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.
When it comes to baseball management, there is a lot of focus on “the process.” If you have a good process, you should get good results. Sometimes though people mistake good results for a good process. The teams that can tell the difference between those two scenarios are the truly good organizations. Those that can’t are teams that are doomed to years of misery because they mistook one year of flukish good results for a good process. In other words, they are the Diamondbacks. I really don’t want the Angels to be the Diamondbacks.
If it ain’t broke, you might still need to fix it
In the first game without Albert Pujols after he strained his hamstring, Scioscia rolled out a predictably frustrating lineup. I was mad about before the lineup even announced because Scioscia is so very predictable. His lineup of Aybar-Giavotella-Trout-Calhoun-Freese-Cron-Joyce-Butera-Featherston was a bad one, but it managed to plate six runs, which is a big step forward for the struggling Angels offense.
But don’t mistake one game of positive results for justification of the lineup. This isn’t a good lineup, it isn’t quite as bad as I expected from Scioscia though.
The fatal flaw here is his mistreatment of the two-hole. There is copious amounts of statistical research that shows teams are best off putting their best hitter in the two hole. That guy is clearly Mike Trout, who had been occupying the two-hole up until now but Scioscia went away from that. Clearly what he wanted to do was move Kole Calhoun out of the leadoff spot in order to have a more fearsome and powerful hitter in the middle of the order in lieu of Pujols.
That’s a good idea by Scioscia, it is just a poorly executed version of it. Having Calhoun bat leadoff was considered a good idea because of his OBP skills an no viable high-OBP hitter in the lineup who was a better choice. That was before Johnny Giavotella turned out to not be a waste of space though. Calhoun was the best option available at the time, but he wasn’t an optimal choice. Kole has power and that power is somewhat wasted in the leadoff spot. If they could find someone with a comparable or better OBP, a little more speed and less power, that would be preferable. Through the first month of the season, Giavotella looks like he might be that guy.
If Johnny G. can really maintain something close to this level of production (and his BABIP suggests he might not be able to), the the Halos could slide Calhoun down to third or fourth in the order to make better use of his power and generally give the lineup more depth. Given how the Angels had been hitting through most of April, it is certainly worth giving it a shot.
Where Scioscia went wrong here was in dropping both Trout and Calhoun down and slotting both Giavotella AND Aybar above them. He doesn’t have power that would go to waste and he does have speed that could be utilized. The thing that he lacks though is the most important thing, on-base percentage. On his career, Aybar has a .312 OBP, which is a below league average OBP. That’s unacceptable for the guy who will get the most plate appearances on the team and be chiefly responsible for setting the table for Mike Trout. He’s not even riding a hot streak like Giavotella and his .380 OBP. Aybar is one of the many Halos off to a miserable start. He has no business hitting in the top half of the order.
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Sac bunt confirmation bias
This “hopey changey” stuff just isn’t working out, is it? It is 2015 and we still have to argue about why sac bunting is stupid. Thanks, Obama!
For at least the second time this season, Mike Scioscia had the runner directly in front of Mike Trout lay down a sac bunt, leading to an intentional walk of Mike Trout, the best player in this and probably most other parallel dimensions. On a base level, Scioscia wasn’t entirely out of his mind to do this. According to run expectancy, Scioscia improved the Angels expectancy by 0.11 runs when he had Johnny Giavotella (one of the three Angels actually hitting this year) give himself up with runners on first and second and no out.
That bunt itself actually reduced expectancy by 0.13 runs, but I’m going to give Sciosica the benefit of the doubt and assume he knew the sac bunt would guarantee a Mike Trout intentional walk and thus having the bases loaded with one out rather than just runners on second and third. That’s where the increase comes in.
However, run expectancy charts make no assumptions about who the actual hitters are. Having Mike Trout at the plate in whatever situation raises the run expectancy over any other hitter. There is a real penalty to allowing the bat to be taken out of Trout’s hands. How much? I couldn’t say for sure, but ask yourself if you think an additional 0.11 worth of run expectancy is worth not letting Trout hit. Yeah, that’s what I thought.
In this specific situation, the move “worked” for Scioscia because Calhoun came through with a big hit. That doesn’t mean the move worked, just like it wouldn’t mean that it didn’t work if Kole had hit into a double play instead. When you play against the odds, there is always a chance that you might catch a lucky break, that doesn’t mean you should keep betting on longshots.
I think it is pretty clear that this one is all Scioscia’s fau- WAIT! Hot off the wire! We have breaking news on this situation!
Johnny Giavotella bunted on his own today, by the way. Scioscia said he didn't want him to because he knew Trout would be walked.
— Jeff Fletcher (@JeffFletcherOCR) April 30, 2015
Interesting. On the bright side, Scioscia learned his lesson. On the down side, he isn’t controlling his players very well and they are doing things like dropping sac bunts on their own. That isn’t as big of an offense, but it is still on him to control that.
VERDICT:
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