Series aftermath: Why Kevin Cash wasn’t all wrong

The Rays lost the World Series on Tuesday night, and analytics took a beating after Rays manager Kevin Cash pulled a starting pitcher working on a two-hit shoutout in Game 6, a time for heroes with blazing fastballs and not numbers crunchers with spread sheets.

Two batters after Snell was gone, the shutout was gone. And then the Rays were behind, and soon the Rays were gone, beaten in the World Series by the Dodgers in six games, and if you listen to enough people, beaten by their own overreliance on the data.

Kevin Cash didn’t say the numbers made me do it, but the critics (who knew the Rays had that many fans?) said it for him.

That’s not how we did it, criticized so many former players, unmindful and not receptive to the possibility that maybe it could have been done better. It’s a good bet there were former players in the early 1920s criticizing Babe Ruth for hitting all those home runs. Why do we need homers, they probably yelped, when two singles, a steal and a squeeze bunt have been good enough for all these years?

The 2020 World Series was seen by fewer viewers than ever, but by midnight Tuesday it seemed as if all of them had taken to social media to take a 3-0 swing at Kevin Cash and analytics. Analytics are ruining sports was the mantra, which was another way of saying I was rooting for the Rays (or even worse, had bet money on them).

Cash wasn’t all wrong, and he wasn’t all right (I’ll get to all that), but the move didn’t work, so he’ll go down in postseason lore as the manager whose decisions lost the 2020 World Series. That’s harsh. Red Sox fans watching the 2003 ALCS only wish their manager, Grady Little, had so quick a hook.

Alex Rodriguez, who has bashed analytics more than he ever did opposing pitchers in October, said, “Ivy Leaguers continues to get an F year after year in this class called playoff baseball.” Maybe A-Rod should check the alma maters of the Dodgers front office before he starts passing out grades as if they were PEDs.

Former infielder and Giants broadcaster Duane Kuiper said, “When it was all said and done, Major League Baseball took a step backwards last night . … when you remove a guy from a game like Tampa Bay did with their starting pitcher, then baseball took a step backwards.”

Kuiper never played in a World Series, but he’s a thoughtful and understated announcer who, unlike A-Rod, doesn’t seem motivated by clicks or attention. His words have more power than his bat, and his point deserves examination (Kuiper hit one homer, or 695 fewer than ARod, in 3,754 plate appearances, off White Sox broadcaster Steve Stone. What are the odds that comes up in conversation in the media room when their two teams play?)

Does MLB harm itself by the modern day approach to pitching? Does it lessen the viewer experience for younger fans?

For fans of a certain age, many of our treasured World Series memories — once the Yankees stopped winning them all — are pitchers in seventh games.

Three times in five years from 1964-68, Game 7s in World Series were won by pitchers on two days rest; in 1967-68 three of the champion’s games were won by one pitcher. Twice in six years, in 1963 and 1968, the strikeout record was broken.

For a decade, the greatest heroes of Octobers were starting pitchers who weren’t relieved in the sixth inning. Sandy Koufax. Bob Gibson. Mickey Lolich. Steve Blass.

And even in later generations, there was Jack Morris going 10 innings to win Game 7 in 1991. Randy Johnson winning Game 6 and coming out of the bullpen to win Game 7 in 2001. Young Josh Beckett throwing a shutout in Game 6 on three days rest to beat the Yankees. Curt Schilling and the bloody sock in the 2004 ALCS and World Series.

They don’t pitch like that in the World Series any more, and haven’t since Madison Bumgarner in 2014.

“Blake Snell was throwing better tonight than anyone I’ve ever seen in the World Series,” said Morris (even better than that guy for the 1991 Twins in Game 7?). “These analytics guys we have now think numbers are more important than having an ace at his best on the hill.’’

You can’t blame Morris. If Tom Kelly had pulled him in the sixth inning of Game 7 in 1991, Morris and his 3.90 ERA wouldn’t be in the Hall of Fame.

But much of the reaction — by Morris and ARod, among others — is about the unwillingness to change or accept it. Baseball has evolved without them or their input, and players used to their opinions being sought don’t like being ignored.

And as fans we pine, if understandably so, for the World Series of our youth, even as we watch them on our devices rather than hold our transistor radios to our ears to hear them. Hopefully, we can agree that’s better. But afternoon Series games are even rarer than starters going nine, and the latter has a better chance of a comeback.

Change, if not always better, is pretty universally unpopular. Anyone who has redesigned a newspaper (speaking of change) has heard the complaints when the new look debuted, no matter how much of an improvement. Watching managers come for dominant pitchers in the sixth inning is as perplexing and frustrating as seeing a restaurant’s new menu without your favorite item. Why did they change? If you’ve watched baseball long enough, seeing Snell relieved ahead 1-0 and throwing a two-hit shutout might not be what you came for.

Is Kuiper right, and will Cash’s move — and a hundred others in this postseason, past postseasons and postseasons to come — do long-term damage? I don’t know, but I doubt it. At least fans are talking, even if they’re only complaining. And there’s nothing that says October memories have to all be about greatness.

Even the oldest among us have ignominious memories, too, of October, from J.C. Martin running out of the baseline in 1969 to Don Denkinger’s bad call in 1985 to Bill Buckner booting Mookie Wilson’s ground ball in 1986 to Lonnie Smith looking lost on the bases in 1991 to Dusty Baker giving Russ Ortiz a souvenir ball with the Giants seemingly on their way in 2002 to Kolten Wong getting picked off first base to end Game 4 in 2013. Or if you’re old enough, Mickey Owen’s passed ball on Tommy Henrich’s strikeout for what would have been the final out of Game 4 in 1941. Or the balls that struck pebbles and bounded past Freddie LIndstrom in Game 7 of 1924.

They might have been backward steps for their teams, but the game went forward.

Which brings us to Tuesday night and Game 6. Everything everyone said about Snell’s dominance on Tuesday night is true. And everything everyone said about Snell Tuesday night could have been said about Snell during Game 2.

Snell struck out nine in the first four innings in Game 6; he struck out nine in the first 4.2 innings in Game 2. Snell got 16 outs in Game 6; he got 14 outs in Game 2. Snell threw 73 pitches in Game 6; he threw 71 pitches for the first 14 outs of Game 2 (and 88 in all). Snell gave up two hits in Game 6; he gave up two hits in Game 2.

The difference is the Rays led Game 6, 1-0, and Game 2, 5-0. After Snell no-hit the Dodgers and fanned nine in the first 4.2 innings of Game 2, the Dodgers went walk, homer, walk, single and Snell was gone for Nick Anderson, just like in Game 6.

It’s easy to criticize Cash because we know relieving Snell in Game 6 didn’t work. The Rays lost, 3-1. It’s too bad there’s no alternate universe to see what might have happened if Cash had left Snell in. If Mookie Betts homered, a lot of the critics maligning Cash for his quick hook would have second-guessed him for not listening to the data and changing what he had been doing the entire postseason. Cash took Snell out when he did in Game 6, because he had been taking pitchers out at similar moments in other elimination games. And won.

In a deciding ALDS Game 5 against the Yankees, Cash pulled starter Tyler Glasnow for Anderson after seven outs, 37 pitches and no runs. Technically, Glasnow was pitching a no-hitter but 2.1 innings is a little soon to put out an alert. The Rays won, 2-1, and no one criticized Cash for paying too much attention to the analytics.

In a deciding ALCS Game 7 against the Astros, Cash pulled starter Charlie Morton for Anderson after 66 pitches with a 3-0 lead. Morton had worked 5.2 shutout innings, and like Snell, had given up two hits and fanned nine. The Rays won, 4-2, and no one criticized Cash for paying too much attention to the analytics.

How Cash managed in Game 6 — agree or disagree — is how he managed the Rays this entire postseason. It worked pretty well, too. His philosophy was to be proactive rather than reactive, even if that went against baseball norms. The safest tactic from criticism was to leave Snell in until somebody hit a two-run homer off him, and given Snell’s .913 OPS this year the third time through the order, somebody eventually would have.

Snell made 11 starts during the 2020 regular season and six more in the postseason and only three times had he thrown 100 pitches. He wasn’t going nine, even if Morris wanted him to. Not once in those 17 starts had Snell completed the sixth inning, and when he lost his dominating stuff in 2020, he lost it quick and batters went long.

Snell’s starts in 2020 had the effects of powerful drugs. The early innings were euphoric and built a sense of invulnerability. By the middle innings that wore off and the crashes were potentially destructive. That’s what Cash, correctly or not, was trying to avoid.

Snell allowed 15 homers in 79.2 innings in 2020, or one not quite every 5.2 innings; he surrendered homers 11-15 in his 29.2 postseason innings, consistent with his regular season pace. Of the 15 homers, he threw 12 in innings 4-6.

Snell had kept the Dodgers, who led MLB this season with 118 homers, or not quite two per game, in the yard for 16 outs. Cash probably thought the odds of a Dodgers homer were increasing, and he wanted to get Snell out of there before those numbers caught up to Snell like Mookie or Cory Seager catching up to a high fastball.

According to Connor Kurcon on Twitter, there were 202 starts from 2017-2020 in MLB like Snell’s — the starters went five innings, struck out nine or more, walked one or none, and allowed one or no runs. In those 202 starts, pitchers had an ERA in the sixth inning of 3.86.

And according to the Baseball Rabbi podcast (link below), the Dodgers swung and missed on nine of 11 swings in innings one and two, swung and missed on six of 15 swings in innings three and four and swung and missed on one of nine swings in innings five and six.

Granted, the Dodgers weren’t making hard contact, but they were trending that way, and Cash didn’t want the next hard contact to put his team behind, 2-1.

Give Cash credit for courage and consistency, if not judgment. Because here’s where he erred. Cash replaced Snell with Nick Anderson, and I’m pretty sure it wasn’t analytics that told him to bring in a pitcher who had given up runs in his previous six appearances. If so, we have to question the methodology. Because in his previous seven innings in the ALCS and World Series, Anderson had yielded 11 hits, six runs, four walks and two homers. You don’t need an Ivy League degree to see Anderson wasn’t a hot hand.

The biggest problem wasn’t Cash removing Snell, it was who he brought on. (And the biggest thing Cash did wrong in the Series wasn’t removing Snell, but benching Mike Brosseau against Clayton Kershaw, which was covered here). The situation called for a lefthander — because Mookie Betts, due up, was 530 points of OPS worse in 2020 against lefties (and 106 points worse in 2019). And after Betts was lefty Cory Seager, who was 171 points of OPS worse against lefties in 2020.

That was one reason to keep Snell in. Another was his performance. And here’s a third: the Rays still had 11 outs to get in Game 6, and 27 more in Game 7. The more outs Snell could get in the former, the better chance the Rays would have in the latter.

What good would it do the Rays to tax their bullpen and win Game 6, only to lose Game 7? The aim was to win the Series, not just extend it.

The best managers are those who incorporate the analytics — after all, it’s just information — with what they’re seeing on the field. You can’t fight a battle with a plan that is made obsolete by events.

That’s what Cash is accused of, and maybe there’s truth to that. But there’s also a foundation of logic, too.

“So apparently, if I’ve got this right,” Bill James tweeted on Friday, “a manager making a million dollars a year and a pitcher making $700,000 are not responsible for their own failures. It’s the fault of some anonymous analyst, probably making $45,000.”

After all the blaming, and all the competition to be the most outraged by Cash’s move, analytics and removing Snell aren’t why the Rays lost the 2020 World Series. The Dodgers are.