By Jeff Moss
August 29, 2012
DetroitSportsRag@gmail.com

For the last seven years I have had a saying regarding the managerial stylings of Jim Leyland.   Cancer Stick makes 95% of the managerial decisions every other idiot field boss would and 5% that NOBODY ELSE IN THE WORLD WOULD EVER THINK TO MAKE

And it is that five percent of awfulness that continues to cost the Tigers games during a year where their margin for error is shrinking by the inning.

I figured the “August Leylandism of the Month” had been decided last Friday when the disgusting, smelly relic without dining manners filled out his lineup card sans Andy Dirks against a RIGHT-HANDED PITCHER.

You know, the same Dirks who has been the team’s fourth best hitter in 2012 when healthy and who currently has an OPS hovering around .900.

For you dolts out there reading this who can’t figure out what constitutes a good on-base plus slugging percentage, here is a chart Bill James created to explain it to the dummies:

Category	Classification	OPS Range
A	Great	.9000 and Higher
B	Moderate	.8333 to .8999
C	Above Average	.7667 to .8333
D	Average	.7000 to .7666
E	Below Average	.6334 to .6999
F	Poor	.5667 to .6333
G	Atrocious	.5666 and Lower

So, like, .900 is “great.”   But, Leyland decided to insert a couple of outfielders instead of Dirks versus Zack Greinke who fall in the “Average” to “Below Average” category.

Anyway, I figured that was going to win the prize for the month of August until Tuesday evening when this derelict, sub-100 IQ possessor made one of the worst in-game decisions I have witnessed in the 34 years I have watched the “Nation’s Pastime.”

The Tigers had valiantly fought their way back from a 7-3 deficit after Justin Verlander did his best “All-Star Game” imitation earlier in the evening.  The contest was knotted up at eight in the bottom of the eighth inning after a Jhonny Peralta solo moonshot.

With Brayan Villareal’s cute ass™ (@Ashl3yCouturier) on the mound with two outs and a runner at second, Captain Oncology decided to go to his pen and actually summon Phil Coke into a tie game.

Now, you can debate why the fuck Coke was entering a high leverage situation in the first place considering he has been atrocious this season.   A relief pitcher with a 1.66 WHIP is the equivalent of a fireman trying to put out a blaze with a hose full of kerosene.

Amazingly, the decision to insert Coke wasn’t even the worst of Leyland’s choices.

With two outs and a base open, Kansas City’s Mike Moustakas was coming to the plate with Jeff Francoeur on-deck.

Now, Moustakas has been struggling since the All-Star break, but he remains one of the Royals top offensive threats and the third baseman already had two hits on the evening.

The man standing in the on-deck circle? Jeff Francouer? Well, he had already been to the plate four times on Tuesday night and was not surprisingly 0-for-4.

Why wasn’t this a shock? Because Jeff Francouer is currently enjoying one of the WORST OFFENSIVE SEASONS IN THE THREE CENTURY HISTORY OF MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL.

Oh, do you think I am being overly hyperbolic? Well, don’t take my word for it, here is a passage from Jeff Passan’s latest Yahoo! Sports column that was posted on Friday:

The worst player in baseball is …

We always save the worst for last because sabermetrics isn’t always about celebrating achievements and accomplishments. Numbers give us something tangible with which we can judge a player against his peers, against his predecessors, against Babe Ruth if we truly want. The preferred tool today is Wins Above Replacement. FanGraphs and Baseball-Reference both have proprietary versions; each is marred by its inclusion of defensive metrics but good enough to give a decent idea of what’s what.

And they agree: The worst player in baseball this year is Kansas City outfielder Jeff Francoeur.

FanGraphs says he has been worth -1.7 WAR, which means by using a replacement-level player – some bum from Triple-A – the Royals actually would have won two more games. B-R is even harsher: The site has Francoeur at -3.0 WAR, which ranks as the 11th-worst season for an offensive player since 1901.

With a dreadful August and September, Francoeur could threaten the season both sites agree is the worst ever: Jerry Royster’s 1977 with Atlanta, a -3.7 FanGraphs and -4.1 B-R debacle. The utilityman hit .216/.278/.288 and, the metrics say, played brutal defense. Francoeur isn’t that bad, at .240/.287/.372, with a major league-leading 14 outfield assists, but as Wil Myers sits at Triple-A with a .311/.389/.603 line, 35 home runs and the title of best hitting prospect in the minors, it cannot be anything short of maddening for Royals fans to swallow where part of the cost of their ticket will go.

I know what you are thinking.  Maybe, Jeff Passan is just a “Self-Hating Jeff” and doesn’t like anyone else with that first name.   Hell, I have been accused of that with the venom I have occasionally spewed at Jeff Riger.

I mean, how could Jim Leyland let PHIL COKE pitch to Moustakas when potentially the worst baseball hitter in HISTORY was coming up next and Villareal and his 11 Ks per 9 IP was fully capable of dealing with this dude who shouldn’t even be in the big leagues?

Maybe, ya want some more evidence.  What if I told you that EARLIER TUESDAY, just hours before Leyland’s asinine decision,  a writer for the hometown Kansas City Star echoed the exact same thoughts as Passan?  Is that something you might be interested in?

If so, check out Ben Nielsen’s comments on the horridness of Francoeur:

That is true unless you are talking about Jeff Francoeur’s 2012 season, because Francoeur is on pace to have the worst full season by an outfielder … ever. And that’s not hyperbole. Pick a facet of his game and he has been terrible at it. The obvious pain has come at the plate, where Francoeur entered Monday in the bottom 10 of qualifying players in OPS, slugging percentage and runs created, and bottom five in on-base percentage. Any way you would like to break down a player offensively, Francoeur probably stinks at it this season.

Batting with runners in scoring position? .192/.214/.308. Batting with nobody on base?.233/.272/.376. Batting at home? .232/.284/.355. Batting on the road? .237/.285/.369. Batting in the first half of the season? .251/.289/.378. Batting in the second half of the season? .237/.285/.369.

Francouer is a third-trimester abortion at the plate this season. By ANY measure.  Royals fans have been begging management for MONTHS to call up uberprospect Wil Myers and humanely destroy Francouer, but Dayton Moore obviously didn’t want Myers to accrue any service time in 2012 which would speed up his arbitration eligibility.

Yep, the great Jim Leyland (the active leader in career managerial wins ……. AND LOSSES) CHOSE to pitch to Moose instead of a piece of excrement that Neifi Perez’s OPS could mock.

And we all fucking know how that ended.  Moustakas lined a double to right and KC took a lead that they wouldn’t relinquish.

To put a cherry on top of this monumentally AWFUL maneuver, Emaciated Grossness then INTENTIONALLY WALKED the guy who is statistically having the 11th worst offensive season EVER.

A league that was created  …….. FOUR YEARS after Abraham Lincoln was assassinated.

“How was the play Mrs. Leyland?” 

People can talk all they want about taking the wind or effing up a two-point conversion decision, what Leyland did last night was WORSE than any other coaching move I have ever had the misfortune to witness based on the pennant race the Tigers are currently embroiled in.

After crying myself to sleep after the 9-8 debacle, I had to wake up to the eunuch Tigers beat writers chatting about Verlander’s anomaly of a start, Miguel Cabrera’s 9th inning strikeout and a town hall discussion on Delmon Young’s foul ball.

Did anyone mention Leyland’s epic fail that cost the Tigers the game? Nope, instead we got THIS from Lynn Henning:

This isn’t on the manager. He can only do so much. Any other manager would be dealing with the same ills: bad defense, failed at-bats, and the occasional, mysterious, pitching collapse.

This isn’t on the manager? Who fucking pointed at his left arm to retrieve Coke from the pen and then decided to pitch to Moustakas instead of “Dead OPS Walking?”

Elijah? The Easter Bunny? Pedro el Negro?

That SAME dumbshit “skipper” followed up Tuesday’s performance by filling out a lineup card on Wednesday that included both Jeff Baker and Ramon Santiago.

A month left in the season and we are rolling the dice with a struggling Santiago and “Aubrey” Baker?

And why did Omar Infante NOT start against a LHP? Because he was 1-for-9 against Bruce Chen in his career.

THIS IGNORAMUS IS MAKING LINEUP DECISIONS BASED ON A SAMPLE SIZE OF NINE FUCKING AT-BATS!!!!!!!!!!!

Stephen Hawking just fell out of his god damn wheelchair after reading that last paragraph.

Effing brilliant.

And our General Manager can go fuck himself as well.  Instead of getting infuriated by these types of decisions that Leyland continues to make during this agonizing season,  Dave Dombrowski goes on 97.1 and calls Leyland one of the best managers in the game.

That subhuman wouldn’t be one of the best managers at a fucking Burger King so please don’t insult our collective intelligence, Divot Chin.

If the GM actually believes that this unprepared jackass is one of the best managers in MLB then I don’t know what to think of the purgatory I am stuck in as a Tigers fanatic.

Root for a school shooting like Columbine and hope Leyland uses that as an excuse to quit like he did in Colorado? Even I am not that demented.

Leyland falling asleep with a lit cigarette in his mouth ………..

You’re getting WARMER.