Hinch managed the World Series very well. Those complaining about his handling of the pen in the WS need to realize he turned over every stone after Giles proved worthless. I didn’t like some of his line up decisions in the past but he had gotten better over time. Right now he knows this Astros team very well. He also is a huge positive in the clubhouse. Hard to rate managers because every situation is different. However in this situation Hinch is very good. Reminds me of Bochy when he really knew those Giants teams and what they couldn’t do.
You can't hold a manager accountable for a good player's poor performance unless the manager is actively causing the poor performance. You said yourself Hinch is great in the clubhouse, so we can rule that out. Should he bat Reddick 9th? Well, you just said above Springer staying at 1 was great for psychological reasons - wouldn't the same logic apply to Reddick? Ok, so Reddick goes 0-for and the bullpen melts down....somehow the manager is supposed to faith heal his players so they always perform well or he sucks?
It boggles my mind people are still b****ing about Hinch after he superbly managed his way to a ****ing WORLD SERIES title. For ****ing sake people. When will you guys give the man his due? He is one of the best managers in baseball and no matter what you think about your own knowledge, HE IS STILL SMARTER THAN YOU. Jesus Christ... If he cant get the respect of some of you, then who the **** will? /rant
Look, to all you guys piling on; Im not b****ing about Hinch in the present. I had my gripe with him in the past, in which imo, was well deserved. Hell, I might still have my gripes about him this year, but decipher b****ing with pointing out a gripe from year past and then decipher that with not giving credit to someone that already had a forced hand, like most. If yall want to anoint him a great manager, then thats yalls opinion. What if I told yall 2017 couldve been our 2nd word series chip? Ill leave this here. This, I will never forgive.
They lost that game by throwing their best bullpen pitchers at the time (which was Sipp, Harris, Gregerson), and had an error from their phenom SS that had 2 HR's that game. That team also featured a starting pitching rotation of Keuchel, McHugh, gimpy Kazmir, hurt Feldman, and rookie LMJ.... with Gregerson as the closer and Neshek/Harris as his set-up man. They won only 86 games. I'm not sure what you would have wanted Hinch to do every single decision... but they weren't as good as the Royals (who went on to win it all). But even then, if you want to look at why this team is where it is now... the learning issues from that year/series helped Luhnow/Hinch get better... and ultimately they built and managed a roster robust enough to win it all.
Quite the fun start to the year. This team is damn fun to watch, even when they go down in the scoreboard (hasn't happened too much yet this year) you just know they will come back and take the lead on a big play. That swagger. Love it.
My problem with that game was with Harris being left out there. Understandably he was great that year in relief but shouldve been pulled after giving up knocks to load the bases. Agreed that we werent the the better team in that series but the motto of postseason baseball has and always will be 'get in and see what happens' or 'get in, anything can happen' and that year anything couldve happened beyond that series if we wouldve won that game. Agreed that lessons were learned to improve beyond that but IMO, Hinch still has problems with his pitching staff usage. Luhnow put together an all star team that even Bo porter couldve gone on to do great things with(maybe). I love the fact that we won it all but giving Hinch so much praise and credit for not turning to his bullpen and instead using his off day starters to ride it out and close was pretty clear that was the best option. Several of us 'dumb/moronic' posters on here were even clamoring for it. Hinch is good at a lot but managing the pitching staff is not one of his strong suits, is al Im saying.
Guess I missed a lot of this discussion that seemingly started with my thinking Hinch was an incredibly valuable piece to the Astros playoff and World Series success. If anyone doesn’t think so, I don’t care. He clearly made the right moves and sometimes the right moves are no moves. You could just see the Red Sox, Yankees and Dodgers managers just itching to overmanage their bullpens. They were just chomping at the bit to take their starters out and play the relief game. Hinch simply managed game by game and did what he thought was best in the situation. Sure the bullpen was a dumpster fire at critical times. I don’t think there was a single manager in all of baseball who would have managed the Astros the same way Hinch did. How dumb was it for the Red Sox not to start Price? To me, he was the scarier pitcher for Houston to face. How dumb was it for Roberts to plan to pitch Kerhsaw until his arm fell off in game 7 BUT NOT START HIM? Hinch had no problem sitting Beltran. He had no problem benching Giles. Heck, if they had a better option, he probably would have benched Reddick. Who in the betting pool had Charlie Morton finishing 2 game sevens? Hinch did a great job. Of course, had Springer continued to struggle and the Astros lost , Hinch wouldd have been crucified. But, he didn’t. He justified Hinch’s faith. The Astros won 112 games and Hinch had a lot to do with it.
The next man up was Tony Sipp. Gregerson was the last good pitcher in the bullpen. It’s not like he was hoarding Mariano Rivera back there. You’re right... anything can happen. The Royals came back with an epic 8th inning rally. They’d been pulling that sort of magic out all year, and continued to do so in the two round after they beat the Astros. Certainly, could have been random.... or it could have been the MO of the best team in baseball that year. You truncate his managing to simply the 18 game post-season... and even then you fail to give him credit for winning those games with out of the box thinking. What about the 101 win team that preceded those 18 games? What about when he was managing a team to win games where the starting pitcher rarely went past 5? Or when Mike Fiers was the “ace”? In a world where managers are largely overrated in their impact in general.. one of the few ways they actually do contribute to wins is their management of the pitching staff. And for that, Hinch turned in a full season gem of a performance... and culminated it by breaking convention (and doing something he hadn’t done at all over the previous 162 games) and finding a way to get guys in (and leave them in) in a way that no other WS manager has ever accomplished. LaRussa gets credit for the one-inning closer, and generating set bullpen roles in general... but that line of thinking really does constrict the value of guys who can pitch multiple innings, and usage against teams that can’t catch up to their stuff. I also believe that teams should exhaust all resources in the playoffs... where there’s no need for a #4 or #5 starter, and plenty of off days. It’s an entirely different type of decision making tree that wins games, and he sure as hell accomplished that feat.
Yeah, no need for the pandering with the Rivera comment. Both Sipp and Gregerson had breakout years that year. Why wouldnt you bring one of them in while Harris was struggling? Since everyone wants to give credit for his multi-inning idea, Im sure that wouldnt have been so bad with either Sipp or Gregerson in that situation. A 6 run lead going into the 8th is more than a safe bet for any bettor and 10/10 times nobody puts a bet on the Royals coming back in that game. Giving credit where credit is due; hats off to the Royals for coming back, but couldve been prevented by stopping the snowball effect from Harris. But I dont, it just so happens that discussion of topic came to be World Series. Those 101 games were great, I credit Luhnow more than anyone with them. Fiers and Peacock were god sends when they pitched out of their minds during the regular season and that wasnt the masterful managing of Hinch. It was the great scouting by Luhnow. Last years team was stacked with offensive talent as well as this years and a lot of those games were won with offense, not to discredit alll of his managing of the pitching staff. He did a fine job. This was also all when the pen was actually decent as well. Like bobrek said in his last post, 'he thought he did a fine job and doesnt care what somebody else thinks'. Good, he shouldnt, as I dont, Continuing this back and forth to what people think of what I think has become rather cumbersome and I really dont care to continue. You think Hinch is great, great. I just wont give him the credit of genius managing when his hand was practically forced.
Hinch has improved and the players respond to him. He led us to a Word Series title and deserves that respect. I'm amazed how quickly some people have turned on Hinch. Won the World Series, 6-1 to start the season and here we go with the sillyness.
