Breaking Down Rocco Baldelli’s Decision to Pull Bailey Ober

[jmlease1]

On 4/11/2025 at 5:58 PM, RLTW894 said:

You are so far out in left field the Metro took you for a ride down to CHS Field. 

A good manager gets the most out of his players. The players win games. Not the manager. But you better believe a bad manager can cost wins. 

No one is saying that a bad manager can't cost games, or that a superior manager can't win games for their team. It's the scope that's the issue here. Baseball managers simply don't have so much impact on the game that their decision-making makes them responsible for 20 wins or losses. They're not calling every pitch, they're not personally positioning every fielder on every play, and they're not making swing decisions on hitters like a video game. Lineup selection & construction matters, as does when to go to the bullpen, who to send it and how many batters to have them face, pinch-hitting, defensive replacements, etc. But those decisions are also in the context of what the players actually do, which is always much much more impactful.

A great manager making perfect decisions simply can't take a team with the talent of a 70 win team and make them a 90 win team.