Charlie Manuel

I try to like Charlie Manuel. I try because most people think he's a moron just because he looks and sounds like a moron. I'll admit that his slow, stammering drawl isn't exactly inspiring, but it isn't substantive.

However, the Manager of the Year talk around him seems misguided. First off, the Base Ball Writers Association of America is a joke, and Manager of the Year is probably their worst award. It could pretty much be called "Manager who made the playoffs with the most injuries." Now, if the Phillies make the playoffs, that means Manuel will probably win.

Part of a manager's job is to get the players to play hard every day. Manuel seems to be good at that, so kudos to him, but it's hard to give him too much credit for the fact that a lot of his players are having great seasons.

Strategically, though, he leaves a lot to be desired. The Phillies are 8-19 in 1-run games so far this season. This is a fun stat to blame on the manager, but any real anlaysis of these games shows that these are largely luck, and what isn't luck is determined by the quality of the bullpen. The Phillies' bullpen was decent in Manuel's first two years and they were 43-46 in 1-run games. This year, with a a poor bullpen for about 4 months, the 8-19 record is somewhat a result of bad luck but the bullpen is also to blame.

That isn't Manuel's fault, but some of his late-game strategy is infuriating. Whenever the Phils lead late in the game, he disembowells the offense with pretty much useless defensive changes, switching Burrell out for Bourn/Roberson and Dobbs/Helms for Nunez. Despite these defensive upgrades, we manage to blow a lot of leads, because it's up not to Roberson or Nunez to keep runs off the board, but to the reliever. Thus, when we do blow leads, which happened pretty frequently, we then have trouble taking it back because two of our offensive threats (Burrell: .267/.417/.489; Dobbs: .286/.329/.487) are replaced with two serious downgrades (Nunez: .246/.321/.299; Bourn: .284/.361/.394).

In fact, his use of Nunez in general is really frustrating. Nunez can be a useful player; he can't hit a lick but he's a good fielder. He can be useful in support of ground ball pitching. Unfortunately, of our starters, only one induces ground balls on more than 45% of balls in play: Kyle Kendrick (48.6%). Yet, when Kendrick pitches, Manuel uses the Dobbs/Helms platoon. Nunez starts, instead, when Jamie Moyer, a flyball pitcher (38.5 GB%), is on the mound. This is a baffling decision, cutting away at the offense for a defensive replacement that isn't necessary.

His bullpen usage isn't great either, though there are few managers in the Majors who optimize their bullpen. If you're going to take Brett Myers, one of your two best pitchers, out of the rotation, you'd damn well better use him in more important situations than in the 9th inning with a three run lead, when the team's chances of winning are about 98%. It's somewhat excusable when Willie Randolph uses Billy Wagner in that fashion because Wagner was not yanked out of the rotation, thus cutting his innings by about 60%. If Myers is going to throw 75 innings instead of 200, Manuel has to be smarter about using him in the most dire of situations, not just save situations.

Basically, Charlie Manuel is "blah", completely unremarkable, not really sabotaging the Phils, but doing little to give the team a leg up.