debAcle Part II: It’s Not All The Fault Of The Manager/Coaches, Not Even Close

On the last day of May came a bit of a scathing indictment of the ways in which the A’s free fall throughout the month was linked to failures on the part of the man/men in charge.

On the first day of June comes the “However...” complementary piece. The A’s are a wreck right now for reasons that extend far beyond the work of a manager, a pitching or hitting coach, even a GM. Not everything is controllable from the top and it takes a village to raise a catastrophe like the A’s 1-17 stretch.

Bullpen Woes

Bullpens are notoriously volatile and unpredictable, so while you could criticize the front office for the group they assembled, you also have to grant is is generally impossible to know in advance exactly who is going to excel and who is going to tank.

In particular the A’s really miss a healthy Jose LeClerc, which you might not realize since you’ve never seen one in the green and gold. But LeClerc, while stretched as a closer, is in fact a quality reliever when healthy — which he wasn’t, and probably he should have been shut down in spring training when his velocity was down, and perhaps that’s the closest to a legitimate indictment.

But Mark Kotsay was denied a healthy set-up man, and from there while you can critique some of his choices (and I most certainly did along the way), the fact is every single reliever he has tried in a high leverage role has imploded at least twice — often right at the time they were pitching “lights out” and appeared to be the best of all available choices.

We’re talking meltdowns from Mason Miller in Miami and then again blowing the save against the Phillies, and the blown save coming the day after he surrendered 3 runs in a game the A’s trailed 1-0 only to have the team score 3 of their own in the bottom half. That’s 2 losses right there and a third “could have been” from a reliever widely regarded around the league as being an elite closer.

Tyler Ferguson? Handed a 9th inning lead when Miller was not available, gave up 3 and took the loss. Justin Sterner? Had a 0.00 ERA for the season, coughed it up and hasn’t stopped since. Grant Holman? Had a sub-1.00 ERA, came in with the lead, served up a grand slam. You get the picture.

When every reliever you try fails and then fails again, and then again no matter which reliever you try this time, it’s hard to say it’s all the manager’s fault. The bullpen’s epic and unified collapse is hard to fathom or explain, but what’s easy is to say that’s not on the manager, the pitching coach, or anyone else who doesn’t actually throw the pitches.

The Rotation

The players have to wear a lot of the failure, particularly when they are capable and simply not performing to that level.

I personally liked the Jeffrey Springs trade and am not inclined to second guess it. But Springs has had some significant struggles that were hard to foresee. In particular he just has not had good control or command a lot of the time, and Springs is noted to be a “command guy”. It’s not on a manager or pitching coach that a pitcher known for putting his pitches where he wants to has lost that essential skill — perhaps it’s a by-product of recovering from Tommy John surgery.

Now you can critique the staff for not helping him get right, and theorize as to whether another team might have been able to figure it out with him, but at the end of the day it’s on the pitcher.

Luis Severino has been great on the road but mostly lousy at home, and recently blamed the far away clubhouse for his woes. Last I checked the field conditions were the same for both teams, so that feels like an excuse more than a reason.

Osvaldo Bido had no idea where his pitches were going, sometimes missing a foot off the plate and other times missing right down the middle. Gunnar Hoglund showed great command — for one start. JP Sears was rock solid until he wasn’t.

These are not “it’s the manager!” problems, these are the problems of pitchers simply not performing. When your team has the highest ERA in the league, no rearranging of the deck chairs is going to bring you wins.

RISP-y Business

Like the bullpen meltdown, the A’s troubles hitting with runners in scoring position during this stretch is not easily explained. The thing about hitting with RISP is that it is usually somewhat arbitrary. Guys who hit .256 will probably hit around .256 with RISP, give or take a random variance.

In other words it’s less that some guys “bear down” with RISP and some guys “tense up and choke” and more that players get a certain number of hits, bat a certain amount of the time with RISP, and the two intersect at roughly that player’s rate of success.

Today the A’s were a stunning 1 for 16 with RISP. On the last homestand they had consecutive games of 1 for 9, 1 for 11, and 1 for 12. It has cost the A’s games by failing to add on in games the bullpen later blew.

The point to make here is that there isn’t a whole lot a manager can do about it, especially when the problem runs up and down the lineup and roster. So you have two essential components to the A’s free fall — bullpen meltdowns and hitting with RISP — where pretty much Kotsay tried different solutions and the only constant was that the batters hitting with RISP didn’t get hits and the reliever entrusted with the lead imploded.

His Players Do Play Hard For Him

I cited Lawrence Butler jogging up the line as bad optics for him and also for the manager, but it is an exception to a greater rule.

I see no evidence that the A’s don’t like playing for Kotsay, don’t respect him as a leader, that he has “lost the clubhouse” in any way, or that the team is quitting and mailing it in. They are simply playing very badly in certain ways, and when you’re down 9-0 it’s hard to look like you’re passionate or energized, just as it’s hard not to look and feel a bit deflated when a late lead is blown for the umpteenth time.

But I just can’t cite any evidence that Kotsay doesn’t have the backing of his players in some basic way — most likely if there were a lot of back alley grumbling or discontent it would leak out during a stretch like this.

If You Think You’re Upset...

The last point I want to make is that everyone we are discussing here is a human being. Every player who is failing and every manager or coach who draws our ire when we perceive incompetence.

If you think you’re upset at how the A’s are playing, how the season is unfolding, you have nothing on Mark Kotsay or Scott Emerson or any reliever or anyone else who is on the field every day living the nightmare up close and personal.

This has to be gut-wrenching for the players, for the coaches, for the manager. This game is cruel and offers no do-overs. It also allows you to get to .500 if you win 20 of your next 26 games, and so all the team can do at this point, from manager to player, is to try to get up off the deck, win some games and see what happens.

But it’s not for lack of caring or for lack of trying. It’s from lack of ultimately succeeding, no more no less. For everyone’s sake let’s hope the curse lifts on the flight home and the A’s start winning some games again.

Just a month ago hope was in the air. Now it’s mostly blame and anger — some of it justified and some of it displaced, free floating, hopefully ephemeral.

Go A’s.