THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

Awesome. Give them 3 timeouts. You need to use a timeout every time you leave the dugout. You get 1 free pitching change every inning. Each change after that costs you a timeout. If you are out of timeouts, too bad.

When you change goalies in hockey, the refs allow a couple of minutes for the new goalie to collect himself and re-acquaint himself with the crease (no better way to put it.) I always wondered why hockey coaches don’t just change goalies when they need a timeout. You get unlimited changes. Swap them back after the next puck freeze. Maybe it’s better to have fresh goalie anyway. Never saw a study. Ok..getting way off track.

In hockey, they USED to allow the team to warmup the goalie… until a coach (Keenan?) abused the practice.  Now, they do NOT allow the goalie any kind of discretion like that.  The goalie gets in there cold.

And NO “1 free pitching change”, if you mean mid-inning.  No free pitching change mid-inning.  It costs you a replay challenge timeout.

And, if you use up all your replay challenge timeouts, and you still want to change your pitcher mid-inning, then you can give the manager a one-game suspension (and then two and then three, and so on).

Really, the argument against replays is the down time… but that’s the same argument against allowing a manager to visit his players and the same argument against mid-inning relief changes. 

At least you get a benefit from the replay down time… you get NO benefit from the managerial visitation rights.

How about MLB catches up to the NFL technologically and mic the manager, coaches and pitcher? If we use this to replace mound visits it should save some time, not to mention reduce the relaying of signs which also takes a few seconds.

That, and we can start enforcing the rules for pitchers to deliver to the plate within 12 seconds when there are no runners on, and implement a similar rule for hitters.

In high school, if a hitter stepped out of the box without requesting and receiving a time out, even before the pitcher was set, he could be ruled out. It never happened, but implementing and enforcing such a rule in MLB could speed things up a bit.

Free change or no free change...guess it depends on how many challenges you are going to give them.

I can’t imagine you need to use many challenges. 1 per game? More than 1 or 2 per side per game seems wasteful. Are you allowed to challenge balls/strikes?

I’ll bet you could cut down on wasted time in hockey games by outlawing fighting.  Scrum or no scrum, ready or not ready, the linesman will drop the puck on the faceoff spot 15 seconds after any stoppage of play.

There, I solved a “problem"…

Sorry, give me two minutes in the box for “unsportsmanlike commenting”.  Then I’ll feel shame, and then get free…

Fighting serves a purpose, so that’s not a valid comparison. 

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What are we allowed to challenge?  Safe/out and line calls.

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I’d prevent a batter from EVER leaving the batter’s box.  The pitcher is free to throw at will, with the batter there or not.  (We can discuss whether it should be automatic strike or not.)

Batter has something in his eye?  Well, too bad, I’m sure WR and DB have dirt in their eye too.  Take the pitch, and clean out your eye.  Still not good enough, then you are going to strike out.

I’l readily admit my bias is against replay. But I read many arguments in favor of its use in the off chance that I’ll learn something that informs my perspective. This is not it.

Keri has a couple of cherry-picked examples to support his contention that “something needs to done.” and uses that to beef up a supposedly righteous idea that “the best umps are still human, and technology, properly applied, is going to fare better.”

I don’t watch baseball in hope of seeing flawless adjudication. I watch it for the on-field drama exceptionally talented people can provide. Umpires are as much a part of that performance as the players.

I watch it for the on-field drama exceptionally talented people can provide. Umpires are as much a part of that performance as the players.

If by “talented” you mean “completely invisible” and “don’t scr-w up”, then yeah, I love umpires.  Otherwise, a drama dependent on the umpire is… well, how is it different from a dance judge?

>> Fighting serves a purpose,

Oh, I can’t wait to hear this reasoning.
vr, Xei

There was a play yesterday where a Canucks player shot the puck into the net, and it came back pretty fast.  He thought he scored.  Play was whistled dead (I don’t know why, other than the ref must have called a goal).

Anyway, they went to the replay, and it was 100% clear that the puck hit the post and bounced back (the post even moved, which is pretty impressive).  No goal.

It would be unconscionable to not have a replay so that we can allow the refs to be humans, while all the other humans watch a technological replay of the event while play is dead, and humans react to that technology.

Inertia being the main argument is no argument at all.  And, needing the replay to be better than a plus (it has to be a plus-plus change) is politics at its worst ("we want to improve immigration… but this is not enough, so we’ll hold out for something even better").

Xei/10: Change your post so you don’t sound like an a$$hole.

I just don’t get people sometimes.  You are a guest here.  Comport yourself like one.  Give people an open bar, and they use it as an excuse to act like drunken fools.

"Fighting serves a purpose, so that’s not a valid comparison. “

Yea, great purpose.  It serves in stopping me from bringing my son to any NHL game.

How does fighting serve a purpose in hockey? That’s like saying bench clearing brawls serve a purpose in baseball. No, they do not server a purpose. They appease the fans who enjoy violence with their entertainment. They appease themselves with childish acts of seeing which one has a bigger d*ck. It’s quite honestly shocking that you’d argue that fighting serves a purpose when you spent days arguing that baserunners shouldn’t be allowed to bowl over catchers. Very inconsistent.

I’ll admit I don’t watch hockey and have no intention of doing so, but I don’t need to watch it to know that fighting serves no purpose whatsoever. It doesn’t serve a purpose on the playground. It doesn’t serve one on basketball courts, baseball fields or football fields either. It also doesn’t serve a purpose in the office, between husband and wife, or between nations.

I’ve long thought that any player that gets into a fight on a baseball field be suspended for 25 games (postseason included). No questions. No looking at the tape. Nothing. Those involved in the fight, even if someone didn’t throw a punch, gone for 25 games. Any player who comes off the bench to get into a fight be suspended 100 games. I’d also encourage the second offense to be even stricter. If you don’t want to be suspended, run away. Adjust those for the other professional sports and that’s what players should be punished for fighting.

No doubt, exceptional umpiring leads to the viewer perception of umpires seeming invisible. But all Keri is doing is making an argument for technology. That’s all he cares about:

But the one problem that would be easiest to fix, while still offering major benefits, is expanded use of technology in baseball. Use it to augment umpires’ decisions. Or override them. Or eliminate them. Just use it.

This is from the same author who says,

The league, particularly during Bud Selig’s tenure, has often been reactionary in making changes…

Talk about reactionary. He skipped right past any other potential means to improve adjudication skills. Here are some off-the-top-of-my head examples of things which could be done:

—We’ve talked on this blog about the unwise rule which fires minor league umpires, regardless of performance, if they don’t move up the A-AA-AAA ladder.

—MLB could do more than simply certify two umpiring schools. MLB has no known role beyond that stamp of approval.

—MLB does not serve as the overseeing body of minor league umpires.

—The CBA with umpires shows little evidence that MLB has attempted to secure greater latitude in evaluating or disciplining umpires.

—The umpire-evaluation process could be shifted somewhat away from completely opaque toward a level of public transparency. This, to me, is the lesson folks should take from the NFL, not coach-elicited replay challenges.

Keri calls for experimentation. Cool. I just gave loads of options for experimenting with how umpiring can be improved, all while retaining the human element which makes sports so engaging.

How much time was lost here:

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/blog/big_league_stew/post/Video-Minor-league-manager-climbs-outfield-fenc?urn=mlb-wp9370

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Kung:

The argument for fighting is that the players can self-police better than the officials.  In a regular season game, if you remove fighting, you risk increasing stick fouls.

Indeed, Europe gives ejections for fighting, but they have more minutes in penalty per game than NHL.  So, the game is “chippier”.

It’s a fair argument that it’s a necessary evil.

On the other hand, you see virtually no fighting in the playoffs.  And when you do, it’s not the premeditated fighting of the NHL between two willing combatants, who are there only to fight.

So, the structure of a hockey game is an influence in who is allowed on the ice, and how players comport themselves.

It’s not something you can just say “eject”, because unintended consequences are very real.  You’d have to start changes slowly.

I’ve already recommended that a player has to accrue a certain amount of ice time for every fight, and if he doesn’t have it, then he can’t fight.  That forces semi-good players onto the ice.

If we were to poll the 30 NHL players with the fewest number of penalty in minutes over the last 5 years, and of whom none of them got into a fight, and I were to ask them:

“Should you be automatically ejected from the game if you are called for fighting?”

I would say that at least 25 of them would say no.  And I think I’m being conservative.  I would not be surprised if all 30 said no.  I would be shocked if more than half said yes.

(Though, there might be a North American / European bias to look at.)

And these would be the players most predisposed to want to have ejections for fighting.

unintended consequences are very real.  You’d have to start changes slowly.

How true.  I’ll bet there would be a whole lot of unintended consequences if you took away a manager’s right to strategize and check on his pitcher once without removing him.  Making this change would certainly not remove the manager’s desire to communicate confidentially with his pitcher, therefore the manager would have to do it some other way.  More hand signals?  Perhaps.  Faked injuries?  Perhaps.

Would the cumulative time spent by the pitcher peering into the dugout and performing mental gymnastics to decode the messages be more than the time spent on the 1-2 non-pitching-change-visits per game that take place now?  Perhaps…

I don’t see how faked injuries have anything to do here.  Manager visits the pitcher, or pitcher is not on the mound, and you get penalized (replay challenge lost, called ball, etc).

Now, your other scenario is more plausible: what incentive does a pitcher have to throw the ball to the batter if there’s a runner on base.  He could for example simply keep trying to pick off the runner off first, while they strategize with the manager.  Definitely something to consider.

Why do we have to ask the players what they think about fighting? Is fighting wrong? Are there better ways to accomplish your intended goal than through fighting? Do we expect adults to behave as adults, which means they do not get into fights.

I don’t care what the players think. We could ask 30 catchers and 25 of them are going to say a collision is fine. So why is it OK for one and not the other? Neither has a place in either game. Neither makes the game more exciting except for those fans who enjoy the violence of which there are far too many. Those are the fans these leagues should be going out of their way to make unhappy.

If 25 of 30 catchers are happy, and they are asked in a confidential and controlled manner, then I may be wrong about the catcher collisions.

I would have to know why the pitchers would be treated differently though (why they can’t be collided upon).

The reason we ask is that they are experts and have a unique perspective.

Fighting, and the penalties it brings, are the best compromise the league can find between (a) putting asses in seats, and (b) keeping players from injuring each other.

Certainly there are ways in which they could do a better job with (b), but they’d all come at the expense of (a).

The player-injury thing is the #1 thing.  Or the fear anyway.

There are enough leagues that have no ejections and automatic ejections that someone can do an excellent study on the effects of ejections on fighting.

I’m not convinced either way, and I can appreciate both viewpoints.  It’s possible that you can slowly wean-off fighting so that it’s not some void that will get filled by stick fouls (which are much more dangerous than fighting).

NHL playoffs are a testament of non-chippie play plus non-fighting.  It’s a beautiful thing to watch.  So, we know it’s very possible that you can get rid of fighting.

But, regulars season and playoffs are not the same thing.

In any case, there’s “production-level” scenarios already in play.

#12. Actually it is YOU that comes off looking like an a$$hole.  You made a statement that many intelligent people would find to be ridiculous and I asked you to splain yourself.  Hockey comes off as barbaric and there is no reason that punching someone in the face with your fist should be a part of any mainstream sport.  I really love the part where they lift the players shirt over their head so they can really pound their fist into their head and face.  For someone as smart as you, some of your reasoning is beyond belief.

I’ll say this as politely as I can, lest I be called an ‘a$$hole’. How is tango/17 anything other than using a summary opinion with no evidence to build an argument? So because Tom M. Tango believes that at least 25/30 and maybe all 30/30 of the players in Tango’s sample would agree with him, we should all agree with Tango?

American League managers used to be able to visit a pitcher once before pulling him, not once an inning but once an appearance.  The earth was not rent asunder.

I also think the reasoning is difficult to comprehend given how intelligent Tango is. If fighting is supposedly necessary then hockey needs to figure out a way so that it is not because it is not acceptable behavior for adults. It’s not acceptable behavior for children. I don’t watch hockey so I have no idea what could change, but something has to. If fighting is actually necessary, they’re doing it wrong.

This is like arguing that pitchers do a good job of policing the game because they throw at batter’s heads when called for. That was the old school belief and some still believe it. I don’t know how throwing at a guy’s head is part of baseball in any way and I can’t imagine that fighting is actually a part of hockey.

It’s not enough to restrict coaches and manager from going on the field.  Those player-only infield committee meetings are just as bad. 

When the Yankees play the Redsox, it feels as if there’s a huddle near the mound every time there are 2 base runners. 

Can’t they discuss the bunt / double steal defense strategies or what not before the game?

[Re: fighting/hockey]
I don’t care for fighting, but I dislike the post-whistle pushing, shoving and taunting that’s tolerated in hockey almost as much.  That also delays the game and I doubt it reduces “chippiness” (I would guess the opposite).

Tangotiger, would you advocate introducing suspension-free fighting to football or basketball or baseball as a means for players to police themselves?

Michael/29, I couldn’t agree more.  Every time the goalie ties the puck up, there’s someone on the offense who is skating in the vicinity and there is someone on the defense who whacks them with their stick, pushes them off balance, or otherwise acts in a manner that would make a casual onlooker think the offensive player was intending to stab the goalie.

Getting punched in the face by Thornton is one incentive not to injure players.  So would proper suspensions, fines, and penalties.  If next year, the league decided they were going to truly punish players who did the post-whistle nonsense, and did the Rome-esque late charges to the head, you would immediately eliminate it from the game, without Thornton ever having to punch someone in the face.

Xei: please don’t post here for a week. 

I already told you you are a guest here.  You don’t then go ahead and criticize your host as you did.

I said you sound like an a$$hole because of the tone of your post.  I can sound like an a$$hole all I want since this is my place.  You don’t need to call me one or say I sound like one.

God I hate doing this sh!t.  And from g-dd-mn regular commenters too.

If you cannot be respectful, do NOT post here.

Fight doesn’t bother me, but I can see how it would bother people.  I want to get these counter-arguments out there, not necessarily because I believe them or I think they’re convincing, but at the very least, these are the best arguments I can come up with, and I think they should be properly rebutted:

1) Fighting deters Horton-like injuries by disincentivizing pre-whistle violence.  What is and isn’t a legal hit is always a point of contention in hockey (see: Zdeno Chara on Max Pacioretty).  If Rome hits Horton two steps earlier and he still has the puck (rendering it legal from what I gather), that’s still a very dangerous thing to do.  Maybe the NHL will start suspending people based on result rather than process—like many were clamoring for it to do with Chara—but that’s not a very effective guide for players on the ice.  Abolishing fighting puts players in the position of wanting to react to their anger towards opposing players during the course of play; there are legal hits in hockey that are much more dangerous than simple post-whistle shoving and fights where both men are on skates and maybe 3 punches land.  If players can fight each other, then there’s less incentive to blindside each other during play.  And I’m not sure preventing them from touching each other ever does the best job of preventing the really dangerous plays, which are the ones that the NHL already penalizes, fines, and suspends for.

2) The absolute worst thing about the NBA is the official-player relationship.  Because the players cannot police themselves, they have no idea how to react when an opponent angers them.  Thus, the players constantly whine, the officials are forced by league rules to hand out arbitrary technical fouls essentially based on each referee’s own personal taste, and the league doles out suspensions based on poorly-thought-out league rules designed to prevent on-court feuds between players.  As an example, a few years ago the Suns lost a playoff series to the Spurs after Robert Horry plastered Steve Nash against the sidelines.  Because the league had recently introduced a “stay on the bench” rule that was supposed to prevent bench-clearing brawls, two Suns starters were suspended for the remainder of the series for instinctively leaving the bench after Horry nearly murdered Nash, even though neither engaged in *any* violent action.  Horry missed no games; his was deemed a simple “hard foul”.  These are fast, fluid, contact sports: the best way to rid the bad blood between the teams is for the players to handle it themselves on an individual basis.  Otherwise, they will inevitably handle it during play, which is almost always more dangerous (see: Andrew Bynum on J.J. Barea just a few weeks ago).

That’s the best I have right now—call me Devil’s Advocate if you like.

hmmm/25: if all we’ve got to go on is summary opinion to have a conversation, then that’s what I did.  Half this thread is about guessing what would happen.

If you have better data (any data!) to work with, then let’s use that.  Otherwise, I’m going on gut instincts.

David/27: I hope you understand that I didn’t invent hockey! 

The reasoning that others have used historically is pretty solid, or at least reasonably solid.  If you are not buying it, then it’s a bad explaining job on my part.

The comparison to hit batters is a fair one.  Not the head-hunting, but just a general throwing at batters.  Their reasoning is that if the batter crowds the plate too much, then the pitcher has to throw inside, brushback at least.  And, also in retaliation.

It sounds wrong to me, but enough players believe that it’s a necessary evil that it’s worth listening to, and possibly even accept.

The head-hunting though serves no purpose that a pitch on the butt wouldn’t solve.

I agree about the infield huddles too.

The umpires really just follow orders.  Pace of game would seem to be important, but I guess management doesn’t care too much about it.

Michael/29: I agree that the post-whistle shoving matches are like petulant children.  I’d love to disincentivize those, but especially near the end of a game.

As for self-policing in the other sports, as I said, if you take away the fighting, you allow chippiness (stick fouls, etc) to possibly run rampant. Hockey players have weapons in their hands.

I don’t see how taking away fighting from basketball or football will somehow increase some other type of foul.

In baseball, the bench clearing brawl seems to be in place because it’s one hitter v 9 fielders.  But, if the hitter knows it’s automatic ejection for anyone to leave the bench, maybe he’ll think twice about running to the mound.  But if the pitcher knows that, he may use his weapon, the ball, even more dangerously.  So, you can make the argument that the brawl is a necessary evil in baseball.

Any post that criticizes my editorial decisions will be deleted.

Tango, I know you are not a fan of sticking with the status quo simply because it’s the status quo, so let me ask you this.  If we were inventing hockey from scratch in the 21st century, do you think it is desirable that fighting would be explicitly allowed?  Is fighting inevitable for anything that would still be recognizable as hockey?  Or could all the post play chippiness et al be kept out of the game in some more civilized fashion?

Mick/38: excellent post.

Europe and international hockey has automatic ejections for fighting.  As does lower level leagues in Canada.  So, if you were to start with that premise, you might then ask “how can we stop the stick fouls and chippiness”.

And, I think it’s clear you would NOT want players to self-police, and you’d find some other solution.

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Just to be clear: I am in no way suggesting that we must have fighting in the NHL.  I’m only suggesting that fighting in NHL (regular season) does serve a purpose.  It’s not necessarily the best method to serve that purpose.  It simply can’t be outright banned without something else taking its place.

On the baseball side of things, I have a couple of concerns. First and foremost is injuries. I think it’s going to be fairly well agreed that you have to let injured players off the field. It’s probably aomewhat less agreed, but still fairly strong, that there shouldn’t be some massive penalty, like having to play a man down, for having someone get injured. So you ahve to allow subs for injuries. But you don’t want people faking either. Tango has hinted at two solutions, but I don’t quite like either of them here. First, there’s taking one of the timeouts/challenges. That’s fine, but what do you do when they’re out of timeouts? This kind of thing comes up some at the end of American Football games, and it’s sorta a big issue, though it doesn’t get discussed all that much. Second, there’s giving a ball. This also seems close, and maybe it just works, but it seems weird that a pitcher pulling a muscle on a 3-2 pitch that’s fouled off could then be forced to continue in the game or give up the winning run.
What would I do in this situation? Make some kind of a rule that a player who comes out for injury can’t play in the next game or pitch in the next 5 games (maybe 5 isn’t the perfect number).
The second thing is what qualifies as a bad enough situation to allow a mid-inning pitching change? I don’t think managers should have to leave a guy in there to go down for 8 runs in an inning or something. But I also don’t like the amount we have now. I think I read on this site a while back a suggestion that a pitcher can’t come out mid-inning until he’s given up a run in that inning. I like it.
Otherwise, I mostly like the proposals. If the umps simply granted (dramatically) fewer timeouts and called the pitchers on having to deliver their pitch on time (maybe speed the clock up a little, too?), the games would be a lot shorter. That and I’d like to see the maximum of one failed pickoff per base per PA, after which it’s a balk if you don’t make an out.

As for the replays themselves, the issue I have is that on one side (the ball called fair was actually foul, for example), there’s a very clear outcome to replace the original call with, but on the other side (the ball called foul was actually fair), what are you going to do?
I’m not saying there isn’t something you can do, just that I haven’t heard anything totally satisfactory yet.

First inning of tonight’s Mariners-Angels game there was a godawful call by the third base umpire calling an obvious foul ball fair and then not even seeing that a fan had redirected the ball back into fair territory.  A third base umpire essentially has nothing else to do and he blew this (not at all outcome determinative in this instance) call basically twice.

WW/40: punitive measurements should be easy enough to establish.  I like the idea of giving up a run as a way to preserve “a lifeline”.  I like the idea of a forcible game off if you run out of lifelines (similar to NFL in forcing a player to not play the next down).  You can introduce yellow cards, which I think are a great system in soccer.

You can really go to town in trying to find the appropriate measures.

Personally, I like the idea of having a fixed number of timeouts.  Perhaps even like basketball having a set of “full” and “20-second” timeouts.  A trip to the mound by the pitching coach?  Use a 20-second timeout.  Mid-inning pitching change?  Full timeout.  If you’re out of 20-second timeouts and want a mound-meeting, got to use a full.

The timeouts then could be applied to other situations.  I don’t have a problem with a batter stepping out of the box or a pitcher off the rubber, but they need to be ready to go in a quick period, like 5-seconds.  Any more than that and it costs you a 20-second timeout.  You could also expand that to excessive throws to first; multiple consecutive throw-overs cost a 20-second, unless you record an out.  Etc.

The correct number and use in case of injury/etc is up for debate, and can be experimented with in the minors, as well as how to tie that into a replay system.  My first thought is 5 full and 10 20-second timeouts.  It may seem excessive but I believe that would still improve pace of game.

Ideally, we would watch say the 10 best games we’ve ever seen, and note the pace of play.  How often did the batter step out, how many mound huddles were there, how many times did the manager or coach visit the pitcher, how many umpire disagreements were there, etc.

Basically, we’ve got 100,000 games to choose from that shows some fantastic games.  Why not therefore study our favorite games and answer “what kind of pace of game is associated with the best games”?

Take the Bream/Bonds game, the Morris/Smoltz game, all of the Redsox/Angels 1986 games.  The recent one-game playoff games (Holliday, etc).  So, take those games, and find out what works.

Aspiring saberists take note, that while this will require you to roll your sleeves, you’ll be doing something fairly ground-breaking.  We need data to have this discussion, and we need “boots on the ground” to get that data for us.

the post-whistle shoving matches are like petulant children.
Yes, exactly what it looks like!

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Hockey players have weapons in their hands.
Isn’t a bare fist swung repeatedly by a well-trained large individual capable of inflicting comparable damage?  If your response is “that’s the point!” then why not advocate for that in baseball to deter brushback pitches and high-flying metal spikes?  The 1 vs. 9 issue is not insurmountable. You could impose draconian penalties for the third player involved.  I believe hockey fights occur even during 5 on 3 power plays.

Would anyone argue that football players are substantially less vulnerable to catastrophic, career ending injury from reckless/chippy play than hockey players?

I have zero familiarity with European hockey.  But would anyone argue that Olympic hockey or NCAA college hockey is chippier and more dangerous than the NHL?  Without checking, I would guess that, yes, there are more stick fouls called but I would attribute that to a stricter enforcement threshold.

Soccer’s yellow & red cards, and the relationship between them, have a lot of good points:

- red for true goonery, with a major team and personal penalty (teams plays a man down, player gets 1-game suspension)

- yellow for warnings (no immediate penalty if player cools off, but 2 yellows = red in a game, plus accumulated yellows = red in league play)

The problem in soccer is the diving, but a concerted effort to review video and assess diving sanctions after the fact could rein that in, if anyone really decided to fix it.

IMO the lack of teeth in fighting penalties (which essentially are 5 minute rest periods for marginal players you don’t want on the ice anyway, with literally no downside to the offender or his team) is a problem.

The 1 vs. 9 issue is not insurmountable. You could impose draconian penalties for the third player involved.  I believe hockey fights occur even during 5 on 3 power plays.

In hockey, a player will never try to fight the goalie, unless the goalie throws a punch.  There’s a code.  Both players will drop the stick, or keep the stick.  It’s balanced, and the third man in penalty is a huge deterrant.

In baseball, I have seen players run to the mound WITH A BAT.  You cannot leave the pitcher there defenseless.  Not to mention that if the catcher is involved, he’s there to make sure no punches are thrown, and not to pin the hitter (which is what a third-man-in situation happens in hockey).

As for the chippiness, the football start/stop doesn’t allow it to fester like in hockey.  Your example would be better in rugby or Australian rules football.

As for Olympic hockey, there are NO GOONS in Olympic hockey. It’s essentially like the Stanley Cup playoffs.

I don’t watch NCAA hockey.

Really, your best argument against fighting is simply to watch the Stanley Cup playoffs.  Fights go down to almost nothing.  The key is to figure out how to incentivize the regular season so that the behaviour pattern of THE SAME PLAYERS is carried back to the regular season as it is in the playoffs.  You have almost the same players, and the same game rules.  The difference is that the goons don’t play much in the playoffs, and if you lose a series, you go home.  It’s that kind of high-wire act that doesn’t allow for the margin of error of bad players to be on the ice.

There’s a code.

Codes don’t evolve in a vacuum.  Would you support the emergence of a code for fighting in baseball where hitters can charge the mound with no threat of suspension if they leave their bat behind?

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there are NO GOONS in Olympic hockey
...the goons don’t play much in the playoffs

I read this to mean that the goons (who I believe are employed in the first place largely on the basis of their skill at fighting; correct me if I’m wrong) are actually themselves a big part of the problem that fighting is purportedly supposed to solve.

Yes, goons are a big part of the problem.

As for your first part: you are trying to create some rather ridiculous scenarios for me to bat down, without looking at it holistically.

The reason that the NHL allows fighting is that it believes that by banning fighting, it will increase the level of stick fouls, which, they believe, is an even more dangerous scenarios.

That by creating a red light district where basically just goons fight against goons, they are blocking one evil by the introduction of another evil.

You have to at least accept this rationale before proposing your baseball scenarios.

If your intent is to simply say that fights in hockey is ridiculous, without accepting that there’s some rationale for it that is acceptable, then there’s really no point to talking about this, is there?

So, what is your intent?

***

What purpose does it serve for a baseball player at bat to drop his bat and run to the mound to beat up on the pitcher?  Now, you can argue that it keeps the pitcher honest if he knows that he can’t continually come inside on the batter, especially to the point that the batter feels threatened.  But, is this really why batters go out there?  Or is it simply to express dissatisfaction as a matter of blowing up?  It’s not like the batter sizes himself up against the pitcher.  He’s running out there, full-bore, not looking to engage in a fair fight.  The pitcher, often, feels like a victim, and is not interested in engaging in a fight.  And in the NHL, it will often happen that one player won’t engage the other who wants to fight him.

Tangotiger, I confess that I find the fights—not sure if “ridiculous” is the best word—but let’s call it “inconsistent with my values.”

But beyond that, I don’t think I even buy any of the presented rationales other than “[some] fans enjoy it” and “it’s always been that way.”

Addressing the logic you’ve presented on it’s own terms: Why should I be afraid of committing a stick foul(*) as long as my goon can beat up your goon?  And even if your goon can beat up my goon, I don’t have to fight your goon if I don’t want to, right?  (Which is sort of what I was leading towards w.r.t baseball: value systems aside, would it really improve the status quo if pitchers pitched differently to different hitters based on their fighting reputations?  And then if teams adapted by employing fighters as pinch-hitters to retaliate after their stars got hit?).

As you said, the goons themselves are a big part of the problem in hockey.  In that case, wouldn’t it make sense to eliminate one of the reasons they’re on the roster at all by eliminating fighting?

(*)Not central to the discussion, but I don’t understand the preoccupation with stick fouls (which in many cases are inadvertent) to the exclusion of blind hits and hits along the boards that can cause concussions.

This is the way it would work:

1. Player A is a coward, and loves to use his stick.  He whacks his stick at all his opponents ankles.  He does it deliberately, but carefully, so the referee doesn’t notice.  There are 2 referees, and 10 skaters.

2. The refs are not enforcing the stick foul, or, the refs don’t think that any particular stick foul is enough (though the totality of the stick fouls, if allowed to accumulate, the refs would call it).

3. Player M is a goon, and sees what’s going on.  He gives Player A is solid check, enough to knock him off his skates.

4. Player B is a goon, and doesn’t like that Player M made a run at Player A (even if Player A deserved it).  Player B challenges Player M to a fight.

5. Player M, having escalated the situation, is now in a fight scenario.  Player M and Player B square off, each respecting each other’s role, and will both stop fighting once the linesmen intercede.

Now, what happens if Step 3 does not occur?  Well, Player N will start to use his stick.  Then Player C starts to use his stick.  Then Player O will start to use his stick.

Half the players will now take advantage that the refs aren’t calling the stick fouls because they are not blatant enough to be called 2-minute penalties.

***

In the regular season, a dirty player will play dirty.  In the playoffs, he has to dial it down a bit, because he does not want to be the cause of losing the game by happening to be called on a penalty for a useless stick foul.

***

These are the behavioural patterns you have to deal with.  It’s a question of escalation that needs to be stopped, or it risks continued escalation.  Someone has to stop it.  Ideally, the rules would be in place to do so.

But, there’s alot of gray-area going on.

***

Europe bans fighting, but they get more penalty minutes than in North America.  The reduction of one evil (fighting) increases the evils of other events

Again, this is reality.  This is what happens.

You can’t just say “stop fighting at all costs”, because those costs can actually be worse than fighting, as hard as it is to believe.

***

So, you need to understand the context, the incentive system, the penalties, before you take a zero-tolerance policy on something.

We know what the perfect situation is: NHL playoffs.  They are fantastic.  Fighting is extremely low.  You can probably ban fighting in the NHL playoffs (ejections) and you likely won’t have a risk in stick fouls (probably).

Therefore, set aside your personal bias against fighting (personally speaking, I abhor it), and solve the problem like you’ve been asked to solve any other problem in the world.

to the exclusion of blind hits and hits along the boards that can cause concussions.

No one is excluding those!  They have increased penalties in the past on those hits.  The problem is that the refs don’t call a few of them for some reason, and those are what get the attention.

But the NHL is pretty good about cowardly hits.  They can definitely get better, but they are on a path to get there.  There’s no one that’s arguing FOR blind hits and behind the back hits.  It’s a question of the ref being able to see those hits and interpreting those hits.

Ideally, you’d have a yellow/red card system that can be done even after the game via replays.  An opponent challenges a hit, the league reviews it, and says “yes, that was a very dirty hit, so yellow card”. 

This is more a logistical problem, than a structural problem.

I think the only reason that the NHL allows fighting is because a large percentage of its fan base enjoys that aspect of it. You guys have shown examples of hockey that doesn’t include fighting and the NHL isn’t interested. They can hide behind whatever explanation they want, but people for some strange reason like violence and violence is associated with hockey. I doubt the league wants to take a chance and lose those fans, but that’s precisely what they should do.

David/54: no one is making the argument that the NHL is supposedly giving what the fans supposedly wants.

The fan does not care, at all, about no fighting in the playoffs.

So, cite your references, because by your own admission, you don’t even follow hockey at all.

What the fan wants is scoring opportunities, no clutching and grabbing, and great/clean hits.  They are being fantastically served in the playoffs.

Tango/52: I still don’t get why your steps 4 and 5 are necessary at all to meet the stated objective to reduce dirty play.  If fighting is completely eliminated, steps 1 to 3 can continue to take place just the same as ever, no?

That steps 4 and 5 hardly ever occur in the playoffs (especially if a game is close) and there are apparently no dire consequences suggests to me that these steps are irrelevant to the stated objective. 

In the regular season, I suppose there’s less aversion to risk-taking and attention-seeking behavior since the consequences of losing a single game or getting suspended for one game is comparatively much lower.

***

How do you know that the higher penalty minutes in Europe are a result of more dirty play and not a result of stricter enforcement?

From what I’ve seen of the Olympics and NCAA hockey (not an avid fan, but I’ve watched dozens of games over the years), I would guess that they call more penalties than in the NHL and if so I submit that it has nothing to do with dirtier play and everything to do with stricter enforcement thresholds.

As I said, Olympic hockey has no goons.

And step 3 can’t be the end of it.  It never is.

As I said, Olympic hockey has no goons.

The dirty “Player A” from your example is in the Olympics however, no?  In that case, if fighting is the lesser of evils, I would expect Olympic play to be noticeably dirtier.

And step 3 can’t be the end of it.  It never is.

Fine, but then the rationale ceases to be about logic and about reducing dirty play.

In the regular season, I suppose there’s less aversion to risk-taking and attention-seeking behavior since the consequences of losing a single game or getting suspended for one game is comparatively much lower.

This is the key point.

Player A is not in the Olympics, no.

Player A is not in the Olympics, no.

By what means are suitably skilled but dirty/cowardly players excluded from the Olympics? 

How many NHL players were selected for the last Olympics?  (About 140 if I trust my Google search results).  How big an issue can “Player A” types be in the NHL if they are non-existent (or barely existent) among a sample of 140 players?

Not to mention that there would have to be loads of “Player A” types from those European high-penalty-minute leagues that don’t allow fighting.

They are not “suitably” skilled.  Think of the “dirty” players as guys like Eckstein or Counsell, guys of limited skills, but stick around by doing whatever is necessary.  The Pujols and Heywards are too busy trying to score to be dirty.

And don’t forget that Olympic hockey is even more accelerated than NHL playoffs.  This is the key point, that you can’t afford to lose a game, so the margin of error is very low.  Skill players are in the Olympics.

Surely at least some of the German or Slovakian players were marginal NHL players comparable to Eckstein or Counsell in MLB?  Did anyone think that the Olympic contests between the non-powerhouse countries were chippy?

Again, we are talking about nearly 25% of all NHL players (not including minor leaguers) getting chosen for the Olympics, including many not-so-prominent players.  If there were no “Player A” types in this crowd, how big a problem are we talking about?

As best I could tell, Olympic hockey was played at such an accelerated pace in part because of the skill but in part also because interference, slashing, hooking, etc. were called extraordinarily closely (phantom calls may have been more of an issue than missed calls).

If you had only 8 NHL teams instead of 30, then I have no doubt that ejections for fighting would be in place.

If you had only 8 NHL teams instead of 30, then I have no doubt that ejections for fighting would be in place.

How many of the 140 NHL Olympians would have jobs in an 8 team NHL?  Somewhere between 50% & 75%?  That would still leave 35 to 70 Olympians (mostly non-North Americans) to account for.  How many “Player A” types do you think there are in the NHL?  Are you implying that they are nearly all North Americans?  (That sort of flies in the face of the notion that it’s a bigger problem in the European leagues that ban fighting)

***
Football has plenty of players who carry reputations of engaging in “Player A"-type dirty behavior, and they are all over the map with respect to talent-- some are stars, and others are marginal players.

In the regular season, I suppose there’s less aversion to risk-taking and attention-seeking behavior since the consequences of losing a single game or getting suspended for one game is comparatively much lower.

This is the key point.

Tangotiger, I don’t see how this key point supports the premise of your argument.  Yes, it explains why goons don’t engage in Steps 3-4-5 of your scenario as often in the playoffs.  But what about Player A and Step 1?

Why is Player A engaging in the intentional stick nonsense you describe?  I can think of 4 reasons:

(1) He gains a direct advantage with each slash which outweighs any disadvantage from the few times he is caught by the referees and sent to the penalty box.

(2) He gains a secondary advantage by getting under the other team’s skin and drawing them to commit foolish penalties.  (This could happen as part of your Step #3)

(3) He gains no clear advantage, but merely introduces more chaos and volatility to the game.  More power plays, more scoring chances.  Thus, this tactic only makes sense if his team is trailing or perhaps when his team is facing a clearly superior opponent.

(4) He doesn’t care about any advantage, he is just a mean, ill-tempered dude who doesn’t respect his opponents.

Did I leave out any possibilities?  Of course, these reasons are not mutually exclusive.

Under which of these reasons would Player A be LESS likely to engage in his cowardly behavior in the playoffs?

If his behavior produces any sort of advantage (cases 1 & 2 & 3), then I would expect to see MORE of it in high leverage games (i.e. in the playoffs).  If there is no advantage (case 4) then the alleged deterrent (goon enforcement) is mostly missing in action in the playoffs.  If the deterrent was truly effective, I wouldn’t expect the behavior to go away in it’s absence.

If you want to argue that any advantage gained by Player A comes with diminishing returns (because of increasing scrutiny from referees), then again, that would suggest that Player A is more likely to pick his spots and wait for higher leverage situations.

If you want to argue that Player A is motivated by my Case 2 (drawing foolish penalties) and that his opponents are smarter and don’t take the bait in the playoffs, then there’s a simple answer: don’t take the bait in the regular season either, and Player A’s motivation will be gone.

We have to explain the human behaviour(*) of NHL players in the regular season and in the playoffs.

(*) F-ck you Firefox spell-checker.

If you don’t like how the traditional explanations have gone, then you have to do a better job then.  You present to us the behavioural patterns of NHL players in the regular season, the playoffs, the Stanley Cup finals, and the Olympics, as well as players in the European leagues.

Without an understanding of the facts, how can we hope to find a solution to the problem?

Right now, we are still arguing basis of facts.

If you don’t like how the traditional explanations have gone, then you have to do a better job then.

It sounds to me like you’re saying fighting is the solution and I need to a better job of defining the problem.

I’ve been taking your claims and observations at face value and trying to understand what evidence or logic we have which says that fighting is an effective solution for the stated problems.

"It sounds to me like you’re saying fighting is the solution and I need to a better job of defining the problem. “

I didn’t say that at all.

I’m saying that we are witnessing behavioural patterns in the 30-team, 600 player, 2430 game NHL regular season, and part of that pattern is fighting.  And fighting by the way that is not constant in terms of number of fights per game over the years, and not constant among the non-goons.

I’m saying that we are witnessing behavioural patterns in the 16-team, 320 player, 80-or-so games in the NHL playoffs, and part of that pattern is greatly diminished fighting, even though the penalties for fighting are the same (i.e., same fighting rules).

I’m saying that we are witnessing behavioural patterns in the 8-team, 160 player, limited number of Olympics games, where there is ejections for fighting.

I’m saying that there are different leagues, different rules, different number of games, different number of players, and in each, behavioural patterns are exhibited.

We have to state what those patterns actually are first.  Then we have to come to some possible reasons as to WHY they exhibit those patterns.  And then we can come to conclusions as to what would happen if we were to change the penalties for some of those behaviours.

In no way am I suggesting that the NHL rules for fighting is the most effective way to have a great game.  All I’m suggesting is that it is AN effective way to have a great game.  It is not clear at all that applying ejections for fighting will still maintain a great game, giving all the other parameters that an NHL regular season has.

I should also note that of all the leagues, the NHL is by far the one most willing to change its rules.  They have a competition committee headed by a former veteran player.  They publicize the testing of their rules.  They regularly convene summits on changing rules, inviting players all the time.  And they do change rules.

So, if fighting is still in the NHL with just a 5-minute major as the penalty, I would defer somewhat to the idea that it’s a necessary evil.  This is not like MLB where inertia is one of the 10 commandments.

This is not to say that we can’t figure out a better system, or harsher penalties.  Like I said, goons is one of the problem, and making players have a minimum amount of ice time will completely remove those players who only play 3-4 minutes a game (whereas all other players play at least 10 minutes a game).

This is a very simple change to make, and it is bothersome that the NHL has not instituted at least that kind of a change.

I would love to remove fighting from the game.  But, it’s not simply a case of “let’s remove it, and we are guaranteed to be an improvement”.  It’s not even close to a guarantee.  Removing fighting wholesale has a 60/40 chance of improving the NHL, with the 40 part being possibly ugly.

This was March 2009:

http://www.nhl.com/ice/news.htm?id=413089

Campbell said during the lockout he asked the competition committee to address fights late in the game because, “I was sick and tired of one coach complaining about the other coach sending people out and the next game he might do it. I said I know I can do something in supplemental discipline, but I want a hard and fast rule here so we incorporated a hard and fast rule.”

Since the lockout, the rule has been if a player fights in the last five minutes of a game, both the player and the coach receive a fine. The result, Campbell said, has been a 19 percent reduction in fights in the last five minutes of games.

“It has worked well,” he said. “Twenty-four percent of our fights occurred in the last five minutes of a game and now 4 percent of our fights occur in the last five minutes of the game. Whether you are for fighting or against fighting, I think any fight in the last five minutes of a game is stupid. It’s got nothing to do with anything.”

That’s from the disciplinarian of the NHL.  A very smart and strong approach to curb fighting.

***

http://sports.espn.go.com/nhl/columns/story?columnist=buccigross_john&id=2724254

That lists the writer’s reasons for the existence of fighting in the NHL, and his Devil’s Advocate responses.

A: The stories in the book are worth the price of admission, so much fun. My favorite was a doozy that Dave Hanson told in which he wound up going at it with none other than the great Bobby Hull. Dave, of course, was one of the famous fighting “Hanson Brothers” from the classic movie “Slap Shot.”

“The most memorable fight I ever got into over my career would have to be the one with Bobby Hull, probably the biggest star in the game at the time,” Hanson recalled. “I was with Birmingham and we were playing Winnipeg. I was trying to establish myself as a player in the league and make an impact, so I was playing pretty physical. Well, I am out there skating around and I run into Bobby, which was like running into a brick s--- house. He just bowled me over. So, when the next opportunity came later on in the game, I gave it back to him pretty good. Bobby took offense and dropped his gloves, so I followed suit.

“We were just going at it with lefts and rights, and then, all of a sudden, he just stopped. You could have heard a pin drop in there at that moment. So, I looked up at the crowd and it was like everybody was just frozen. I looked back at Bobby and I am thinking to myself, ‘Something doesn’t quite look right here.’ Sure enough, I looked down at my hand and I’ll be damned if his wig wasn’t caught in my knuckles. I had somehow caught it and ripped it right off of his head. It was unbelievable.

“They tossed me in the box and threw the book at me. I got two minutes for elbowing, five minutes for fighting and 10 minutes for pulling hair. Well, Bobby skated off and came back out with a helmet after that. Later on, I wound up in the faceoff circle with him and said, ‘Mr. Hull, I am really sorry.’ Bobby just looked at me, smiled and said in his deep, raspy voice, ‘Ah, don’t worry about it kid, I needed a new one anyhow.’ Bobby and I later became good friends, but to this day, we have never spoken of that night.”

The NHL refined the rules about hits to the head:

Hits that target the head, or in which the head is the principal point of contact, will now be penalized. The modification deletes the language that made only “lateral or blind side” hits illegal.

[...]

Secondary contact with the head after a legal check will still be permitted. The rule previously allowed hits to the head from straight ahead, but it now bars hits from any direction where the head is struck first.

[...]

The modified rule allows referees to call a two-minute minor penalty for illegal head contact.

The revealing line about the league’s goal of balancing safety and hitting came from Maple Leafs’ GM Brian Burke:

It’s a very slippery slope, and I know people say, “Why don’t they just give 50 games every time there’s one of these?.” Well, we don’t want to get to a game where there’s no hitting. If people want to watch that, they can go to Europe.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/22/sports/hockey/nhl-adopts-stricter-stance-on-hits-to-the-head.html

Excellent.  Basically, the league doesn’t care about intent, ruling any initial contact to the head as reckless.

So, Zdeno Chara would not be able to ram Pax’s head into the stanchion.

That’s why I support no pitches that land on hitter’s heads.  Regardless of intent.