He’s a guy that was supposed to be experienced from spending years on Maddon’s Bench and he didn’t know what he was doing costing the team wins and DL stints for the relievers.
So it’s great that he’s finally starting to get it, but it’s defintiely news that he didn’t for the first half.
I think the relievers nagging is not simply on Martinez. The warm-up-but-don't-use thing is a problem for, like most managers. The issue comes from our starters going 4 or 5 innings for 4 of every 5 days for over a month. That's a reason for over-use.
Solis lead the team with 40 appearances through 96 team games, but more than 60 relievers around the majors have appeared more often .
We're clearly having a major issue here!
He needed to use those guys because his team’s leads were not big enough to be handed to anyone else, and indeed, that was true. Before the rotation collapsed in late June, the Nationals had the smallest average run difference per game of any team in baseball: 1.90 runs. At that point, the league median was 2.27, according to BaseballMusings.com.
The players can have their beef on communication and Martinez has had some growing pains, but he's had sound reasoning for this crap.
“A lot of times when Davey asks, you just tell him, ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah, I’m good,’ ” Madson said. “He’s got a lot of stuff to worry about. It’s typical for bullpen guys not to be as honest with the manager. That’s just the dynamic there.”
Their more honest messages, as conveyed to pitching coach Derek Lilliquist and other members of the coaching staff, were getting lost in translation.
So, they tell Davey they're good, the pitching coach or some crap doesn't tell Davey, "He needs a day," and Davey uses him. Seems like a staff issue with someone being a turd and relievers needing to be honest.
“Over the last maybe month or so, maybe since we got Herrera, he’s gone around to the relievers and been a lot more proactive with that communication,” Doolittle said. “I think that’s helped.”
“He’s saying with that, ‘Please let me know; give me information,’ ” Madson said. “ . . . I would never talk to a normal manager about that. He’s closing that gap.”
Cool, so he's worked on it and cut out the middle man. A good manager adapts when a problem presents itself.
“With a veteran group, I think we all expect to come into a team and say we’ve all been there; we just want things to go boom, boom, boom and be a piece of cake. But we also all know it’s not like that,” Shawn Kelley said. “ . . . It’s funny: I think you could probably go anywhere and complain about the manager as a reliever. I don’t know if any manager has ever had seven relievers say, ‘He was perfect.’ ”
As always, Shawn Kelley has a good perspective on things. Relievers nag about coming in with men on base all the time. Of course they want clean innings. Of course they want to be used once they warm up. Baseball isn't perfect.
I am pretty meh on Martinez so far but people using this as Exhibit A on why he sucks are ignoring the actual story here.
