Sorry, Church.

Why didn’t a smart manager like Tito use Papelbon any old inning?

Far too often managers go “by the book” because it’s safe, whether it’s right or wrong. By following the established “book”, they almost prevent themselves from the second guessing of pundits because, hey, the book says in situation X you do Y and hope for Z (c.f bunting in late innings). Never mind if studies have shown that doing X is counterproductive for goal Z (bunting again), because for 100+ years this is how things have been done, and math is evil (paraphrasing).

A prime example is this NFL game, Colts/Pats on 11/15/09 (http://scores.espn.go.com/nfl/recap?gameId=291115011). With a 4th and 2 from their own 28 with 2:08 to go, Belicheck went for it on 4th. Using a bit of game theory and an expected scoring matrix, Belicheck bucked conventional wisdom, went for it on 4th, failed and lost the game. He was destroyed in the press, even by the stat guys at footballoutsiders.com*. If he punted and lost, he could have thrown his hands up, said we followed usual protocol and most would agree. If he went for it and lost like he did, he opens himself up to second guessing.

http://footballoutsiders.com/audibles/2009/audibles-line-week-10 scroll down to the last game

Those late-inning collapses are so much more memorable than games that are lost in the 3rd inning. I’m sure there’s a smart person out there that can explain this tendency.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias

Under the terms of Aaron Cook’s contract, can the Red Sox trade him before May 1 for (presumably) a quality reliever?

Did anyone actually see the game last night? He didn’t look all that great. He walked a batter and had a missle hit off him luckily right at Youkilis. If that ball is 2 feet in any direction it’s a base hit and runner on 3rd scores. He got out of a jam pretty luckily.

Also, let’s stop saying the bullpen is the problem with the Red Sox. PITCHING is a problem. Doubront has been very good but he’s young, can he deal with a full season? Lester and Becket have been very AVERAGE and Buchholz has been TERRIBLE. Bard was so-so in his first 2 starts. Take him out and now you strengthen your bullpen but you trash your starters.

Let Bard stay as a starter until Matsuzaka is ready and then decide. If I was the Sox brass I wouldn’t pull the plug on this yet…

I thought Ace was a great choice for closer in place of Bailey, and look how that has turned out. If they don’t get the bullpen straightened out, this will be an impossibly long season, and Bard is the only person available to fix the bullpen.

It’s not that it’s right. But I understand.

And Doubront looks like the best starter on the staff and ought to stay in the rotation. His value as a starter is much greater than Bard’s, and he’s much more valuable as a starter than as a reliever. Bard’s value as a reliever is much greater than it is as a starter. Bard in the bullpen is the only smart move they have.

But I have no expectation that they’ll be smart about this.

I won’t be surprised to see bard mysteriously land on the DL in the next 2 weeks. It’s the only way he can assert himself. Snark away, but mark my words.