Originally Posted by Swampboy:
So the average baseball beat writer could draw up the pitching strategy and defensive positioning plan for his home team's next game?
Why do you think that couldn’t happen? Don’t you think a “beat writer” could look at the 25 man roster and pick 8 position players and a pitcher? As for a pitching “strategy”, don’t you suppose a ML pitcher and catcher could somehow manage to play without having a play given to them by the manager? And as for a defensive strategy, don’t you think ML players have a good enough idea about how to play their defensive position in order to play a game against another ML team without having signals sent to them from the bench?
Heck, when I was 8 years old I could’ve made a lineup putting players in defensive positions and picked a pitcher well enough for the Indians to have been competitive. Would they have done as well as they did? Not very likely, but that doesn’t mean the only way to do those things was so complex no one other than the manager or one of his assistants could do it.
Like Truman said, Baseball, like just about anything else, can be as complex or as simple as one wants it to be. . . . or needs it to be.