by Lou Piniella
At the same time, I can understand those players, beginning in the mid ’90s, looking around the clubhouse seeing their teammates bulking up and suddenly putting up big power numbers—which then translated into equally inflated contracts—and feeling compelled to do steroids themselves, just to be on an even playing field. I’m just glad I was never put in that situation. As I said, I was never into weight training, which is all part of the steroids regimen, so I probably wouldn’t have tried them. But I also wouldn’t have liked losing my job to someone who suddenly went from a 15-homer guy to a 40-homer guy. I always felt I was underpaid as a player.
Would I vote for players for the Hall of Fame who used performance-enhancing drugs? The answer to that is a qualified yes for those players who had unquestionably great careers, and here’s why: For one thing, baseball had no rules in the book prohibiting the use of PEDs when the whole steroids era began, and the sport was in fact celebrating the home run race between Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa. And even after such rules were in place, it took another few years before Major League Baseball could get the players’ union in agreement on a truly comprehensive testing program. So I blame the entire steroids issue on the era and the fact that nobody—not the commissioner, the players union, the owners, or even the US government—was able to get a handle on it before it got out of control.
I know in Alex’s case, he was a great player before he got involved with steroids and, by his natural ability alone, was a great player his whole career. He didn’t need PEDs. I realize maybe I’m the one who’s sounding naive here, but I truly believe he’d have hit as many homers as he did without PEDs. He was that great. On the other hand, Barry Bonds, who never tested positive, hitting 73 home runs at age 37? Therein lies the problem—especially when you stop to realize that there were a lot of very good, Hall of Fame–worthy players—Fred McGriff comes to mind—who didn’t use PEDs and were hurt by the steroids era when their previously Hall of Fame career numbers were dwarfed by players who used PEDs but were not nearly as good. So it’s really difficult. That’s why, for me, I would just have to vote on what I saw. I think when it comes to steroids, we have to chalk up this regrettable era for what it was, baseball’s version of the untamed wild, wild west, and be thankful that the powers that be were finally able to get a grip on it, and move on without looking back.
SABERMETRICS
Call it the invasion of the Ivy League mathematicians. Every team in baseball now has a small army of math wizards working in the front office, breaking down every aspect of the players to determine their value. When people say a pitcher’s wins or a hitter’s RBI are two of the most meaningless statistics in baseball because they are both dependent on the performance of other players, I get it. I understand in this new age baseball there are many far more comprehensive formulas to evaluate players, but in my opinion it’s becoming way too complicated. The favorite stat among the sabermetric crowd is WAR, or wins above replacement, whatever that means. It’s a stat so vague and complicated, even the creators of it can’t seem to agree on what it should be made of. Yet most of the baseball executives and baseball writers today use it as gospel. What it is, essentially, is an approximation formula designed to lump everything about a player (minus makeup, instincts, and intellect, of course) into one number—which the sabermetrics folks have deemed an exact measurement. What they’re doing is turning human beings into a statistic. Scary, if you ask me.
Meanwhile, do I really need to know how fast a struck baseball gets out of the ballpark? How does that help a manager win a ball game? It’s interesting that we are now able to calculate such things as bat speed in baseball, but I could always tell which batters hit the ball the hardest just by the sound of the bat. You should be able to see bat speed with your own eyes.
Everyone is interested in winning baseball games, and data and stats are a big part of that. Every team has essentially the same data, but while technology is useful, you still have to rely on your basic instincts. When a critical decision comes up on the field, you’re not going to be able to call Siri or Alexa to tell you what the best way to go is. Imagine Billy Martin sitting in the dugout with an iPad! You have to know what’s in the player’s head, and all the data in the world can’t tell you that. I’m not dismissing data—I like percentages and used them frequently. The more you keep the percentages on your side, the more games you’re going to win. What bothers me is that all this advanced technology baseball is using today doesn’t account for the human element, and that’s where scouting comes in. The most important criteria in evaluating a player is makeup, and you can find that only by watching players every day, learning their tendencies, and getting to know what’s in their hearts and their heads. Whom do you value and rely on more—the guy with a PhD from Harvard who crunches numbers in his computer, or the scout who actually sees the player and gets to know him? I understand there’s a value in both, but there seems to be more and more emphasis in baseball being put on the former, and I think that’s a mistake. Example: During a game, managers will be sent defensive alignments from above which have been calculated by the sabermetrics staff. But these alignments don’t take into account whether the pitcher is tired or what pitches are working best for him at that stage of the game. That’s why I always gave my pitchers the final say on defensive alignments.
The sabermetrics folks are also at war with the bunt—which I always felt was one of the most important strategic weapons in my manager’s toolbox. If it were up them, the bunt would become extinct—their argument being that sacrifice bunts result in outs about 96 percent of the time, along with the lead runner being thrown out 17 percent of the time, and a double play being turned about 8 percent of the time. At the same time, they point out that base stealers are successful around 72 percent of the time, so wouldn’t you rather have that, with no outs, than an 83 percent chance of having a runner at second with one out? I’m not arguing with those stats. What I am saying here is that when it comes to using the bunt, it’s not all just statistics. It depends on the circumstances and—again—the human element.
Let’s be clear about this: I would never ask my 3-4-5 hitters to bunt. Nor would I try to sacrifice with a decent runner on first and a pitcher who’s slow to the plate with his pitches and a catcher with a below-average throwing arm. But with no outs, runners at first and second, and a slow-footed double play guy at the plate, your options are either to hit-and-run or bunt the runners over. The idea is to advance the runners whichever way you can and put the pressure on the other team. Here’s where you have to know your players’ abilities. Does my batter have the ability to execute a bunt in this situation? That’s why when I was managing, we spent a lot of time in spring training working on bunting. Ask Carlos Guillen if that didn’t pay off for him in the third game of the 2000 American League Division Series when I asked him to drop a bunt down between the pitcher and White Sox first baseman Frank Thomas with Rickey Henderson at third base.
I probably hit-and-ran as much as any manager in baseball. Conversely, using the bunt in the right way, advancing runners to second or third, especially with no outs, is an important strategy. I don’t need statistics to tell me scoring from second base is a lot easier than scoring from first, and when you put a runner on third, it changes a lot of the strategy. Now all of a sudden you have to guard against your pitcher bouncing a curveball. As I said, I like putting pressure on the other team to execute, and the bunt can help you do that. But I fear because of sabermetrics it’s becoming a lost art.
INSTANT REPLAY
I understand the argument for getting the calls right, but baseball is a game, not a science. I don’t think it was made to be perfect. Yeah, it’s nice to get the calls right. I just don’t like the idea of waiting for someone in the clubhouse to look at the tape and call the dugout to decide whether to challenge or not. There’s a close play at second and the manager puts up his hand and shouts, “Stay right there until we review it!” It slows the game down and, in my opinion, dem
eans the umpires. It at least has to be more instantaneous, and I’m not sure how you can do that. At the same time, the game had been played for over one hundred years without replay booths.
One of the problems with instant replay is that managers began relying on the technology from the clubhouse video room during games to argue about balls and strikes, prompting an increase in ejections. I got a chuckle when, in 2016, Joe Torre, MLB’s head of on-field operations, sent out a memo scolding the managers for using the replay video to bolster their arguments with the home plate umpire’s pitch-calling. Calling this conduct “highly inappropriate,” Torre maintained it undermined the integrity of the umpires on the field and delayed the games. Huh? Doesn’t the very nature of instant replay undermine the umpires? The 2016 season was the first time more than 50 percent of the umpires’ challenged calls were overturned, and it’s continued to go upward. (When I saw that, I thought, I should be getting 50 percent of my fine money back!) As for this extra beefing by the managers over ball and strike calls delaying games, say it ain’t so, Joe! Your 66 ejections are ninth on the all-time list, three more than mine!
That’s what I really don’t like about instant replay. It has eliminated managers coming onto the field to argue calls. Say what you will about this also slowing the game down, there was entertainment value in manager-umpire confrontations. Pretty soon we’ll have four robots umpiring the games along with someone in New York looking at replays. Like sabermetrics, this is another example of the human element being slowly eroded from the game. It’s never going to be a perfect game and all umpires are different, especially when it comes to calling balls and strikes—which are not replay challengeable. It’s up to managers—and then by extension the players—to get a feel for the umps and then make adjustments.
I realize instant replay would have saved me tens of thousands of dollars in fine money, but it would have been at the expense of my passion. A lot of times I was more than willing to take the fine in an effort to demonstrate to my players that I was fighting for them. Can’t do that anymore.
PITCH COUNTS
To me, putting an arbitrary limit of 100 pitches on starting pitchers and holding firm to it is downright foolhardy—especially when you’re talking about your top-of-the-rotation starters. I was talking to Tom Seaver a few years ago about pitch counts. He knew in his head what his pitch count max was—about 150—and he was a power pitcher. Nolan Ryan’s was about 160, he said. The point is, nobody knows better how many pitches a pitcher has left than the pitcher himself. The batters will tell you when a pitcher is losing his stuff by how they’re fouling pitches off. The problem is, starting pitchers today are put on a pitch count limit the minute they sign their first professional contracts and in many cases were on pitch count limits going all the way back to Little League and Pony League.
A vast majority of games are won or lost in the eighth and ninth innings, when the starters today are no longer around, because it’s been ingrained in everyone’s minds that when they hit the 100-pitch mark, they’re starting to lose it and you’ve got to get them out of there. If you’ve got a solid number one starter, wouldn’t you want him in there in the eighth and ninth innings if he’s showing no signs of losing it? I remember with the Yankees, Billy Martin would ask his pitching coach Art Fowler how many pitches Ron Guidry or Ed Figueroa had in the eighth inning and then say, “Good, take twenty off!”
I came up in the era of the four-man rotation and ten-man staffs, and I’d face a starter four or five times during the course of the season. Today, with the five-man rotation, starters get an extra day of rest but, for the most part, throw a lot fewer pitches in a game. Guys like Seaver, Catfish, Jim Palmer, Bob Gibson, Mickey Lolich, Steve Carlton, Jack Morris, and Bert Blyleven would be in open rebellion if they pitched today. The fact is, pitching has become way too specialized, with thirteen-man staffs to accommodate all the late-inning pitching changes that are the result of starters getting pulled after 80 or 90 pitches. That slows the game down more than anything.
I’m not advocating pushing starting pitchers to the limit. I’m just saying use common sense when it comes to trying to win a ball game. I had to do this all the time with Randy Johnson, whose pitch max was around 135 or 140. A few times Randy might have had over 120 or 125 pitches in the sixth inning, and if I had to push him over 140 to get him to the eighth inning, the next time out I’d shorten him up, or give him an extra day’s rest. Bottom line: I think we’ve taken a big step backward in letting pitch counts dictate how a game is managed. How many games have been lost because the manager lifted a still-strong starter after 90 or 100 pitches and turned it over to an inferior reliever?
INNINGS LIMITS
By now you probably get the idea I’m somewhat baffled by the way pitchers are being babied in baseball today. Not only are starting pitchers being limited to 90 to 100 pitches a game, their innings are being even more drastically curtailed. In the ’70s heyday of my playing career, it was not unusual for starting pitchers to log 300 or more innings. Rest assured it will never happen again. Even though this was before expansion (and therefore fewer pitchers in the majors), there were 62 pitchers with at least 200 innings in 1976. By contrast, in 2016, only 15 pitchers had 200 innings or more, which, according to the Elias Sports Bureau, was the lowest total in the modern era of baseball. Moreover, the 2016 Cubs-Indians World Series was the first time ever not a single starting pitcher pitched beyond the sixth inning. We’ve come a long way from Jack Morris–John Smoltz. In case you haven’t noticed, six-inning starts have become the norm.
A few years ago, when Bert Blyleven was coming up to his last year of eligibility on the Baseball Writers Hall of Fame ballot, a writer, who had not voted for him up to then, explained to me why he had changed his mind. “It’s a different game now,” he said, “and pitchers aren’t allowed to be what they used to be.” He then noted how Blyleven had thrown 60 shutouts in his career, ninth on the all-time list. “How are we going to explain [that] to Bert Blyleven ten years from now when we start electing guys to the Hall of Fame with zero career shutouts?”
There’s a reason this is happening, and it isn’t just because teams are looking to prevent arm injuries. It’s called survival of the fittest, and if baseball was really interested in preserving pitchers’ arms, it would cut the season back to 154 games, or even less. With the introduction of wild cards and the expansion of the postseason to three tiers, starting pitchers can wind up getting as many as seven or eight additional starts and 40 to 50 more innings, depending on how far their teams advance in the postseason. That’s why from day one of the modern baseball season, managers today are managing with an eye on the postseason and conserving their starting pitchers, especially the young ones, so they’ll still have enough left in the tank come October. However, I don’t buy the prevailing theory that once a pitcher goes over the 175-inning mark he runs the risk of getting hurt. If you’ve got good mechanics and you’re in good shape, the chances of that are minuscule.
Even though I’ve always been an offense guy, I enjoyed seeing great pitching duels like Koufax-Marichal, Seaver-Carlton, Hunter-Palmer, or Randy Johnson–Greg Maddux. Sadly, those, too, are gone forever. When two great pitchers match up today, it’s a reasonable assumption that neither of them will still be in the game in the eighth inning (and consequently a good chance of not getting a decision), and instead fans will be treated to an endless parade of specialized relief pitchers. Cat-and-mouse percentage strategy aside, is this really good for baseball? Be assured, we will never again see a 300-game winner and, with this trend, 200 wins will soon even be hard to attain. It was interesting to me to hear Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred suggest in 2016 that maybe, as a way of speeding up games, baseball needs to look into a rule limiting the number of relief pitchers a manager can use in an inning. It would be a drastic measure—which is why I’m sure baseball will never do it—but I’d love to see that implemented. Not only would it serve to speed up games, it might force managers t
o once in a while ignore that arbitrary 100-pitch limit and let their starters get those critical outs in the eighth and ninth innings.
SHIFTS
What’s most concerning to me about all these new innovations and sabermetrics is that so many of them are geared toward preventing runs. There is no better example of this than the preponderance of shifts, which are designed to take away base hits and runs. I don’t think the fans want to see offense curtailed. When great hitters like Big Papi, Anthony Rizzo, or Robinson Cano come up, people don’t go to the hot dog stands. Why take that away? The left-handed hitters are especially being penalized. With a runner on first, the first baseman has to stay on the bag, opening up a hole on the right side. Except now, with the shift, the shortstop is playing on the second base side of the bag, the third baseman is at short, and the second baseman is in short right field, all but eliminating that hole.
If I were managing today, in close games I would order my left-handed hitters to bunt or slap the ball to third base, against the shift. I would demand that we work on this in spring training as part of our hitting drills, to use it to our advantage and force the other team to reconsider. No more a respected baseball person than Dodgers’ two-time Cy Young pitcher Clayton Kershaw affirmed that when he said, “Mentally for me, I can live with a hard-hit ball getting through the hole as opposed to a soft, cheap ground ball that goes through a place where no one is playing because of the shift.” I’m frankly surprised more teams aren’t doing this, but as long as they’re not, I think there needs to be a limitation on shifting. For one hundred years, teams have positioned players for a hitter pulling the ball, but I don’t think playing them out of position is right. I think there should be a rule at least preventing the shortstop from playing on the second base side of the bag and vice versa for the second baseman.
