This is a preview of the Joe Sheehan Baseball Newsletter, an e-mail newsletter about all things baseball, featuring analysis and opinion about the game on and off the field from the perspective of the informed outsider.
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The single most important thing you do, as a manager, is put your players in position to succeed. Asking Nestor Cortes to escape a two-on, one-out jam, holding a one-run lead in the tenth inning of Game One of the World Series, with three MVPs coming up, on the road, when he hasn’t pitched in five weeks, is just about the maximum possible error you can make. There is not one piece of evidence that makes Cortes the best choice for that spot. You have rostered two lefty specialists, Tim Hill and Tim Mayza, and while the three-batter rule makes using them testy -- Mookie Betts batting between Shohei Ohtani and Freddie Freeman -- your primary focus has to be the two lefties.
Using Nestor Cortes in the tenth inning last night is the biggest mistake any manager has made in the World Series since Dusty Baker left Luis Garcia in too long in Game Six in 2021. The Astros lost that World Series. We’ll see what happens to the Yankees now.
