No, Kevin Cash didn't ruin baseball
Despite what everyone thinks, Kevin Cash and analytics are NOT ruining baseball.
Last night, the most chaotic MLB season of all-time officially came to an end. The Los Angeles Dodgers exorcised their demons from 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019 in one fell swoop, beating the Tampa Bay Rays 3-1 in Game 6 to win the series 4 games to 2.
However, all of the talk after the game wasn’t about the Dodgers finally winning a World Series after so many years of coming close. It wasn’t about karma smiling upon the Dodgers after they lost to the cheating Houston Astros in 2017 or the cheating Boston Red Sox in 2018. No, all the talk was about Justin Turner testing positive for COVID-19 during a World Series game and analytics killing the holy, scared game of baseball. The former warrants further discussion and the Dodgers, Turner, and MLB all must answer for their actions, but I’m here to talk about the latter.
Specifically, it was Rays manager Kevin Cash, who apparently took out a rocket launcher and blew the game of baseball to smithereens by taking out Blake Snell in the middle of the sixth inning.
At the time, Snell was, by all accounts, dealing. Through 18 batters, Snell had not only gotten 16 outs, half of them struck out. The first three hitters of the Dodgers lineup (Mookie Betts, Corey Seager, and Justin Turner) struck out six times in their six at bats.
After Austin Barnes managed to get a weakly hit single into center field, Cash made the decision to take Snell out and put in Nick Anderson, who was very reliable in the regular season, but had allowed a run in each of his last six postseason games. Anderson proceeded to allow Betts to hit a double, sending Barnes to third. A wild pitch send Barnes home and Betts to third. Seager got Betts home on a fielder’s choice to give the Dodgers a 2-1 lead. For good measure, Betts added an insurance run in the ninth inning courtesy of a solo home run.
Cash deserves criticism for taking Snell out. However, he did not brutally murder baseball. Analytics isn’t either. Here’s why.
Cash’s decision
Let me start by saying analytics aren’t gospel. They do not instruct you what to do. Analytics are a guide, providing you with options. Analytics are more than just a bunch of numbers. Part of analytics is understanding what the numbers tell you and utilizing the numbers to help you make sound decisions.
Now, let’s see what the numbers say about taking Snell out.
Betts would have represented the start of Snell’s third trip through the order. Including the playoffs, Snell faced the same hitter a third time in a game only 34 times this season. Against lefties — there were 10 of those — he allowed a .700 OPS. Betts isn’t a lefty, though. Against righties for a third time, Snell allowed a 1.072 OPS.
That sample is small, to be sure. So let’s look at Snell overall for his career. Third time through against lefties: .472 OPS. Against righties: .800. It also should be noted that Betts isn’t just any righty. He is Mookie Betts, whom some consider to be the best player in baseball right now.
Let’s be clear. The numbers DO NOT say to take Snell out. You can’t base your decisions exclusively on numbers. There are so many variables in baseball. For example, Snell was pitching lights out. Probably the best game I’ve ever seen him pitch (though I admit I don’t watch much baseball these days).
That said, taking him out wasn’t an awful idea because Snell was in line to face Mookie Betts (arguably a top 3 player on the planet) and Seager (the hottest hitter on the planet other than Randy Arozarena). The reason taking Snell out was a bad decision was because Anderson replaced him. What Cash should have done, if he elected to take out Snell, is replace him with one of his best non-struggling high-leverage relievers.
I’m not an MLB manager, probably for good reasons. But if I were Kevin Cash, I would have kept Snell in. However, I would have had a high-leverage righty and a high-leverage lefty ready in the bullpen to come in at a moment’s notice. In a one run game, the margin of error is microscopic.
Also, you know what really killed the Rays? Only scoring one gosh darn run. It’s next to impossible to beat a team like the Dodgers when you score one run in nine innings. Taking out Snell might have hurt the Rays, but unless the Rays would have shutout the Dodgers, taking him out didn’t lose them the game.
In 78 regular season and postseason games, the Dodgers were shutout zero times and only held to one run three times. So it’s very unlikely the Rays would have been able to shutout the Dodgers, or even just held them to one run. Anything can happen in baseball, but the odds of beating the 2020 Dodgers while scoring just one run weren’t in the Rays favor.
What If?
Here’s a fun hypothetical question. Suppose Cash made the decision to keep Snell in the game. He makes a good pitch to Mookie Betts, but he still crushes it over the fence in center field because, well, he’s Mookie freaking Betts.
Would any reasonable person be blasting Cash for keeping Snell in the game? No. This is why a lot of people who hate analytics frustrate me. Do they hate on analytics when they help a team like the Rays get within two games of winning the World Series against the best team money can buy? No. Do they hate on analytics when the team with the largest analytics department in baseball wins the World Series? Nope. They only do it when it’s easy to hate on analytics.
Critics of analytics will laugh at how badly an NHL team like the Arizona Coyotes do. Yet they’re silent when a team who makes really smart moves driven by analytics, such as the 2020 Tampa Bay Lightning, has success. It’s not genuine and it’s not honest. Every team uses analytics. This isn’t up for debate. It’s a fact.
Also, the numbers aren’t the problem. Numbers are facts. They give you results of events that occur. Facts can be misunderstood, interpreted incorrectly, and utilized inefficiently. So can numbers.
If you expect analytics to make decisions for you, you’re going to lose. But if you use them wisely, you’ll be much better off because of it.