not this year....

[xof_two_mindsx]

Most of the baseball heavyweights agree that the Rangers have some big bats. They also agree that the starting pitching is a joke. But what they have failed to attribute to the eventual demise of this year's playoff hope is their manager. While having 16 different starters during the season doesn't lay down a winning foundation, I find it

Comments

[sass_a_thon]

While he may not be perfect, I don't think Buck can take the blame here.

[xdavidwattsx]

No doubt. If I had a hodge podge of puzzle pieces like Buck inherited I don't think I could do any better. The reality is that the Rangers have overachieved all year long (thanks to Buck!). What they are going through right now is exactly what people predicted from the start. As always, mediocre pitching and poor defense will always sell you out no matter how big your bats are. Look at the Rangers, look at the Yankees. The Rangers are 16th in overall ERA, 18th in fielding percentage. The Yanks are even worse. Those big bats carried them through the summer but now that we are getting into crunch time they are starting to fade. Without Buck I don't think they would have even been a contender.

The top three fielding teams in the majors are LA, Oakland and St. Louis. I don't think that's a coincidence that they also have the three best records and are also all in the top five for team ERA.

[xof_two_mindsx]

I think ya'll have missed the point here. I attribute the fact that the Rangers even got this far all to Buck. He deserves the credit. But he also deserves some other credit. What I have noticed is some errors in Buck's management that have led to losses one way or another. While Buck turned the Diamondbacks around, and did well with the Yanks, he also failed to connect with the final punch. I think there are managers that are great, but can't make it to the big game .....these are the reasons why I think that even with outstanding pitching the Rangers still would have a problem with winning games down the stretch.

Chris, while I agree with your ERA assessment, I find the fielding percentage premise not to be as important. While a high ERA surely means lots of runs for the other team, which usually calculates into losses, a bad fielding percentage doesn't necessarily equal runs scored. Though, the other day it did. Damn Soriano.

[xdavidwattsx]

I don't think we missed the point, I think you are being harsh on Buck. Seriously, look at who he has to work with. All managers play the odds with lefty vs lefty, etc. That's not unique to Buck. If his pitching and defense was more consistent then he wouldn't even be in the position to have to make those judgement calls. No manager is perfect and you have to take the good with the bad. You can't go from calling him manager of the year to being critical in the span of a month. It's just simply not his fault.

As far as the fielding percentage not being as important, just ask the Boston Red Sox about the correlation between fielding percentage/errors to winning consistently when it counts.