It is difficult to gauge whether Ausmus was to blame for the Tigers underachieving over the last years. But I think it is much safer to say that he did too little to show that he might be the manager that the now-rebuilding Tigers will need going forward:
- Ausmus gave too little at-bats to youngish position players like D. Machado or J. Hicks, who may have a future in Detroit. Candelario was only called up as an injury replacement. The one young player who got plenty at-bats was Jones, who has not figured out AAA pitching during his rather short stint there.
- His unflexible bullpen usage does not seem to help Detroit's pitching staff. There might not be too much talent available, but especially the younger relievers have much better peripherals than their results would indicate.
- Although slower players like JD Martinez, V. Martinez and Cabrera had to be replaced with quicker ones, the Tigers showed no marked improvemt with regard to their substandard baserunning.
- At least during the last two months, Ausmus looked somewhat disinterested and passive. He played heavily slumping veterans without even altering their lineup positions and rarely used pinch hitters. Minor league filler Navarro played DH while batting sub .200 then. Not replacing Castellanos, who just moved to RF shortly before, with a defensive OF in order to at least try to preserve Boyd's no-hitter in the 9th inning still seems indefensible to me.
Gruß,
BSHH