Zach

I just don't see Albert driving his pitch anymore. 

 

I think it just has something to do with the mentality of this team.

You are a friggin' moron.

Okay, that is fair. And as a follow up, what do you do with Scioscia if:

 

1) We miss the playoffs this year for the 4th year in a row?

2) We start off slowly again next April?

3) We miss the playoffs next year for the 5th year in a row?

 

The last two questions are obviously predicated on if he is still around based on your previous responses. I'm not trying to be facetious, but I just want to know what would be the Scioscia backers' breaking point. 

The "breaking point" shouldn't be performance based, because it's basically statistically proven that, on the aggregate, the game management of managers at the big league level is *irrelevant*:

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=16630

However, it should be noted, just for funsies, who rankes No. 1 on the list of "manager wins above replacement":

http://darowski.com/hall-of-wwar/expectancy/

The only real justification for dismissing a manager is when they "lose the clubhouse" -- which clearly hasn't happened with Scioscia, according to those journalists who are actually in the clubhouse every day -- or when they do something which puts an undue media focus on the team, i.e. Joe Torre batting Alex Rodriguex eighth or Ron Washington's drug use. But even in the latter case, obviously, the Rangers smartly decided that weathering that storm was smarter than bringing in an unknown quantity to lead the club.

Your best hitter bats 3rd.

Wrong:

http://insider.espn.go.com/mlb/blog/_/name/law_keith/id/9227029/joey-votto-bat-second-cincinnati-reds-mlb

I also just attended a panel where Billy Beane and Theo Epstein admitted baseball lineups aren't optimized. Keep your conventional wisdom, please.