MLB 2018 regular season thread

Gabe Kapler's alarming error adds to rough start as Phillies manager

Kapler has to be thankful that Villanova is playing for the national championship.

 

Kapler is the unfortunate result of the trend of MLB teams installing figurehead managers (i.e., extensions of the front office) who have little or no managerial or even coaching experience.

I'm all for managers using analytics to "optimize" lineups, matchups and in-game situations, but I'd also prefer they be comfortable with the mechanics of making pitching changes.

 

That ump was really caught in the middle, but I think he made the right call letting the pitcher warm up.

 

Kapler, who I covered and like and think is a sharp guy, is managing like someone who's spent weeks trying to learn a foreign language and is now visiting that language's home country. He's paralyzed because he has to think about moves (the equivalent of verb tenses and vocabulary) rather than having them come naturally to him. Also, I'll bet he's real gunshy after the bullpen meltdown Opening Day.

 

The bullpen meltdown that didn’t need to happen because Aaron Nola was cruising. There was absolutely no reason to make that change other than to say, “look how big my coconut oiled dick is.”

 

Felt more like a preplanned move made by management consensus prior to the game to me.

 

Agreed. It’s such a weird time for pitching right now. The Rays are using a four-man rotation with a “bullpen day” planned instead of a fifth starter. A postseason start that gets into the sixth inning is a rarity.

Everyone is tinkering.

 

It was completely preplanned, especially after Kapler stated in spring training that his
Bullpen was one of the strongest parts of the team. Now, after three days, he has them worn out.

 

Ohtani starts first game with 1-2-3 inning and two strikeouts.

 

Fun while it lasted—gave up three-run homer in second.

 

Unless I'm missing something, Kapler managed a single season of A-ball in 2007—11 years ago—and that's it. Everything I've learned in talking to managers, including minor-league managers serving long apprenticeships, speaks to the fact that the game clips along incredibly quickly when you're in charge of moving its many pieces. You have to know what you're going to do well before you do it. That's the problem with the pitching change, I think. Kapler didn't set things in motion nearly early enough. You can't wait until the situation is upon you to deal with it. You have to know the answer before the question is actually being asked. Which means you need to know the question will come.

In this instance, he had to know what he was going to do if his starter got in early trouble. Kapler obviously didn't.

It's weird that teams think that guys, however experienced as players, could just become managers without much in the way of practice or training. That runs contrary to baseball's entire system of development.

 

True, though part of it may be an opening-week thing. The Pirates yanked Trevor Williams with a no-hitter through six innings even though he had only thrown 85 pitches. Of course, the situation is different. Nola is a much better pitcher than Williams and the latter had walked five batters through six innings, but I'm still guessing both go a good bit deeper in their respective games if those games were later in the season.