We Yanks fans in general think Scioscia's a terrific manager, and that if anything he consistently outmanaged us in the series.
But there's this 1 thing I wondered about all series, and I think it did cost you:The platooning/switching of the second basemen.
FEW teams do that, especially good teams. I haven't checked to see, but offhand I'd say it's RARE to see playoff teams platooning or switching around like that at 2B or SS, either during the season or in the post-season.And that makes sense, because at those positions, the teamwork and the moving around are COMPLEX, really like choreography -- and so we can see why teams would want the SAME GUYS to be there.
I didn't notice that the announcers ever mentioned this, but I was thinking of it constantly -- and I thought I kept seeing plays where this might have been a factor.I dunno, maybe the two guys just aren't terrific in the field, period.But.......starting with that play where Izturis threw to 2nd to try for a non-existent DP, and continuing through this game where Kendrick missed that throw at 1B on the bunt, among other plays ........I had to wonder.
So, my question is: Is this something that YOU ALL have wondered about?Is it something that has been much discussed or questioned during the year?
Way way back in the day -- in the '50's -- my Yanks went against this (with Casey Stengel), and somehow it worked out all right. And the Mets of '86 are another example -- they kept switching between 2 guys at 2B.But otherwise, I'm pretty sure winning teams don't much do it.I think what we saw in this series might show WHY, and maybe it's amazing that the Angels were able to get away with it during the year as much as they did.....
Personally I dont question managerial decisions.
Anyone who is brought into a game is capable of playing at a high level.
In our case our players made mistakes that may have cost us the WS.
Even if the plays were made and it all evened out who's to say we(the Angels) would have come out ahead?????
Its baseball. It happens. Its cool.
Kudos to the Yankees.
See ya next year.
The 2B platooning has worked well all year.
But many of us have questioned Mike's C platooning.
Defensively, Mathis is better than Napoli. How much better is debatable. Some think a little, some think a lot.
Offensively, if you look at career, and any numbers until about August or so this year, Napoli is one of the most productive hitters in the league at any position, and Mathis is one of the least productive at any position.
When Vlad was hurt, Napoli DH'd in the games he didn't catch. Twice this year when Nap played long streaks of consecutive games (16 and 18) he hit very well.
When Vlad came back, there were no more DH at bats for Napoli, and after a couple of weeks of reduced playing time, he stopped producing almost completely, for the last couple months of the season.
What Mathis did in the postseason with his bat was something he's never even HINTED at being able to do before.
With all that background, the catcher situation next year will be interesting, to say the least.
Good and interesting post......I think platooning at catcher is generally a GOOD idea (unless you have someone like Mauer), even if it doesn't seem to be, because it gives both of the catchers A LOT OF REST and lets them be fresher in September and October when you need them most.I've been saying this about the Yanks for years, even with them having a guy as good as Posada. He has usually been way off his game at the end of the year, and I thought it was because they let him catch way too many games. This year he DID get more rest, and I think it helped.
I know you were talking specifically about Mathis and Napoli in terms of their particular abilities, rather than a general theoretical thing.As a theoretical thing, I don't think platooning at catcher (or pairing up each catcher with certain pitchers) is a problem.I DO think it's a problem at second base, and I think we saw that in this series, even if it worked OK for the regular season.
About MATHIS......what a mystery, with all those doubles suddenly.Although.......it's funny....a couple of years ago he hit a lot of doubles in part-time play, and it looked like a fluke because after that he hit few doubles -- till THIS.
As much as I love Mighty Mice-Hair, I still think HK should get the large majority of games at 2B. Maicer can be a super sub, but he has had some injury problems in the past when he's played too much. I think Howie still might be a batting champ or at least contend IF given as many ABs and games as possible. The problem this year was Howie struggled early and was sent to the minors for a while. Next year we hope things will be vastly different. I think HK led the majors in BA from July 4th on when he was brought back.
I remember Wally Backman and Tim Teiful sharing 2B for the '86 Mets with Wally getting more time than Tim.
As far as the catching sitch goes, I would not be surprised to see Napoli getting traded to improve the team in other areas. We shall see.
BTW who's in your avatar?
The 2nd base platoon came about from Kendrick having a terrible start to the year. It was his job full time from the start of the season. But he cam out with a very cold bat, was trying too hard. He got sent down to AAA for a while.
In the meantime Izzy more than earned his keep filling in. Izzy is the better defender and was tagged to be the backup at SS and 2nd. He can also play a very good 3rd base.
So when Howie came back up from the minors after getting it back at the plate he started playing against lefthanders as he handles them quite well. It just sorta stayed that way the rest of the way out.
I think it's Howie's job full time next year. But I like Izzy a lot both at the plate and defensively. Howie can exceed Izzy offensively but Izzy has the better glove.
Either guy should be an everyday player on the ML level.
Yes, I agree with you that in general, platooning of catchers is a good idea.
The problem I have with Scioscia's way of doing it is that historically, he usually does it very close to 50/50.
However the disparity between the offensive production of Napoli and Mathis has been so huge, it seems (to me) like Napoli should get about 70-80% of the playing time.
In addition, the Angels had a PERFECT SOLUTION to the problem this year. Napoli is one of those rare players who actually likes playing DH and produces at the plate just as well at DH as he does when playing his regular position.
The Angels' hottest streaks this year came when Napoli was playing every day, serving as the DH when Mathis caught. His DH production was far better than Vlad Guerrero's. Yet when Guerrero came back, Scioscia made Vlad the full-time DH, and Napoli went back to part-time catcher, and then stopped hitting.
What Scioscia should have done was to continue to DH Napoli whenever Mathis caught, and only DH Guerrero when Napoli was catching. Then I would have been OK with continuing the 50/50 catching split, and although there's no way to prove it, I'm absolutely convinced the Angels would have been a far, far better team the last two months of the season, and the postseason as well.
As for 2B, Kendrick had been Mike's guy, but he didn't produce and was sent to the minors. After he was called back up, he only started vs. lefties. OK, I didn't have a problem with that... clearly he was producing better vs. lefties, and Izturis was producing better vs. righties.
What I disagreed with, is that, in my opinion, ANY time you have a platoon situation, you should look for an opportunity or two every month to test your players and see if they have improved and might deserve a shot to be full-time again. Mike Scioscia doesn't do this. Kendrick's numbers after he returned were so outstanding (granted almost exclusively against lefties) that I think Scioscia was derelict in his duty for not giving Kendrick the opportunity to show whether or not he could now hit righties. (After all, except for the start of this season, Kendrick had hit righties just fine throughout both his minor league and major league career.)
Thanks for the interesting conversation!
Nice post.......I'm enjoying getting this extra info to understand what was going on.Yet, I still don't.I'm really wondering why Scioscia didn't go with something more consistent at 2B these last few weeks.I wonder also if this "issue" (in quotes because I'm not sure it really is an issue, or just my imagination) .....I wonder if this issue has been raised to him, and whether he's commented on it.Does he not think it's a problem to switch around the 2B's like this?If he doesn't, he's sort of going against history.
You're right that with those Mets, Backman got more of the time at 2B, at least during the post-season. I think it was a lot more divided during the season.
Thanks for being interested in the Avatar. It's RED RUFFING.Actually it's a poor pic of him, doesn't look much like him.But it looks like me, which I why I have it. :-)
Thanks to you also for all that info.BTW......is it just me, or does this scream "trade"? Both of those guys are overqualified to be just a backup.
The more I hear from you guys, the more I'm puzzled that Scioscia didn't decide to go with the same guy (whichever) for the whole last part of the season and especially the post-season.
If I could pick one person in the world to sit down with for 5 minutes and talk about something, it would be with Scioscia to talk about this.I mean, maybe not really :-) but this would be close to the top pick.
.....and thanks to you also.I'm impressed by the level of the talk here, and also that nobody accused me of being a 'troll' or trying to make trouble, which I wasn't at all.
About Kendrick-Izturis: It sounds like Scioscia just doesn't view 2B as mostly a DEFENSIVE position .....or else that he just doesn't buy the idea that "constancy" is important over there.I mean, I'm not sure *I* view it as mostly a defensive position either. :-)But I view the defensive part of it as CRITICAL, and considering how so many post-season games seem to turn on FUNNY STUFF happening in the field, I'd think twice or a million times before doing something that would seem to increase the chances of funny stuff.
Nice breakdown of the Angels' catching situation and how it might have been handled differently. I don't know enough to judge it, but all I can say is, sounds good to me. BTW.....I never meant that the platoon at catcher needed to be 50-50, and I like the percents you gave, especially when one of the guys is real good.
Main thing I think is still that greater pains should have been taken to avoid a 2B-sharing situation.
You're welcome... I'm having a great conversation on another thread with another Yankee fan. I don't ever remember before having two good conversations going with fans of a team that just eliminated us, so color me bemused.
A couple more comments regarding the 2B situation...
1) although the defensive play was shaky at times in the postseason, both Izturis and Kendrick were mostly excellent defensively during the season. The off days didn't seem to hurt their defensive play at all... for example, the Angels led the league in double plays. I don't think any Angel fans considered it an issue, mainly because Izturis and Kendrick were both playing well and at similar levels both offensively and defensively, so we started considering them as interchangeable, just as Scioscia did.
2) one of Mike Scioscia's trademarks is having 10-11 position players all of whom are capable of playing full time and are not really considered "bench" players. I was skeptical at first, but after observing him for 10 years, I think it serves him well. I believe his reasons are two-fold. First, he's almost always got a player capable of stepping in and playing every day if someone gets injured. And not just filling in, but playing like a starter. Second, it allows him to rotate rest days around and keep people fresh all season.
During the regular season, Mike is very comfortable with not having his very, very best players out there on a given day. As long as the team is doing well overall, he has no problem resting guys and giving the second string more playing time than most managers would. I'm not a huge Scioscia fan, and there's a lot of things I criticize him about, but this is one thing I think he does much better than most managers.
The problem is that sometimes it seems as if Mike is very comfortable with not having his very, very best players out there on a given day in the postseason. Which then makes one wonder about his ability to judge talent and whether or not he sees clearly who his very, very best players actually are.
I find it kind of odd that a Yankee's fan is asking about the wisdom of platooning, given the Yankee's history.
Check out the Yankee teams in the 50s. Casey Stengel was one of the strongest proponents of platoons. He platooned his middle infielders in particular.
In his 12 seasons managing the Yanks, he won 10 pennants and 7 World Series, so it's hard to argue that his extensive use of platoons hurt the club.
Maybe you didn't read down all the way, which is understandable considering that maybe I went on too long. :-)I MENTIONED Stengel and the Yanks of the '50's as one of the few instances where this was done successfully IN THE MIDDLE OF THE INFIELD.
I'm not talking about platooning in general, just at one of those positions (2B or SS).
And you have to admit that it's VERY RARE for successful teams to do it.All I'm saying is there's probably a good reason for that -- and that Scioscia was going against history in what he did.
And above all I was just WONDERING if this had been considered an issue.From the posts here, I'm gathering it wasn't.
Scioscia's platooning is a mixed bag for me. While I love his catcher rotations because its keeps both fresh, I really don't like how it screws up either Mathis or Napoli's offensive rythm and keeps the pitchers guessing.
Now, the second base platooning is bad. See, if we could just give Kendrick the position, then Aybar and Kendrick would grow together (both are super young) and develop a bond where they always know where each other are on tough plays. Right now, Aybar and Izturis/Kendrick have a little bit of doubt, even to eventually create an error because of the high number of occurrences.
Also, the outfield platooning is getting old. We just need to have younger outfielders- Rivera, Hunter (yes, he's old, but he plays like he's young) and another pick up.
You also might keep in mind that our 2002 WS Championship team included a platoon of Kennedy and Gil at 2B. That probably affects Scioscia's thinking as well.
My own view, hardly an insight, is that you just decide this by looking at the LH/RH split on offensive performance. You're right about the benefits of a double-play combination knowing each other, but the main reason we lost to you is that we scored only 6 runs total in regulation in your 4 wins (which had more than a little bit to do with your pitching, of course). While familiarity is important, I think a 2B who gets 2 starts a week plays enough to have sufficient comfort level with the SS, and if he is a superior hitter from the side of the plate he is the platoon, it still probably makes sense. After all, I'm not sure how much differently Aybar is supposed to throw to second to start a double play depending on whether Kendrick or Izturis is receiving the throw. ;)
I see that some people do agree that it can make a difference at a place like 2B.
And I see that there are some doubts about the platooning at other positions too. We can probably always argue it either way anywhere, but there could be particular issues when it's one of the keystone positions. As you said, the SS and 2B do a lot of things that involve working together. And IMO there are other aspects involved as well, since those players do a lot more "other" stuff than players at any other position -- cutoffs from the outfield, plus (for the 2B) covering 1st base on bunts, which was the play that Kendrick messed up in the last game.I know that we can't say "aha" about that.......but I couldn't help wondering.
Great point about KENNEDY/GIL in '02.......I didn't remember that at all.Obviously that's an additional example of where this kind of platooning WORKED.
I must admit that I'm such a believer in how BAD an idea it is, that I needed to check it out to see if maybe the platooning didn't really continue through the end of the season and the post-season in '02.So I did.......and of course you're right -- it did.
You say that there should be enough of a "comfort level" if one guy plays just a couple of times a week and the other guy plays the rest of the time.I see it as more of a "continuum" rather than sufficient or not sufficient. I think the platooning takes away SOME of the comfort level, not just on the stuff between the SS and 2B but also in the other complex stuff that the 2B needs to do, and that it can have an impact.
Even if I'm right about that, it's still possible that it would be outweighed by what you said about the better OFFENSE that you get from the platooning.
Bottom line: I see that most of the Angel fans never felt this was a significant issue, and still don't.
