THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

Why are we trying to answer this question from World Series-only data, and ignoring the vastly greater data from interleague games?

I don’t see it as an interesting question either way, or at least relevant to this WS. If the Yankees happen to have a good DH and the Phillies don’t, then obviously it is an advantage to the Yankees.  Not all AL teams have good DH’s. Look at the putridness that SEA used for much of the season, with all due respect to Tango.  And some NL teams have a very good hitter on the bench that could be used as a DH.  If the LAD had made it, they would have used Thome at least versus a RHP.

So I don’t see how what has happened in the past WS or IL games has any relevance to this year’s WS.  In fact, it doesn’t, of course.  If you want to know who is going to be helped or hurt, just look at the players on NYY and PHI.

Clearly it’s not the right way to approach the question of how much this World Series will be affected by the presence or absence of the DH, but I suggest that it would be a good way to approach the question of how big the systematic advantage is to each team of playing by it’s own league’s rules.

Of course, there are three relevant respects in which the WS is different from the generality of IL games:

Firstly, the teams in the WS are better than average (which means they are more likely to have a good DH if AL, and more likely to have a good PH or platoon hitter they can use as a DH if NL).

Secondly, there are more rest days between games, which means that better starting pitchers are more likely to be involved.  I believe that there is a negative correlation between pitching quality and the pitcher’s hitting ability, though I stand to be corrected on that.  (ie starters in the WS are likely to be worse hitters on average than in normal IL games).

Thirdly, the games are managed differently; starters are used in relief, PH and PR are used more aggressively, more relievers are used.  I suspect that this overall means that pitchers are allowed to hit less frequently in NL parks.

In general pitchers hit in low leverage situations.  Tango can address that I think.  So you have to be a little careful in assessing the value of pitcher hitting. I would suspect that the average leverage for an average pitcher PA would be on the order of .75.

“I believe that there is a negative correlation between pitching quality and the pitcher’s hitting ability...”

If that is true, I would think that it is a weak correlation.  Very weak.

Which league, in general, has the advantage has been something that’s bothered me for a while. So many people seem to think the AL obviously has it (NL apologists will cite this as the reason for AL IL superiority), but to me, the NL is the team that should benefit more. When you factor in AL pitchers, who the best NL bench player is, and the defensive improvements of NL teams (because the best bench player often will play a position, and some poor-fielding Adam Dunn type can move to DH), it’s just not logical that on the whole, the AL has the advantage in interleague games.