Before today he pitched 11.1 innings in May, allowing six hits, 3 ER, 4 walks, seven K’s. Less than one base runner per innings.

Today he comes in with first and second one out, allows one run and gets the best hitter in baseball to groundout .

Glover and T. Miller scare me, other than that I don’t think we can get much better.

bring up juan salas and grant balfour and get rid of hammel and glover, then the bullpen will be MUCH inproved with the two weak links gone hopefully for good.

that most fans do in evaluating managers and it makes little sense.
1. You are re-managing games without the benefit of most of the information you need to make decisions. You do not know the pitcher’s state of mind, the mechanical observations managers and coaches are making, the statistical data about matchups, the scouting reports about matchups, the physical condition of the pitchers, the longer range considerations at play, the myriad options a manager is sorting through and much, much more.

Additionally, you are almost certainly framing all your remembrances within pre-conceived notions about whether a manager is good or bad and selectively re-managing that part of a game that confirms those pre-conceptions. In fact, even while viewing the game and discussing it with friends, you are almost certainly selecting those items that confirm your pre-determined conclusion.

2. You are focusing your attention on the least important part of a manager’s job, the specific decisions he makes during the game. While there are different managerial styles in game management, with rare exceptions the decisions about pitching changes, pinch hitting and the like are pretty standard. Some managers do use a bullpen better, for example, but that is really a matter of their general practice, not specifically which pitcher they choose to face Pujols for example. So LaRussa may like to stress matchups while another manager prefers to lengthen his relievers outings. But whether he used Glover in the ninth instead of Percival or Hammel is relatively insignificant.

The problem, among others, with fan analysis of individual decisions, is that it presumes the manager does not recognize his players' abilities as well as the fan and that he does not know what the right choices are. That is so outlandish as to be comical. Of course Maddon knows what the so-called "right" decisions are. But in selecting, he is considering many more factors than the fans can even begin to imagine.

There are exceptions, of course, where clearly a manager screws up. Even then it is usually because his fundamental approach to winning is wrong-headed, not because this specific choice is wrong.

The lion's share of a manager's work is what is done before and after games.

I did this at some length.
“Please post some of the good things he does “

You do not know any such thing about his decisions. What you know is that having decided he makes poor pitching/situational decisions you interpret any that do not work out well in that light and remember them.

You judge a manager by his ability to identify talent, his ability to find ways to use his talent to its best advantage, his understanding of how to get the most out of his players, his roster management and other factors that have little to do with in-game decisions. You might also consider his overall approach to offense for example, or to the running game.

Some examples. I think Maddon prefers to stretch his relievers out rather than pigeonhole them as 1 man/1 inning pitchers. (This is a guess on my part). I would not be surprised if that is why he often leaves Miller in there longer than some people like, why he tried to convert Stokes to the bullpen (an excellent idea that did not work), why he may like keeping Glover who can pitch 2 innings at a time rather than Balfour who may not be able to (that is total speculation) and so on.

If I am right, his patience with Howell makes more sense. He may have found a use for Howell’s particular talent while minimizing his obvious weaknesses. That is what marks a good manager. And his consistent upbeat tone, much moderated this year to match new realities, is part of that as well. Keeping Howell involved rather than burying him or focusing on his failures set the stage for this year’s success (so far). And in today’s paper there is some evidence that he has encouraged Hammel in the same way through his recent pitching hiatus.

I won’t overstate that he saved Upton’s career, but there can be little doubt now that his decision to call him a supersub and ease him into a proper defensive position was psychologically incisive and helped him blossom. That is a manager finding the best way to nurture a talent and give it space to emerge.

Contrary to your assertion about his bullpen use, he has been increasingly consistent now that he is able to assign more steady roles. He is not, however, bound by dogmatic assumptions there. We know that his preference is to set up with Wheeler and Reyes, to let Wheeler go 2 innings if necessary, to use Miller primarily against lefties and to eat up earlier innings with Glover. But he cannot do that every night. Sometimes health or matchups or even hunches dictate otherwise.

An interesting side not: When he was in LA, he was often given a lot of credit for building one of the best bullpens in the league there.

I have been critical of his running game this year, and I still am. But it is possible even there that he has ulterior motives that may prove successful. Listening (between the lines) to the players, I wonder if he is willing to sacrifice runs now and then to develop a swagger and boldness, a sense of purpose, in his young team. I don’t really like that sacrifice, but am willing to give him some benefit of the doubt.

One of the big concerns I had about Maddon to start this year was whether his stress on fundamentals would bear fruit. And early in the year, I was pessimistic. But that has clearly improved, and listen to the players. A constant refrain is “Joe has been preaching….”, and that is why we are improved. He does teach, he does insist apparently and he does hold accountable despite the erroneous notion that he is soft. On the contrary, he has demonstrated that he is one of the most forceful and persistent managers around, and his insistence on optimism the first two years was a mark of strength and courage, not of Pollyannaism.

You want to like Joe. Look beyond superficial critiques of which reliever he called on and look at the entire body of work.

I understand that many of us often anticipate moves and then let the results confirm our judgments. I don’t like sacrifice bunting myself, and also cringe when it is done early in a game, but that is not a criticism of Maddon. It is merely a different view of the best strategy. In any case, I don’t know that Maddon bunts more than most managers.

As for fake bunting, again that is a nitpick. Lots of managers do that, and particularly with AL pitchers it can make sense. Anyway, it is hardly a significant issue.

My speculation about developing swagger is frankly a bit silly as it is based on little I can demonstrate. In that sense I probably am forcing a point to support a view. But I do recommend that you try reading the quotations and reviewing the longer term decisions with a positive inclination. Part of the fun of watching a game is imagining what we would do to win it. But that is all it is, fantasy. It is not the basis for judging what the manager does do.

Looks like we’ve got a couple of fans that are delirious as all hell