Second Guessing Scioscia – New Season, Old Problems

Welcome to Second Guessing Scioscia, our look back at some of the questionable decisions that Mike Scioscia made in the last week. And, boy, there are some questionable decisions to be reviewed. In the history of this column, we have never once struggled for content. However, we aren’t anti-Scioscia. The official MWAH stance on Scioscia is pro-Scioscia overall. But his in-game tactics need some help and we are here to provide that help by nitpicking incessantly and grading them with our patented SciosciaFace grading system.

Scioscia is kicking off this new season by showing that last year’s round of Second Guessing Scioscia has taught him absolutely nothing. You can’t teach an old dog new tricks but apparently you can’t teach an old dog to stop doing his lousy old tricks either.

4/6 & 4/7 – Johnny G. stays in the game
So here’s the thing. The book on Johnny Giavotella coming into the season was that he is definitely a bad fielder and almost certainly a bad hitter. Basically, he’s bad at baseball. One would think that you would try and minimize the amount of time a bad baseball player actually played for you. Look, I get it. Someone has to play second base.

However, Mike Scioscia had opportunities in each of the first game to remove Giavotella from the game in favor of a better hitter and/or fielder. On Opening Day, Giavotella came to the plate in the eighth inning with one on and one out and Danny Farquhar on the mound. Scioscia could’ve gone to Efren Navarro in that situation, but that would’ve resulted in Charlie Furbush coming to the came, so that would’ve either meant losing the platoon advantage or burning Navarro to bring in Cowgill or Featherston. Because the upgrade offensively isn’t massive in this situation and would’ve burnt half the bench, I understand standing pat. Giavotella runs well, so he’d be hard to double up and he is at least a good bet to put the ball in play, so sticking with him is certainly defensible.

The next night though was far more puzzling. The Angels were in a tight 2-0 game and Giavotella was leading off the eighth inning. This isn’t a high leverage spot, but because the Mariners just inserted Yoervis Medina into the game to start the inning, Scioscia had a golden opportunity to pinch-hit with Matt Joyce, a strong OBP player. For some reason Scioscia stuck with Giavotella.

The only justification I can think of for this is wanting to save Joyce in the event the game gets tied up, but even if that were to happen, who would Joyce really hit for other than Giavotella who’d likely only bat again if the game went into extras. Even if that is what Scioscia is scared about, Navarro is still seems like a superior option to Giavotella here.

What’s more is that Scioscia then let Johnny G. go back in the field for the eighth and ninth. Everyone agrees that Taylor Featherston is a superior defender and there is very little chance that spot in the order comes up again. Scioscia claims that he believes Giavotella’s defense is improved now, but I kind of wonder if Scioscia just doesn’t want Featherston making his MLB debut, where he could possibly be very nervous, in a high leverage situation.

In both cases, Scioscia had two assets at his disposal and just let them rot on the bench. Neither were likely to make significant improvements to the Angels’ fortunes, but there was also no real risk in deploying those assets.

VERDICT:

4/8 – The Calhoun sac bunt strikes again

RUNNERS	EXP_R_OUTS_0	EXP_R_OUTS_1	EXP_R_OUTS_2
000	0.4552	0.2394	0.0862
003	1.2866	0.8873	0.3312
020	1.0393	0.6235	0.2901
023	1.8707	1.2714	0.5351
100	0.8182	0.4782	0.1946
103	1.6496	1.1261	0.4396
120	1.4023	0.8623	0.3985
123	2.2337	1.5102	0.6435

via Baseball Prospectus

God dammit. I know it was like six months ago, but we JUST covered this, Sosh. You made the moronic decision to attempt a sacrifice bunt with Kole Calhoun in the ALDS. I thought we agreed to never commit this blunder again?

No, you had to go and do it again just three games into the season. What’s weird is that it wasn’t even really a situation where playing for one run is even remotely prudent. The Angels led by two, had a runner on first an no outs. But for some reason Calhoun was asked to bunt. (Before I go further, I listened to this game on the radio, so if Calhoun was actually bunting for a hit, let me know.) Kole laid it down successfully, the runner moved over and the run expectancy of the inning went from 0.8182 to 0.6235. For those keeping score at home, that is a decrease of 0.1947 runs.

OK, fine. But baseball is a chess match, you have to think a few moves ahead. What followed the bunt was completely and utterly predictable. Seattle immediately jumped on the chance to intentionally walk Mike Trout, and move the run expectancy to 0.8623, so that they could pitch to Albert Pujols in a great double play situation. Pujols didn’t GIDP, so the prophecy wasn’t entirely fulfilled, but Scioscia essentially opted to take the bat out of Mike Trout’s hand in order to MOVE their run expectancy by .0441. This we cannot condone.

The only possible mitigating factor here is that Calhoun was facing a lefty in that situation, so maybe Scioscia just didn’t like the match-up and decided bunt rather than risk a double play. However, as we’ve covered at great length previously, Calhoun handles lefties just fine and if Scioscia doesn’t believe that, he shouldn’t be letting him bat leadoff against southpaws. So, yeah, not buying that line of logic. Sorry.

VERDICT:

4/8 – Alvarez over Ramos
A curious moment in the Wednesday night win was when Scioscia went to Jose Alvarez as the first lefty out of the pen. Jose came in for one batter, taking care of Logan Morrison to lead off the bottom of the seventh. Great. Grand. Wonderful. But where was Cesar Ramos?

Nothing against Alvarez, but he’s not got a proven track record in MLB or a lot of relief experience. Ramos is no great shakes himself, but at least he knows what he’s doing.

Upon further examination, Ramos remained unused because Scioscia was actually planning ahead. Just five batters away was Robinson Cano. If things started getting scary in the seventh, it would be nice to go back to the pen for a LOOGY to combat Cano. That didn’t happen and Ramos never got in the game even when Cano came up in the eighth, but this seems like a good example where keeping a bullet in the chamber in case of emergency is a pretty good idea.

VERDICT:

4/8 – Pitching around Seager
Alright, get that run expectancy table ready again but also get your “old school” unwritten rules rulebook ready because Scioscia spat on both of those with this move.

Scioscia did his best to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory during Joe Smith‘s eighth inning highwire act in the series finale with Seattle. Already in the precarious position of having opposing runners on second and third with one out trying to protect a two-run lead, Scioscia consulted with Smith on what he wanted to do with the dangerous and left-handed Kyle Seager. The compromise they came to was to issue an intentional unintentional walk to Seager, throwing two balls out of the zone that he didn’t chase before just giving up and actually giving him the free pass.

What this of course meant is that Seattle now had the go-ahead run on base and saw their run expectancy jump up by 0.2388 runs. These are both very bad things. The only good thing that come out of this move was that Smith got to face Rickie Weeks. Weeks is a righty and Smith kills righties. Smith also induces a lot of grounders, so this was a good opportunity for him to take full advantage of his platoon advantage and escape this situation unscathed, especially since Seattle had no left-handed pinch-hitting option available with Seth Smith out due to injury.

Essentially, this is a spot where it is important to note that the run expectancy table does not account for the specific match-up. Smith vs. Seager is scary for the Angels. Smith vs. Weeks is not. Don’t get me wrong though, putting the go-ahead run on base is still a terrible, terrible idea regardless of who is due up.

VERDICT: