A post like this could be made for just about every game. It's getting old at this point, but it's still worth documenting all the basic managerial mistakes Jerry Manuel makes.
1. Both yesterday and today, Angel Pagan led off the game with a base hit. Yesterday was a single, today a double. Luis Castillo, who has the 3rd highest OBP of anyone on the active roster and is hitting .341 in July, sacrifice bunted Pagan to the next base on both occasions. He squared around, leading me to believe a sacrifice was his intention rather than a base hit. The order to sacrifice likely came from the dugout. Sacrifice bunting is a dumb play in almost all situations. It's especially ridiculous in the first inning of a game. Here are the run expectancies for the pre-bunt and post-bunt game situations from yesterday and today, according to Baseball Prospectus's Run Expectancy Matrix:
Situation | Expected Runs |
---|---|
Runner On First - 0 Out | 0.88 |
Runner On Second - 1 Out | 0.70 |
Situation | Expected Runs |
---|---|
Runner On 2nd - 0 Out | 1.11 |
Runner On 3rd - 1 Out | 0.96 |
In both situations, the Mets were worse off because of the sacrifice bunt. Pagan scored in neither instance but that is beside the point. This non-stop bunting strategy is not "playing the game the right way", despite what Jerry thinks or what the ESPN Sunday Night Baseball announcers say. It hurts the offense and it's amazing that seemingly no one in the Mets multi-million dollar enterprise realizes it.
2. I'll keep this one simple. Brian Schneider had the 4th best wOBA of anyone in tonight's starting lineup. His projected rest of season wOBA according to ZiPS was 3rd best. So where did he bat in the lineup? 8th, naturally. Stuff like this irks me more than Tim Redding's walks or Jeff Francoeur's OBP. It's not rocket science that a manager should try to maximize plate appearances for his best hitters. In fact it's kindergarten level math, which Jerry continues to fail.