Terry Collins stayed with Matt Harvey and a high pitch count that eventful October night in 2015 at Citi Field. Facing elimination, it was Harvey and the baseball with eight shutout innings.
Collins and the Mets were three outs away. Harvey was running out of gas with a high pitch count. The manager listened to Harvey who pleaded to stay in the game. We all know what transpired after that moment.
“Obviously I let my heart get in the way of my gut,” Collins would explain after the Mets lost to the Royals and failed to win a third World Series championship.
Then, analytics was at the beginning of changing game situations and decisions of the manager. Collins, yeah, he went with his decision.
But In a totally different era, 1986 and the Mets World Series championship, then, it was all about the manager Davey Johnson.
Johnson did not have analytics to make the decisions. It was baseball the way it played out and decision-making from the manager in the dugout. Scouting reports, then, dictated many of the in-game decisions.
But not Tuesday night. That was different as the Dodgers beat the Rays and won their first World Series championship since 1988. And it was that word analytics that played a role in the decision-making of manager Kevin Cash.
And as the Mets await Steve Cohen, with an increased emphasis on analytics, game situations will change. The manager will have limited control. Tuesday night, Kevin Cash had to face the music… He had to answer.
The answer from Cash, it was his decision to lift Blake Snell. The manager was protecting his job. He could not go against the front office and the wizards of math that are making the decisions and told him to go with their plan.
So if you are an enthusiast, if you thrive on baseball, if you anticipate what is hoped to be a normal 2021 season, well think again because analytics as we saw again Tuesday night might ruin your appetite.
Under normal circumstances, Kevin Cash is not taking the ball away from Snell. He was in control, and commanded his pitches. The Dodgers knew he was untouchable. Snell, perhaps had the best game of his career until that point. Perhaps better than any game in his 2018 AL Cy Young Award season.
But Cash went with the analytical report. Go with Nick Anderson. He was the Rays’ best reliever though he struggled a bit in the postseason. Yet Snell was lifted after 5.1 innings and a pitch count at 73.
Listen to this explanation .
“Dodgers chances of winning went from 10 % to 80% and cost the Rays the series,” said a former advanced scout.
“We knew the Rays would do this. 5.1 innings, two hits, no walks, 9 strikeouts, 73 pitches. Little Leaguers throw more pitches than that in six innings.”
Think again. It was not the manager. Analytics is synonymous with baseball now. Analytics, once again, has changed the complexion of Major League Baseball. It has changed the way managers will make moves — even during a Game 6 of the World Series.
Despite the anticipation of a seventh and decisive game, the Rays were instead eliminated… Analytics got in the way and that will surely continue as the game moves on next year and many after.
Don’t get me wrong, analytics are not all bad and in fact have done much to make the game more interesting. But there’s a time and a place and the sixth inning of Game 6 of the World Series was definitely not the place.
Social media reactions were harsh. The analysts including Alex Rodriquez and Harold Reynolds were irate.
Fans were irate at the manager, but they are not in the know. Baseball higher-ups did not want you to know that it was them and analytics scripting a pivotal World Series game.
Go back to 2015, 1986. Or Bob Gibson, Roger Clemens and all the other Hall of Fame pitchers that threw over 100 pitches and had shutouts going into the 9th inning of a World Series game.’
It was baseball then. It was the manager that went with their gut and let the pitcher throw.
A former and recent MLB manager said to yours truly more than one time:
“I have no control. The lineup is on my desk before I get to the ballpark. The game had to be managed with a script. It is out of control.”
But analytics is in control and with that increasing dependency to use numbers and not managerial instincts. We saw that Tuesday night and we will likely see more in the years ahead.
So get ready for the 2021 Mets with more analytics, because baseball and the front office are convinced this is the route to go.
