During my time as an Astros fan, especially during the past dynastic period, I have seen some very questionable calls by managers. I’ll be honest I don’t remember anything heinous from Phil Garner, other than continually bringing Lidge in during the World Series. AJ Hinch’s Zach Greinke pull was probably the worst I have seen, and I’ve still seen no good explanation to why he did that. And then there’s Dusty, who has throughout this season made questionable call after questionable call (remember when we weren’t sure if Diaz existed). But I don’t think the decision for Jon Singleton to pinch hit for Jeremy Peña should fall into that category.
I’ll do a whole postmortem on the Astros’ season this weekend, but right now I want to focus on Jon Singleton. I’m also glad a lot of the hate is directed more at Dusty, even though Jon (and his wife) is catching a lot of strays; he was put in an absolutely horrible situation.
Trusting the Walk On
Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t think it was a particularly good call. But I also don’t think it was the heinous call Astros fans on Twitter thought it was. In that situation, with how the Astros were playing, and with the stakes, there was probably no good decision. It was the basement of the lineup and you had to take out the previous year’s ALCS and World Series MVP. The bases were loaded, and the legendary Dusty Baker was probably managing for his job. Dusty was literally given the worst possible situation for a team struggling to create home offense.
Dusty didn’t have any great decision that was clear for his purposes. He didn’t have a Harold Ramirez on the bench to just put there and have an above 50pc chance to get on base.
He didn’t have a guy fast enough to squeeze it. Dusty was lacking the guy in that situation.
Who was he supposed to go with? He had 2 guys on the bench in McCormick and Diaz who are objectively better hitters. But I can bet Dusty was saving Diaz for Maldanado. And maybe he didn’t want to risk putting McCormick out there. Sure he’s a good hitter, but he’s still not as experienced as Singleton in that situation. And a guy with the experience who can draw a walk with the bases loaded? Invaluable in the moment.
Billy Bean Loves Jon Singleton
What did we all learn from Moneyball? It’s not about hitting well, it’s about getting on base. And that’s what Jon Singleton could do – get on base. And for a guy hitting about .167, Singleton did a pretty good job of getting a walk. During the regular season, 15pc of Singleton’s at bats had ended in walks. And don’t forget the Game 5 walk. He actually ended the postseason with only one walk and one at bat.
At that moment what Dusty needed was for someone to get on base. I’m going to leave Diaz out of this discussion for a second, because I think the two best options were McCormick or Singleton. McCormick had a way better regular season batting average than Singleton, .273 to .194. But Chas only walked about 9pc of the time in the regular season. Which means, was Chas going to swing and get an out?
Back in September we had this same conversation. Dusty once again put Jon Singleton in a pinch-hitting situation where it probably didn’t make much sense. But Dusty pulled out some stats on us:
I’m not saying this was the reason for the Singleton situation in Game 6. I’m sure if I went through Baseball Reference I could find how each hitter stacks up against Leclerc. But I think Dusty just wanted a guy to get on base, whether that was a single or a walk. And hey, last time he put Singleton in a get-on-base situation, it really worked out for him.
Baseball Rudy
I also don’t want to go full conspiracy theory on this, but part of me also thinks Dusty did this to rebuild the confidence of a man he projected to hit .275. According to the Houston Chronicle, Dusty manifested to Singleton hitting a home run to win the ALCS. Dusty is a relatively old school guy, and I can imagine him being caught up in a Rudy type situation. This isn’t a new theory for me; I sent this exact same thing in the Discord when it happened. Obviously, that was maybe not the moment to try and build the confidence of a sub-.200 hitter.
Would I have made the same decision? Genuinely I have no clue given that I don’t have a team of analysts working for me. But I don’t think this was a huge blunder for Dusty. The outcome is the biggest problem, but I’m not sure the setup was a mistake. If Singleton had walked, this would have been a genius decision. And it was genuinely a good at bat against a guy who’s job it is to not pitch too much. In another situation we might be praising Singleton.
Instead, I’m the world’s biggest Diamondbacks fan.
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