I love the Maddon nuthugger BS. Maddon is a top manager in the game. It's why Theo went and got him when he was available and fired Renteria. I can disagree with him pulling a SP too soon and riding a RP like a race horse until the horse gets sent to the glue factory, but at the end of the day, give me the name of another manager who could have a team lose its #1 pitcher to FA, have 2 SP signed who didnt pan out, the signed FA closer on the DL, the starting RF on the DL, the MVP 3B on the DL, the defensive SS wiz on the DL, a CF crapping the bed at the plate in the 2nd half and still have the #1 offense in the NL, the 3rd best ERA in the NL, still leading the division, etc.
As for Strop...Strop is a converted infielder. The dude has a great stroke at the plate for a P. Whether Joe was crapping the bed like Game 7 of the WS or just being a players' manager letting Strop get a game AB, it is what it is. I don't blame Maddon for a pulled hammy. Strop could have pulled his hammy covering 1B on a GB to Rizzo. It's easy for people who haven't managed a game past Little League to be overly critical.
Totally agreed. The kind of push that Strop put on that got him in the hammy is not something you can coach, either in or out. It's a non-thinking, spur-of-the-moment reaction by the runner to the situation. Strop even admits that it was only when he saw the ball coming in to the first baseman with his peripheral vision that he hit high gear and hard-extended his stride to try and get in ahead of the throw. You don't think that through -- you sense something and you react.
Not only can you not easily coach that out of a player, most times you wouldn't want to. You can change a player's instinctive reactions by coaching through a lot of repetition of the new behavior, but it impacts a lot of other things about that player's game. And, honestly, running aggressively has a pretty small overall chance of causing an injury that less aggressive running might avoid.
You want to have a mediocre team? Then by all means, do everything you can to coach aggressive play out of your players. That way they'll stay healthier -- and likely won't play as effectively, because they're not being as aggressive. And as Joe has said about several players, he *never* wants to try and coach aggressiveness out of his players. If Willson or Javy play like their hair is on fire, well, that makes them more valuable on the field and enhances their skill sets. Yes, it also increases the possibility of errors and injuries, but that risk is acceptable vs. the benefits of their aggressive style of play.
Strop's injury is what happens when you try and stock a ball club with young, aggressive players and tell them to go out and play hard. And i guarantee you, if no one is telling Baez to bunt with runners on first and third -- he's totally making that decision on his own -- then no one is trying to micro-manage how hard Strop is hustling down the line.
When it comes down to it, any responsibility for a blown hammy while legging it out to first is totally on the player.
As for Joe in particular, yeah, you can argue that he has relievers he trusts, and those he doesn't. He will always go with a guy in his "trusted" group over another guy, even if that doesn't make sense in terms of a match-up. Maybe that's a failing, but he's gotten good results with it. So I'm not gonna complain about it now...
