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To a certain extent it is Mo’s fault.
1.) He misread the Peralta situation.
2.) He thought (hoped) Grichuk would bloom and be a consistent,solid middle of the order bat.
3.) He counted on Piscotty to be a middle of the order bat.
4.) He signed Fowler, the #4 ranked position free agent, to be a positive
Influence and bring a championship attitude and leadership. He was an asset when healthy, but it skewed the lineup.Fault scoreboard:
Mo’s 60%
Players lackluster performance 35%
Matheny 5%I think that’s about right.
To a certain extent it is Mo’s fault.
1.) He misread the Peralta situation.
2.) He thought (hoped) Grichuk would bloom and be a consistent,solid middle of the order bat.
3.) He counted on Piscotty to be a middle of the order bat.
4.) He signed Fowler, the #4 ranked position free agent, to be a positive
Influence and bring a championship attitude and leadership. He was an asset when healthy, but it skewed the lineup.It’s not as simple as doing that. There are pluses and minuses of both MO’s moves and Matheny’s managing. Mo has a list of moves he made that kept us in the hunt until the 3rd week of September.
I just put together a quick summary based on the many opinions and data presented. I netted the pluses and minuses for everybody and I think I got the consensus about right.
It’s not a “fault conversation”.
All that does is try to lay blame. It’s a comparison of good moves and weak moves. Mo made good moves getting Gyorko, Martinez, deciding with Mike to bring DeJong up and play him at SS, etc.I don’t mean for this to appear to be nitpicking, bccran, but you seem to keep giving the manager credit for minor league call ups. Unless you have evidence to support the contrary, I tried to explain why he is probably not the driver of those decisions.
Specifically in the case of DeJong, he was already playing SS in the minors. I am pretty confident that Matheny had very little to nothing to do with that. He did, however, put DeJong in his lineup over Garcia when Wong was out. However, Paul made it easy for him by homering in his initial plate appearance (as a PH) and getting a single and double in his first start.
Regarding the time line, DeJong came up in late May and played the vast majority of his time at second for a month while Wong was twice on the DL. He only took over at short when Diaz cratered and was sent down in late June. By then, DeJong had shown enough to keep playing.
“To a certain extent it is Mo’s fault.
1.) He misread the Peralta situation.
2.) He thought (hoped) Grichuk would bloom and be a consistent,solid middle of the order bat.
3.) He counted on Piscotty to be a middle of the order bat.
4.) He signed Fowler, the #4 ranked position free agent, to be a positive
Influence and bring a championship attitude and leadership. He was an asset when healthy, but it skewed the lineup.”What we dont know is how much input MM had on these decisions. Certainly if one thinks that MM has significant input over minir leaguers you have to think he has even more over the major league roster. But bottom line is that we will probably never know.
as much as i wasnt a huge fan of going after Turner last offseason it really seems like we swung and missed for what to figure out
not that Turner would be the best #3 hitter but he seems like the type of #3 hitter we needed
but we did not go after him and instead bent the knee to the fans who were clamoring about how bad Grichuk was in CF (even though eh really didnt rate that poorly)…and then we got Fowler (even though some of our best prospects were CFers)
add in that management thought Peralta was ok (why woudlnt they?) and having plenty of internal handcuffs for 3b…Turner just didnt seem the guy to go with
sure it is all hindsight…and Turner had some red flags too…but not getting that veteran middle of the
order bat really messed us up… we added a good player in Fowler but he was pretty redundant within the the team (leadoff we already had, Cf prowess we had coming from the minors at worse and Grich wasnt THAT bad, even speed in the running game we had coming up from the minors)we put our entire hope for production in the middle of the lineup (and the lineup itself) on:
-Carp at 3 which he never did…just projected him to do well in it
-Piscotty to at least provide similar production…
-Grichuk to get a little better…didnt..stayed the same
-PEralta to provide steady even if declining ability
-Diaz being productive again and at least not WORSE at SSall 5 of those things did not work out…that’s basically 2-5 in our lineup…you could even put Fowler leading off and igniting us as something we banked on and it didnt happen…so 1-6 in our lineup was all hopes and all of it flamed out…and MM had to find a way to make something work…but when your offensive team makeup plan goes 6/8ths in the wrong way…what are you supposed to expect?
that is why i think MM did a pretty great job managing this year…not because he didnt make mistakes, and didnt cost us some games with his decisions IMO, but because he took all the poor play, injuries, and misputtogether parts and found a way to put a playoff contending team on the field..
Mo had a long interview with Tim McKernan. Here is an especially interesting quote.
Mozeliak on criticism of Matheny: “It is sort of interesting for a guy who gets beat up that he’s never had a losing season.”
I literally face palmed myself reading Mo’s comments. When Matheny (not if) gets fired Mo’s bags better be packed because he’s the one who created this mess and is in denial. Unbelievable.
It could be called sunk costs. You’re right that Mo will sink or swim based on what Matheny does. He can’t distance himself from Matheny now.
- bccran
IMHO, the move that most messed us up this year was signing Fowler. It pushed a player who prides himself as a selective lead off player who draws a lot of walks into the #3 hole. Mo should have left Carp where he was and gone after a proven #3 hitter.
But Fowler finished the year with a .698 OPS hitting leadoff and an .808 OPS from the #3 hole.
Further, he had 13 games batting 2nd, 22 batting 3rd, and 18 batting 4th. Batting 1st was actually his worst batting spot. I’m perfectly fine with Fowler batting somewhere other than 1st going forward. His only issue was playing poor CF defense. With Pham around, shifting Fowler to LF would be fine with me.
Carpenter finished the year with a positive base-running number per Fangraphs. He also has been a plus base-runner for his career.
I don’t get the criticism of Mozeliak.
The Holliday trade, Mujica, Neshek, Bowman, Duke ~ 2016, Oh ~ 2016, Peralta & Diaz….
Then the big ones, Gyorko for Jay was huge. Gyorko looks like a big bargain for us. Then there is the Lackey deal, which is pretty much one of the most lopsided trades ever, especially considering Dylan Carlson (the FA compensation from the Cubs) looks like a future MLBer as well.
The Heyward trade was, imo, a positive. The Moss trade looks like a positive even if he didn’t do all that great. The misses have all been recent and have been free agent pitchers – Leake and Cecil. However, no one was questioning the Cecil deal at the time.
Many seem to think bringing on Oquendo and McGee putd more pressure on Matheny. I think it is the opposite, having 2 fan favorites on the coaching staff will make it less likely for the casual fan to criticize the manager.
Pads, I don’t consider it a major point, but there was definitely some criticism of the Cecil deal at the time, both due to years and money. Of course, had he pitched better, most of it would have been washed away.
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