This has looked like the bad old days of April with failures with a man on third and less than two outs.
That's right, Phillips, Manuel pinch hit Santos for Castro because he thought Santos could catch up to a fast ball better - way to forget to mention that Santos popped out to end the game (I was at that game). It really does seem that Randolph was a better in-game manager than Manuel is, as unbelievable as that is.
down by 2 with 2 outs and no one on in the 9th against a righty is a much better spot to PH castro than bases loaded with a lefty in the inning before.
I like to think (hope, really) that it's just natural for all fans to be antagonized by their managers, and we'd get frustrated with whoever we had. That said, the Pagan move was one of the dumbest pinch hit decisions I've ever seen.
I imagine that with teams with good strategic managers their fans don't get frustrated by them. Obviously you're not going to agree with every move a guy makes but as Mets fans we've really been scraping the bottom of the barrel with Willie and now Manuel.
I will definitely acknowledge that the internet makes it much worse - it's so easy to immediately post displeasure or see other posts, and that reinforces what in the old days could have just been a passing feeling. On the other hand, sabermetrics has exposed so many managers as being incompetent boobs, who manage "by their guts," and are wrong far more often than they are right. I tend to think that the good managers are like the good umpires - most of the time you don't even know they're there. So-called "geniuses" like LaRussa would no doubt also drive me crazy, but when you see a moronic sac bunt attempt in EVERY game, it's not just sour grapes on the part of the fans to think that a crib sheet with basic strategy written on it could do a better job than the manager (sort of the analogy to the basic strategy in blackjack).
