probably won’t, thanks to Brad Ausmus’ misplaced loyalties), in order of ideal usage:

1.  Anibal Sanchez
Key stats:  125 IP, 3.46 ERA, 1.10 WHIP, 102 K
Strengths:  2013 AL ERA champ, could see his velocity tick up a bit as a reliever, offsetting his drop in K-rate in 2014.
Weaknesses:  Has not pitched a game in relief since 2006, his rookie year.
Description:  Last year, Porcello was the starter that moved to the pen for the playoffs, and he was both criminally underused by then-manager Jim Leyland (only three batters in the entire postseason) and ineffective in his transition (gave up hits to all three batters).  Let’s hope that Sanchez can adjust quicker to relieving and that Brad Ausmus can figure out how to use him.
Usage:  Ideally, Sanchez should throw around 25% of all bullpen innings (for example, in a five game series, I envision perhaps two 2-inning outings).  Avoid (1) pitching him on consecutive days and (2) bringing him in mid-inning with runners on base.  Subject to those two restrictions, Sanchez should be the first guy out of the pen and allowed to pitch multiple innings.

2.  Joakim Soria
Key stats:  43.1 IP, 3.32 ERA, 1.02 WHIP, 48 K
Strengths:  Fast recovery.  Soria’s numbers over the past few years are actually better when he’s pitching with zero days rest.
Weaknesses:  Inconsistent workload.  Soria has an ERA of 5.40 and a WHIP of 1.50 with the Tigers so far in only 12 appearances.
Description:  Granted, part of the lack of usage was due to a DL stint, but Ausmus hasn’t been able to figure out a way to get Soria into high-leverage situations with regularity, much less in back-to-back games, with the starters often working through the seventh inning and the eight and ninth rigidly committed to Joba Chamberlain and Joe Nathan, respectively.  I am really hoping Ausmus can become more flexible in the playoffs; if Soria isn’t getting a high percentage of high-leverage innings, it’s a huge waste of the expensive price the Tigers paid to get him.
Usage:  25% of bullpen innings.  Do not hesitate to use on consecutive days.  Note that Sanchez and Soria together should ideally account for 50% of all bullpen innings.

3.  Al Alburquerque
Key stats:  55.1 IP, 2.60 ERA, 1.19 WHIP, 61 K
Strengths:  Strikeouts.  Sadly, Alburquerque projects to be the only member of the Tigers bullpen that has struck out more than a batter per inning in 2014 for the Tigers.  This is not good, given today’s strikeout-rich environment.
Weaknesses:  Walks.  Alburquerque looked to have a potential future as a closer a few years ago if he could only get his walks under control.  In 2014, the walks number (21) is finally manageable, though it appears he had to sacrifice a few strikeouts to do it.
Description:  He’s still erratic, but he’s probably been the most consistent member of the bullpen all season, which says more about the state of the other relievers than it does about AlAl.  In the 2012 postseason, the Tigers were scrambling for help when Jose Valverde imploded, and Jim Leyland for some reason turned to guys like Phil Coke and Octavio Dotel instead of Alburquerque and his impressive strikeout rate.  I have a feeling Alburquerque could get overlooked again this year and remain behind Nathan and Chamberlain in the postseason pecking order, but he shouldn’t.  If you need a big strikeout, this should be Ausmus’ guy.
Usage:  15% of bullpen innings.  Use in high-leverage situations where a strikeout is needed (e.g. runner on third and less than two out).

4.  Phil Coke
Key stats:  56.2 IP, 3.81 ERA, 1.48 WHIP, 41 K
Strengths:  Getting out lefties.  Lefties hit .238/.294/.366 against Coke this year.
Weaknesses:  Getting out righties.  Righties hit .325/.388/.463 against Coke this year.
Description:  This left/right split has persisted for years now, but believe it or not, this is actually one of Coke’s better years against righties, and they’re still hitting like freaking superstars against him.  Leyland simply didn’t get this in 2012 or 2013, and for the love of God, I hope Ausmus can figure this out in 2014.  Coke should not face any right handed hitters in any important situation EVER, and that includes switch-hitters who hit worse from the right side.
Usage:  11% of bullpen innings.  Ideally, Coke should be used for a single at-bat (against the opposing team’s best left-handed hitter) each game.

5.  Joba Chamberlain
Key stats:  61.1 IP, 3.67 ERA, 1.32 WHIP, 58 K
Strengths:  Beard growing; not giving up homers (only 0.44 allowed per nine innings).
Weaknesses:  Fatigue.  After a good first half (2.63 ERA), Chamberlain has been Nathan-esque in the second half, posting a 5.32 ERA and seeing an increase in walks and a decrease in strikeouts.  His velocity is trending downwards as well.  He seems to be tiring; or perhaps there’s an injury in play?
Description:  Joba has earned a lot of trust with Ausmus as the 8th inning guy, but I’m not sure it’s warranted at this point; I hope to see Sanchez, Soria and even Al Alburquerque picking up more of the workload in the 8th.  Joba hasn’t had to deal with many inherited runners, usually always starting the 8th inning, and I’m not sure now is the time to start bringing him in mid-inning.
Usage:  10% of bullpen innings.  Use in lower leverage situations or for home run suppression.

6.  Joe Nathan
Key stats:  56 IP, 4.98 ERA, 1.59 WHIP, 52 K
Strengths:  Making obscene gestures to the home fans.
Weaknesses:  Old age; booing; men with bats in hands.
Description:  It appears that Ausmus and the Tigers intend to stick with him as the closer even after the horrendous year he’s had.  Sure, there’s always some luck involved in relievers’ numbers, given the small sample size, but the most alarming thing about Nathan’s 2014 performance is the 29 walks and embarrassingly bad 1.79 K/BB ratio.  I expect that Nathan will get his share of ninth inning opportunities (hopefully protecting multi-run leads), but under no situation should Nathan come into a game with men on base.
Usage:  10% of bullpen innings.  Use with extreme caution and only with the bases empty.  OK to use in the ninth inning, but for the love of god, please have someone else warming up.

7.  Blaine Hardy or Kyle Lobstein
Key stats:  37.1 IP, 2.17 ERA, 1.29 WHIP, 30 K / 34.2 IP, 3.38 ERA, 1.15 WHIP, 23 K
Description:  The proper usage of Coke as a LOOGY necessitates the inclusion of another left-handed pitcher to complete the staff.  Hardy has had a good year since he’s been called up, but has struggled this month with walks (five in 3.1 innings) while Lobstein has come on strong lately.  The difficult question for Ausmus and his staff in making this decision will be whether they prefer to have a guy comfortable working as a second LOOGY behind Coke (Hardy) or a more versatile swingman who can potentially pitch deep into an extra inning game (Lobstein).  I don’t think either rookie will get too many of the high leverage situations, unless Ausmus turns into the 2013 version of Leyland who overmanaged lefty-righty matchups, so I’d give Lobstein the slight edge here.
Usage:  4% of bullpen innings.

The Tigers’ In-House Shortstop Solution

Tigers starting shortstop Andrew Romine is currently on pace to hit .179/.256/.192 (yes, that is a slugging percentage of .192 to accompany his career slugging percentage of .247) with 101 strikeouts in 316 ABs and 8 RBI. EIGHT. This is all after the incumbent  Jose Iglesias got hurt and Alex Gonzalez couldn’t hit OR play defense. Romine can pick it at short, I’ll give him that, but the Tigers are winning despite basically trotting out a National League lineup on a nightly basis (Romine being the equivalent of a pitcher). 

Can it really be that hard to upgrade on Romine?  (I didn’t think it was worth the resources to chase Stephen Drew, so I was relieved to hear he re-signed with the Red Sox today.  I’ve wanted to write about his contract situation and the fact that his own greed backfired in his face…but really it just looks like Drew’s agent Scott Boras severely underestimated the impact of the draft pick that any team signing Drew would have to sacrifice.  But who knows…maybe Boras warned Drew that this would happen and it really was his greed that did him in.)  Um…does Tigers management realize they have one of the best defensive shortstops of all time on the field every night? I’m talking about the Tigers’ first base coach, Omar Vizquel. Now, I think the Tigers joked about this possibility back in spring training, but now that we know how bad the alternatives look, could a 46-year-old Vizquel really be that bad of an option? While Vizquel at his age probably couldn’t match Romine’s range or arm, Omar could probably play at least a passable short even if he were 60. And I’m 100% certain Vizquel would be an offensive upgrade over Romine. And more importantly, this would be fun! He can be fantasy eligible at both SS and 1BC (1st Base Coach). And the Tigers are all about fun: 

Most importantly, Omar Vizquel just seems like such a nice guy.  He has such a nice smile.  I just want to be his friend.

Brad Ausmus, Managerial Reform and the Great Spring Hope

For the second straight postseason, Jim Leyland completely botched the management of his bullpen.  But after no playoff appearances in 19 years, the Tigers have made the playoffs four times in eight seasons since Leyland took over.  Also, by all accounts, the players adored and respected him.  He wasn’t going to get fired, period.  So when Leyland announced his retirement this offseason, man, was I relieved.

But where’s the relief in getting rid of a strategically-challenged manager only to replace him with another one?  With candidates like Dusty Baker, Charlie Manuel and Lloyd McClendon being mentioned for the job, I have to say that I agree 100% with the choice to hire former catcher Brad Ausmus.  Because even though Ausmus has no managerial experience and we have no idea what to expect from him as a manager, the unknown is better than the known garbage.

The hope is that Ausmus turns out to be a superior in-game strategos while also commanding the same respect that Leyland enjoyed.  And that’s how I would break down the primary roles of a baseball manager:  Strategy and People.

  • Strategy: This includes all of the manager’s roles as the field captain (i.e. determination of lineups, substitutions and rotations; managing bullpens; making calls for pinch-hitting, pinch-running, defensive subs or double switches; defensive alignment).  Strategy gets the most scrutiny in the media, because it’s the most visible.  We see Grady Little decide to leave Pedro Martinez in the game in the 2003 ALCS and we all have an opinion as to whether or not it was the right decision.  (For the record, I think it was a justifiable decision.)
  • People:  This role regards the management of human capital.  This is where the term “manager” makes the most sense, because in this aspect the baseball manager’s role isn’t any different from the manager of any other kind of business.  The manager needs to be able to understand and connect with his personnel.  He needs to maximize the results of the team by understanding how to motivate his troops.  When the media refers to a manager that has “lost” his players or a clubhouse that is out of control, this usually reflects a perceived failure in the People portion of the job (e.g. Terry Francona with the 2011 Red Sox or Bobby Valentine with the 2012 Red Sox).

Both roles are crucial to the performance of a manager.  But few managers actually appear to be competent at both.  As most managers tend to be former players and/or older men who are, uh, perhaps, more set in their ways, they tend to make in-game decisions relying on either a.) not enough statistical data (i.e. rely on their guts) and/or b.) the wrong statistical data (e.g. small sample size batter vs. pitcher data).  With all of the information that is becoming available to us through more and more advanced statistics, it seems like we are getting closer to understanding the ideal choice in nearly any game situation.  But given the level of mathematical inclination required to truly understand advanced stats (much less develop newer and better models than your competition), it almost seems too much to ask for one man to be responsible for both Strategy and People.

So how about having co-managers, one for each role?  Alternatively, each team should employ a strategy guru that would be on the field and have discretion to make most on-field decisions, while ultimately reporting to the manager or the front office.  Look, I can tell you right now that I think I could handle the Strategy role for a major league baseball team; but from the People perspective, I don’t know if I could command the respect of a clubhouse with no baseball experience whatsoever.

But then again, maybe it doesn’t matter.  I do think the People role is important, but how much does it really matter?  Is there any way to quantify this in terms of wins and losses?  Most people would say that Leyland was good at the People part of his job, but I would say that his Tigers teams of the last few years have underperformed, despite the playoff appearances.  We have enshrined Bobby Cox, Tony LaRussa and Joe Torre into the Hall of Fame as managers, but we still don’t know definitively whether they were great leaders of men or just lucky enough to have been carried to championships by amazing players.

Do we even need field managers at all?  Honestly, they kind of look bored most of the time.  Can’t all of the Strategy decisions be handled by someone like the general manager, who can make those calls from a luxury box?  Can’t one of the players, like a team captain, handle the People portion of the role?  The demise of the player/manager role in baseball makes me slightly sad; I remember getting a Pete Rose baseball card when I was a kid and saw his position listed as “1B-MGR” and my mind was blown.  He’s a player…AND a manager???  How cool is that?!

Ultimately, stats have come a long way in determining the value of what players do on the field.  And it seems like we are getting closer, at least, to understanding the value of what managers do on the field (check out this paper from MIT Sloan’s Sports Analytics Conference).  But we’re still a long ways away from being able to quantify the effect of good managers on an organization off the field, much less figure out which managers are actually good and which are bad.  I mean, I have a pretty good idea, but it’s pretty hard to prove that because Joe Maddon brings magicians into the Tampa Bay clubhouse the Rays actually win more games.  Maybe these effects can’t be quantified.  And if that’s true, I guess that’s fine.  I’m okay with the mystery.  I’m okay with not knowing anything about how Brad Ausmus, the manager, will perform this season.  Because it’s spring, and because hope is the answer to every unanswered question in the spring.  Everything is going to be okay.

The Tigers and the Unbreakable Record

I try to avoid talking about the Tigers TOO much in this space, but I’m going to indulge myself a bit today:

– In case you missed it, the Tigers and Rangers played a scintillating back-and-forth game on ESPN Sunday Night baseball last night.  Despite getting three homers from the peerless Miguel Cabrera (seriously, how good is this guy?  The Rangers intentionally walked him in the 6th with runners on first and second and Fielder on deck.  Seriously?  Awesome to see him do this on national TV, yet bittersweet because of the loss), the Tigers blew leads of 4-1 and 7-5 to ultimately lose 11-8.  While it’s still May, this almost felt like a playoff game in terms of intensity.  The Tigers needed a win to salvage a tie with the Rangers in the series and to keep up with the red-hot Indians in the division, but ultimately fell short, dropping their record to a somewhat disappointing 23-19.  Now, I am somewhat skeptical about the annual Manager of the Year award given out in major league baseball; the award seems to go to the skipper of whichever team overachieves compared to what the writers think that they will do each year.  In other words, the award seems to go to the manager of the team about whom the writers were most wrong in the preseason (e.g. Oakland’s Melvin narrowly beat out Baltimore’s Showalter for AL honors last year; both teams were surprise postseason participants after having little to no presesason expectations).  But what about those teams that underperform lofty preseason predictions?  Despite their World Series run last year, the Tigers had a rather disappointing regular season, only securing the division in the final week of the season when they were expected to run away with the division title.  In fact, if it weren’t for such a weak division, they would have missed the playoffs altogether.  They seem to be on a similar track this year.  By the same logic, shouldn’t the manager get the blame for such consistent underachievement?  I’ve maintained to anyone who willing to listen that Leyland’s bullpen mismanagement cost the Tigers severely in last year’s World Series.  Over the course of the regular season, I thought previously that his mistakes were costing us perhaps one or two wins over the course of the season, but I may realize now that I may have underestimated.  People always talk about how the players love him and how he is just this great old-school guy, but where are the results?  I am perturbed.

– We’ve more or less reached the quarter-pole of the season, so about 40 games played for most MLB teams.  We’ve heard so much talk about so-called “unbreakable” records in baseball, such as DiMaggio’s 56 game hit streak, Cy Young’s career win record and Nolan Ryan’s career strikeout record.  But I’d like to take a moment to acknowledge (and to educate the public) about another record that I think will never be broken.  In 1984, the Detroit Tigers began the season 35-5.  That is not a typo; they won 35 of their first 40 games.  I guess forty games is kind of an arbitrary number, so that’s why this record probably doesn’t get as much hype as it should, but still… with every season that goes by and we see hot start after hot start fall by the wayside, I become more and more convinced.  The 1984 Tigers’ record is UNBREAKABLE.

Meanwhile, the 2013 Detroit Tigers, a team that boasts both the 2011 and 2012 AL MVPs still in their primes and picked by many prognosticators to return to the World Series in 2013, are 3-6 in their last nine games.  Sigh.