THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

http://www.ibaf.org/archives/news/316

If the game remains tied after the completion of ten (10) innings, the following procedures will be implemented during extra innings:

• Each team will begin the 11th inning (and any subsequent necessary extra innings) with a player on first and second, no outs.

• To begin the 11th inning, representatives from each team will meet at home plate and will indicate (at the same time) to the home plate umpire where the team wishes to begin the batting order. That is, the teams have the option of beginning the 11th inning anywhere in the existing batting order that was in effect when the 10th inning ended. Note that this is not a new lineup (just potentially a different order), and it may very well be the same lineup that ended the 10th inning.  The rationale for doing so is to ensure that both teams have an equal chance at having what they consider to be their best hitters and base runners in a position to score in the 11th inning.

• For example, if the team decides to have the #1 hitter in the lineup hit first, then the #8 hitter will be placed at 2B and the #9 hitter will be placed at 1B. Furthermore, if the team decides to have the #3 hitter in the lineup hit first, then the #1 hitter would be at 2B and the #2 hitter would be at1B.

• Once those players/runners are determined for the 11th inning, the order of any subsequent innings will be determined by how the previous inning ended. That is, if the 11th inning ends with the #6 hitter having the last plate appearance (PA), then the 12th inning begins the #7 hitter at bat, and the #5 hitter at 2B and the #6 hitter at first base.

• With the exception of beginning the inning with runners on 1B and 2B with no one out, all other “Official Rules of Baseball” and “IBAF Competition Norms” will remain in effect during extra innings required to determine a winner.

• No player re-entry is permitted during extra innings.

• The traditional system of the visiting team hitting in the top of the inning and the home team hitting in the bottom of the inning will remain in effect until a winner is determined.

The first thing you need to do is take all that romance about baseball that you have stored up, and send it to your better half.  She’ll appreciate it, if even for only 10 minutes.

Ok, now that you have done that (if you haven’t, don’t bother reading… the entirety of this post will offend you… so, don’t read until all your passions have been removed), the rule seems quite fair.  They’re implementing an “overtime” system, so it would seem fair to me that you get to reset the point in your batting lineup.

The question as to whether to start off with runners on first and second, or just second, seems something worth exploring.  The chance of a scoreless inning remains the same, as does the chance for 2 runs scoring.  The tradeoff here is whether you want more 1-run innings or 3+ run innings.  Since the intent is to end the game asap, then I can see why they went the way they did.

Doing a quick calculation, the chance of having a tie game after 1 inning, with the 1-runner setup, is 28.5%, compared to the 2-runner setup of 22.5%.

And so, chance of being tied after 2 innings is 8% with the 1-runner setup and 5% with the 2-runner setup.

(You still upset?  You shouldn’t be reading this post.  I told you already.)

I (now) like the idea of resetting the point in the lineup for this overtime game.  I could go either way on it.

Compared to the OT systems of the other sports, at least this one seems the one truest to the original sport.  Soccer and hockey go into one OT period, then the shootout.  The shootout is, if nothing else, mesmerizing.  And, it does give you some reality.  There are breakaways and penalty shots in both sports all the time.  And for football, you still get the 4 downs, except you don’t get a chance to march downfield.  It’s not a “travesty” in the way a HR derby would be.

Central to the sport of hockey and soccer is the (eventual) one-on-one between the shooter and the goalie.  And central to the sport of football is the (eventual) redzone matchup.  In baseball, the central aspect is the control of the strike zone.  That you add other (realistic) parameters as secondary to that (runners on base) doesn’t take away from it.  It’s still baseball.

Now, go and get all that romance back from your better half, and go to some other discussion board and deplore the deromantization of baseball.  We’ve all heard it all before already.

What’s the best strategy in that setup? Is leading off with your best bunter a viable move (probably not since your opponents would immediately realize why you’re doing it). How does it affect win expectancy, now that you know your opponent would have 1st & 2nd/0 outs in the bottom of the inning?

Oh, and this is the SOLE exception to my objections to the earned/unearned rule: I would definitely not make the runners on base to start the inning an earned run to the pitcher!

***

This rule was used in the World Juniors in Edmonton.  I’m looking to see if a game actually reached this point.  While I do that, look here:
http://www.ibaf.org/tournaments/13

Korea beat USA for the Gold medal… even though they played in the same Pool.  After the round robin portion, they do like all other tournaments do, and do a knockout round by criss-crossing the Pools.  This is so that if you happen to have the two best teams in the same pool, you can still have them meet up in the finals.

That’s why I would support it if when we are down to the final 4, you criss-cross the teams, so that AL1 plays NL2 and AL2 plays NL1.  When the best games are the LCS and not the World Series, something is wrong.

Scr-w the romance.

I guess it just seems like an arbitrary way to speed things up.  If a shootout is exciting for the casual fans, I’d think the baseball equivalent of that would be a quick HR derby.  So why not just do that?  Or maybe you could just have each team select a player to run from home around the bases (one backwards, and one forwards) “little league style”.  First one to cross home wins the game for their team.

Win expectancy at the top of the inning remains 50%.  At the bottom of the inning, it depends if the score is still tied or if you are behind.  Just check The Book or http://www.tangotiger.net/wins.html

***

There was one game:
http://www.baseballgb.co.uk/?p=531

Clearly they need a new “on base” category, if they are going to charge the players with a time at bat.  This is the same objections one would have with reaching on error counting as an “out”.

It takes a bit of effort to get the thing setup, but once you do:
http://www.nbcolympics.com/video/player.html?assetid=1223178&channelcode=sportbb&forcereload=true

Go to 3:49:00 mark of the game.  That’s when Nix was hit by a pitch after squaring to bunt.

With 2 runners on (to start the inning) and no outs, a HBP would load the bases!  There’s no way the pitcher intentionally tried to hit him.  You look at that pitch, and it was pretty much a non-issue.  Pitch got away from him, but in no way would you think it was intended to hit him.  And, like I said, you’d have to be an idiot to think that anyone would want to load the bases on purpose with zero outs.

As for the extra inning rule that was in force at the time of the play, I like it.  Immediate tension, and you still get real baseball.  That kind of play (2 runners on, no outs) happens all the time.  It’s a good setup, especially for what they are trying to do (get the game over with fast).  As it is, it was a 4hr game.

Strong evidence that China is falsifying ages of their gymnasts:
http://strydehax.blogspot.com/2008/08/hack-olympics.html

When you get to the part where you bring up the cache’d page (if it’s still around), do a search for:
1994.1.1

Apparently that Chinese spelling refers to the gymnast in question (ID=618).  In any case, there are no gymnasts listed born Jan 1 other than the one born in 1994.

Yahoo Answers translates that line for you:
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080821090617AAQ1lNa

The NY Times also investigated:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/27/sports/olympics/27gymnasts.html

But did not provide screen prints.  That’s why it’s important to think like a blogger: images have more power than words.

As the blogger noted, he doesn’t care about the age, just the censorship.

And more from this blogger:
http://strydehax.blogspot.com/2008/08/day-after-day-after.html

Who links to a blogger in China, with LOTS of screen shots reporting the gymnast as 14 yrs old.

thanks for the quick redirection to the appropriate thread regarding new Tie Breaker Rule.

Apparently IBAF will use this rule from now on in all games under IBAF, including future Baseball World Cups.

Even though in your last reply you said home team might have get .005 advantage in WE, since they will know exactly how many runs they will need, thus can play with the strategy necessary for the win.  But, perhaps that is not unlike the advantage the home team has with regular rules.  Except that here they get a head start.

Besides its effects on individual games, there is one more thing that bothers me.  Most international games features single round-robin schedule somewhere in the tournament.

Single round-robin often results in several teams with the same record.  For example, in a 4 teams single round-robin, one team will have 3-0 and advance, while the other 3 teams could all have 1-2, which only the top 2 will advance.

Traditional International rules calls 3 teams to compare RA (Runs Allowed) per inning.  If two teams are still tied, then they will compare Total RA, then down to other stats.

With the new Tie Breaker Rule, teams who entered 11+ innings will have increased chances for RA, thus suffer disadvantage when compared with other teams with the same record without entering a tie breaker.

Since entering tie-breaker does not say anything about a team’s ability, this new extra inning game, combined with Single Round Robin Record Tie Breaker rule, creates an unfair situation for teams that played tie breakers?

I don’t know about the tournament tie-breaking rules, but clearly the overtime should be excluded from all consideration for exactly the reason you cite.

In hockey, the shootout would count for at most 1 goal.  That is, if the game is tied 2-2, and the shootout score if 5-4, the final score of the game is 3-2.

The same should apply here.  If it’s 2-2 after 10 innings, the extra innings are a form of shootout, and say that one team scores 4 runs and the other scores 1.  The final score, as far as I’m concerned, should be 3-2.  I’d throw all OT performances into its own bucket, just like hockey does.

Tango #3,

Why not just have all the playoffs be a crossover instead of the final four?

You certainly could have all the teams cross-over.  I think it would be an easier sell to do the final 4, to keep the “sanctity” of the league intact.  But, I have no objections either way.  Certainly another NL/AL snoozefest I can do without.