THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

Monday, May 14, 2012

When two runners converge toward the same base

I did not see the play, and I have a hard time believing the account here is accurate.  While I can believe that in the heat of the moment, a fielder is so befuddled that he doesn’t know to first tag the runner and then tag the base, I have to believe that as time goes by, it becomes obvious to the announcers of the game, especially if it’s Keith Hernandez.  Is there more to this story than the account suggests?

I looked up the rule, just to make sure there hasn’t been some recent change like a “base is yours until you give it up, no matter what” or something, like when you are playing tag at school.  Rule 7.01 says in part:

“He is then entitled to it until he is put out, or forced to vacate it for another runner legally entitled to that base.”

So, even if you want to stay on the base, you no longer are allowed to that base.  Again, it’s such a basic rule that I can’t believe the account in the blog is accurate, that something else must be going on.

Can someone confirm the account?

Tiger then Albert: is Pujols a changed hitter?

Poz says the swing change of Pujols is obvious.

Even if it is, does it really mean anything?  Some players used to be famous for constantly changing their swings.  Obviously, no one actually believes that Pujols talent is hanging on a batting stance thread, that would turn him from arguably the best hitter in the league to the worst in the league.

Anyone want to chime in with anecdotes, or data?

Monday, April 30, 2012

Strikeouts of our discontent

Bill James has a good article about the reason that strikeout rates are what they are. 

Strikeouts, over time, always increase, for this reason.  Strikeout pitchers are more effective than pitchers who don’t get strikeouts, therefore teams are always looking for pitchers who can get more strikeouts, and also looking to deploy those pitchers they have in such a way that they will get the most strikeouts.  This effect would be offset by the tendency of teams to look for hitters who don’t strike out, if hitters who did not strike out were also better hitters.  However, hitters who strike out are generally not less effective than hitters who do not strike out; hitters who strike out are generally just as effective as or more effective than hitters who don’t strike out.  Thus, there is no pressure to find hitters who don’t strike out.  This asymmetry pushes strikeout totals higher over time.

His basic point is that in eras when high-K pitchers are so much better than low-K pitchers, there’s an underlying pressure to find more high-K pitchers.  And in eras when neither high-K nor low-K pitchers dominate, then there’s no reason that more high-K or low-K pitchers will enter the league disproportionately.

Similarly, in eras when high-K hitters are much better than low-K hitters, then there’s a pressure to look for great hitters and not worry about their K rates.  And in eras when low-K hitters are better than high-K hitters, then the league will try to avoid high-K hitters in the future.

And then he goes ahead and does his Bill James thing, and looks at this historically.  It’s great stuff, and you should give it a read.  He concludes:

High-strikeout pitchers in today’s game are dramatically more effective than low-strikeout pitchers, while high-strikeout batters are also somewhat more effective than low-strikeout batters.  We are where we have always been, only worse.  Strikeouts, in my opinion, will continue to go up.

Bill didn’t talk about it, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the shift toward shorter relief outings (and more relief innings) also contributes toward the high-K phenomena of the last few years.  In my day, it was a huge deal when a pitcher threw 95mph, and it would earn Clemens a name like Rocket (though never having it usurped from Maurice Richard, and thankfully we didn’t have to deal with Rocket Ismael for too long).  But now?  How many dozens of relievers are there out there that average touching at least one 95mph pitch per outing? And how many more in the minors?

Pitchers are bigger today than in years past.  Pitchers are stronger today than in years past.  Pitchers today train more today than in years past.  The end result?  They’re going to pitch faster than in years past.  (Don’t worry you golden agers… pitchers of yesteryear are still better because they locate better, have more movement, and sequence better.  I have no idea if that’s true, but I don’t want to spoil your beliefs.)

So, how do we stop this train wreck?  What’s the ideal rate of contacted balls per pitches thrown?  For every 300 pitches thrown each game, how many of those do you want the batter to connect on (either as a BIP or as a foul ball)? 10%?  15%?  20%?

Here’s some crazy ideas… go down to three balls and three strikes?  K rates would drop 20%… but walk rates will go up 78%!  So, that’s not going to work.  Any other ball-count combination will lead to ever fewer contacted balls. 

What if a foul-pitch is a “let"… at any count (not just 2-strike counts)?  Hitters may be more aggressive, knowing that he doesn’t get a strike if he can at least nick the ball.

I’d like to hear more crazy ideas from you guys.  And, consider your position that “everything is fine, nothing to change here” already being duly noted.  Thank you for that inertial comment.

Thursday, April 19, 2012

Are all these strikeouts your kind of baseball?

Neyer points out that strikeouts keep going up and up and up.

Suppose you have 39 PA, regardless of style.  Would you prefer 12 K+BB+HR+HB and 27 BIP, or 9 non-BIP and 30 BIP?  That is, an increase of 33% more non-BIP at the expense of 10% fewer BIP.  Is that a good tradeoff?

I’m old school, and I prefer non-BIP to be closer to 20% than 30% of all PA.  I prefer runs per game to be in the high 3s or low 4s, and to be able to have a run environment where I can’t tell if the base-stealer or the power-hitter is the better overall player.

Saturday, April 07, 2012

You can’t let yourself get beat by your second (or third, etc.) best pitch!

You’ve all heard that refrain from commentators (and sometimes players and managers) lots of times.  And most of you know that it is a nonsensical statement, because it doesn’t really mean anything. It is usually just “post-hoc” whining after a pitcher throws a pitch and the batter gets a somewhat crucial or at least a run scoring hit. Often the pitcher misses his location on the pitch, so it “looks” like a “bad” pitch, or maybe the batter happened to be looking for that pitch or it appeared as if he did.

Today in the 4th or 5th inning of the Yankee, Tampa game, the Rays were leading 4-0with 2 outs, a runner on second, and David Price pitching. He threw a 3-2 change up (I didn’t see where the pitch was), the batter got a hit and the runner scored to make the score 4-1.

The radio commentators went on and on about how, “With a runner in scoring position and 2 outs, you have to throw your best pitch,” presumably his 96 mph fastball.

There are so many things wrong with that statement, besides the fact, that again, it is meaningless. I’ll touch on a few of them.

First of all, there is no one pitch in almost any situation that is the “correct” pitch to throw, as most of you know. Pitching involves game theory, or making the batter guess, as much as possible what pitch is coming. Rarely is it correct to throw a certain pitch (and location) 100% or 95% of the time. If it is, then the batter (presumably) knows that that pitch is coming, in which case it is probably not going to be that effective (it is no longer a pitcher’s “best pitch"). There are exceptions, like 3-0 counts to pitchers and weak hitters in certain situations, or a pitcher that primarily throws one pitch, like a Rivera (his cutter is extremely effective even though the batter knows it is coming). But, by and large, most pitchers, including Price, must throw all or some of their pitches a certain percentage of time, randomly, in almost all situations whether the count is 0-2 or 3-2. Obviously at 0-2 most pitchers are more likely to throw an off-speed pitch and at 3-2, they are more likely to throw the fastball, depending on the score, inning, outs, and the batter.

In this particular case, or with a runner in scoring position, a base open, and 2 outs in general, the announcers had their “logic” (whatever logic there is in their statement) exactly wrong. If you are mostly a fastball pitcher, while it is likely to be correct to throw the fastball with a 3-2 count, it is LESS likely that you would and should throw the fastball in that exact situation, 2 outs, a runner in scoring position, and a base open. The reason should be obvious to anyone who played baseball or watches baseball and has half a brain (and these guys do this for a living). The ONLY reason you are more likely to throw a fastball with a 3-2 count (or 3-0, 3-1, and 2-0), in general (again, it depends on the batter and the pitcher’s repertoire, among other things), is because the off-speed pitch is more likely to result in a ball and thus a walk. However, in that situation, the gap between the walk and the hit is large, such that the fastball is least likely than at other times with a 3-2 count.

So, their logic and statement of, “With 2 outs and a runner in scoring position (and a base open, which they did not mention),” is completely wrong and completely backwards.

Finally, there really is no such thing as a pitcher’s “best pitch,” at least in context.  In any given situation, game theory tells us that all of a pitcher’s pitches must have the same win value. We have discussed this before and many of you have probably read about this before. In case you are not familiar with this concept, I’ll give you a brief primer/illustration.

Let’s say that you are a fastball/slider pitcher only. And let’s say that in a vacuum (no game context), your fastball is much better than your slider. There are many pitchers like this.  What this means is that if there were an equal chance of the batter getting either pitch or you told the batter what pitch you were throwing and the situation was neutral (the win value of all offensive events were league average), the fastball would yield a better run value (for the pitcher) than the slider. So, you could say that the fastball was this pitcher’s “best” pitch.

So why not throw it all the time? For three principle reasons: One, in certain situations where the value of the offensive events were not league average, the win values of the two pitches would not be the same. For example, in the situation above the win value of the walk goes down and the win value of a hit goes up. Those values actually change all the time, with the score, count, inning, runners, etc.

Two, obviously the strengths and weaknesses of the batter will change the value of those pitches too.

But, let’s say that in a certain situation, the fastball is still the “best pitch.” Again, why not throw it all the time in that situation?  Remember I said that it is rare that any one pitch is correct 100% of the time. Why is that? That does not seem to make sense. That is because if it were correct to throw a certain pitch all the time in any given situation, the batter would know that. So, the value of that pitch would include the fact that the batter knows it is coming. We all know that there are very few pitchers who can throw a certain pitch effectively when the batter knows it is coming.

So what happens in this confrontation? Well, when the pitcher throws his “second” or “third best” pitch, it becomes a surprise. So, even though in a vacuum, it is not a great pitch, it is going to have a nice win value to the pitcher if the batter is sure that he is getting something else. Typically, if a batter thought that he was getting a fastball at a 3-2 count, and he gets an off-speed pitch in or near the zone, he is not going to be very successful, and thus the value to that pitch is going to be great, perhaps more than the value of the fastball, since the batter knows that the fastball is coming (if indeed the fastball still has greater value when the batter knows it is coming and will be completely surprised at an off-speed, then the pitcher becomes a one-pitch pitcher, in which case this analysis is moot).

So now, if the surprise off-speed is a “better” pitch than the “known” fastball, the pitcher should throw the off-speed more. What would happen if he did? The batter is now less surprised by the off-speed but more surprised by the fastball. So the value of the off-speed goes down and the value of the fastball goes up. As you can probably guess, what happens is that the pitcher throws more and more off-speed until the value of both pitches is exactly equal! That is called the Nash equilibrium and that is why there is no such thing as a pitcher’s “best pitch” in any given situation once context and the percentage of time each pitch is thrown is taken into consideration.

I suppose you can call the pitch that is thrown with the most frequency the “best” pitch, but you MUST keep in mind that all pitches in that situation will yield exactly the same win value (unless the pitcher is making a mistake in utilizing the precepts of game theory, which is entirely possible).

Keep in mind that if you were to check whether pitchers are indeed mixing up their pitches optimally such that the win values of all pitches are equal in a certain situation, you must bucket the pitches into situations and then check the win values of each pitch in each bucket/situation, and see if they are equal. The “situation” should include the identity of the batter, or at least similar characteristics for the batter.

Overall the win values of all of a pitcher’s pitchers will NOT be equal. A simple example will explain why. Let’s say that a pitcher’s off-speed pitch is his dominant pitch. He is not that accurate with it but it is so good that when it is in or near the zone, the batter almost never gets a hit.

And let’s say that a very weak pitcher is at the plate and the count is 3-0. Let’s say that this is the ONLY time that the pitcher should throw the fastball and increase his chances of throwing a strike. The assumption is that no matter what pitch is thrown, if it is in or near the zone, the batter/pitcher is likely to make an out when he swings or it is likely to be a called strike (the batter/pitcher will obviously be taking anyway) . You can see how the otherwise bad fastball might be the correct pitch a high proportion of the time (maybe even 100%, but we will assume less than that).

Now, if we look at this pitcher’s pitches for the year, we will see 99% off-speed and 1% fastballs (only on 3-0 counts versus weak hitting pitchers). Will the value of all the fastballs and off-speed pitches be the same? Not necessarily and probably not. But, the value of the off-speed and fastballs in this exact situation, a weak-hitting pitcher and a 3-0 count, should definitely be the same.

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Evolution of Adrian Gonzalez, or adapting from Petco to Fenway?

Bill’s first of a two-parter.

Thursday, March 15, 2012

DH, again

Here are my questions:

1. Is there any way that for the next 20 years, we’ll have two different rules (NL no DH, AL with DH)?
2. If we have to consolidate to one rule, is there any way that it will be with the pitcher forced to bat?
3. What are the alternatives?

My answers:
1. No.  If inter-league play will eventually increase from 10% of the schedule as it is currently to 20-25% of the schedule (like it is for the other three leagues, NFL, NBA, NHL), AND that the 15-team leagues forces year-round inter-league player, then it will be impractical to have DH and no-DH rules throughout the year.  It will be a logistical nightmare.

2. MLB cares about attendance, and runs does that the easiest.  As much as we love the 4-3 game, the fans prefer the 5-4 game.  Baseball usually creates rules that increase run scoring, not decrease it (up to a point).  I think they prefer a game with 9 to 9.5 runs per game, and I don’t think they want it higher than 10 runs per game.  And I doubt they want it anything under 8 runs per game.  If you take out the DH, you risk having it back on the table in a few years, and history will repeat itself.  The DH is an eventuality.

So, all you traditionalistas have another year or three to wax off your most poetic anti-DH rants, because after that, no one is going to listen to you about it.

3. (a) One alternative is to have 8 batters.  You simply skip the pitcher’s turn at bat.  No DH and no pitcher.  This keeps both sides happy.  There’s plenty of reasons to not wanting a one-dimensional DH, and there’s plenty of reasons to not wanting to see a pitcher bat. 

Of course, now instead of having 38.25 PA per game split among 9 batters (average of 4.3 PA per game), you now have those PA split among 8 batters (4.78 PA per game).  Personally, I don’t have any problem with giving every batter an extra 12.5% PA for the season.  I also wouldn’t have a problem with the NFL increasing from 16 to 18 games (12.5% more games).  I know this will set new standards for records, etc.  So, what.

(b) You could couple that with one less inning, so that keeps the standards intact.  Which pitcher will have the one less inning?  Maybe we see less of that 11th guy from the bullpen?  Or maybe we see starters pulled on inning earlier?  I don’t know.  I do know that’s one less inning of baseball, which is not really a good idea.  I’m all for decreasing running time, but I’d prefer it by decreasing dead time, not action time.

(c) We could do a “home manager rules”, and let the home manager dictate whether the DH is in effect or not (or let the pitcher bat).  It’s a fun rule, it’s a story rule, it’s guaranteed to be a topic of discussion every game.  It will force managers to be a little flexible, because they know they can’t count on David Ortiz on the road all the time.  It’s basically the World Series rule, but instead of dependent on the league, it’s dependent on the manager.

Anyway, keep this thread POSITIVE.  Don’t tell me why I s-ck, or someone else s-cks.  Tell me about what you think in a positive sense.  What you want to see.

***

Related article.

Is it bragging if you can back it up?

Bryce Harper.

***

When Gretzky was 20 years old, and already made his mark in the NHL, there was still some doubt in 1981.  Guy Lafleur had come off six sensational years (his Koufax years) through 1980.  And in 1981, he was still pretty good.  When the reporters asked the Canadiens about Gretzky when the two teams were in the playoffs, the players said “Guy will put him in his back pocket”.  The young Gretzky did not answer.  Instead, he had a great series, and all he did when he skated past the Canadiens bench was tap his butt with his glove ("*I* am the one who’s got Guy in my back pocket, is what he showed without saying it.)

And that’s how you brag.  You don’t say it before you do it, and you don’t go out of your way to say it.  You make your point quick and at the appropriate time, and then you move on.

And even when asked throughout his career about his own talent, Gretzky would just go as high as to say “I’m a pretty good hockey player.” And, he’s always acknowledged his teammates.  Even at his retirement press conference, he went out of his way to talk about Darren Langdon.  Langdon you should know was a young “nobody” goon with the Rangers, but to Gretzky he was someone special.  How many superstars on their retirement conference point out a guy like that?

(I’ve said it before, but I love saying this part too.  At that same conference, after it was over, TSN, which is the Canadian ESPN, then had their two gasbags talking about Gretzky.  Gretzky in the background starts walking through all the empty chairs, and eventually sidles up next to the two gasbags, slaps them on the back and says, “Ok, let’s talk to Canada.” It was great.  One of the two gasbags by the way was a reporter who was hugely critical of Gretzky back in 1993, when the Kings were playing the Leafs in the semi-finals, and he said that Gretzky was playing like he had a piano on his back.  Gretzky promptly went out and had one of the best games of his career.  And that’s as close as the Leafs would come to make the Stanley Cup.)

***

Glove-slap: Repoz.

Sunday, March 11, 2012

How much can a manager leverage speed and OBP with his lineup?

I was going to address this in the Kinsler thread, but I decided to start a separate one. I have always thought it ridiculous for a team to concern itself with finding someone for a particular lineup slot, as in, “We really need a leadoff hitter,” or, “We are so happy with this acquisition because we now have a proven leadoff hitter,” or some such nonsense like that.

You get the best player you can and then you construct the best lineup from what you have. It really doesn’t matter whether you have a “true leadoff hitter” or a “true cleanup hitter” or not. It doesn’t matter at all.

I am not even sure what that means anyway, so let’s try and be more specific in terms of what question(s) we want answered.

I’ll pose two specific questions which we can answer, more or less, quantitatively and which relates to this issue.

1) If we have someone who has lots of speed, or doesn’t have lots of speed, how much can we leverage that attribute (or lack thereof) by placing him strategically in the lineup?

For example if we want to acquire a speedy player that is worth exactly 2 WAR, how much more would he be worth if we plan on putting him at the top of the order versus the bottom of the order, and in doing so, we don’t affect anything else?

One way to answer that is to see how many runs per game we gain when we go from a slow runner to a fast runner at the top of the lineup versus how many runs we gain when we go from a slow runner to a fast runner at the bottom of the lineup. This is very similar to how we figure LI in a game. We compare the impact of a good player or good event to a bad event in terms of WE, at various points and situation in the game.

I took a typical Rangers lineup from last year and ran my sim with Elvis Andrus either batting second or batting 8th, as a great base runner (which he is, so I left his base running projection alone) and as a terrible base runner, like a Prince Fielder. I actually use a 1-5 scale in my sim, so I went from a 5 to a 1. This is not including SB/CS - only advancing on hits and outs by following hitters when on base. I cannot remember if it includes advances on potential WP and PB. My sim probably captures 90% of the value of base running.

I ran 500,000 games of the Rangers playing a team with a RHP. It doesn’t really matter who they played or who the opposing pitcher is. It might matter a little that it was the Rangers with a good middle of the order.

Anyway, with Andrus batting second, as a fast runner, they scored 4.167 rpg.  As a slow runner, 4.101 rpg, for a difference of 9.9 runs per 150 games. That is around what we expect from the difference between a great and poor base runner in general (an average slot in the order), so I suspect that my sim is undervaluing base running a little, or maybe it will find around the same difference in any slot, in which case, it is probably capturing most of actual base running value in real life.

Nope.

As a #8, the difference between Andrus as a great (5) and terrible (1) runner is only 4.65 rpg.  So yes, you can leverage base running with batting slot, but, this is the most extrme situation possible. My guess is that for an actual team making a decision about a player based on where they think he will bat in the order, or what other players that have slotted in the lineup, we are only talking about 1-3 runs per season.

For example, if a team is indeed looking for a lead-off or second place hitter, and player A has the same value/projection as player B, but player A is a speedster and player B is just average (and assuming that their hitting profiles are the same), how much more should they pay for player A. I think Player B is probably going to be worth only 1 to 1.5 runs more than Player B given that you are leveraging him the leadoff or second slot. I think that most teams is going to way overvalue that speedster. IOW, you should pretty much forget about the fact that you are looking for a player to fill a certain lineup slot. Like many things (clutch, batter/pitcher matchups, etc.) Use it as a tie breaker only.

2) Same question as #1, but what if we changed a player’s OBP by 20 points by adding walks only?  How much can we leverage that by batting him lead off rather than 8th? We’ll use the same method.

I did the same thing with the sim. This time I used Kinsler in the leadoff slot or the 8th slot and I ran the sim (500,000 games each) for his normal projection at the end of last year and with his OBP jacked up by 20 points by adding around 10 walks per 500 PA.

Kinsler batting leadoff, normal OBP: 4.146
Kinsler leadoff and an OBP 20 points higher: 4.201.
Gain: 8.25 rpg (Tango, how does that compare to what you would expect for an average player on an average team in an average slot?)

Kinsler batting 8th, normal OBP: 4.163 (why you don’t bat him 8th, BTW - you lose 6 runs a year!)
Kinsler leadoff and an OBP 20 points higher: 8.55 rpg.

Wow, interesting. You cannot leverage his OBP by batting him at the top of the order. I am not sure why. When my computer frees up, I’ll run some more game. Maybe I’m getting too much random fluctuation in 500,000 games. My guess is that 1 standard error even in 500,000 games is still like 5 runs per 150 games, so really, a comparison of 8.55 to 8.25 doesn’t really tell us anything.

I’ll try and run some more games with the speed thing too.  Even though the results seem reasonable, there is too much sampling error there too for the difference to be reliable to any degree…

Sunday, February 26, 2012

McCarthy: get groundballs

McCarthy’s dream: read Fangraphs, get groundballs, then get the girl.

Platooning: but not by hand

In The Book, we’ve discussed platooning by GB/FB tendencies.  It’s not as big a thing as hand, but it’s there.  So, if you do have some extreme situations, that should be considered.

Platooning by pitch locations, pitch distributions, spray patterns, etc., those are all in play as valid considerations for platooning.

New-age manager Dusty Baker is at the forefront here.

Friday, December 16, 2011

MLB Network oddball videos

These are my favorites.  My second favorite is the best-fielding plays.  Give me those two, and I’ll be sitting in front of channel 790 all day. 

The one shocking one that I saw, was a game with Pascual Perez, where he was standing on the very edge (or even outside) of the batter’s box, and the Padres pitchers were throwing at him… all 4 times he was at bat.  It was rather revolting, not to mention cowardly on the pitchers’ part.  It’s one thing for players to self-police, but it’s another when it’s a tit-for-tat kind of situation, where one side gets to throw a punch (via throwing a baseball), while the other guy’s defense is to run away (via trying to avoid getting hit by a moving pitch).  And then, his response is to do the same, or, have everyone get into a brawl.

What is a better way to avoid beanball wars?  And please, don’t dismiss others’ ideas as being unworkable.  This is a brainstorming session.  All voices will be heard.

Friday, October 28, 2011

Was Cruz not deep enough in the 9th inning?

In this article, Tom Verducci, not an intellectual giant when it comes to sabermetrics, said this:

There is a universal rule in baseball about playing the outfield with a lead, especially a two-run lead, and three outs or fewer from victory. Under no circumstance can the ball be hit over an outfielder’s head—not unless it’s flying all the way out of the ballpark. It’s called no-doubles defense. The outfielders have to station themselves deep enough to make sure the ball cannot get over their head.
This is how center fielder Josh Hamilton and left fielder David Murphy played the ninth inning. I saw Cruz early in the ninth inning playing too far in and said aloud, “He’s not back far enough. A ball can get over his head.”

There are so many things wrong with that segment, I don’t know where to begin.  I won’t actually.  Except to say that the article thoroughly evinces the “either/or”, “black/white,” digital rather than analog approach that managers and even journalists apply to baseball decision-making.

Oh, and the ridculous title of Verducci’s article is:

Cruz’s unforgiveable defensive gaffe proves costly to Rangers

In this case, according to Verducci, you simply play so deep that no ball can ever be over your head and stay in the park. As if a single in front of you is tantamount to an out.  And as if by playing deep you are not forgoing some catches on short fly balls.

BTW, if you simply watch the replay of that non-catch, it is obvious that Cruz WAS playing rather deep, and of course it was an eminently catchable ball, not that is HAS to be catchable in order for his positioning to have been correct…

Thursday, October 27, 2011

Baseball is about driving the first good pitch you see, not waiting to get into a hitter’s count

So says Tony Larussa.

“You watch your productive hitters in the big leagues, and they get a chance to drive in a run, they look for the first good strike, and the better the pitching, especially this time of the year, you get that first strike, that may be the last one that you get to see. So you’d better be ready to swing early. It’s not sitting up there and taking strike one, strike two so that you can work the count.’’

How come MLB managers don’t manage their bullpen that way?  They get a high-leverage situation in the 8th inning, and that may be the last one they see: how come they don’t bring in the ace reliever?

***

Anyway, Chipper Jones agrees with Larussa.  Chipper has said that he can’t try to give up a decent pitch waiting for an even better one, because he may not get one any longer.  The pitcher is ahead 0-1, he works the edges, he gets to 0-2, and now Chipper is at their mercy.

I totally agree with these guys.

At the same time, guys who CAN’T drive the ball simply are better off waiting, because we know that pitchers aren’t that good at locating their pitches.

The only thing I know is that every hitter is different, and he should hit in his own optimal manner.  Never would I think to change the batting approach of Vlad or Pujols or Chipper because I think they should be able to get more walks, or think that Rickey Henderson and Barry Bonds and Adam Dunn walked too much.  Everyone has his own individual approach, and if they are highly successful, it would be presumptive of me (or us) to think we can make them even more successful.

I remember Larry Walker saying that Felipe Alou had his hitting philosophy, and would keep insisting to Walker (and the rest) to hit a certain way.  Walker of course was highly successful because he followed the Larry Walker hitting philosophy.

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Was Craig running in the 9th on the 3-2 count correct?

The overwhelming consensus on BP, FG, this blog, and lots of other sites I have visited is, “No!” How did all these people come to that conclusion?  Because it failed and it “cost” the Cardinals a good chance to tie or win the game.  Does that make any sense?  Of course not.  Not in a rational sense.  Can the outcome of a play that swings the percentages one way or the other maybe 1 or 2% inform us of the “correctness” of the play?  Not in one single instance and not enough that a human being could possibly discern even after dozens or even hundreds of such plays. But people are irrational beings.  When it comes to sports, they are out of their minds irrational.

So, can one determine whether running was correct in that instance without “running the numbers?” Not a chance.  One can take a guess and be right 50% of the time, I guess.  If you are a good sabermetrician, you might be able to do some quick mental calculations and maybe come up with the right answer with some degree of certainty, as long as the actual answer is not particularly close (i.e., the WE from each alternative is not a dead heat).

So what are all those people doing with their, “opinions?” I have no idea.  To me, opinions should be reserved for ice cream flavors, what color car you like, and whom you would choose for your dream date. To me, there is no such thing as an “opinion” on which of two strategies yields the highest win expectancy.  That is a matter of fact.  That seems to be lost on 99.7% of the population.

So what is the right answer?  I’m not going to tell you because I don’t know.  I could know if I “ran the numbers” but I don’t want to deprive some aspiring sabermetrician of doing the work and making a name for himself.

OK, in all honesty, I can’t “know for sure” because I can only estimate the value of the requisite variables.  Some more than others.  But when the smoke clears, I could tell you one of three things with almost exactitude:

1) It is clearly a “run.”

2) It is clearly a “no run.”

3) It is close, depending on the exact values of all the variables, so we’ll just call it a draw.

Nowhere does my opinion matter…

Saturday, October 22, 2011

Managing the 2011 World Series: Game 3

Here we go again, in Texas!

Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Players having greater respect for other

When I was a kid, there was mutual respect on the field.  Tussles were actually fun.

When I got older, there was a shift.  In a friendly game, guys would spike slide into 2B, keep their hockey sticks high, drape themselves over the guy with the basketball.  One of my closest friends even instinctually stuck out his knee as I ran past him.  I was shocked.  He quickly apologized, obviously embarrassed that he would take his killer instinct out on me in such a friendly game.  It was a kill-or-be-killed attitude.  It works fine when you are being paid, but if you are playing on the weekend, that weekend warrior bullsh!t is just bullsh!t.  I like a good scrap when it’s all in fun, but not when the other guy is serious about it.  Hence, guys like me gravitated toward golf.

Brendan Shanahan, one of those warrior-type players in the NHL, who is now part of management and in a position to do something about sportsmanship:

While the play develops quickly, Colborne makes no sudden movements just prior to, or simultaneous with, the hit; placing the onus on Boyes not to hit him in the head. While I believe Boyes’ assertion that he did not intentionally target the head, this is a reckless hit and is now illegal.

I just love this.  There’s no better way to send a message than a only-Nixon-can-go-to-China approach (or Kirk-makes-peace-with-the-Klingons for some of you).  Players respect former players.

You don’t get that attitude shift in MLB (yet).  You still don’t get that separation between intentional and reckless.  Basically, as long as it’s not intentional, then being somewhat reckless is ok, just part of the game.  That’s bullsh!t.

Monday, September 12, 2011

Tennis clock

I loved the Federer/Djokovic match.  The idea of enforcing a shot clock seems ridiculous to me.  What I care about is the pace.  So, Djokovic kept bouncing the balls more than Federer.  He threw it in the air and let it drop at least once.  I don’t care.  There’s nothing about that game I would want to change.  Djokovic playing to the crowd at 3-5 in the 5th was beautiful.  If there’s a shot clock, that goes away.  (I’m not a big tennis fan… I just watch the big tournaments, semis and/or finals.)

This is not baseball, where the batter steps out of the box and adjusts himself after every pitch.  The mound meetings by the manager.  The in-inning pitching change.  The useless pickoffs to 1B.  The stepping off the mound.  The calling of timeout for something other than dirt in the eye.

The difference between tennis and baseball with the stoppage time is that tennis has it as part of the foreplay, while baseball is more of a tease about it.

Thursday, August 18, 2011

“That was for Duane Kuiper”

Pitchers protecting batters courtesy of the prince of Poz:

The Indians were playing the Twins, and at some point Rod Carew slashed Kuiper in a double play scenario at some point during the series. Duane was furious. He told Carew, “I’m going to come down the line and slash your achilles.” Jim Bibby calmed him down.

“Don’t worry,” Bibby said. “I’ll get him for you.”

Kuiper said, “OK, fine, you get him.” Only, Bibby did not get him. He got pulled before he had a chance to get him. If it’s the game I’m thinking, in 1977, Bibby lasted just five innings and Carew actually homered of him. Anyway, the point is Bibby didn’t get Carew that day for whatever reason, and unexpectedly that was the last time he ever faced Carew in a big league game. Bibby left Cleveland for Pittsburgh at the end of the season. So the story should be over. Kuiper basically forgot about it.

Only … one day, the Indians are facing Carew’s team, probably the Angels by then, and Carew comes over to Kuiper and says, “You little $&#$@$ …”

“What did I do?” Kuiper said.

And Carew said that he was playing an exhibition game in Japan. He stepped in against, yep, Jim Bibby. And suddenly he felt the jolt of a fastball pounding his side … this in an EXHIBITION GAME IN JAPAN.

And he said Jim Bibby flexed and said: “That was for Duane Kuiper.”

If you don’t institute some sort of penalty, then the participants will exact their own brand of justice.  If you throw out a pitcher for every HBP, then you may affect the balance between batter-pitcher.  If you leave it to the umpire to determine intent, there’s going to be gaps.  You have a similar situation in hockey where if there are infractions that are missed by the referee, then anarchy may reign (escalation of stick fouls).  That’s why you often get fights, as a payback to get a brand of justice (which may indeed be the lesser of two evils, that is a fight to defuse the situation, rather than an escalation of stick fouls).

Anyway, I like what soccer does with yellow and red cards.  A HBP would be an automatic yellow card, regardless of intent.  A certain number of yellow cards will lead to suspension.  This is like your driving record.  So after every game, you review the various plays, and a runner slashing the fielder would get a post-game yellow card, etc.

So, I’ll put it out there: we all don’t like the vigilante brand of justice.  Therefore, what EQUAL OR BETTER system can you create that doesn’t require the players to police its opponents?  And what may be the unintended consequences?

Monday, August 01, 2011

Verlander complains?

Jim Leyland and Mike Scioscia had the perfect response to bunting in a 3-0 (no-hit) game.  Justin Verlander should have said one of those two things.  And he did say one of those two things, but he preceded it with something unsportsmanlike:

“There’s arguments both ways, but obviously from a pitching standpoint, we like to call it bush league,” Verlander said. “It’s a three-run game, so if you get a guy on base, you never know what can happen.”

His second sentence precludes that there is an argument going the other way.  There is no argument.

He also noted that Aybar elbowed him on a rundown.  Some pitchers make a huge deal if they are touched at all when they are in a fielding play.  I only saw the play once in regular time (not slo-mo, or with multiple angles, and of course, being at the office, I’m blocked).  I don’t know if Aybar did a dirty play.  I’d like to know if any nonpitcher would have said what Verlander said, had it happened to a nonpitcher.  Seems to me in a rundown, with everyone in motion, some “basketball elbow in the key” contact will happen.  Especially if the Tigers are not setup well for that rundown.