It was a planned rest day to give him 2 days off. He'll be back on Friday. Whining about Reddick being in the lineup for the World Series, despite his struggles at the plate, is just so incredibly short sighted. It's almost as if there's more to the game than just hitting. I wonder what he could have been thinking by leaving one of the best defensive outfielders in baseball in the lineup during a slump. Hinch's moves (or lack thereof) keep playing out to the benefit of this team over and over. A team very rarely wins a World Series in spite of its manager.
I really love AJ Hinch. The decision to stick with Peacock to finish the game is one of his best decision. I hope his tenure is as long as the Angels manager.
Hinch earns his money more between games than in-game decisions, IMO. One of the best examples of Hinch's manager skills in my opinion is when he was asked if he should move Springer from the leadoff spot. He was taken off-guard by the question as it was simply a crazy idea considering how great a leadoff hitter Springer was. Hearing the comment, he knew Springer was likely hearing this crazy suggestion as well. He made sure to text Springer later to let Springer know he was Hinch's leadoff hitter and there are no thoughts to change that.
Baseball managers are at the mercy of their players performing, far more than the other sports. You can't draw up plays, or develop guys to work within a system. It's ultimately just pitcher v hitter, and there's only so much you do to tactically impact things. The Astros would be a great team with any manager, or frankly one of us deciding lineups and pitching changes. I just don't see a big difference between the best and worst managers when it comes to decision making. Frankly our front office dictates many things, and Hinch just implements them and makes adjustments. Managers primary job is basically clubhouse counselor. Trying to read guys, and keep them in their best mindset to get optimum performance. That is far and away their most important job, and by all accounts Hinch seems to be extremely good at doing that.
We just won the World Series, are 6-1 to start the season, and we are arguing the merits of Hinch as our manager? Ok...
Id say arguing is the wrong word. I simply pointed out why I dont give credit for something everyone seems to think was a miracle job. I never said he was a bad manager yet posters in this forum love to attack opinions, putting me in a position to defend my point, even if they read or took it the wrong way. This is pretty much exactly what I wrote in the first posts, yet you and everyone seemed to think, I didnt give him credit for being a solid manager. Funny.
While I don't think much of any one in-game decision to pitch a starter as a reliever in the playoffs, the plan ahead of time was to ride starters in the playoffs. Prepping the starters prior to games that they may be used as a reliever involved a lot of work by Hinch. Bullpen sucking just shifted the load even more to the starters. It was not some last resort as the only option that Hinch was forced to go to. It was Plan A with some tweaking. I don't remember what game it was, but after a late game, McCullers was doing his long tosses prepping for his next start. He didn't do them before the game in case he was brought in as a reliever. That's Hinch.
It was right after Game 6... it was surreal... like the prelude to Lord of the Rings' Return of the King
Hinch did take McCullers out of game 7 even though he was the only game 7 starter to not give up a run since Jack Morris in 1991.
i vividly remember peope calling into the rockets radio shows each offseason after the championships wanting Rudy T fired. alot of idiots out there.
Come on guys, we all know Hinch sucks. Hire Delgado as a player/manager. The Astros would be 7-0 with Delgado managing the team and he can lead off to fix the Springer problem.
Plenty of other managers had struggling bullpens and didn't just automatically go to running out all their starters by default. You didn't see the Dodgers doing it, for example, despite having all the same bullpen problems in the World Series. These decisions are obvious in hindsight, simply because they worked. Besides, it's not as clear cut as you pretend anyway. Game 7 involved using both Liriano (Astros' whipping boy) and Devo, who had failed earlier in the series.
Sure, but the Dodgers were known for their bullpen as a strength going into the World Series. Miles ahead of what we were trotting out. Although,wrong calls were made on Roberts' side, dont disagree with that, you still have to go to your strengths. Gregerson, Harris, Sipp, Liriano, Giles, all of them werent exactly a security blanket going into the WS. They all had major problems through the year and struggled in the playoffs throughout. The only one a lot of people felt safe with was Devo and he and Peacock were used heavily in each series by default as they were the only ones to prove effective. Im not saying nor ever said Hinch did a terrible job in the WS, hes just getting more credit than deserved imo for not going to his actual bullpen and instead going to his starters in relief.
Its like you have no recollection of what actually happened in the regular season... and that those 101 wins just came out of pure luck. (which isn't surprising, since you mis-remembered the 8th inning deficit in the 2015 Royals series). The fact that he had to adjust from what had got them there... and still ended up winning it all... is as good a managerial job as there can be. It doesn't take a genius to go Lidge-Dotel-Wagner every single game.... and yet that's what you're seemingly advocating for in terms of what "good managing" really is.
