The 6 biggest decisions facing the World Series managers

The biggest names in the 2025 World Series need no introduction, and really don’t even need to be identified by their full name – merely saying “Shohei, Vladdy, Mookie, and Mad Max” tells you about all you need to know. But as we’ve long learned by now, the main characters of such a high-profile series often aren’t the players on the field at all. It’s the managers, who will have every last decision analyzed, picked apart and dissected, potentially for years to come – as Seattle’s Dan Wilson is very quickly understanding.

After all, the thing you remember most about the 2020 World Series isn’t any particular play or pitch -- it was Tampa Bay’s Kevin Cash taking out Blake Snell just a touch too early in Game 6. Ask a Mets fan about Terry Collins leaving in Matt Harvey in 2015’s Game 5, or a Boston fan what they remember about Grady Little and Pedro Martinez in the 2003 ALCS. Bill Buckner, owner of perhaps the most infamous misplay in baseball history, probably shouldn’t have even been put in that position in the first place, if not for a questionable managerial decision to do so.

All of which means that while neither John Schneider nor Dave Roberts will throw a pitch or field a ball, they will have some important decisions to make – ones that could have a huge impact on who goes home with the ring or not.

1. How long can they have their starters go?

If there’s been an undeniable trend in the sport over the last 20 years of postseasons, it’s been this: Starters have handled less and less of the workload. In 2001, starters threw 69% of playoff innings, and even as recently as 2013, they still took 65%. That’s steadily declined for more than a decade now, and in each of the last two Octobers, it was just under 50% – meaning relievers threw more innings than starters did. The reasons have long been well-documented, primarily about the “third time through” penalty, which conclusively shows that starters perform less effectively the third time batters see them in a game, and that the endless stream of flame-throwing relievers gives managers many other choices.

None of that research has changed. Here’s what has: These bullpens are … not good. While both teams have enjoyed strong starting pitching, each group of relievers has been calamitous all postseason:

• Dodgers RP: 4.88 ERA, 23/19 K/BB
• Blue Jays RP: 5.52 ERA, 2.17 HR/9

The Dodger bullpen issue has been a clear weakness for months, to the point that Roberts keeps using Blake Treinen in big spots, almost for lack of any better options. While Roki Sasaki (1.13 ERA) has been a sensation, he was also pitching in Tacoma a month ago – and he hasn’t been as dominant as the ERA would have you believe, striking out just 6.7 per 9. They’ve been able to paper over that with excellent, long starts, and using other starters out of the bullpen. It might be an even larger problem if reliable lefty Alex Vesia, away from the team while dealing with a family matter, is unavailable.

It hasn’t exactly been better for Toronto, which had to use starters Kevin Gausman and Chris Bassitt out of the 'pen in ALCS Game 7 – and which has allowed, as a relief group, the highest homers-per-nine rate of any team that played at least seven postseason games since 1981.

Schneider, previously infamous in Toronto for lifting José Berríos too early in the 2023 Wild Card Series, is going to have to figure out how far to push his starters who are either very young (Trey Yesavage), over 40 (Max Scherzer), or still working their way back from Tommy John surgery (Shane Bieber).

It all sets up for scenarios where each manager might just find himself leaving a starter in beyond where their comfort zone might generally be. Nothing will change the fact that Gausman, for example, was 37 points' worth of OPS worse the third time through compared to the first time, or that Snell’s splits are even starker. But while that’s often a reason to go to the bullpen, in this case, 80% of your starting pitcher might still be preferable to most of what’s waiting in relief.

2. How are the Blue Jays going to handle the Bo Bichette situation?

Bichette was most of the way through one of the best years of his career before injuring his left knee on a slide in early September, ending his regular season. Despite attempts to make it back for both the ALDS and ALCS, he wasn’t able to get healthy in time for either – but it’s expected he’ll be on the World Series roster, potentially his final games as a Blue Jay before he enters free agency this winter.

The real question, though, is … how. Second baseman Andrés Giménez has been playing shortstop all October, and even if Bichette were at full strength, Giménez is a clearly superior defender. Since Bichette’s value has always been about his bat anyway, DH would seem an obvious answer, except that’s been George Springer’s role this entire month – and while Schneider said that Springer is “ready to play the outfield if needed,” it still remains to be seen if the painful-looking hit-by-pitch he took off the knee in Game 5 of the ALCS would allow him to find the outfielder’s glove he hasn’t used since September. That might cross off any clear “Kyle Schwarber, 2016” parallels.

It’s enough that on Thursday, Bichette was seen taking ground balls at second base, a position he has never played in the Majors. If he got a start there, he'd be the third player in AL/NL history to start for the first time in his career at a position in the World Series, at least among players with 300 career games.

It sounds most likely that the answer here won’t be “just one thing,” as Bichette could play at either middle-infield position or at DH.

All of which means this isn’t one decision. It’s many decisions:

• Does Bichette start?
• If so, at what position?
• Who gets left out of the lineup?
• When do you remove him for defense, if you have a lead?
• If he’s on the bench, when do you use him to hit – and can he field well enough to help hold a lead?

It’s one of the more interesting managerial decisions on a stage this big in quite a long time -- and it might change each night.

3. How often do you intentionally walk Ohtani and Guerrero?

The last time we saw Ohtani, he was blasting three homers in the final game of the NLCS and having what might be The Best Game Ever; meanwhile, Guerrero still has twice as many homers (six) as strikeouts (three) in the playoffs. You can’t really intentionally walk them all the time, but then again, as we explored last week, the free pass has roared back to life this month. Updating those numbers: the 27 intentional walks we’ve seen this month are the most in a postseason since 2013.

While 16 batters have received one, only two players have collected more than three: Ohtani and Guerrero, four times apiece. While it seemed like walking Ohtani in front of Betts kept backfiring, that wasn’t entirely true; one time came in a game the Dodgers were already winning by five, so it barely mattered, and another time, Betts did indeed ground into a double play behind him. (On the other hand, twice, the bases were loaded for Betts. You don’t ever want to load the bases for Betts. Each time, he walked to drive in a run.)

For Guerrero, the first time made plenty of sense – the Yankees absolutely could not have let him face Carlos Rodón again – before the Mariners made the choice three times not to let him beat them. (It worked out OK twice.)

Ultimately, none of this moved the needle very much, and generally, the intentional walk is a dying strategy for good reason. Why? Even the best hitter is more likely to make an out than to get on base, and because putting a runner on is an obviously bad outcome – especially at a time when it’s never been less likely to expect a ground ball double play.

On the other hand, there’s reason to expect more in this series, for one simple reason. Almost overwhelmingly, part of the calculus is to gain a platoon advantage; as we’d said last week, of the first 24 walks, 22 came to batters who would have the platoon advantage – and that fell to just four for the ensuing hitter. If you’re doing it, that’s part of why.

The Dodgers have a lefty-heavy bullpen, at least in front of Sasaki – the inconsistent Treinen and usually-a-starter Emmet Sheehan are the only real righty options – which is not a great way to attack Guerrero. Meanwhile, the Jays have something of the opposite issue, in that their best relievers are righties, and top lefty Brendon Little allowed one of the biggest homers of the postseason in ALCS Game 5. Maybe Mason Fluharty gets the bulk of those assignments, but it’s not that hard for either manager to realize that the late matchups against these two superstar sluggers are simply not in their favor, and send them on down to first.

4. Are we actually going to see … bunts?

Speaking of trends that have come roaring, zombie-like, back from the dead: Bunting. As Davy Andrews explored at FanGraphs on Thursday, this postseason hasn’t just seen the highest bunt rate since 2017, it’s seen the highest increase in postseason bunt rate over the regular season since 2008.

That’s still not that many bunts, to be clear (just 1% of plate appearances this October). But this one is heavily tilted toward Toronto, because the Jays squared to bunt – here we’re counting fouls and misses as well as successful ones – 15 times, the most of any team, and more than double the seven that the Dodgers did.

Even that is a misleadingly high number for Los Angeles, because four of those came from backup catcher Ben Rortvedt, who started the two Wild Card games in place of the injured Will Smith but hasn’t been seen in the lineup since. One of the others was pretty hard to argue with, too – when Andy Pages, who slumped in the second half and hasn’t hit at all in the postseason, put one down to move a runner up with Ohtani on deck.

But for Toronto, the bunts have been fast and furious – if, mostly, limited to a few players. Giménez and Isiah Kiner-Falefa are responsible for another five apiece. Ernie Clement had three more, and all of a sudden that’s nearly all the bunt attempts just from those three players.

Now: Have they worked? For the most part, Toronto hasn’t had a ton of luck turning attempts into contact, because only four of those bunt attempts actually turned into the ball getting into foul territory, and one of them ended poorly, with the lead runner forced at third. Two of the other three ended up with extra-base hits coming immediately after, which is hard to attribute to the success of bunts. There's a reason this trend has mostly disappeared, and the spotlight on any of these decisions is enormous.

5. Is anyone going to try to steal, ever?

Well, this might be one we may already know the answer to: Probably not. Toronto had the third-fewest stolen bases this year while the Dodgers tied for ninth-fewest, and in the playoffs, they’ve attempted all of three steals between both teams. While all were successful, that’s still… only three.

• Ohtani, NLDS Game 2, up 4-1
• Justin Dean, NLCS Game 4, up 5-1
• Giménez, ALDS Game 4, up 2-1

That’s it. Only Giménez, taking second as Springer struck out, was in a game that was terribly close. While Springer did steal 18 bases, his knee might prevent him from running, and so aside from Ohtani we may be looking at a pair of backup outfielders in pinch-running situations in Straw, who has four 20-steal seasons on his resume, and Dean, a rookie still looking for his first Major League hit but a speedy runner who did swipe 61 bases in the Minors last season.

Roberts, of course, stole one of the most famous bases in history, 21 years ago. But he hasn’t run his team that way, and Ohtani hasn’t acted like the 50-steal man he was a year ago. Don’t expect to see a lot of attempts here.

6. Will either manager make a decision based on matchup data that isn’t immediately obvious?

Three years ago, the Dodgers played San Diego in the playoffs, and with elite lefty Josh Hader on the mound for the Padres in a big spot in Game 2, Roberts wanted to pinch-hit for struggling lefty-swinging Cody Bellinger. Instead of sending up utility man Chris Taylor, Roberts sent up light-hitting backup catcher Austin Barnes, who had hit only .212/.324/.380 that year. The decision wasn’t based on platoons, as both were righty, nor track record of success, which clearly tilted Taylor. It was based on swing shape.

“I just felt that Austin’s short swing, it’s a flat path,” Roberts said, hoping that would align better with Hader’s arm angle and fastball shape, and the data backed him up – Barnes had the flattest swing of any Dodger that year, while Taylor had the second-biggest uppercut.

It didn’t work, because Hader is a tough matchup for anyone, and neither option was great, but you can see what Roberts was getting at – the decisions managers make are based on a lot more than just handedness. There are a few extreme arm angles in this World Series …

• Game 1 starter Trey Yesavage (63°) has one of the 10 highest arm angles in the Majors
• The Dodgers have four of the six highest lefty arm angles in Jack Dreyer, Vesia, Snell (also starting Game 1), and Kershaw (all 56°). Vesia, however, is away from the team to tend to a family matter.

... and a few extreme bat paths, too.

• Freeman (43°) and Pages (41°) have two of the three largest uppercuts in baseball
• Alejandro Kirk (24°) has the flattest swing, and Guerrero Jr. (27°) isn’t far behind.

It will get more complicated than this, of course. It’s never about just one thing. But it’s not just about righty-on-righty matchups, either. Both managers will know about the angles and shapes of both their hitters and pitchers, and how they might match up well or poorly against the opposition. If there’s a substitution in a big spot that doesn’t quite make sense to you, remember this part.