By Jeff Moss
DetroitSportsRag@GMail.com
September 7, 2016
In June of 2006, baseball writer and television personality Peter Gammons suffered a brain aneurysm. It would appear that the former Boston Globe journalist either never recovered from that traumatic issue or he had another cerebrovascular disorder a few weeks ago when he suggested that Brad Ausmus was a candidate for A.L. Manager of the Year.
Because if you think Ausmus should be in THAT conversation, you definitely need your fucking brain checked. That was never more evident than it was over the last two games on the South Side of Chicago where the Dartmouth Dipshit was inexplicably out-managed by a borderline retard.
(Sorry. I am not going to be politically correct in this article. I am seething about what I have witnessed over the last 24 hours. If you don’t like that I didn’t call him either Robin Ventura “The Slow Adult” or Robin Ventura “The Conqueror” you can lick my taint.)
This article is going to be very Steven Moya-centric so before I get into my dissection of all the putrid moves Ausmus made over the last two days, let me post Moya’s stats in both Detroit and Toledo this season.
With Detroit:
95 Plate Appearances
.258/.295/.517
.812 OPS
OPS +: 112
Total Bases: 46
Offensive WAR: .7
wOBA: .338
w/RC+: 110
With Toledo:
.284 Batting Average
.310 On-Base Percentage
.501 Slugging Percentage
.811 OPS
In an admittedly very small sample size, Moya had a .937 OPS in the last week of the AAA season.
Of course, Moya was called up this week when rosters were allowed to expand and after the Mud Hens’ season ended. After the last 24 hours, I have to wonder whether the Tigers are in some sort of recreational basketball league and needed a ringer because Moya sure as shit wasn’t brought up to contribute to the Big League club.
Let’s start in the top of the 7th inning Tuesday night against the White Sox. With the Indians losing all night to the Astros, Detroit had a shot to move within 3 1/2 games of the Tribe in the AL Central.
The Tigers were trailing 2-0 with the bases loaded and one out. Southpaw reliever Dan Jennings was on the hill with righty Nate Jones ready to enter out of the ChiSox bullpen.
The obvious move at this point was to utilize James McCann as a pinch hitter. The catcher is actually competent versus LHP as he has a slash line of .252/.319/.514 against them.
Now, there would have been a chance that, had McCann been announced, Ventura would have summoned the hard-throwing Jones, but no one has ever gotten rich predicting what that dope will do. In fact, just the day before, Ventura brought in the SAME Dan Jennings to face McCann in extra innings.
And I am pretty sure Jennings was throwing with the same damn appendage on Monday and that McCann had the same awful platoon splits.
And even if Ventura had decided to call on Jones, Ausmus would have been able to counter with Moya off the bench since the team is carrying about 78 guys on the roster right now. One of those guys is even a third catcher so sacrificing McCann wouldn’t have been a big deal.
Instead, Ausmus went with JaCoby Jones. A kid who is in Detroit ONLY because Casey McGehee was so god-awful at replacing the injured Nick Castellanos. Out of absolute desperation, the Tigers summoned Jones from Triple-A.
How do I know the Tigers originally had no intention bringing up Jones this year? Well, because General Manager Al Avila told us ….
And Jones looked so overmatched on Monday afternoon that a loser with a .505 OPS in the bigs this season started Tuesday’s game at third instead. Oh yes, the same Casey McGehee who was DFA’d earlier this summer and every single fucking team in the league said, “Thanks, but no thanks. We’re good.”
In one of the biggest plate appearances of the season for this rollercoaster organization, Ausmus decided to go with JaCoby Jones instead of McCann vs. a lefty or Moya against a RHP.
And if that wasn’t dumb enough for you, the Ivy League Imbecile had ANOTHER chance in the 9th inning to correct his mistake.
With two outs and the tying run on base in the top of the 9th, Ausmus decided to go with Tyler Collins off the bench instead of Moya.
So let’s take a look at that shitstain’s stats this season in Detroit and Toledo …
With Detroit:
135 Plate Appearances
.238/.304/.385
.689 OPS
OPS +: 87
Total Bases: 47
Offensive WAR: MINUS 2.5
wOBA: .299
w/RC+: 84
With Toledo:
.214 Batting Average
.274 On-Base Percentage
.323 Slugging Percentage
.597 OPS
Now, after comparing the above with Moya’s statistics (traditional, advanced, barbecued, OTHERWISE), please tell me why the fuck you’d ever have Tyler Collins pinch hitting over Steven Moya.
No one was asking for Moya to field in this situation. Just to pinch HIT and then exit the game (because we all know that we’d rather have a Thalidomide baby roaming right field than Moya at this point).
“We had the guys up we wanted.”
FUCK YOU!!!!!!!
And just when you thought shit couldn’t get any worse, you had today’s abomination where Ausmus once again refused to call on Moya.
For some asinine reason, Ventura asked his closer, David Robertson, to pitch for the FOURTH day in a row even though his team is already out of playoff contention.
Predictably, both J.D. Martinez and Justin Upton reached base to start the top of the 9th. So, down 7-4, the Tigers had a shot to tie the game with a home run.
Ausmus decided to let McCann face the overworked righty closer even though the catcher has an ANEMIC .528 OPS versus RHP in 2016. Moya’s MLB SLUGGING PERCENTAGE is almost equal to McCann’s OPS vs. righties this season.
Of course, McCann weakly struck out in embarrassing fashion.
(And just to make sure you are keeping track, Ausmus didn’t want to pinch hit McCann on Tuesday because Ventura might have brought in a righty to face him. 18 hours later he lets McCann hit against a righty already in the game. Got that? Good. Suicide.)
Then Ausmus decided to bring Jarrod Saltalamacchia off the bench in an attempt to catch lightning in a bottle for the sixth time this season. Even though Salty has a slash line of .147/.267/.307 since the All-Star Break and looked like trash against Robertson in the exact same situation the night before.
And MortonGoreExpensiveStarbucksCoffee swung at the first pitch and meekly popped up for the second out of the inning.
At this point, we HAD to see Moya, right? Ausmus wouldn’t make the exact same mistake again? No chance.
Sorry Hans, wrong guess. Would you like to go for Double Jeopardy where the scores can really change?
Here comes “I Wasn’t Born With Enough Middle Fingers” Collins AGAIN and the douche bag struck out in almost the exact same fashion as he did Tuesday night, this time to end Wednesday’s game.
It was like Deja Vu all over again without the $20 bottomless soda and the bottomless strippers.
McCann. Salty. Collins.
“We had the guys up we wanted.”
Please die in a fire, Brad.
Manager of the Year?
Now MY brain is fucking bleeding.
(You can follow the writer of this piece on Twitter @JeffMossDSR. Also, you can join in on the discussion of this article on Facebook by clicking here.)
