The Astros have the best record in AL with Dusty. He's not going anywhere. The loyalty he shows to his players has paid dividends year after year. Having said that, Mancini needs more abs.
All of that is fine - and I don't have a problem with him getting fired. My point is that he doesn't make his teams worse and they don't win despite him. Every team he's been to prior to the Astros had some of their best seasons with him. They immediately improved in his first seasons, and they immediately got worse after he left. He still may be a mediocre manager and may not understand analytics well, but results don't show that he hurt his teams as a whole. It's funny that the primary complaints about Dusty are his unwillingness to actually use data and numbers to drive his lineup decisions; but the criticism of him ignores data and numbers when evaluating him and relies more on arbitrary things like "he lost the team" or "he's old" - sort of the same bizarro things he seems to use in justifying his lineups.
Not playing McCormick against lefthanders is indefensible. Not finding a way to get Mancini in the lineup to keep him prepared for the playoffs is indefensible. Not moving Pena to the 2 hole where he has an ops of 860 is indefensible. He has been gifted the best pitching staff in the majors and if managed correctly an offense that only has a couple of holes. We are winning in spite of him.
And yet, the numbers repeatedly show at every stop that hiring Dusty and letting him be Dusty leads teams to be better. So by that standard, not having Dusty is indefensible also. If we're going by numbers, of course. It's interesting that the critiques of Dusty no longer include "why isn't Vazquez the starter?! stupid Dusty!" anymore.
2015 and 2020. Every other year we finished top 2 in the AL, chances are we still make it. Unless you’re talking about the pre CS days, in which we only make the WS in 2019.
Never thought that Vazquez would start. The only reason Yuli is hitting at all is the protection factor. Being a successful manager is more than regular season victories. Dusty does not seem to be preparing for the postseason. Mancini came in tearing it up and has immediately been relegated to a bench role. I don’t have a problem with resting players, but you can do it in a lot smarter way. Pena should be batting second until its proven that the 860 ops in that lineup position is a fluke. No reason not to start McCormick against left handers. The Astros have not gotten better since Dusty came on board. They are winning at about the same clip as with Hinch. He was gifted the best baseball team in the American League and is doing ok. I know he won’t be fired mid-season and I’m not even advocating for that kind of disruption, but Click needs to start putting the hammer down on his lineup construction and refusal to play Mancini.
His ridiculous comment about picking Yuli because....gold glove was the tipping point. Yes Yuli and his glove are valuable but not anywhere near enough to evaporate a 600 ops and batting 230 while putting up mediocre power numbers from a power position, while having elite protection in the lineup all around him.
yes and he hasn’t been consistently good in the field this year. It’s a loyalty thing, but that will not win games in the playoffs.
Chas not starting vs LHP, and a bit more against RHP in CF (Meyers is something....) If they wanted defense first they never would have traded Siri Mancini sitting on the bench instead of DH/1B/LF These are the critiques.
For me, I don't really care what Dusty does the rest of the regular season with lineups. Personally, I think he is feeling stuff out, Stuff meaning the players. Giving his players time to shore up their weaknesses. I.E. Keep putting Yuli in there and hope he heats up. He knows Mancini's value. He will use him when it matters. But come playoff time, he better be putting in the best Lets Win Tonight Lineup every single game.
"But come playoff time" he'll just figure it all out, right? He has before, but that was with the bullpen/staff. I do not know what he is doing with the lineups.
Click openly said the front office gives more input in the playoffs. I don’t know how they get Dusty to obey, but he implied he (Click) and his team will help set lineup … and I assume bullpen / rotation too
I'm not really concerned with those critiques. But there are also things like "Dusty can never win anything" and "the team wins despite Dusty" type nonsense.
That's cool. Dusty's day-to-day lineups are ****ing ridiculous. His usage of Mancini cannot be justified.
I’d add this- Vazquez needs to catch everyone and do it more than once or twice between here and the end of the season. I’d like for him to supplant Maldy, but even if that’s not the case he should catch everyone multiple times to prepare for a Maldy injury or to keep optionality open for the playoffs. The rest won’t hurt Maldy any. He’s old and has caught a lot.
