Didn't you see how he calmed Framber yesterday and got him out of his mental funk? Or how he convinced Hunter to throw more mediocre fastballs instead of just relying on his terrific breaking stuff, balooning his ERA and costing him ROY? You cannot replace leadership and preparation like that. In all seriousness, the reason I have moved from frustration to anger on this is the repeated private - and even public - insinuations by Maldonado himself that any suggestion he reduce his time is a grave insult. His ego is bigger than the team, which is unforgiveable for a player whose ONLY stated value by his defenders is his leadership. Dusty supporting him, then the water carriers like Michael Schwab or Chandler Rome lecturing us like baseball newbies that as long as Diaz is in the lineup we should all be happy, just increases my aggravation.
1 million percent this. The maldy truthers believe they have some insight into baseball that ignores everything quantifiable about the game. It’s so stupid.
Now that even Framber is struggling on his watch, it really feels like he's contributing absolutely nothing. A backup who is getting significantly better results in every facet of the game. I imagine nothing will change until the offseason or until we go into desperation mode if we fall out of a playoff spot. It's still immensely aggravating.
I am rapidly losing hope for 2023. I keep hearing "thats why its so hard to repeat" but Dusty's stupid starting/lineup decisions are killing this team as much as pitcher fatigue is. 1) a 50/50 split of Maldy and Diaz from May when it obvious Diaz is a player through the end of the season. Diaz plays 1B and DH once per week throughout the season along with 3-4 starts at catcher. 2) sitting Abreu 1 day a week, dropping him to the bottom half of the order after the first few weeks showed how bad he was, and noticing his back injury immediately and sending him to the IL just as quickly. 3) sitting Julks on the bench at least 5 days per week from day one like he would for any other unproven rookie who was not supposed to even be in contention for a roster spot during spring training. 4) Put a 6 inning / 3 times through order cap on all SP, especially after the injuries reduced the rotation to young unproven guys. At that point it was paramount the SP needed to be protected from overuse and injury. I wholeheartedly believe if Dusty had done these 4 things from day 1 this team would currently hold the ALW lead and #1 seed.
But but but... Dusty has a ring and knows more about baseball than all of us and he has more information on the team than any of us peasants.
I don't know how to post the statcast board...but look at these % rankings for Maldonado. This is absolutely f**king embarrassing. https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/savant-player/martin-maldonado-455117?stats=statcast-r-hitting-mlb Also his catcher OPS is worse, and his catcher ERA is noticeably worse than his backup.
This season has been a complete disaster, all I'm hoping for going forward is that next season the team will be healthy and they'll dump both Maldonado and Dusty.
He is way too full of himself to be a manager. One of the first qualities you should look for in someone to be a manager is ALWAYS putting the team first Maldy is a selfish b****...and the "manager" he is learning from now puts personal bias over winnings on almost a daily basis
Last nights game was pivotal. Desperation mode is called for now. If something is not done to spark some life into this team post haste the season will be lost. If Brown is going to be the GM we hope for he needs to assert himself now. End the Dusty foolishness or release him. Bring up Loperfido for Singleton. Try Whitcomb in place of Hensley. Bat Bregman first in the line-up. Keep looking for that spark. Show the team that you are doing everything you can and ask them to step up to the situation. There is no clear path to the play-offs without an infusion of new energy before time runs out.
Maldonado had the audacity to call a team meeting after the Seattle sweep. I miss having Brian McCann as my washed beloved catcher.
