I wanted to start a separate thread to discuss something that keeps coming up in the “My Six Months” thread. A number of posters are supporters of rules changes that would do away with the trend today of bringing in pitchers, sometimes multiple pitchers, to face just one batter. My position is to leave the game alone, it’s self-correcting, although I completely agree that the practice drives me crazy as well. What I’d really like to discuss is Jack McKeon.
Actually, I’d like to discuss a comment he made in a post-game interview when he was a fill-in manager for the Marlins back in 2011. He was questioned about not bringing in a reliever to create a ‘proper’ matchup, and he replied that his starter was pitching fine and he saw no reason to pull him. He then went on to say that was the problem with managers today: they manage for the post-game interview. If you make the ‘correct’ call according to the book (lefty-lefty or righty-righty matchup, for example) and it doesn’t work, you can always say when asked about it “We went with what we felt was the best matchup; it just didn’t work this time.” Read between the lines: I made the right call according to the Book, so it’s not my fault it didn’t work. However, if you DON’T make the Book call and it doesn’t work you get pilloried.
I believe that over time managers will get over their love affair with matchups and realize that, for many reasons, it’s often better to leave the starter in (I also feel this will apply to the ridiculous amount of shifts we see today – that, and the fact that batters will start going the opposite way, but that’s a topic for another thread). Baseball will self-correct, just as it has swung from pitching domination to batting domination without making rules changes, the 1920 changing of the baseball and the 1969 lowering of the mound the two exceptions of note – not bad for 131 years.