Manager of the Year is a symbol of baseball's destruction.

Please, I beg you, don't bring up Bob Gibson:

"In all likelihood, Cash will be a runaway winner of the American League manager of the year award. He guided the Rays (payroll $74.8 million) to an AL East title over the Yankees (payroll $165.7 million). But throughout the course of the season, during the playoffs and most especially in Game 6 of the World Series, Cash made no bones about the fact that he manages strictly by the plan set up by the Rays' analytics department."

It worked.

 

"With one out in the sixth of that fateful game, Cash came to get his ace Blake Snell, who was pitching the game of his life. Snell had just given up his second hit of the game, to the Dodgers' No. 9 hitter, Austin Barnes, and it was evident just how thoroughly the soul of the game has been destroyed."

I don't fully disagree ... I've complained about the same thing ... but it worked.

How many pitchers did the Dodgers use in Game Six?

Seven. 

"Meanwhile, a direct contrast to the Snell pulling was Dusty Baker, one of the few remaining old-school managers in the game. In the sixth inning of Game 5 of the ALCS, the red-hot Randy Arozarena was coming up with two men on, one out. Baker strode to the mound, had a brief conference with his ace, Zack Greinke, and elected to leave him in.

After Greinke struck out Arozarena, the Rays were able to load the bases with an infield single by Ji-Man Choi and still Baker, managing with his gut and trusting Greinke’s heart, didn’t make a move. His confidence was rewarded when Greinke struck out Mike Brosseau to end the inning."

This is some cherry-picking nonsense right here.

Not one starting pitcher in the World Series pitched into the seventh inning. Maybe the playoffs.

"It is no coincidence the five highest paid managers in baseball — Terry Francona ($4M), Joe Maddon ($4M), Bob Melvin ($3.25M), Joe Girardi ($3.25M) and Baker ($3M) — are all what you call their own men, mostly old school, who are able to manage as much with their gut as by the numbers. Joe Torre was the first old school manager to sound the alarm when Yankee GM Brian Cashman began intruding on his turf. 'You can’t remove the human element from the game,' he said."

Ummm ... look, there's a balance to be found. 

But Cash outperformed all of these highly-paid managers.

Except Baker, I guess, if you really want to ignore the payroll differential hammer that you've pummeled Cashman with for twenty years.

 

My other gripe is this:

The strategy worked, worked, worked, worked, worked, worked, worked, worked, worked, didn't work. 

Sorry, but this rather ground-breaking bullpen strategy works. It worked all season, it worked all the way to the World Series. The Rays even got two games on the Dodgers.

In Game Six, the Rays scored only one run ... against SEVEN Dodgers pitchers.

Don't you see it?

Don't you see what happened?

While you're focused on Cash's failed strategic move ... maybe ... this presumes that Snell just goes on to pitch, what, a complete game shutout? ... you're missing the fact that Baker beat him with the same strategy.

Why didn't Baker show more confidence in Tony Gonsolin?

 

You can't even name the Dodgers' closer, can you?

They don't have one, do they?

If their closer isn't closing during the World Series, then they don't have a closer.

A bunch of interchangeable pitchers with undetermined roles whose usage is based on matchups and other analytics.

Julio Arias has four saves in his career, and there he was getting the save in Game Six of the World Series.

That's the Dodgers using the Tampa Method to beat Tampa.