STACKHOUSE’S 10 THOUGHTS

1 – BROKEN BASEBALL – Saturday night, I watched the Los Angeles Dodgers pull their starting pitcher after five shutout innings and 86 pitches.  They had a 3-0 lead.  By the end of the night, the Dodgers were eliminated from the playoffs as the bullpen couldn’t hold the lead and the San Diego Padres advanced to the NLCS.  At one point, the Dodgers even changed pitchers during the middle of an at-bat.  Insanity.  They’ve got an all-star roster.  Nothing screams lack of confidence in your players than relying 100% on spreadsheets and nerds.  The Dodgers have won a World Series but they’ve deprived themselves of multiple titles because of their insistence on going with these ridiculous analytical formulas.  I’d love to say they are alone in this regard….but alas….

2 – JAYS SELF-INFLICTED COLLAPSE – We have the Blue Jays.  The Jays didn’t trust their Cy Young caliber starter in an 8-1 game with two outs in the sixth, so they brought in their fourth or fifth best reliever simply because he’s left handed and they liked the numbers of Carlos Santana batting from the right side.  Sure, Santana maybe doesn’t have the same power from the right as he does from the left but he sure as heck stands a better chance of getting a homer against an average pitcher than he does against a Cy Young level one, regardless of whether or not he’s a righty or lefty.  Let’s pretend Santana is the second coming of Bryce Harper.  Gausman doesn’t have to pitch to him.  There’s two out, the next batter is Jarred Kelenic, who hit .140 during the regular season.  There may not be a more automatic out in baseball.  If you can’t get him to go down, then tip your hat to the Mariners.  But, the Jays opted to lose by removing their top hurler well before they needed to.  They deserved their fate.  Just like the Dodgers deserve theirs.  

3 – NEVER WOULD HAVE HAPPENED – Pretend that’s Jack Morris pitching with an 8-1 lead and the Mariners are threatening in the 6th.  Pretend that’s Orel Hershiser on the mound for the Dodgers Saturday night.  Do you think he comes out?  And, that my friends, is why baseball in 2022 is completely broken.  I’ve written about this before but in 2005, the Chicago White Sox defeated the Anaheim Angels 4-1 in the ALCS.  Starters Mark Buehrle, Jose Contreras, Freddy Garcia, and Jon Garland pitched every single inning except for 0.2 of a loss in game one, in which Neal Cotts pitched.  Five pitchers.  45 innings in the series.  Where we are at now isn’t going to change unless teams wake up and realize that forking over $20-m a year to a pitcher like Kevin Gausman is hardly worth it when you only ask for 175 innings a year (as opposed to 220) and are quick with the hook in the 6th inning of a do-or-die playoff game.  What’s the point?  Just pay everyone the league average and take your chances.

4 – YANKEES PEN – The New York Yankees have more money than God and yet somehow they’ve ended up in the playoffs with Clarke Schmidt as their ninth inning closer.  Aroldis Chapman has pulled the pin on them while Clay Holmes is nursing a minor injury and is only available in emergency situations.  Game three’s ninth inning against Cleveland with two runners in scoring position of a 5-3 game isn’t an emergency, apparently.  Holmes did pitch the eighth on Sunday and Wandy Peralta closed it out as we go to game five on Monday.  This won’t happen, but Jameson Taillon should pitch all nine innings.  Forget the score.

5 – LEAGUE AVERAGE – The spreadsheet and nerds philosophy of playing baseball is at peak level looney with the San Francisco Giants.  Last year, they had 107 wins and they felt it was largely because they used platoons all over the diamond, relied entirely on analytics, and then ensured all of their pitchers met ‘league average’ requirements.  107 wins.  It’s great.  But then you don’t have a single player capable of actually winning you a big game because there are no superstars.  They lost in the NLDS and then in 2022, sunk to 81 wins with much the same roster because it’s simply not that easy.

6 – NFL COACHING – The infiltration of geeks into the NFL has never been more apparent.  Last Sunday afternoon, Brandon Staley, the league’s second worst coach (according to my own personal list that I revealed last week), made an attempt to surpass Nathaniel Hackett of Denver when he opted to gamble on 4th and 2, figuring he could run out the clock and secure a victory for his Chargers against the Cleveland Browns.  His data chart failed to reveal that he was playing against Jacoby Brissett, not Tom Brady.  Therefore, giving the ball back to the other team with hardly any time left while they are pinned deep in their own zone isn’t a bad decision at all.  But, giving ANY quarterback the ball at midfield runs a terrible risk to blow the game.  Fortunately for Staley and the Chargers, Cleveland’s kicker missed the field goal.  Staley should have been fired long ago but he should surely be fired for this even though they managed the win.  He’s horrible.  In an attempt to match Staley for bonehead calls was Cincinnati’s Zac Taylor late in the third quarter of the Sunday night game against Baltimore.  He gambled on fourth and goal from the 1 in a game where his team trailed 13-10 and failed.  If he kicks the easy field goal in a game where points are hard to come by for both sides, it’s tied with 15 minutes left to determine the better team.  In the end, Justin Tucker kicked a field goal as time expired in the fourth to send the Ravens to a 19-17 victory, but the score should have been 20-16 for the Bengals had Taylor just done the simple thing and that would have put pressure on Lamar Jackson to score a touchdown rather than just get to the 40 where the league’s best kicker can set up and do his thing.

7 – MYERS TRADE – Years ago when the Winnipeg Jets made a blockbuster trade with the Buffalo Sabres involving defenseman Tyler Myers, I remember clearly how the Jets were acquiring the ‘worst player in the NHL’ based on analytical data and advanced metrics.  When Myers started playing for the Jets, many were amazed at how ‘improved’ he was.  When the Jets acquired him, the spreadsheets failed to acknowledge Myers was the best defenseman on the league’s worst team. That meant he drew all the tough assignments because even though he wasn’t a number one blueliner, the Sabres had no choice but to treat him as such and, therefore, everything pointed to a really bad player rather than human eyeballs assessing his skill level and understanding certain situations would allow him to be a very effective NHLer.  Jeff Petry was in a similar predicament with Edmonton.  He was mis-cast as a number one and then flourished when he got traded to a better team.

8 – BASELESS ACCUSATIONS – Tampa Bay Lightning forward Ian Cole has been re-instated after a week suspension as the NHL has deemed anonymous accusations of sexual assault and grooming against him to be completely baseless.  No matter, his reputation has taken a hit and he was suspended for no reason whatsoever.  This is all it takes now to tarnish images and sewer careers.  Although, we do seem to have eight exceptions to this rule.  The identities of the players involved in the 2018 situation in London have never been revealed and we know a number of them are playing in the NHL and are not under any suspension or forced to be absent.  It’s business as usual for them.  I’m not saying they should be revealed but it’s hardly fair for Cole’s name to get dragged through the mud on something baseless while eight others who are involved in a situation that is every bit real, get a free pass.  In the event something comes out with these eight, I think there will be some NHL teams who will have a lot of explaining to do.  This whole notion that nobody knows who these players are is a bunch of baloney.  Everybody who is anybody in the NHL knows exactly who they are.

9 – HOCKEY CANADA – As Hockey Canada undergoes massive changes, it sounds like Therese Brisson and Hayley Wickenheiser are at the top of the list for people who may be tasked with rebuilding the organization.  Whether it’s Wickenheiser or Brisson or someone else, you can bet diversity and inclusion will be a major part of how Hockey Canada will look in the future.  One word of caution – I don’t know what female hockey is like today, but I can tell you that about 20 years ago, I was aware of two ladies who quit their NCAA team because of a toxic environment, details of which that would blow your mind but are not up to me to divulge because it’s not fair to the women who confided in me what was going on.  They didn’t tell me so that I could blow the lid off something.  They just wanted to be done with it and move on with life.

10 – SPORTSNET INTERMISSION – I tried to give the intermission show a chance.  After two years, I figured let’s start fresh and just watch.  I can’t.  It’s actually indescribable just how bad it is.  I’m not about to slag any one individual but if you watch the intermission shows it’s not hard to figure out who the people involved are and why it may be so unwatchable.  Forget Don Cherry, I’m longing for days of the Hot Stove with Al Strachan, John Davidson, and Eric Duhatschek.  When they do try to delve into issues of substance, just listen closely to what these people say when talking about the goings on around the league.  They’ll use clever words and phrases like ‘could’, ‘may’, ‘perhaps’, ‘unconfirmed’, ‘nothing yet but…’, ‘would be interested if…’ and so on.  It’s all just speculation that is no different than you and I sitting around having a beer discussing our favorite team.  

(Mike Stackhouse is a freelance writer/broadcaster. Follow him on Twitter at @Stack1975)