It is surprising that the polls are siding towards the right thing to do, rather than the conventional thinking.

I was leaning toward letting Oswalt stay in, but Giles has hit him fairly well in the past so I went with the switch.

Also, I let Hoffman pitch.

Jon, did you consider keeping your decisions hidden until after the users vote?

On those old "You make the call" commercials, what types of scenarios did they typically present? Was it managerial strategic calls, or umpire-based close calls?

In crafting the scenarios, though, I was hoping there would be a good split of opinion. I hoped to influence some voters but fully expected a healthy amount of disagreement.

An example would be a guy running between 1st and 2nd and the runners gets hit with a batted ball. What is the ruling (or however they worded it) and then YOU MAKE THE CALL!

... Hit for Hudson, Use your best reliever, Pull Oswalt, Pull Hoffman, Mop-up time, and Stick with Mahay.

I think I'll use that sentence as my campaign slogan if and when I ever run for public office.

Not saying he's a Weisman or anything, just better than he'd been.

http://tinyurl.com/o9adg

The piece, by the way, is (once again) about Soriano.

And yeah, great idea for a column. You should make that a semi-regular feature. Good stuff.

Jon, if I were Oswalt I'd be mad at you for pulling me out.

"And yeah, great idea for a column. You should make that a semi-regular feature. Good stuff."

agreed

25 - Yes, I think that's why I went into duck-and-cover mode on Hoffman. It sort of makes me laugh how much I feared the imaginary confronations :)

I think its a no-brainer unless you're Ozzie Guillen.

It's Hoffman's mess. It's going to be hard to keep runs from scoring in that situation. I'd let Hoffman give up the runs rather than risk Cassidy feeling pressure/guilt when/if they scored.

Of course, there's that whole pesky "But what about winning the darn game?" argument, but this is about managerial decisions, not about winning games. Right?

Great idea for an article. I hope to see it regularly.

Question: Do you pinch-hit?

Now if you were to ask me this hypothetical, which very well could be real, what would I say? Well Jim Tracy says no. I'll let Penny hit. Penny strikes out?? Next inning Penny gives up a leadoff walk and then I'll lift him

I'm with you on all but two, I stick with Oswalt and pull Hoffman, although I'd really like to know how exactly the bases became loaded (i.e. bloop hits, walks on close pitches or not, etc.), that would have a major say in my decision.

From Ken's link in the Juice Kudos thread.

I agree...
- Pinch-hit for Hudson with the bases loaded
- Leave Hoffy in since he's the better pitcher

But...
- Use the setup man as the road team will need to save the closer
- Leave Oswalt in since the Astors bullpen stinks
- Mop Up with Carmona and save Davis for a close game
- Go with Otsuka since he's more proven than Mahay

I do wonder if I would consider ego in making some of these calls. If I knew Oswalt would react very negatively but say a Derek Lowe would be happy he could crack open his first beer earlier, would I treat them differently. Instinctually, I say no, but when you are dealing with varying personalities over 162 games, maybe you have to treat some differently to get the most out of them. Of course, I've just taken the fun out of the whole exercise with that added complexity.

And I understand your point about getting your view across, but I wish I could have voted before I read your answer. Maybe you could write the scenario, let us vote, and then continue with your answer.

In the real game, Sele had thrown only 83 pitches. Although he had allowed five runs, only one of those was earned. The decision to pinch-hit backfired loudly, with Ethier making an out and Seo giving up a three-run homer in the ensuing Padre frame, triggering mop-up time.

Whatever your thoughts about the decision, it illustrates that there are so many factors that go into a decision like this, that the logic behind it is meaningless when presented in a hypothetical vacuum. For instance, I would liked to have known how Hoffman's runners got on base. Did he walk them? Was it bad defense? Or is he really getting hammered? For the Otsuka decision, I'd like to have known how many innings he'd thrown in the previous week.

I would like to see more columns like this, Jon, especially right here at Dodger Thoughts, which is a much better site than CNNSI. But I'd request that you use real game situations so that I can investigate all of the minor details that go into tough decisions like these, and then get into a knock-down drag-out argument in the comments that results in getting me banned so that I stop spending so much time on this site and get some work done.

And FWIW, I would have left Sele in yesterday.

Whaddaya want me to bring in Remlinger, there?

Beyond that, thanks to you and everyone for the enthusiastic response to the column.

Furcal, SS
Lofton, CF
Garciaparra, 1B
Drew, RF
Kent, 2B
Ethier, LF
Aybar, 3B
Martin, C
Penny, P

Needless to say, he's pretty psyched about tomorrow's start and said that Andy LaRoche's homer last night was a bomb.

I remembered it appearing about 3cm behind the left field wall on gameday and figured it was a bomb. They usually dont place homeruns that far out!

Anyway, no. Matt Kemp: Rakes all arm angles.

Dodger outfielder starts in those 15 games:
Kemp - 11 with 3 PH appearances
Lofton - 11 with 1 PH appearance
Drew - 11 with 2 PH appearances
Ethier - 8 with 3 PH appearances
Cruz, Jr. - 4 with 7 PH appearances

I'd say Lofton.

Any thoughts?

Neither have distinguished themselves defensively at 3B, but Cabrera has the luxury of being multi-positional (you figure LA would put him in the OF).

There's also been some complaints about Cabrera's work ethic.

Lofton
Martin
Nomar
Drew
Kent
Ethier
Aybar
Furcal

I agreed on a couple of them though, like the pulling Hoffman out.

I'm not putting money on it, but I think Lofton will bounce back tonight.

I never loved the deal, but I still don't hate it.