36.3. It Was Poor Luck To Have Poor Planning

[agrudez]

2036 is in the books and the Phantoms missed the playoffs again - this time by a mere 1 game (after missing it by 4 last season). A disastrous 11-17 August (the same month in which my 15 game losing streak occurred last season) followed by a muted 14-12 September response was the culprit. But what was to blame?

We could talk about missing our middle infield (Sullivan down for 1.5 months, Guzman down for 4 weeks) during that time. We could talk about missing 2/5ths of our opening day rotation (Tong for 1.5 months, Charles for 2 months) during that time. We could talk about the myriad other injuries during that time, too (Ortiz going down shortly after getting him to replace Tong, Linder missing significant time after coming in to replace Charles, Flores missing the last 1/3rd of the season due to injury and then an 'unknown return' timetable, etc.). There are lots of things we could talk about - and none would be untrue - but everyone has injuries. No, this one falls squarely in my lap for poor planning.

Going into the year, there were areas where we felt very good about our depth and others where we didn't. In the OF, having Young riding the pine and Hall within arms length as the DH we weren't stressed in the least when Sandcastle missed April or Parish missed small amounts of time with injury. We weren't stressed because we planned for it. We also planned for an injury at C with Hernandez as a very capable, tailor-made for our park backup. 1B/DH as well wasn't a concern with the aforementioned Young and Cortez on the roster. We even felt pretty good about the bullpen with prospects like Brinson and Diaz biding their time in AAA for long stretches of the year. There were so many places in the roster where we were ready for injuries.

And still so many more where we simply weren't.

One such place was the middle infield. Before the year began, I would've told you that I felt good about backing up Sullivan and Guzman with Templeman and Navarro - then even moreso after we picked up Bluth in the middle of the year. After seeing the trio combine for a -1.7 WAR on the year across a combined ~450 ABs; however, I need to admit that I was clearly wrong. On the inverse, I wouldn't have told you that I felt good about my SP depth. The starting 5 of Peithner-Nicto-Tong-Sanchez-Charles gave me high confidence, but behind that it was nothing but bandaids and prayers.

Perhaps signing a LEGENDARY trainer in the offseason got to my head. Perhaps I simply had WAY too much confidence in Imai (injured himself early on in AAA and didn't develop any this season anyway), Mangin (developed a bit this year, but not enough), Krappenshitz (sucked in AAA) and McPetrie (8.08 ERA in 42.1 IP in the majors this year... 'nuff said). Either way, it was clearly the wrong call. Tong and Charles missing large swaths of the year quickly exposed McPetrie (9.2 ERA in 8 games started in the majors) and forced our hand into trades. Then Ortiz and Linder (acquired in the aforementioned trades) suffered injuries of their own throughout the year forcing yet another trade for Soto.

After missing by only 1 game, I think we can firmly and confidently blame McPetrie starting 8 games as the reason. Even with the 11-17 August (which was after he stopped starting games), we would have survived if he had never been given that load. If we had had the foresight to acquire an Ortiz/Soto/Linder type in the offseason as a precaution as opposed to reactively in the middle of the season. That's why we really have no one to blame but ourselves for missing yet again. At least next year we'll start out with 7 starters already (Ortiz is walking, but everyone else is staying) - with the potential for more from Krappenshitz/Imai/Mangin. That probably just means our rotation won't have any injuries next year - it never hits you where you expect it, I guess. A pre-emptive RIP for whatever part of the roster is the thinnest next year.

[7teen]

I always blame missing the post-season on someone else. It's never my fault.

[GoldenOne]

I blame the Goats! Nashville was 5-1 against Huntsville in August and September....