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Chris Perez:
SB: And when things get a little bumpy? Then [where] does that extra gas come from?
CP: usually adrenaline. When things get sticky, I sacrifice location for velocity and movement
Steve gives us a recap of various platoon splits. I’m going to link you to his references in the comments, but you should read from the top of the page.
Peter’s chart for 2002-2010.
1. The “through count” is 100 times more useful than the “at count”. The at-count is saying “if you know the at bat ends on this pitch, what just happened”. It is so prone to misuse, and so limited in its good use, that you have to be extremely careful.
The through-count is saying “now that I’m in this count, what happens by the time my turn at bat ends”.
I’m glad Peter said he’ll have the better chart next week.
2. Remove all IBB. They are nothing but noise, and they cause problems. If you insist on keeping the IBB, then treat them like regular BB in wOBA.
3. Last point: it’s easier to follow if you sort based on hitter’s count to pitcher’s count. That means, in order:
3-0
3-1, 2-0
3-2, 2-1, 1-0
0-0, 1-1, 2-2
0-1, 1-2
0-2
UPDATE: Through-counts here.
I was just thinking about this topic driving in. And here’s RJ doing some good stuff. He looks at the rate of a pitcher’s first pitch being offspeed or not. And then he looks at the rate of offspeed on all of a pitcher’s pitches.
He then compares the ratio of those two rates to a pitcher’s component runs allowed (SIERA in this case). And, basically, the conclusion is simply:
it seems that different strokes work for different folks
That is, guys who pitch in a random way aren’t necessarily better off. Cliff Lee is the one that has the most visible pattern based on this metric, and, well, it’s not hurting him. It may be simply like it is with Vlad et al on the hitting side, that the optimal approach is one borne of experience: if you are not successful, you try something different on occasion, and if it feels good, you adapt that to your repertoire. It seems almost tautological. If a guy is performing well, you shut up, because even if it shouldn’t work, it is working (or at least seems to be working). If a guy is not performing well, then you can try different things, though chances are, nothing is really going to change (though occasionally, you get a real change).
Pitch f/x guys, this is directed toward you… Unless I missed something…
In The Book, we show that batter/pitcher match ups (at least in less than enormous samples of data) have virtually no predictive value. We even show that batter results against certain classes of pitchers have little or no predictive value.
However, we seem to reserve the notion that certain types of batters may perform “better or worse than expected” against certain types of pitchers, beyond what we looked at in The Book. For example, we often give managers credit for “knowing” that a high ball hitter might do well against a high ball pitcher or a good curve ball hitter may do well against a pitcher who throws lots of curves. Etc.
So how about one of our pitch f/x guys doing this:
Establish two groups of pitchers - those that throw a lot of high pitches and those that throw a lot of low pitches. You don’t need to put all pitchers into one or the other group - just the extreme ones - maybe the top and bottom 10%. Then do the same for batters, only 4 groups - those that perform well against the high pitch and those that don’t. And those that perform well against the low pitch and those that don’t.
Now look at expected versus actual performance of each group of batters against both groups of pitchers. Expected would be their overall wOBA matched up (using odds ratio) with the overall wOBA of the pitcher, adjusted for handedness using platoon ratios.
Of course, you have to make sure that the data used for the groupings and the data used for the expected and actual performance are different.
Do the same thing for different locations (say outside and inside pitches) and for different types of pitches.
Wouldn’t that pretty much settle the long-standing debate over whether a manager, scout, or anyone can recognize and utilize to their advantage a favorable or unfavorable match up?
Too many graphics for me to watch at the office, so I’ll just link to it here so I can check it out tonight.
The top 90% of this article is excellent. This is the kind of stuff everyone should be doing.
The last 10%, using the tool, I would not recommend. Instead, use Table 51 or 52 from The Book, which is just like the author from the other thread from yesterday did.
Put these two authors in touch with each other, and you’ve got some great sabermetric work.
I can’t really read it at the office, but I do have a question regarding this:
Red means hot for Wright, while Blue means cold for him. (And obviously, vice-versa for pitchers.) I just can’t get passed all the blue down-the-middle for Wright 2009. Basically, I need to know how that’s calculated in order to accept that chart as a factual assumption.
http://www.theyankeeu.com/2011/01/why-batter-vs-pitcher-matchups-matter-24167
Interesting paradox:
Swing often, and early, and you may never get to that two strike count where the whiff means a K. By take more pitches, the count gets deeper, and the likelihood of a strikeout rises. A lower strikeout rate is a strange ‘benefit’ to having a free-swinging approach, but it looks to be true.
A great first volley:
http://www.platoonadvantage.com/2010/10/matchmaker-matchmaker-make-me-match.html
http://www.platoonadvantage.com/2010/11/matchups-revisited.html
What’s next? Split the careers. This would help answer the question. You could split it in half by timeline, or in half by even/odd years, or in half by random. Whatever. Just do one of them, and let’s see what we get. Give me the correlation of sample-to-sample, and tell me the average number of PA for each player in each sample. And then, we’ll get our final answer. Fame and fortune awaits an aspiring saberist who wants to roll up his sleeves. Well, except for the fortune part. But your work will be oft-cited.
A great piece by CrashburnAlley. In his career, 2135 PA as LHH v RHP, .323 wOBA. As a RHH v LHP (894 PA), it’s .367.
For switch hitters, you only need 600 PA to regress halfway toward the mean split (which is right around 0). So, the observed 44 point difference is an estimated true 22 point difference.
And therein lies the problem. A true 22 point difference is right around the split we’d expect to see for non-switch hitters. So, Shane Victorino is in that sweet spot where you can make as many reasonable arguments on one side as you can on the other, for keeping him a switch hitter as abandoning it.
Of course, we don’t need to do an either/or. Victorino could just as well base his decision based not only on the handedness of the pitcher, but that pitcher’s true platoon split, as well as how he matchup up style wise (hard/soft as Baer noted in his column). Indeed, Victorino is in a great position to pick his spots and optimize the times he does, and does not, matchup up well against RHP.
This is a great example where you can have players, scouting, and sabermetrics converging on an issue to come up with a solution.
A .500 wOBA is Barry Bonds at his peak.
.450 is Pujols
.400 is a great hitter
.350 is a good hitter
.300 is a bad hitter
.250 is the worst hitter in the league
Suppose you have someone over the last 3 or 4 seasons with 2000 PA at a wOBA of .300 against all pitchers except for this one particular pitcher. Your typical Molina brother.
Let’s say this hitter is facing a pitcher against whom he has a .800 wOBA in 20 PA (this pitcher is an overall league-average pitcher). He’s the super awesome against him. So super-duper awesome that of all batter-pitcher matchups, no batter has a higher wOBA against any pitcher than this guy has against that pitcher.
Tomorrow, this hitter is facing that pitcher. What is your best estimate as to how he will perform?
This is what we have:
.300 wOBA, 2000 PA against rest of league
.800 wOBA, 20 PA against this pitcher
Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that you believe that batter-pitcher matchups are relevant. They are so relevant that one PA is worth ten PA. Knowing that you will be facing this pitcher, you are going to overweight the 20 PA he has against him as 200 PA.
So, .300 x 2000
plus .800 x 200
divided by 2200 (i.e, new PA)
equals .345
Is this what is being suggested by the readers who believe in matchups?
What about a more reasonable, but still extreme matchup. Instead of an .800 wOBA, it’s a .500 wOBA, which is still Bondsesque. Now, our hitter is .318 (instead of a career .302).
Even with a fairly extreme matchup (.500) with a very aggressive relevancy factor (each PA worth 10 times as much as a normal PA), the change in wOBA goes from .302 to .318, a 16 point difference.
I’ve always maintained that I can give a maximum 20 point wOBA allowance for “gut” or “clutch” or some other intangible (or mathematically-gyrated tangible). If someone wants to argue playing the .330 wOBA player over the .350 wOBA player because of things-I-don’t-understand, then fine. But, that’s as far as I can let it go.
If you want to argue for more, then show the evidence.
After watching Diory Hernandez (or was it Infante?) hacking away at 3 straight balls against Santiago Casilla on a 3-2 count (and eventually striking out) in last night’s ATL/SF game, it occurred to me that with some batters (low power, bad strike zone judgment) against some pitchers (poor control, don’t like to “give in” on 3-2 counts) in some situations (where a base runner is relatively - as compared to the usual values - more important than an extra base hit or even a single), it might be correct to simply take (not swing no matter what) at a 3-2 pitch. I am leaving game theory aside for the moment (if the pitcher knows or suspects you are doing so, or even that you are going to be very selective, his approach radically changes).
In fact, I am almost certain that this is the case, especially given how frequently batters swing at 3-2 pitches out of the zone.
Does anyone who does pitch f/x research want to roll up their sleeves on this one? I would love to see the results. I think it might shock some people.
Of course, an alternative, and probably a better one, is for a batter to approach the pitch as if it were a 3-0 or 3-1 (or 2-0 perhaps) count and only swing if they think the pitch is right in their wheelhouse, or only swing at a fastball in the zone, or something like that. As we have seen in some previous threads, there is something about a 3-2 count that makes hitters act like idiots (it appears from the pitch f/x data that batters swing at MORE bad pitches on 3-2 than at 2-2, although I don’t think the data is conclusive, because pitches in and out of the zone are not equal at those counts).
If you are a Braves fan, you are justifiably emotional about last night’s game.
Here are the 3 major criticisms I have read:
1) Not pulling Conrad for Diory Hernandez in the 9th, for defensive purposes.
2) Kimbrel throwing a slider to Sanchez on the 1-2 count.
3) Choosing to bring in Dunn, the lefty reliever, to pitch to Huff, who has a higher BA against lefties this year.
OK, number one is a legitimate beef I think. I do no know how good a defender Hernandez is. I have a feeling that Cox never even thought of replacing Conrad in the 9th. I don’t think any of the commentators did either. No one remarked about it on TV that I remember.
Despite Conrad’s recent woes in the field, is he really that bad of a fielder? According to Chone’s TZ for the minor leagues, he was a slightly below average defender at 2B. Now maybe, with all his miscues recently, he was nervous and thus a terrible fielder at the time. I don’t know. Only someone like Cox might know that. And of course if Conrad is much the worse fielder, how much does that actually cost in terms of WE?
Number two is somewhat of a legitimate beef I think, although it is very much a 20-20 hindsight thing. If Sanchez had gotten out on that slider, no one would have said a thing. Plus, it was a little bit of a hanger. Had Kimbrel thrown that down and away, like he wanted to, again, no one likely would have said a thing. Yes, he has a good fastball, and yes, Sanchez had just swung at some fastballs out of the zone (and missed them badly), but is he supposed to throw all fastballs? He has a good slider. If he had thrown a fastball right down the middle and Sanchez had gotten a hit, fans could easily have criticized him for throwing too many fastballs. I did not think that the slider was a terrible pitch to throw in that situation. He obviously missed his location which can happen with any pitch. I don’t think there is much of a legitimate criticism here. A little maybe, as I said, but not a lot.
#3 is way off the mark, I think. There are several reasons why. First of all, despite the fact that Huff is hitting better versus lefties, BA-wise this year, all lefties batters have positive platoon splits. Virtually no lefty batter has a reverse platoon split. In fact, if you look at Huff’s last 3 years, he has a 1.15 platoon ratio for OPS, and even a 1.08 ratio for BA. If we go back 5 years, it is even higher than that. So, the idea that Huff’s higher BA against lefties in 2010 means anything (predictive) is nonsense.
Now, when you bring in a same-side pitcher, it is not just the batter’s true platoon ratio that you care about, but the pitcher’s as well. Let’s say that Huff had a 1.00 ratio or even a reverse one. If you brought in a pitcher with a large platoon ration, it still might be correct. The platoon ratio for a particular batter/pitcher matchup, like anything else, is roughly a log-5 (odds ratio) combination of the pitcher and batter’s ratio.
And obviously the overall true talent of the pitcher has to be considered as well. If you bring in an overall (much) worse pitcher just to get a platoon advantage, it still might not be correct, although when you bring in lefty against lefty, in most cases you gain so much from the platoon advantage that even a mediocre overall lefty becomes a very good pitcher when facing a lefty batter.
So what about Dunn? What is his true platoon ratio? In a small sample, his MLB career platoon (OPS against) splits are large - 1.29.
For all pitchers, I compute estimated platoon splits from their actual numbers in the majors and minors, regressed the appropriate amount, given the types of pitches (and frequencies) they throw. For Dunn, I have that number at 1.27. For Kimbrel, based on his minor league stats, I have that at 1.31 (mostly because he throws the 2 pitches with the highest platoon ratios - fastball and slider). So it looks like Dunn is WAY the better choice for Huff than Kimbrel. What about Moylan or Farnsworth? Moylan is a siderarmer. He has an estimated true split of 1.41. And Farnsworth’s is 1.21, also a large platoon split, probably because he throws mostly fastballs I think.
Finally, I also, in my computations, estimate the average ERA that a reliever would have against RHB and LHB with average platoon splits:
Dunn
vs. RHB: 3.80
vs. LHB: 3.03
Kimbrel
vs. RHB: 2.91
vs. LHB: 3.75
Farnsworth
vs. RHB: 3.23
vs. LHB: 3.93
Moylan
vs. RHB: 3.51
vs. LHB: 4.86
So, it looks like Dunn was clearly the right choice, even if Huff had a slightly smaller platoon split than the average LHB (and there is not much evidence that that is the case - in fact, my estimated OPS true platoon split for him is quite high - 1.21 ).
If you watched the Yankees/Twins game last night you probably heard the commentators go on about the Yankee hitters jumping on Pavano’s first pitch because Pavano tends to throw first pitch fastballs over or near the plate.
Later in the game, they talked about Pavano adjusting to the Yankee approach and then the Yankees adjusting to Pavano, etc.
Sounds all well and good, right?
Wrong!
If batters and pitchers adjust their approaches according to what the other has done in the past during a game, then one or the other is NOT performing (in terms of their approach/strategy) optimally! Game theory tells us that.
Baseball is a game of adjustments only in terms of learning - a player improving upon his skills and strategy and learning new things about his opponent. It should NOT be about the kind of adjustments during a game that you hear from commentators all the time.
One pitches as you’d expect, and the other, not at all:
May 16 22:50
Dodgers’ win reversed because Mattingly did not attest to proper score!
May 16 20:44
How to beat the shift
May 16 20:02
Sponsoring MLB jerseys
May 16 19:34
Now you frame it, now you don’t
May 16 16:56
Did Manny Pacquaio actually quote Leviticus?
May 16 16:06
Does changing your pitch frequency lead to substantial change in results?
May 16 14:18
Extra Innings: One-minute review
May 16 14:16
This particular criticism of UZR is unfounded
May 16 13:21
Psst… wanna intern for the Astros?
May 16 12:23
Arena wars
THREADS
May 16, 2012
Now you frame it, now you don’t
May 16, 2012
Dodgers’ win reversed because Mattingly did not attest to proper score!
May 16, 2012
Does changing your pitch frequency lead to substantial change in results?
May 16, 2012
Sponsoring MLB jerseys
May 15, 2012
Andre The Hawk Dawson speaks
May 15, 2012
Euro 2012 Preview
May 15, 2012
How to beat the shift
May 15, 2012
Will Pujols end the season with at least 30 HR and .500 SLG?
May 15, 2012
Kershaw v Strasburg, part 2
May 15, 2012
Did Manny Pacquaio actually quote Leviticus?
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