My one complaint about Servais is his bullpen management. Seems like a good leader, especially for this group of guys, but his in-game decisions are lacking thus far. Okay, I have 2 complaints... The basestealing needs to stop or be taught better. Martin and Marte are both more than capable base stealers but they need to pick their spots better (or are they being told to go?) A game against KC last weekend comes to mind when the M's had 1st and 3rd with 1 out. Marte decides to test Perez's arm and doesn't stand a chance. All of a sudden we have 3rd base with no outs and the batter in a 2-strike hole. This seems to happen fairly often in some fashion or another. Some of it's unlucky, some of it's just bad baseball.
My main beef with Servais though is his bullpen usage. Since the DiPoto regime took over, they have preached (and mostly practices) saber principles (defensive shifting, lack of bunting, etc.) For some reason the bullpen doesn't use this. Why doesn't Servais use handedness match-ups more? He loves giving a guy a full inning. I understand that for a closer but Vincent doesn't need to pitch the full 7th inning when Nuno is available and there is a lefty coming up with 2 strikes. I don't know what the rationale is with those decisions as they seem to happen at least a few times a week. This idea that each bullpen guy should get his own inning feels very old-fashioned when considering everything else the club is doing. I'm all for giving a guy a full inning if they are dominant (Andrew Miller, Betances, heck even Diaz) but not if they are just a decent reliever facing a bad match-up.