Wassell’s Thoughts: With Blake Snell pulled early from World Series Game 6, score one for the gut

Welcome to another edition of Tom Wassell’s Thoughts, a regular column from the co-host of 710 ESPN Seattle’s Tom, Jake and Stacy. This week, Tom delves into his take on the Tampa Bay Rays taking out a cruising Blake Snell with a 1-0 lead in the sixth inning of Game 6 of the World Series, which immediately led the Los Angeles Dodgers taking the lead and eventually winning the title.

Score one for the GUT

Analytics failed the other night. Actually, since analytics are mathematical concepts incapable of making decisions for themselves, I should be more specific. The Rays’ over-commitment to analytics failed them.

Let me be clear: I am not anti-sabermetrics. They have a strong influence on the game of baseball, as they should. They help teams make better decisions about players and the situations in which they perform to various results. When a manager looks at the ol’ stat sheet every night and makes moves based on interpretation of those numbers, he’s playing the percentages. This method, over the long haul (162 or 60 games), should result in more success than failure. But it’s important to keep the latter in mind.

There is an acceptance that over the course of a season, players will fail. Playing the percentages does not guarantee anything, especially when it comes to a specific situation, which brings us to Rays pitcher Blake Snell and manager Kevin Cash.

The defense of Cash pulling Snell in the sixth inning of Game 6 the other night goes something like this: “That’s what worked for them all year long, why would they deviate from it now?” The problem with this defense is that it fails to acknowledge that this particular outing by Snell requires a different method of evaluation than that of a collection of Snell starts in his career.

This was one situation. The use of analytics worked more often than not for many starts. Again, playing the percentages suggests that you will win more than you lose in multiple situations. When deciding what’s the best move for this specific outing, you can’t apply the same math that is designed for many outings. Other things must be considered.

I’m not telling you that we need to throw out the math completely, but it’s only one factor among many. So what else is there? Well, if I’m Kevin Cash, I’m looking at pitch count for one – 73 pitches. Were Dodger hitters hammering the ball with any consistency? No. In fact, Snell struck out nine of them over the first five innings. And they weren’t aided by a wide strike zone, either. LA batters were flailing away or just flat-out fooled. The next three hitters due up in the inning were a combined 0 for 6 in the game. As a result, I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that in the Dodgers’ dugout, they were praying for Snell to be removed from the game.

I know analytics don’t account for things like confidence, but ask any athlete – confidence matters. It makes you better. Analytics will tell a manager nothing about any of this. When Cash went to the bullpen, that gave Los Angeles new life even though under normal circumstances, the Dodgers might have preferred to get that third look of the night at the starting pitcher. You have to watch the game and make a decision with your gut and/or your brain based on what you observe.

For those that discount things like confidence, observation, experience, momentum, or whatever other abstract concept I’m emphasizing here, ask yourself this: If managing a baseball team came down to nothing but numbers, wouldn’t that qualify a mathematician to run a team rather than an ex-ballplayer? If nothing having to do with years of baseball experience are worthy factors in determining how players should be handled, then why can’t you or I do it, assuming we have advanced degrees in some statistical field?

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen managers like Houston’s Dusty Baker mocked for “going with his gut,” but those that are doing the mocking never acknowledge when Baker is successful.

How about two weeks ago when he left Zack Greinke on the mound late in Game 4 of the ALCS as he allowed one baserunner after another? Baker even visited the mound to assure Greinke that it was ‘his game,’ defying the percentages. And it paid off! Greinke got out of the inning, and the Astros had new life in the series – because a manager knew the situation, knew that his player was capable of elevating his game in a big moment, and knew that big moments demand extraordinary performances. This brings me to my next point.

Big moments and memories. Why do certain moments in the history of baseball stand out above others? I remember coming into the office the morning after Game 2 of the 2017 World Series, discussing with Mike Salk whether or not that would be remembered as one of the all-time great games. How many people could tell you without looking it up what happened in that game right now? I bet a very small minority.

Basically, the Astros were on the verge of going down 0-2 when they hit a couple of home runs to get back in the game. Then Yasiel Puig and the Dodgers responded with a power barrage of their own to send it to extras where Houston ultimately prevailed. It was nuts! But historically memorable? No.

So what’s the difference between that game and something like, say, Jack Morris’s 10-inning shutout in Game 7 of the ‘91 World Series? Or Kirk Gibson’s injury-riddled body finding a way to launch a game-winning homer off the then-best closer in baseball, Dennis Eckersley? Improbability. That’s the answer.

In each of those two examples, a player accomplished something on the biggest of stage that was well-beyond what he was normally capable of doing. If we stick to the percentages that got our team to this point, we get robbed of these incredible moments. Plus, the players themselves – the best athletes in the world at their given sport – are themselves robbed of the chance to do something special.

Blake Snell would have been hailed as a hero for elevating his game in a do-or-die circumstance, saving his team from elimination and forcing a Game 7 – similar to Curt Schilling in Game 6 of the 2004 ALCS. Forget about whether Schilling’s bloody sock was actually stained with blood or if it was painted on there. We know definitively how hurt he was in that series. Is there any chance that if he were on the Rays, or any other team in 2020, he would have been on the mound in the first place? No.

There’s variance in the way players perform. Occasionally, if the situation demands it, they can stretch their potential well beyond their standard range. When it happens in the postseason, it’s a gift to us and an accolade for them. Strict adherence to the numbers denies everyone the opportunity to participate in those moments, actively or passively.

So will the trends swing back the other way now? Probably not. However, I’m curious as to whether or not managers and head coaches in any sport think twice about just going with what is marked on the stat sheet next time an occurrence like this pops up.

Nobody wants to be the next Kevin Cash.

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