from Amazon
Thursday, August 26, 2010
3 strikeouts, or one HR?
Beltre was ejected by a rookie umpire who, RULES ARE RULES, are within their rights to eject any player for practically any reason. We are supposed to sit there and take it, not boo about it, yada yada yada. So, ignore my golf shot, and focus on this:
“I was talking to Felix, we had a little bet where he told me he was going to strike me out three times and I told him I was going to take him deep. He struck me out in the first at-bat and I went back to my position and he was talking smack,” Beltre explained. “I was facing him, talking in spanish. I told him the next at-bat I was going to take him deep over the Monster. That’s all I said to him. I heard the umpire talking to me. I told him I was talking to [Hernandez], and he threw me out. I had no idea why he threw me out. I wasn’t even talking to him.”
In his career, Felix has struck out 1002 of 4615 batters. So, 3 K’s would happen 1% of the time. He’s given up HR at a rate of 2%. Beltre has struck out in 16% of his PA, just a bit better than league average. That doesn’t help us there. And his HR rate is 3.7%, meaning that Felix-Beltre should give us a, say 2.5% chance of a HR.
Bad, bet, Felix. Bad bet.
Is the 2.5% per PA?
Also, I think the 3 K’s kind of assumes that Felix will face Beltre 3 times in the game. Given that Felix is such a stud, it might be reasonable for him to expect he would face (part of) the order a fourth time.
Then, 3 strikeouts in 4 PA’s would have about a 3.3% chance of occurring, and a HR (again, assuming your numbers are per PA): 1 - (1 - 0.025)^4: 9.6%. Still a bad bet, but the numbers are slightly different in my opinion. (I do wonder if Felix went after Beltre in a slightly different way, in order to minimize the chances of a HR, and to really go for the K)