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List of Montoyo Blown Games (2021 and 2022)

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Re: List of Montoyo Blown Games 

Post#61 » by s e n s i » Thu Oct 7, 2021 4:11 am

Kurtz wrote:
s e n s i wrote:so the anaytics department maps out a centillion (not hyperbole -- this is probably an underestimate) different permutations for every pitch of every game, one of which concluded that breyvic valera should continue bunting with two strikes or that they should continue letting a reliever who has walked 3 batters in a row to pitch to the next guy. interesting.

do you have a reputable source or any piece of reporting that would corroborate this?


It's not centillion.

Jeff Blair said that all BP decisions are made from upstairs when he was on Fan 590. I don't know if you find him reputable.

Do you remember what was on the card that Kiermayer picked up? The card listed how Cimber should pitch to every TB batter in every different pitch count.

If they get that granular for every single pitch to every batter for every reliever, you don't think they also plan out exactly which reliever should pitch to whom in every situation? Come on.


yeah, i do think they plan that out. that's basic game-planning and the whole point of advanced scouting.

do i think they spend hours before each game calculating permutations for every split imaginable? i mean pitcher, batter, score, inning, runners on base (1B only, 2B only, 3B only, 1st and 2nd, 1st and 3rd, 2nd and 3rd, bases empty), the time of day, weather, pitcher command, pitcher strength, pitcher stamina, the batters previous AB's in the game, the previous pitches thrown to the batter in the same AB (did they just miss the foul pole? are they completely behind on the FB? etc.), total pitches thrown that inning, total pitches thrown in the game, pitcher's feel for their FB, slider, change up, this list goes on. and then run the same algorithm depending on the outcome of the previous pitch? i'm sorry but these are things that just aren't determined by some guy in a control room elsewhere in the stadium or some advanced real-time baseball management system where they relay what to do next to the dugout.

Finally, if the manager tells a .670 OPS utility infielder to bunt and the guy **** that up...that's on the player. You're a light-hitting utility guy with mediocre defense - if you don't know how to lay down a bunt you shouldn't be in the majors. That's not on Montoya.


na. if the manager tells a .670 OPS utility infielder (after he has pinch hit him for a BETTER HITTER) to bunt against a reliever throwing 98 from the left side with no idea where his pitches are going after walking two batters in a row, and then asking said player to bunt with TWO STRIKES, that is 100% not on the player, i'm sorry. hell **** no. it's not on the player, it's not on an analytics guy, it's not on a computer. it's on the manager.

full stop, if you're asking a player to bunt with two strikes in that scenario then you shouldn't be in professional baseball, let alone managing a major league team. if a computer is telling some analytics guy "yes! have him continue trying to bunt against this janky lefty, even though there are two strikes. it's what the chart says for this exact scenario!" then our problems extend far beyond the manager.
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Re: List of Montoyo Blown Games 

Post#62 » by Schad » Thu Oct 7, 2021 6:36 am

**** it, let's run some numbers!

Using Greg Stoll's win expectancy calculator, over the past thirty years (to provide a large enough sample of outcomes to remove random noise), a team in the position we found ourselves when Valera was sent on for his fateful bunt (bottom 9, 1st and 2nd, no out, tie game) will win 83.0% of the time, while a team with what would be the optimal outcome of that bunt (2nd and 3rd, one out, tie game) will win about 81.1% of the time.


So already, while it's marginal, we're talking about a bad move. But wait, there's more! Players attempting to bunt, no matter how often or seldom they bunt, fail to get them in fair territory about half the time on any given attempt. This means, even setting aside the fact that Soto is probably harder to bunt than most given that he throws 100 mph missiles in random directions, there is a 12.5% chance that a hitter never even gets the ball in play, assuming you are crazy enough to have them bunt with two strikes. At the beginning of the plate appearance, that will result in a 12.5% chance of your odds dropping from 83.0% down to 75.8%. So let's look at our revised odds:

Odds if not Charlie Montoyo: 83.0%.
Odds if going for broke on bunting (while being guaranteed you'll succeed if fair): 80.4%.


So, it's drifting, but it's still relatively close. But, again, that's only if there is a 100% chance that the sacrifice will be successful if fair, and we know this isn't actually the case, because Valera bunted the ball in fair territory and didn't get a successful sacrifice.

So how often are fair bunts successful? About 70-80% of the time. Which means that, from the 87.5% of times where you do get the ball in play, there is another subsection of that where you do precisely what Valera did, and generate an out without advancing the runners, either resulting in the lead runner being out or popping up to the catcher or whatever. So, from the start of the plate appearance, we now have an overall failure rate of about 34.5%, given that you have a 12.5% chance of **** it up so badly that you strike out, and a further ~25% of the remaining 87.5% you'll fail at your job even after getting the ball in play. So now, we have:

Odds if not Charlie Montoyo: 83.0%.
Odds if going for broke on bunting (with normal accommodations for failure rate at sacrificing, but assuming no double plays): 79.3%.

But maybe he was afraid that Kirk, as a fat guy who hits the piss out of baseballs, would ground into a double play, a situation that would result in a runner on 3rd with two outs (leaving a winning percentage of 66.7%). Absolutely a possibility; Kirk hits into quite a few GIDPs. With a runner on first and less than two outs, he has gotten doubled up in 19.4% of his PAs, an extremely high rate that is also a bit of a product of sample size. That's scary! He has also produced 9 hits and 2 walks in that small sample, which means that the odds of him winning the game outright (or at least leaving you with the bases loaded and none out, which is a 93.5% winning environment) are higher than the risk of him GIDPing, which is to say that it's a risk worth taking.

So now stripping out any other game context, we're looking at about a 3.7% decrease in our odds to win the game simply by deciding to bunt. 3.7% might not look like much, but finding things that will increase your odds of winning a game by 3.7% are why you have analytics departments in the first damned place. And the game context doesn't make it better. Let's add that context!


- Gregory Soto throws really, really hard with a great deal of movement. The harder a pitcher throws, and the more movement a pitch has, the more difficult it becomes to successfully lay down a sacrifice.
- Related to that hard throwing and movement, Gregory Soto is really, really wild. He had just walked two dudes. The marginal benefit of trading an out for an advancement of the runners is diminished when there is a 14.5% chance (Soto's walk rate on the year) that the pitcher just advances them his own damned self.
- Gregory Soto, when he isn't walking people, strikes out rather a lot of them. That diminishes the marginal benefit of the 2nd and 3rd, 1 out scenario given that there is now about a 27.5% chance (Soto's K rate on the year) that the next batter won't even succeed in putting the ball in play, thus negating the advantage of having a guy who can tag up and score.
- The defense knew full damned well that the sacrifice was coming and were so close to Valera that they could tell what he had for lunch from his breath. The odds of completing a sacrifice successfully include a lot of scenarios where the defense might think a sac bunt is possible, even probable, but it's well short of guaranteed. This one was guaranteed. They could position themselves optimally for the bunt without hedging in case he were to swing away, because the second Montoyo sent Valera out there, everyone on the damned continent knew a bunt was coming. It's virtually assured that the odds of getting the sacrifice were lower than the norm.
- Valera isn't even a prolific bunter nor notably successful. He has three sac bunts in his career and two bunt hits, in what appears to be seven total bunts in fair territory. 28.5% of the time, when he has bunted, nothing remotely productive game of it.
- I mean, come **** on, you just don't PH Breyvic Valera for anyone other than a relief pitcher. He can't hit worth a damn, and contrary to popular belief being a terrible hitter does not automatically make you a good bunter. Sometimes, you're just not good at baseball! Breyvic Valera is not good at baseball.

So this is a bad decision in a context-neutral environment, gets worse when factoring in environment, and we still haven't even factored in the part where he was asked to do it with two strikes.

There is a reason why, when analytics became a thing, the first casualty of the nerds was the sacrifice bunt: it's a relatively easy thing to run the numbers on sac bunts because there are fewer variables and outcomes than with a traditional plate appearance, and the numbers stated rather clearly that there are not many situations where a sacrifice bunt with a position player is a good idea. Outs are valuable, and their value relative to base position increases in a high-power, high-strikeout environment, because for instance the odds of scoring a runner from 1st (via XBH) increase, while the odds of scoring a runner from 2nd or 3rd decrease given that more plate appearances while end without the runners even having a chance to advance.

It strains credulity -- badly enough that Merryweather is expected to miss all of 2022 owing to his credulity strain -- that the people whose livelihood depends on telling people what statistically-sound plays are instead forced Charlie to make such a statistically questionable choice. And that still doesn't even touch on the part where, with everyone in the stadium knowing that Valera would bunt, and a 50% chance that he'd simply strike out, and a further 25%ish chance that he'd fail to succeed at the sacrifice, that Charlie **** Montoyo still asked Valera to **** bunt.
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Re: List of Montoyo Blown Games 

Post#63 » by I_Like_Dirt » Thu Oct 7, 2021 12:28 pm

So I suggest we don't have all the math available and your follow-up to your argument that the Jays might make overly simplistic calls and mess up with math is to... make the math simplistic enough to back up your opinion on extremely specific cases. I recall two instances this past year where this board "credited" Montoyo with no bunting as the player in question ground into an inning ending double play.

The reality though is that there is way more than you suggest going on here. The Jays were a team that did horrible under pressure this season. When the going got tough and the team felt it, they wilted. Springer seemed a bit different but otherwise it was pretty much across the board. They'd be goofing around in the dugout and suddenly super tense when they were up to bat. Keeping players' heads in the game keeps might mean any number of things. Or recognizing when the player wasn't likely to succeed and taking the fall for it. Montoyo might love bunting but management is okaying this stuff for some reason before the game. He does it enough that everyone knows it will happen here and there. When they map out the game, it's an option in play depending on how things break.

Not saying this is what's going on, just pointing out that reading into this stuff without adding some additional elements that you don't have access to doesn't make you necessarily smarter than anyone else. It can be useful, but it's only useful for as long as you recognize the limitations of what's going on. Montoyo didn't cost the Jays 5 to 10 wins as you have suggested. It's not even close. I swear people think this team was really a 140+ win team that was hampered by the manager, injuries, changes in location and bad luck. Letting emotions of a single micro issue overrule the thought process is a part of sports but it's good to recognize when you're letting it happen. It happened a lot with Montoyo as the face of it.
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Re: List of Montoyo Blown Games 

Post#64 » by Kurtz » Thu Oct 7, 2021 10:45 pm

Schad wrote:**** it, let's run some numbers!

Using Greg Stoll's win expectancy calculator, over the past thirty years (to provide a large enough sample of outcomes to remove random noise), a team in the position we found ourselves when Valera was sent on for his fateful bunt (bottom 9, 1st and 2nd, no out, tie game) will win 83.0% of the time, while a team with what would be the optimal outcome of that bunt (2nd and 3rd, one out, tie game) will win about 81.1% of the time.


So already, while it's marginal, we're talking about a bad move. But wait, there's more! Players attempting to bunt, no matter how often or seldom they bunt, fail to get them in fair territory about half the time on any given attempt. This means, even setting aside the fact that Soto is probably harder to bunt than most given that he throws 100 mph missiles in random directions, there is a 12.5% chance that a hitter never even gets the ball in play, assuming you are crazy enough to have them bunt with two strikes. At the beginning of the plate appearance, that will result in a 12.5% chance of your odds dropping from 83.0% down to 75.8%. So let's look at our revised odds:

Odds if not Charlie Montoyo: 83.0%.
Odds if going for broke on bunting (while being guaranteed you'll succeed if fair): 80.4%.


So, it's drifting, but it's still relatively close. But, again, that's only if there is a 100% chance that the sacrifice will be successful if fair, and we know this isn't actually the case, because Valera bunted the ball in fair territory and didn't get a successful sacrifice.

So how often are fair bunts successful? About 70-80% of the time. Which means that, from the 87.5% of times where you do get the ball in play, there is another subsection of that where you do precisely what Valera did, and generate an out without advancing the runners, either resulting in the lead runner being out or popping up to the catcher or whatever. So, from the start of the plate appearance, we now have an overall failure rate of about 34.5%, given that you have a 12.5% chance of **** it up so badly that you strike out, and a further ~25% of the remaining 87.5% you'll fail at your job even after getting the ball in play. So now, we have:

Odds if not Charlie Montoyo: 83.0%.
Odds if going for broke on bunting (with normal accommodations for failure rate at sacrificing, but assuming no double plays): 79.3%.

But maybe he was afraid that Kirk, as a fat guy who hits the piss out of baseballs, would ground into a double play, a situation that would result in a runner on 3rd with two outs (leaving a winning percentage of 66.7%). Absolutely a possibility; Kirk hits into quite a few GIDPs. With a runner on first and less than two outs, he has gotten doubled up in 19.4% of his PAs, an extremely high rate that is also a bit of a product of sample size. That's scary! He has also produced 9 hits and 2 walks in that small sample, which means that the odds of him winning the game outright (or at least leaving you with the bases loaded and none out, which is a 93.5% winning environment) are higher than the risk of him GIDPing, which is to say that it's a risk worth taking.

So now stripping out any other game context, we're looking at about a 3.7% decrease in our odds to win the game simply by deciding to bunt. 3.7% might not look like much, but finding things that will increase your odds of winning a game by 3.7% are why you have analytics departments in the first damned place. And the game context doesn't make it better. Let's add that context!


- Gregory Soto throws really, really hard with a great deal of movement. The harder a pitcher throws, and the more movement a pitch has, the more difficult it becomes to successfully lay down a sacrifice.
- Related to that hard throwing and movement, Gregory Soto is really, really wild. He had just walked two dudes. The marginal benefit of trading an out for an advancement of the runners is diminished when there is a 14.5% chance (Soto's walk rate on the year) that the pitcher just advances them his own damned self.
- Gregory Soto, when he isn't walking people, strikes out rather a lot of them. That diminishes the marginal benefit of the 2nd and 3rd, 1 out scenario given that there is now about a 27.5% chance (Soto's K rate on the year) that the next batter won't even succeed in putting the ball in play, thus negating the advantage of having a guy who can tag up and score.
- The defense knew full damned well that the sacrifice was coming and were so close to Valera that they could tell what he had for lunch from his breath. The odds of completing a sacrifice successfully include a lot of scenarios where the defense might think a sac bunt is possible, even probable, but it's well short of guaranteed. This one was guaranteed. They could position themselves optimally for the bunt without hedging in case he were to swing away, because the second Montoyo sent Valera out there, everyone on the damned continent knew a bunt was coming. It's virtually assured that the odds of getting the sacrifice were lower than the norm.
- Valera isn't even a prolific bunter nor notably successful. He has three sac bunts in his career and two bunt hits, in what appears to be seven total bunts in fair territory. 28.5% of the time, when he has bunted, nothing remotely productive game of it.
- I mean, come **** on, you just don't PH Breyvic Valera for anyone other than a relief pitcher. He can't hit worth a damn, and contrary to popular belief being a terrible hitter does not automatically make you a good bunter. Sometimes, you're just not good at baseball! Breyvic Valera is not good at baseball.

So this is a bad decision in a context-neutral environment, gets worse when factoring in environment, and we still haven't even factored in the part where he was asked to do it with two strikes.

There is a reason why, when analytics became a thing, the first casualty of the nerds was the sacrifice bunt: it's a relatively easy thing to run the numbers on sac bunts because there are fewer variables and outcomes than with a traditional plate appearance, and the numbers stated rather clearly that there are not many situations where a sacrifice bunt with a position player is a good idea. Outs are valuable, and their value relative to base position increases in a high-power, high-strikeout environment, because for instance the odds of scoring a runner from 1st (via XBH) increase, while the odds of scoring a runner from 2nd or 3rd decrease given that more plate appearances while end without the runners even having a chance to advance.

It strains credulity -- badly enough that Merryweather is expected to miss all of 2022 owing to his credulity strain -- that the people whose livelihood depends on telling people what statistically-sound plays are instead forced Charlie to make such a statistically questionable choice. And that still doesn't even touch on the part where, with everyone in the stadium knowing that Valera would bunt, and a 50% chance that he'd simply strike out, and a further 25%ish chance that he'd fail to succeed at the sacrifice, that Charlie **** Montoyo still asked Valera to **** bunt.


I trust that you have the math right on this, but I would quibble with two points:

1) The optimal scenario on that Valera bunt was a base hit leading to bases loaded with no outs. I don't know what % of sac bunts end up with no outs recorded, but it might be enough to close that 83% vs 81% gap, and then some. I know the runners were pulled in, but I don't remember if they stayed in once Valera got to 2 strikes.

2) You mention that there are not many good scenarios for a sac bunt by a positional player, but if that scenario (guys on 1 and 2, no outs, need precisely 1 run) wasn't one of those rare scenarios...then what other scenario is there where a sac bunt would be acceptable? To me, this is the only scenario that I can think of where a bunt by a non-pitcher makes sense.

3) Bonus quibble: If we say this is not on Valera and instead on Montoya...then can we not say this is ultimately on Shapkins? You mean to tell me they can't tell this guy not to sac bunt if they know that sac bunts are rarely (never?) a good idea? Also, if Valera can't even get this right, then do we not blame Shapkins for saddling Montoya with Valera in the first place?
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Re: List of Montoyo Blown Games 

Post#65 » by Schad » Thu Oct 7, 2021 11:59 pm

Kurtz wrote:
I trust that you have the math right on this, but I would quibble with two points:

1) The optimal scenario on that Valera bunt was a base hit leading to bases loaded with no outs. I don't know what % of sac bunts end up with no outs recorded, but it might be enough to close that 83% vs 81% gap, and then some. I know the runners were pulled in, but I don't remember if they stayed in once Valera got to 2 strikes.

2) You mention that there are not many good scenarios for a sac bunt by a positional player, but if that scenario (guys on 1 and 2, no outs, need precisely 1 run) wasn't one of those rare scenarios...then what other scenario is there where a sac bunt would be acceptable? To me, this is the only scenario that I can think of where a bunt by a non-pitcher makes sense.

3) Bonus quibble: If we say this is not on Valera and instead on Montoya...then can we not say this is ultimately on Shapkins? You mean to tell me they can't tell this guy not to sac bunt if they know that sac bunts are rarely (never?) a good idea? Also, if Valera can't even get this right, then do we not blame Shapkins for saddling Montoya with Valera in the first place?



1) The odds of him getting a hit there are vanishingly small. The infield wasn't merely in, it was on top of him. It wouldn't move the needle.

2) That's exactly the thing. 1st/2nd, none out in the bottom of the 9th is one of the cases where it's actually close, until you consider other factors. And yet even in perfect conditions it still isn't a great idea! But it also gets much, much worse when you have approximately a 50% chance of straight-up striking out, which is what happens when you're bunting with two strikes. There are probably fewer than 5 position players in the past decade who have been asked to bunt with two strikes, and it's not because the other 29 teams don't have access to our super special numbers.

Valera's only saving grace as a hitter is that he puts the ball in play, albeit with terrible contact. Which is to say: with two strikes, he was more likely to produce the desired outcome (a weakly hit ball that advances the runners) by swinging than he was by bunting.

3) Again, most front offices leave most in-game decisions up to the manager. And Valera was on the roster because people were injured. In the role he ought to be serving -- as a backup middle infielder who can play multiple positions -- he'd be fine, specifically because he wouldn't be playing much. There are a lot of backup MIs like Valera in the league. Montoyo inexplicably decided to start him regularly and use him as a pinch-hitter.

To look at it another way: take Rafael Dolis. The front office decided that Dolis was useless and DFAed him. A week before he was DFAed, Montoyo was using him in a high-leverage situation, the 7th/8th of a one-run game against the Red Sox.

Or Chatwood: he was also DFAed. A week before he was DFAed, he was being used as our setup guy by Montoyo.


Now, one could argue that their bad final appearances earned them the hook, but it defies logic that a single appearance changed the minds of the FO. Much more rational is that Charlie viewed those guys as high-leverage, and the FO did not, and when their incompetence cost us games, the FO turfed them. Teams generally don't pivot that hard on one or two outings unless they're already leaning in that direction...but Charlie wasn't leaning in that direction.
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Re: List of Montoyo Blown Games 

Post#66 » by Kurtz » Fri Oct 8, 2021 11:03 pm

Schad wrote:
Kurtz wrote:
I trust that you have the math right on this, but I would quibble with two points:

1) The optimal scenario on that Valera bunt was a base hit leading to bases loaded with no outs. I don't know what % of sac bunts end up with no outs recorded, but it might be enough to close that 83% vs 81% gap, and then some. I know the runners were pulled in, but I don't remember if they stayed in once Valera got to 2 strikes.

2) You mention that there are not many good scenarios for a sac bunt by a positional player, but if that scenario (guys on 1 and 2, no outs, need precisely 1 run) wasn't one of those rare scenarios...then what other scenario is there where a sac bunt would be acceptable? To me, this is the only scenario that I can think of where a bunt by a non-pitcher makes sense.

3) Bonus quibble: If we say this is not on Valera and instead on Montoya...then can we not say this is ultimately on Shapkins? You mean to tell me they can't tell this guy not to sac bunt if they know that sac bunts are rarely (never?) a good idea? Also, if Valera can't even get this right, then do we not blame Shapkins for saddling Montoya with Valera in the first place?



1) The odds of him getting a hit there are vanishingly small. The infield wasn't merely in, it was on top of him. It wouldn't move the needle.

2) That's exactly the thing. 1st/2nd, none out in the bottom of the 9th is one of the cases where it's actually close, until you consider other factors. And yet even in perfect conditions it still isn't a great idea! But it also gets much, much worse when you have approximately a 50% chance of straight-up striking out, which is what happens when you're bunting with two strikes. There are probably fewer than 5 position players in the past decade who have been asked to bunt with two strikes, and it's not because the other 29 teams don't have access to our super special numbers.

Valera's only saving grace as a hitter is that he puts the ball in play, albeit with terrible contact. Which is to say: with two strikes, he was more likely to produce the desired outcome (a weakly hit ball that advances the runners) by swinging than he was by bunting.

3) Again, most front offices leave most in-game decisions up to the manager. And Valera was on the roster because people were injured. In the role he ought to be serving -- as a backup middle infielder who can play multiple positions -- he'd be fine, specifically because he wouldn't be playing much. There are a lot of backup MIs like Valera in the league. Montoyo inexplicably decided to start him regularly and use him as a pinch-hitter.

To look at it another way: take Rafael Dolis. The front office decided that Dolis was useless and DFAed him. A week before he was DFAed, Montoyo was using him in a high-leverage situation, the 7th/8th of a one-run game against the Red Sox.

Or Chatwood: he was also DFAed. A week before he was DFAed, he was being used as our setup guy by Montoyo.


Now, one could argue that their bad final appearances earned them the hook, but it defies logic that a single appearance changed the minds of the FO. Much more rational is that Charlie viewed those guys as high-leverage, and the FO did not, and when their incompetence cost us games, the FO turfed them. Teams generally don't pivot that hard on one or two outings unless they're already leaning in that direction...but Charlie wasn't leaning in that direction.


I didn't love seeing Dolis in high leverage (or any leverage), nor Chatwood, but let's not pretend that he had many alternate options in the pen at that time. Managers catch flack for bench and bp usage but we started the season with a bad bench and a weak BP - and that's on the management. As soon as we picked up 2 reliable pen arms and Dickerson became available, Charlie's moves started to look better.

Don't get me wrong, I didn't like playing our 3rd string catcher as often as he did, or starting Dyson, but for most of the season he was handcuffed on the moves he could make.

I think that ultimately it comes down to management's inexplicable lack of focus on the pen. The smart organizations realized the value of the pen as soon as the Royals won their rings - if not earlier. We, however, keep going with the "bp is voodoo" fallacy, and stay cheap.

To wit, the Jays had the 11th worst BP FIP in the majors this year. The 10 teams below them? All missed the playoffs. The top 10 teams? 7 of them made the playoffs.

While we bemoan our terrible luck of not making the postseason with a massive run differential (nearly half of which was driven by us using Baltimore as a runs piniada btw), we ignore that it is precisely our inability to win the close games late due to a lack of quality arms that cost us the postseason.
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Re: List of Montoyo Blown Games 

Post#67 » by Schad » Fri Oct 8, 2021 11:36 pm

Kurtz wrote:I didn't love seeing Dolis in high leverage (or any leverage), nor Chatwood, but let's not pretend that he had many alternate options in the pen at that time. Managers catch flack for bench and bp usage but we started the season with a bad bench and a weak BP - and that's on the management. As soon as we picked up 2 reliable pen arms and Dickerson became available, Charlie's moves started to look better.


His use of Cimber remained utterly incoherent. As a stat nerd, Cimber checks all the boxes for a late-innings pitcher: he consistently keeps the ball off the barrel of the bat, his K-BB ratio is excellent (even though his K rate isn't spectacular; he just doesn't walk dudes), and he generates a tonne of grounders. Even his traditional counting stats are great. He's a legit high-leverage guy, like Darren O'Day without the tendency to make Jose Bautista flex over his comatose body. Those are the sorts of pitchers that stats-oriented teams want, guys who don't "look the part" (and can consequently be acquired for a reasonable price) but produce positive results at a high rate. We took on a few million in salary attached to a player who was out for two months to get him, so the FO clearly valued Cimber.

Charlie was convinced that the FO had gone out and gotten him a new mop-up guy. Cimber's first nine appearances were in absolute nothing situations despite the fact that our bullpen was in dire straits at the time. He eventually worked his way into higher-leverage spots when it became inescapable that he's the only consistently reliable reliever beyond Romano, but even still Charlie often deployed him in blowouts because who the **** knows.

If the nerds ran the show, that wouldn't happen. The nerds -- who, along with our scouts, were likely the ones who identified Cimber as a target -- would have said "this guy is good at pitching, and he should pitch in moments when you need someone good at pitching", and that would have been that. There wouldn't have been a month-long exercise in frustration where Trent Thornton was pitching important innings because our best MIRP threw the 6th in a seven-run game the night before.
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Re: List of Montoyo Blown Games 

Post#68 » by Schad » Fri Oct 8, 2021 11:39 pm

tl;dr on this thread:

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Re: List of Montoyo Blown Games 

Post#69 » by I_Like_Dirt » Fri Oct 8, 2021 11:44 pm

Schad wrote:tl;dr on this thread:

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Pretty much. It's mostly people who feel like the manager has the ability to cost a team as many wins as an MVP candidate. Even if Montoyo is that bad (he isn't but let's pretend), then the nerds still have to answer for why they kept him around and continue to do so. They're pretty crappy nerds if that's the case.
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Re: List of Montoyo Blown Games 

Post#70 » by Schad » Fri Oct 8, 2021 11:58 pm

The nerds don't hire and fire people. The executives do. And most executives place far more emphasis on the on-the-field staff than the numbers guys, particularly when it comes to in-game decisions. Often to their detriment.

I'm still amazed by how you got suckered in by one of the most consistently silly posters on here into climbing atop the absolute dumbest hill to die on.
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Re: List of Montoyo Blown Games 

Post#71 » by PowerPlant1 » Sat Oct 9, 2021 3:25 am

I_Like_Dirt wrote:
dagger wrote:I'm not as impressed with this, I blame management for waiting until the deadline to shore up the pen, then thought Brad Hand had something left in the tank. I'm a contrarian from most of you, I don't believe in waiting until mid-season to build a bullpen. Management took a flyer on a couple of questionable arms - Yates and Merryweather. They got incredibly lucky with Mayza coming off double elbow surgery and pitching better than anyone imagined. Chatwood was a flyer, Dolis had a small sample success from the previous 60-game season. But everyone always says, don't invest in the bullpen, you can shore it up for cheap at the deadline, and the Richards and Cimber acquisitions were pretty cheap indeed, but playing .500 ball with all that talent from April to August was sub-optimal to say the last. It's surely not all on Charlie, whom I thought made fewer mistakes as the team got better. He's not going to get fired, so move on. Demand a better bullpen for April 2022, maybe add a solid guy or two to Cimber and Richards.
Yeah, this whole manager obsession is way overdone. Happens with every Jays manager and Charlie seems to be the biggest flashpoint yet. Management definitely shoulders the bigger portion of blame.

And even there, we're talking about a 91-win team (tied for 6th best record in team history) that played home games in 3 different cities this season and had Springer hurt most of the season in one of the toughest divisions in MLB history. It's not like this team performed poorly.

That said, the reason to fire a manager is because they aren't following directives, not because of certain strategic decisions here and there. I don't see this management team hesitating to fire a manager that was being in subordinate in some way, despite the record. Based on the fact that Charlie is still here, he's clearly going along with the plan. Charlie was roasted for sticking with Jansen early on and then no mea culpas were issued when Jansen turned things around later in the season, rewarding the faith in him. Instead people blamed Montoyo for not playing Jansen enough when he was hot.




There are surely more examples of positive things Montoyo did. It's just that I can't remember any positives! Either that means my memory sucks or there aren't any to remember.

Anyways, it is column A and column B for me. Both Montoyo and management/players lost the wildcard. Also, it was the difficulty of playing again in the AL East in which every team but one was ridiculously good.

Some of Randle's points are absolutely indicting. The Brad Hand debacle where he walked the winning run in 4 pitches and the Chatwood implosion for a multitude of walks were notable highlights of downright awful BP mismanagement. But the Hand acquisition and poor BP to start was on management. If management didn't like Brad Hand's performance, why didn't management tell Montoyo to stop using him? And to Randle's line of thinking, shouldn't Montoyo have enough sense to stop the bleeding?

As for the other points of responsibility, there were: injuries especially to Springer, poor offense from Gurriel and Jansen for most of the year, Ryu not pitching anywhere near like an ace at the end, going with Tanner Roark to start the season, Biggio at 3rd being error prone, Ray's great season turning into a homer fest in a critical game (no disrespect to Ray though),

AND THE BIGGEST ONE, this being one of the most unclutch teams I have ever seen. They got better towards season's end but clutch hitting is part of the maturing process. For in each of Randle's examples, how many times is it written that the Jays entered the inning leading or tied and the BP gave it up? Where were the timely hits?

For instance, It's convenient to say that after two walks, Montoyo inexplicably asks Espinal to bunt thus leading to an out at 3rd. But the Jays still had runners on first and second with 1 out. What happened with the next batter is not on Montoyo. Anything causing a loss can be said to be responsible for the loss, therefore, it is shared responsibility.

The Jays need to mature offensively and get steadier. It might be an under the radar acquisition but I like players like Dickerson. Kind of just maintains that .270 average. Nothing flashy. Had some solid hits under pressure. I also hope Espinal continues to hit and is given a chance to start next season.

Last thing. The scary thing about this is look at everything that went right. The BP eventually got somewhat fixed, Vlad became a superstar, Semien's season, Gurriel redeeming himself, so many starters pitched better than anyone would have thought, Manoah working out and we still lost. Some of those things may not go as right next season. That is scary which is why I am for having a better manager. It is one of the easiest things to control.
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Re: List of Montoyo Blown Games 

Post#72 » by wamco » Sat Oct 9, 2021 3:15 pm

I remember where I was when I was when I was told never to bunt with 2 strikes. I had just made the local little league team
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Re: List of Montoyo Blown Games 

Post#73 » by c3luong » Sun Oct 10, 2021 8:05 pm

Signing in here to make a obvious argument that I haven't seen made yet.

When reading through the "List of Montoyo Blown Games", what struck me is how little they move the needle. Fact is, even if Montoyo made a different call in ALL of those instances, we would absolutely still lose the vast majority of the games.

And this is more or less consistent with what the analytics says. In that the difference between a good manager and an ok manager in terms of in-game decisions is extremely small in terms of wins created. And so if Montoyo can get guys to stay on our team that would have less, take less money in free agency, or be a more productive player than they would have otherwise that would be his true value.

In reality, all things being equal, we may be able to pick up a win or two with a new manager on the field and I would have been very happy with us going another direction. But the truth is that nobody on these forums can speak to the impact that Montoyo has otherwise, and we kind of just have to trust Atkins and Co. that there is a good reason to keep him.
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Re: List of Montoyo Blown Games 

Post#74 » by SharoneWright » Mon Oct 11, 2021 6:01 am

c3luong wrote:Signing in here to make a obvious argument that I haven't seen made yet.

When reading through the "List of Montoyo Blown Games", what struck me is how little they move the needle. Fact is, even if Montoyo made a different call in ALL of those instances, we would absolutely still lose the vast majority of the games.


MILLIONS of guys will never "score" with a movie-starlet. But we hired a guy to do just that!!! We even greased the skids for him. GREAT opportunity!

If he can't consummate, we must emancipate.

Because he's just 1 of a MILLION failures is hardly a good excuse. There are other options with more potency and who need less grease - the vast majority of the time.
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Re: List of Montoyo Blown Games 

Post#75 » by SharoneWright » Mon Oct 11, 2021 6:12 am

c3luong wrote:In reality, all things being equal, we may be able to pick up a win or two with a new manager on the field and I would have been very happy with us going another direction. But the truth is that nobody on these forums can speak to the impact that Montoyo has otherwise, and we kind of just have to trust Atkins and Co. that there is a good reason to keep him.


Everybody on these forums, and everywhere, can speak to the fact that just 1+ win would have put us in the playoffs.

True say: 1 win (or two) ain't nothing to sacrifice on the altar of "trust Atkins and Co". Every single win counts.

Atkins and Co. better get their head together. This team needs to be maximized. Now. Or never.
(That doesn't mean trading all of our best prospects for players with 1 year of control, mind you)
Ultimately, the manager better be part of the winning. Or he's chattel.
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Re: List of Montoyo Blown Games 

Post#76 » by Randle McMurphy » Mon Oct 11, 2021 7:15 am

c3luong wrote:Signing in here to make a obvious argument that I haven't seen made yet.

When reading through the "List of Montoyo Blown Games", what struck me is how little they move the needle. Fact is, even if Montoyo made a different call in ALL of those instances, we would absolutely still lose the vast majority of the games.

No argument there. As I said earlier, they’d definitely lose plenty of these games regardless of who was managing them (although as it turned out, even one different outcome would have made a difference). But part of the job is about putting the team in the best possible position to win in any given situation (even difficult ones) and this manager is completely inept at that.
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Re: List of Montoyo Blown Games 

Post#77 » by PowerPlant1 » Mon Oct 11, 2021 5:15 pm

c3luong wrote:Signing in here to make a obvious argument that I haven't seen made yet.

When reading through the "List of Montoyo Blown Games", what struck me is how little they move the needle. Fact is, even if Montoyo made a different call in ALL of those instances, we would absolutely still lose the vast majority of the games.

And this is more or less consistent with what the analytics says. In that the difference between a good manager and an ok manager in terms of in-game decisions is extremely small in terms of wins created. And so if Montoyo can get guys to stay on our team that would have less, take less money in free agency, or be a more productive player than they would have otherwise that would be his true value.

In reality, all things being equal, we may be able to pick up a win or two with a new manager on the field and I would have been very happy with us going another direction. But the truth is that nobody on these forums can speak to the impact that Montoyo has otherwise, and we kind of just have to trust Atkins and Co. that there is a good reason to keep him.


Absolutely true that substituting in a good managerial decision doesn't lead to an automatic win. But the fact that it could in many of those cases is reason enough to go with someone better. At the end of the day, it could have been more than 1 or 2 wins gained and why even have 20 occasions of critical bad moves to log in the first place? Note, I don't agree with all 20 being bad moves but there is enough here to warrant concern.

And part of the problem is that I think it goes just beyond the bad moves themselves.

When Montoyo was putting out Brad Hand in high leverage with the Jays in close games while struggling offensively, how deflating was that to the hitters in thinking the game could be lost at any moment so I'd better hit now or else? What effect does bad management have on lack of clutch hitting? They aren't necessarily separate variables. The moves themselves could also have ripple effects.

I just think that while it might be wrong to overestimate the bad, it may also be wrong to underestimate it too.
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Re: List of Montoyo Blown Games 

Post#78 » by The_Hater » Mon Oct 11, 2021 6:57 pm

c3luong wrote:Signing in here to make a obvious argument that I haven't seen made yet.

When reading through the "List of Montoyo Blown Games", what struck me is how little they move the needle. Fact is, even if Montoyo made a different call in ALL of those instances, we would absolutely still lose the vast majority of the games.

And this is more or less consistent with what the analytics says. In that the difference between a good manager and an ok manager in terms of in-game decisions is extremely small in terms of wins created. And so if Montoyo can get guys to stay on our team that would have less, take less money in free agency, or be a more productive player than they would have otherwise that would be his true value.

In reality, all things being equal, we may be able to pick up a win or two with a new manager on the field and I would have been very happy with us going another direction. But the truth is that nobody on these forums can speak to the impact that Montoyo has otherwise, and we kind of just have to trust Atkins and Co. that there is a good reason to keep him.


When you miss the playoffs by 1 game, even moving the needle 1 game was extremely costly. Right? The league is full of mostly neutral managers who don’t move thr needle at all. But we all watched the season and the questionable moves he made and knew in real time he was costing the team games. Randle’s post just put all the miscues down on paper and I don’t even think he listed all of them.

Now we’re we going to win every one of those games with different decisions being made? Of course not. But I can say with a lot of confidence that he cost us at least 4-5 gsmes. Part of that proof is in the teams run differential of +183, which happens to be the largest run differential to miss the playoffs in either league since the playoffs expanded to 5 teams and the 2nd largest since they expanded to 4 teams.

Simply put, this was one of the best teams in the modern era to miss the playoffs, so how is the manager not partly responsible for that?

And why did they bring him back? Likely because he’s a very likeable ‘players’ manager who seems to be well liked by our players. But that’s his one and only strength.
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Re: List of Montoyo Blown Games 

Post#79 » by Asianiac_24 » Mon Oct 11, 2021 11:19 pm

c3luong wrote:Signing in here to make a obvious argument that I haven't seen made yet.

When reading through the "List of Montoyo Blown Games", what struck me is how little they move the needle. Fact is, even if Montoyo made a different call in ALL of those instances, we would absolutely still lose the vast majority of the games.

And this is more or less consistent with what the analytics says. In that the difference between a good manager and an ok manager in terms of in-game decisions is extremely small in terms of wins created. And so if Montoyo can get guys to stay on our team that would have less, take less money in free agency, or be a more productive player than they would have otherwise that would be his true value.

In reality, all things being equal, we may be able to pick up a win or two with a new manager on the field and I would have been very happy with us going another direction. But the truth is that nobody on these forums can speak to the impact that Montoyo has otherwise, and we kind of just have to trust Atkins and Co. that there is a good reason to keep him.


If having Montoyo means Ray or Semien is willing to take less money or less years on their upcoming contracts to play for him, then he is worth keeping. There is no indication that is happening though.
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Re: List of Montoyo Blown Games (2021 and 2022) 

Post#80 » by Randle McMurphy » Fri May 6, 2022 2:03 am

Updated list on May 5, 2022 with new 2022 games.
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