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When Joe Girardi removed David Robertson for Damaso Marte after just one batter during last night’s contest, the cries of “overmanaging” that first surfaced early last season and peaked during the playoffs began to emanate from the Yankee faithful. As I noted on Twitter, I hate that reaction in part because it is often espoused in situations where the move is perfectly logical, and in part because it is generally stated while solely considering the game at hand, rather than in the context of an entire season. There are various reasons for a manager making a move that some fans might see as overmanaging but is actually simply good managing:
1) Platoon advantage: While Joe may make pitching changes to obtain the platoon advantage a bit too often, it is hard to argue with the thinking behind a move such as the one he made last night. He was poised to use Robertson against Ortiz IF he retired Youkilis, meaning Robertson was effectively going to serve as the 8th inning man unless Youkilis got on base. When Youkilis reached, a situation tailor-made for Marte presented itself. Ortiz has awful numbers against Damaso, and Joba was available to finish the inning. Obtaining the platoon advantage when you have a bullpen that can provide plenty of innings is not overmanaging. It is simply managing.
2) Determining roles: Girardi needs to begin sorting his relievers by figuring out a pecking order so that he can most efficiently utilize his bullpen. Rather than establish a hierarchy out of the gate and then have months pass before certain pitchers pitch in high-pressure situations, Joe is throwing everyone into the fire right away, and will likely continue doing so for much of April. While this process may cost the Yankees a game or two along the way, it is almost certain to provide long term dividends.
3) Keeping everyone involved: The Yankees play a very choppy early schedule, with 3 off days interspersed among the first 7 games. By utilizing all of his relievers in short stints, Joe is helping keep everyone involved and fresh. It would simply be poor managing to leave a number of relievers on the bench during this span and have them be ice cold when you need them later this month. Only long-man Sergio Mitre has yet to make an appearance, and a number of relievers have appeared in both games.
4) Spreading the workload: A related point is that Joe tends to try and spread the pitching workload among all of his relievers, rather than just ride a hot hand. It is for this reason that, in the past, you might have seen a guy like Brian Bruney pitching in a spot that made you a bit uncomfortable, or Phil Coke pitching in a spot where Phil Hughes belonged. While Robertson can obviously handle a greater workload than he has been given over the last two games, his usage makes sense in the context of the other factors listed here.
The fact of the matter is, at the end of the season we will likely look back, as we have at the end of the last two years, and note that Girardi did an excellent job managing the bullpen, utilizing his best arms in the most important situations and keeping everybody involved and healthy. As THCM states in this comment, we have gone through this before. Joe may make the occasional mistake and overmanage a bit at times, but for the most part, it seems that he has a defined plan regarding his bullpen that results in its optimization over the long season. It is time to stop the “overmanaging” calls each time Joe trots out of the dugout.
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15 Responses to It's Not Overmanaging, It's Just Managing
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TIQ IQ
I think your first point is accurate and should be well-received. Unfortunately, we didn’t know what Girardi’s plan was vis-a-vis Robertson until AFTER the game, which made it look like Robertson was a one trick pony, brought in merely to face Youkilis, at the time.
I think you’re slightly overemphasizing the “spread the workload” argument. It’s more likely that Girardi is playing matchups than trying to make sure everyone gets game action at this point. And, if he is playing matchups, then it’s very difficult to determine roles. In other words, if he’s trying to determine roles then he would need a larger sample size from DRob, Joba and Marte than he acquired last night. If he was trying to determine roles (such as, for instance, whether DRob or Marte could man the eighth solo) then he probably would have had a longer trigger. I think he was just playing to win, and trying to plug different pieces in to face different batters. As you demonstrated in your first point, there’s nothing necessarily wrong with that. I agree.
I think that’s fair. If you’ll note, I didnt specifically link the last 3 factors to last night’s decision, because I honestly do not know his motivation. I do know that all 4 have been considerations for him in the past and therefore can be assumed to factor into his decision-making in the future. It is possible that last night’s decision in particular was based only on #1.
I didn’t actually notice that (linking the last 3). Thanks for pointing it out. Nice piece.
Reading through it, it probably wasn’t clear.
It’s poor managing….
Thanks for the contribution. Care to explain?
Yeah I agree. He didn’t over manage there, but we all know how labels stick, especially after a postseason of criticism. Grady Little never recovered his image after leaving Pedro in too long in 2003 ALCS. I suspect Girardi will have the “overmanager” label for a while.
I was one of the people vocally proclaiming it to be overmanaging, so let me offer up my defense: It’s overmanaging because the match-ups dictate keeping Robertson in. Marte is in there to face a lefty because Girardi seems to think Lefty-Lefty match-ups are better, but in this case, it was unnecessary. In his career, Robertson dominates lefties more than he does righties. Check out his career splits. It was, simply put, an unnecessary move, and it’s not just managing.
That’s fair as well. I will then point to the other factors and note that if you arent going to use Marte in that spot, when will he be used? With Joba available and Mitre there if it went to extras, I dont see the downside there and I get wanting to use Marte. That said, it is certainly possible that, as TAFKA (sic) said, this was purely a strategic move, in which case you have a point.
But even if you want to analyze last night’s bullpen usage from purely a matchups-based standpoint, I think the only way you can conclude that Robertson was definitely the right move there is if you look at Robertson’s splits against LHB and don’t look at any of the other available evidence… You also have to consider (1) that, Robertson’s splits aside, Ortiz, the batter in question, hits RHP better than he hits LHP, and (2) that Girardi/Eiland/etc. are watching, and have been watching for a while now, these pitchers, and may have just not loved how Robertson looked last night. At that moment – with Robertson putting Youkilis on base with no outs, with a one-run lead in the bottom of the 8th inning in Fenway, with a rested bullpen (including Marte) and with David Ortiz coming to the plate, I think it’s pretty hard to argue with the decision to go to Marte. Only taking Robertson’s splits into account fails to take into account a bunch of other considerations.
Score one for you, THCM!
Stats tell us (fans) the numbers but, no pitcher is the same every night…not even MO!
I can’t recall the player that said this…perhaps Tom Seaver or some other Yankee announcer…but he said that scouts and stats can only tell you so much. A scout can say the pitcher has a great fastball with a tail on it, but until a batter actually sees it, it doesn’t give you much.
Saying that DRob has great splits is a case in point. The only stat I care about is whether he owns Ortiz, like Marte’s stats indicate. We can find out about DRob vs Ortiz at some other point when the game is not on the line.
Just to follow up that last point, Ortiz is 2 for 15 against Marte and 1 for 2 against DRob. We really don’t know how DRob will do against him in a larger sample size. The DRob splits against lefties in general are meaningless compared to the 2 for 15 stat Marte brings.
I think a manager’s track record (if he has one) should always be taken into account early in the year when the topic is the pitching staff. Earl Weaver’s pitching staffs often got off to slow starts, but finish strong. It often was because he left starters in ‘too long’ and was figuring out what his BP was going to be in April. By August, the O’s usually were rolling-sometimes not fast enough to catch the yanks or Bosox or whoever, but often enough he did catch them.
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