from Amazon
Monday, April 28, 2008
Poz and the IBB
You guys know I hate the 4-0 walk (intentional or otherwise). Poz writes what I think:
I need to say up front that I hate the intentional walk. Hate it. Loathe it. Despise it. I appreciate that there are times for it, and I expect that it ”works“ more often than it fails because pitchers get outs more often than they allow hits and walks. Runners on second and third, one out, tie score, ninth inning, I get the intentional walk there. When managers were walking Barry Bonds every day, it was infuriating to watch, sickening to watch, pathetic to watch, but I at least understood — Bonds had, for any number of reasons, crossed some line where he was officially too good. And so on.
Still. I abhor the strategy in almost every instance except the most obvious ones. It goes counter to every single thing I believe about baseball. The game is about challenging people. The game is about pitcher vs. hitter. The game is also about entertaining millions of fans — let’s not get away from that.
He talks about walking Pena to face DeJesus. Pena’s Marcel coming into 2008 was a very horrible .299 wOBA (that’d be like a .299 OBP with a .350 SLG). His current stats bring that down a bit, and Poz’s scouting would bring that down some more. HOWEVER, he had a 2-0 count on him. And a 2-0 count adds +.100 runs per PA to an average hitter. Basically, “average hitter plus 2-0 count equals THE Albert Pujols”. +.100 runs per PA is roughly +.115 in wOBA (meaning it adds +.115 to your OBP and some +.150 to your SLG). We’d expect something like a .415 OBP and .500 SLG from a hitter of Pena’s quality. So, I would not dismiss the fact that you have a 2-0 count on a batter, even one as horrible as Pena.
Now, this is what happens on average. How does it affect someone like Pena? I don’t know that yet. I do know that his career performance, once he’s gotten to a 2-0 count, and we remove his two IBB, he’s got a .404 OBP with a .488 SLG, on 52 PA.