Steve_424
Hall-of-Famer
- Joined
- Mar 22, 2009
- Messages
- 10,612
- Reaction score
- 13,283
- Points
- 123
A lot of people won’t agree with this, but I don't think it’s out of line to suggest the 2022 Guardians won fewer games than they could have won based on some of Francona’s decisions, particularly when it came to the lineup.
Namely batting a 106 OPS+ guy 2nd and a 142 OPS+ guy 6th/7th all year and refusing to platoon or even pitch hit LHB who struggled badly against LHP last year.
Now I get that the latter had positive impacts in 2023 specifically for certain guys (Josh Naylor primarily), but the point is optimal decisions weren’t always made last year.
Just because they were expected to win like 82 and won 92 doesn’t mean Francona did the best possible job he could do. It’s possible to both overachieve and still not overachieve as much as you could have if that makes sense.
I was one of the one's angry that Josh Naylor kept facing LHP and it turned out Tito knew more than me, because Naylor grew from a platoon bat to a legit all-star-caliber player because they stuck with him and believed in him.