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If you do care about baseball, please indulge me for a moment…

I was looking through my notes today and got thinking about the 2017 World Series. That series opened my eyes to what bad managing really looks like.

In 2017, former division rivals—the Astros and the Dodgers—met in the World Series. In Game 5, the series was tied 2–2 and so was the score—7 to 7 in the top of the 7th.

We'd heard the narrative that Dave Roberts, manager of the Dodgers then and now, was a great skipper. The reality is that the Dodgers have maintained one of the biggest payrolls in the game for years. They "buy" a lot of talent.

Needless to say, baseball is also a 162 game season (most of the time). A championship team needs someone at the top who can steer that ship through all the trials and turmoil. Dave Roberts has proved to be that man in Los Angeles. Several amazing regular season runs since Roberts has been in the Dodger dugout.

But he's not the guy you want when you need to win a game.

Back to the situation…

The game was tied in the 7th and DH Justin Turner (injured in Game 4 and quite gimpy on the bases) smoked a line drive off the wall in right-center. Roberts—and it's never been clear if he manages the game himself or "by the book" with explicit instruction from the Dodger front office—calls for cleanup hitter Kiké Hernández to sacrifice bunt.

If you know me, I cannot stand the sacrifice bunt as a tactic. It is extremely overrated and the "math" of the situation is never done properly by most managers. I love bunting, in general, though.

In this game, cleanup hitter Hernández—with one successful sac bunt all season—took the first pitch for a ball, the second pitch for a strike, and the third pitch for a ball.

To re-cap the situation again: An injured runner with little speed or explosiveness is on second, no outs, and the cleanup hitter has a 2–1 count after showing bunt for three pitches.

Hernández executes the sacrifice poorly on the next pitch. The pitcher, Brad Peacock, hopped off the mound and threw to third where Astros third baseman Alex Bregman was waiting for Turner to run into the tag. Now, a runner on first and one out. This was a horrible turn of events for L.A. and a giant gift to Houston.

Cody Bellinger was next up for the Dodgers. He hit a triple to left field, scoring Hernández, the only run that the Dodgers would tally that inning. Earl Weaver's words came to mind when watching this abomination, "If you play for one run, that's all you'll get."

(To add to the botched strategy of playing for the single run, the game ended up 13–12. Runs were not, as they say, at a premium.)

With two outs in the top of the 8th, Roberts pinch hit for Hernández for lefthanded batsman Andre Ethier, maintaining the platoon advantage, for that at bat at least.

Clearly, Hernández did not execute when called upon. Bad team baseball. However, the job of a manager is best described by Chip Kelly, a football coach. "Coaching is one thing and one thing only. It is creating an environment so the player has an opportunity to be successful."

Hernández executed one sac bunt all year, but had 24 doubles in only 342 plate appearances. Roberts would have created a better opportunity for his player to be successful had he let him swing away. Many more things could have gone right for the Dodgers instead of what happened.

The Dodgers lost Game 5, 13–12. That miserable strategy in the 7th inning was the turning point in the game. After Turner's double, the Dodgers had a 61% chance to win the game that they ended up losing. The Dodgers ended up losing the Series 4 games to 3.

The Dodgers won a World Series in 2020. I acknowledge their title, but in no way do I consider that a legitimate championship season. To the contrary, it was a total farce and a mockery of the game and organization—Major League Baseball—that I once took seriously.

Furthermore, on the math of the sacrifice bunt, the tactic makes sense if there is perfect execution for the offense and for every eight attempts, one goes for a base hit somehow. Outs are a far too precious commodity in the game of baseball. Only 27 of them in a regular game.

Anyway, some of the same Dodger players are still around, Kiké Hernández being one of them. Dave Roberts is still on the top step of the Dodger dugout.

On the other side, you have Aaron Boone as Yankees manager. He may not be as strong on the day-to-day as Roberts, but as a tactician, he is better. My guess is Yankees in 7.

As always,

Brian

P.S. – If you haven't read my free e-book, the Yankee skipper figures into it. But you'll have to read to find out why and how.

P.P.S. – My notes for Game 5 of the 2017 are much more extensive and I watched that game a few times. It really bothered me, and as you can probably tell, it still does.

If you think it is a quite random thing to obsess over, I agree.