The WTOP article is good and points out some very key issues. There is a lot more involved in being a manager of a team than the in-game decisions around pitching changes and drawing up a lineup card. A child can do that, given the right information. Managers don't get paid big bucks to manage the in-game moves that can be pulled off by any push button manager. Having a lefty warmed up to face a LHB in a specific situation is not some act of genius or high baseball IQ, but simple basics. It's why it is so predictable when other teams do it. Obviously, Harper has stated that he loves playing for Matt, so there is more going on than in-game management.
Still, the lineup decisions and the bullpen moves have been consistently questionable to bad on a regular basis as the column points out. We've seen this kind of thing with other managers as well. So it begs a lot of questions. If this is so elementary and obvious to so many, replacing MW would have to assume that a different manager would act differently, otherwise what is the point. So, in turn, that would mean you would be firing a manager for the sole purpose of having someone make in-game push button moves that any novice could pull off.
And this is where the big question has to be asked. How is it possible that a manager on a team (particularly an unproven second year manager like Williams who didn't really pick his own staff) would be allowed to continue to do things that others in the organization would not do and blatantly disagree with? The whole premise that this is all due to Matt Williams lacking a fundamental understanding of basic in-game management would suggest that not only Mike Rizzo would be at odds with him, but all the players (particularly the pitchers), and more importantly, McCatty and Knorr are being overruled as well. This kind of thing shouldn't be falling on the manager to micromanage. For freak's sake, a primary job of a pitching coach and bench coach should be to anticipate situations and either suggest or at least prepare for moves.
An just using the examples mentioned in the article, both last year's situation against the LAA and this last week against CarGo and the Rockies, I would expect both Knorr and McCatty to assume it would be a good idea to have a matchup guy prepped to cover a situation when a LOOGY may be appropriate and simply make the call to the pen to get a guy warmed up. Even if the protocol is to get the manager to ok it, it should still be something that they propose and assume should be done.
So here's the 64 dollar question. Are Knorr and McCatty NOT suggesting these things or are they and being overruled consistently? In either case, I would argue that it isn't an issue with MW simply not pushing the right buttons, but fundamental systemic flaw in the organizational management. This is the same issue I saw with the consistent obsession with HRod, and in the past, WMP. That can't be a one-man obsession. It has to be an organizational thing, especially when the manager is second-year guy still relying upon his deputies and not some HoF manager with rings.
It just seems inconceivable that Matt Williams is operating as some rogue manager making decisions on lineups and bullpen management that contradict the philosophy of the rest of the coaching staff and the FO.
