It’s often difficult to draw a straight line from something that happens on the field back to the manager. But the manager does have almost complete control of who steps on to the field in the first place. Today we’ll look at some players managers may be putting on the lineup card more than they should.

A.J. Hinch – Houston Astros

As you’re probably aware, the Astros lineup is absolutely loaded. They lead the league in park-adjusted offense with a 122 wRC+, which is eight points higher than the next best offense. They have nine guys with a wRC+ that is above league average, and they have a 10th in Alex Bregman who is close with a 96 wRC+.

But there’s a guy on Houston’s roster that is not one of those 10 with near average or better offensive numbers who ranks fifth on the team in plate appearances, Carlos Beltran. Beltran has a wRC+ of only 82 but has more PA than six other Astros with a better wRC+.

Perhaps Hinch should continue to allow Beltran to DH when facing a right-handed starter given that all 10 of his home runs have come when the switch-hitter was hitting from the left side. But against left-handed starters, there’s no reason not to get more of their right-handed bats in the lineup like Jake Marisnick, Evan Gattis and switch-hitter Marwin Gonzalez. Even lefties Josh Reddick and Brian McCann have fared better against lefties this year than Beltran.

Beltran is hitting in the middle third of a lineup that leads the league in runs scored, so that’s prime real estate. Hopefully Hinch will diminish Beltran’s role in the second half so that other hitters more often get into a lineup that’s great for counting categories.

Craig Counsell – Milwaukee Brewers

Catcher playing time is a different animal for obvious reasons, but managers can take the goal of keeping their catchers fresh too far. Counsell is a good example as he has used Manny Pina and Jett Bandy almost evenly this season. Pina has appeared in five more games and has 22 more PA than Bandy, but the gap should be wider given how much better Pina has been.

Most importantly for our purposes, Pina has a 109 wRC+ compared to only 72 for Bandy. And when you throw in defensive metrics, Pina has been the noticeably better option, which makes the relatively narrow gap in playing time even more frustrating.

Counsell did not employ a similar catcher split back when he had Jonathan Lucroy. Lucroy played in 103 games in 2015 despite missing five weeks with a broken toe, and Lucroy played 95 games with the Brewers last season even though he wasn’t on the team for the final two months of the year.

Pina is only on pace for about 350 PA by season’s end, but the good news is that the gap has started to widen recently. In the last 30 days, Pina has 72 PA to Bandy’s 38. If Pina got 72 PA every 30 days, that would put him on pace for roughly 430 PA for the year. If Counsell continues to give Pina more work, he should approach 400 PA on the season.

Terry Collins – New York Mets

This has come up before in this series earlier in the season, but Jose Reyes is getting entirely too much playing time. He has been able to stay in the lineup due to injuries with Asdrubal Cabrera missing some time and Neil Walker now on the shelf. That’s how a guy with a negative WAR and a wRC+ of only 68 ends having the second most PA on the team through half the season.

When Walker comes back to the lineup, he’ll reclaim his spot at second base. What should follow is that Asdrubal vacates second and moves back to short and Wilmer Flores plays third. But it entirely possible that Collins will play Reyes too much at third when the infield is entirely healthy. That was the configuration they went with at the beginning of the season.

Jeff Bannister – Texas Rangers

There’s no reason that Mike Napoli should rank sixth on the Rangers in PA with a -0.7 WAR and a 73 wRC+. Adrian Beltre’s absence earlier in the season necessitated some of Nap’s playing time, and Nap has seen less work of late with Beltre healthy again. But Napoli ranks ninth on the team in PA over the last 30 days, which is still too high.

His main competitors for playing time right now are Joey Gallo at first base and Shin-Soo Choo at DH. Both of those guys are lefties who have better numbers against righties than Napoli, so it’s hard to justify Nap ever starting against a right-hander. Gallo has also hit lefties better than Nap in a small sample this year, so at best Nap should draw DH starts against lefties over Choo and nothing more. But even then, there’s Robinson Chirinos who has been much better than Nap this year and would be an even better choice to DH against lefties on nights Jonathan Lucroy is catching.