This is for everyone who thinks Jimy Williams is an awful, horrible, POS son of a gun manager. Here is what I propose: during the game tonight, you just follow the game with keyboard at hand and the radio on (or, if you're fortunate enough to have a TV in the same room as your computer, that's fine too). And what you do is, post during the game how you'd manage the game. Want to yank the starter? Go ahead, but make sure your reliever of choice is warming up ahead of time. Want to leave the starter in when Jimy isn't? Just post that at the time Jimy makes the decision to remove him. "I'm staying with Villone here." Et cetera. If you want to do whatever Jimy is doing at a given time, post that you are "taking Jimy." Obviously there are situations where your move will have an indeterminate outcome. Jimy's won't, because it'll actually matter in the game. Pinch-hitting a different guy comes to mind. But that's okay, because the object of this game isn't necessarily to "beat" Jimy, the Giants, or anybody else. It's just to cut down on the second-guessing of Jimy and replace it with first-guessing ))from the vastly knowledgeable baseball fans that undertake this challenge. If you post a move that is different than Jimy's, and his doesn't work out, you will probably get some benefit of the doubt, as far as it can be applied. You have to start the game with the same lineup and starter the Astros do, naturally. I think it'd be cool if people did this for tonight's game, or at least the last one against the Giants, because those are difficult games where managerial decisions should have more of an impact on the outcome. But you could do it for the Brewers games too, if you decided. Sound fun?
Not really... maybe if I actually could manage the Astros, it would be fun. I stand by Jimy's decisions... even if they seem crazy at times. We all blame him for not leaving in the pitcher, but trust me... Villone is anything but a sure thing (ditto for Robertson and Redding). Jimy would ride Pedro like no other... why?... Because, Pedro has good stuff after the 6th inning. Houston pitchers don't have good stuff after the 6th... the only ones who do are Oswalt and Miller, and he normally won't stress Oswalt because of his injuries, and Miller's pitch count is normally too high to let him go past the 7th anyways (and when it hasn't been high, Jimy's let him pitch... he also has our only complete game). Secondly, if every other manager had the bullpen that we have, they'd be making moves similiar to Jimy as well... not letting the starter (especially mediocre starters) go much past the 6th in a close game. For once, the bullpen faltered... that's not Jimy's fault. We all like to manage with our gut instinct, and we also like to use hindsight in virtually every wrong decision this guy makes. We don't give him enough credit when things go right... compared to what happens when things don't go ok (regardless of whether or not he made a wrong decision). He's put these players in the position to win... and he's done far more with less talent than any other manager probably could have managed. The bottom line... he knows soo much more about baseball than any of us, its not even funny... and maybe sometimes he knows a little too much... but every time we say he made a "bad decision", its mostly because our players let him down. Once again... if we win that game last night like we normally do (Lidge, Dotel, Wagner)... nobody in here says one word.
Sorry... by the first sentence of the thread ("sorry, son of a gun, POS manager") I thought this was gonna be a modified version of a bash Jimy thread. In many ways, Jimy's games are already scripted before they even begin, so here's my go at this: Starting 3B will be Blum (Schmidt is a hard throwing RHP, ala Kerry Wood, and Blum gets those starts... he's also swining a pretty hot bat). Miller will pitch into the 8th IF (assuming he's had a quality start): 1.) We have a lead 2.) His pitch count is below 100 If Miller gets knocked around early, Jimy will bring in: 1.) Dan Miceli 2.) Rickey Stone 3.) Jared Fernandez (in that order) If Miller gets into the 7th, with a lead, but he's given up some runs and his pitch count is getting up there... Jimy will: 1.) Use Mike Gallo against any lefty, or weak hitting righty switch-hitter. 2.) Then bring in Lidge to redeem himself for last night. 3.) If Lidge has a quick 7th, or is not needed then, he'll pitch the 8th... until he faces a lefty (or Bonds)... then its Wagner time. 4.) Wagner will get the save if available. Dotel gets the night off b/c of his workload last night. Top pinch-hitters will be: 1.) Vizcaino 2.) Ensberg, Lane (against Leftys) 3.) Merced Pinch runners du jour: 1.) Colin Porter 2.) Eric Bruntlett.
Nick Do you find it at all questionable that Williams took out Villone after he retired 11 in a row, got the first out easily in the 7th (pop up to catcher) and had only thrown around 85 pitches? He also kept Bonds off base the entire game, something NO OTHER TEAM HAD DONE IN THE LAST 58 GAMES . In addition the batter he faced in the 7th was a right handed hitter. If he were to take out Villone, why not pinch hit for him in the 6th? Why not take him out before the inning started? Based on the criticality of the game, I would consider Williams taking out Villone equivalent to Dierker's decision to pitch Mike Jackson instead of Dotel in relief in game 1 in 2001. In each case, the manager based his decision on how he expected the substitute(s) to perform. In each case they didn't perform. Granted, had Villone stayed in the game, he may have given up a bunch of hits, but you know, he deserved the opportunity to continue. My gut feeling is that almost every player on that team wondered, what the hell was Jimy thinking.
Villone had a great outing... he did keep Bonds off base (miracously), and his defense showed up to play behind him as well. However, this is how I defend Jimy's decisions: I did find it questionable that Jimy let him hit in the bottom of the 6th... I reasoned that if anybody reached base in the inning, he would have pinch-hit for Villone. Thus, he didn't want to waste a pinch-hitter in that situation with 2 outs and not much of a chance of extending the inning. I also think Jimy wanted Villone to face Elgardo, who had looked pretty bad in each of his at-bats. The reasoning is, Santiago and Galaraaga would likely have much better success against leftys (in fact, Galaraaga already had), thus he took him out. Even if he had left him in to face Santiago (whom Lidge retired anyways), THERE IS NO WAY Jimy leaves him in to face Galaraaga who had hit the ball hard every single time he faced Villone last night. TELL ME THIS: If Jimy leaves Villone in to face one more batter (Santiago), and then takes him out vs. Galaraaga (due to the previous BOMB he hit off him, and the lefty-righty matchup), is anybody in here complaining about this move?? NO! The net result is moot since Lidge did retire Santiago anyways... he would have faced Galaraaga (and justifiably) no matter how great Villone was. Also, this is not equivalent to Dierker's decision... in that case, he made a move none of us were expecting, and he did it truly based on gut instinct (and Jackson's experience). In this case, Williams made the move we all expected... he stayed consistent with what he did in the past... and he played the percentages. (likelyhood of Villone reverting to the average pitcher that he is was greater than Lidge suffering a complete meltdown... which he eventually did.)
