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Jason Smith: “This is part analytics, and part philosophy teams have in baseball where they don’t want their starting pitcher to pitch to guys on the other team three times through the order, they and take them out after two. It’s only the SPECIAL guys who get to pitch deeper into games. You would think Blake Snell, who has been their best pitcher the last two years, would be that ‘special guy’, but he was not. As soon as Snell was taken out of the game, the Rays took the lead… What Kevin Cash did was play analytics over what he was seeing with his eyes on the ball field. He is going to go down as ‘Grady Little’, and going to go down as a manager who made one of the biggest blunders in World Series history. It’s been twenty bleepin’ years since Grady Little didn’t take out Pedro Martinez, and we still talk about it. Blake Snell was DEALING… This is the biggest managerial pau faux and brain cramp that I have seen in 20 years, and it’s not even close. We could be going to Game 7, but everything changed when they took Snell out. You can’t always subscribe to analytics, and sometimes you have to manage with your gut, and what you've seen for the entire guy. You’re not managing robots. If we were managing robots, analytics would win every single time, but you have to understand that you have a guy dominating, and need to stick with Blake Snell for another couple innings.” (Full Audio Above)
Listen to Jason Smith explain why he thinks Tampa Bay Rays manager Kevin Cash made one of the biggest mistakes in baseball history after yanking former Cy Young winner Blake Snell out of after only 73 pitches, despite pitching a nearly flawless 5 1/3 innings, giving up only two hits, and one walk.
The moment Snell was pulled the Dodgers offense quickly hammered away for two runs, and swiped the lead away from the Rays, winning the World Series less than an hour later.
Check out the audio above as Smith details why we might remember this blunder for decades.