THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

Friday, August 12, 2011

Bad pitch selection

Any Houston Astros fans out there?  My condolences if there are....

If you watched the game last night, the Astros closer Melancon was facing the tying run with 2 outs.  The batter was the D-Backs rookie, Goldschmidt, one of the most prolific power hitters in the minor leagues (and college).  The count was 2-2.  Melancon has a great overhand curve ball, which he had just thrown several times to the batter.  He decided to try and sneak a fastball on the inside corner.  Now, according to game theory, you rarely want to eliminate any pitch/location, however in this situation, the last pitch in the world you want to throw is the inside fastball (especially against a power hitter), for obvious reasons.  If it is not obvious to you, the reason is that the inside fastball tends to be a pitch with somewhat of a bimodal (actually trimodal) result distribution. You get K’s and jam shots, but you also get the more than occasional HR, when you miss your location by just a little bit (and the pitch ends up middle in).  (The trimodal part is the HBP.)

In fact, with veteran pitchers on the mound (and veteran catchers), you often see only fastballs on the outside when you cannot afford to give up a HR, but you can afford to give up a hit.

As you can guess, the pitcher did miss his location by a little and Goldschmidt tied the game with a towering HR.

Basically - and all quality pitchers know this - late in a game, you must tailor your pitch selection and location to the situation, similar to the thread where we talked about walking or not walking the lead-off batter late in a close or not close game.  In a situation like that, you don’t mind at all walking the batter or giving up a hit.  Your only goal, other than obviously getting the batter out, is to avoid the HR.  So you make sure that you keep the ball down and away at all costs.  That is pitching 101.  Well, maybe 102 or 103.

The other reason why it is not prudent or necessary to throw the inside pitch is that, again, it tends to be a K pitch or a jamjob, especially for a pitcher with a fast fastball. In this situation, again, you don’t need a K or a jamjob like you might with a runner on 3rd and less than 2 outs.  You want an out or a hit or walk.

I think that the pitcher and the catcher should merit a good talking to by the manager or pitching coach, at least so they understand the concept.

Basically, in late game situations, a pitcher and catcher should mentally create a hierarchy of results (that they want) and tailor their pitch selection to that hierarchy as well as the batter.  At the top of that list should be the result you are trying to avoid.  That is the most important part of the pitch selection process.  Similar to this particular bad pitch selection, I don’t know how many times I have seen a pitcher (again, usually not a great one, or at least a smart one) with a tying or winning run on second or third and 2 outs, throw pitch after pitch to the outside corner.  Even if that is where that pitcher typically likes to throw, that is rarely correct.  In a situation like that - the exact opposite of the situation in this game - you want to throw inside as much as you can (depending on the strengths/weaknesses of the batter and your repertoire), or at least vary the location of your pitches.