THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

With all the talk about Hammy being so hurt and ineffective, Wash still bats him 3rd, the traditional slot for the best hitter.  And we always hear (from sabermetric naysayers) how managers know more about injuries and the like than we do.  Just saying…

"Hammy”, and “Wash”? Is your name “Quade”

But 3rd is not where the “best” hitter should bat and maybe Wash knows this and is “applying” it to his postseason genius. Problem with my facetious hypothesis is that Michael Young batting cleanup AHEAD of Beltre, Cruz, and Napoli cinches that he’s not intellectualizing his lineup at all.

Somewhat oddly, or perhaps not, Allen Craig’s “defensive inadequacies” are lessening with each progressive RBI.  That’s just good player development at the Major League level.

And Craig (or “ACray” as I call him) is going to be a “star” according to McCarver because he is 3 for 3 so far in the WS. Has be been 0-3, would they be talking about him at all?

Getting back to strategy…

I like the way Furcal switched from hitting to bunting to hitting, especially with the count.  That forces the defense to play agnostically, unless of course they can figure out LaRussa’s pattern.

As far as Hammy’s second at bat against Lohse…

In poker, they say that a good player must not only mix his strategies up, but he has to think about what his opponent might think, what his opponent might think that he thinks, etc.

McCarver said that Lohse probably won’t throw a 3-1 and then a 3-2 fastball and that Hamilton should look for the change-up.

Well, if Lohse thinks that Hamilton is looking for the offspeed, shouldn’t Lohse tend to throw the fastball?  And if Hamilton thought that Lohse would do that, then he should look fastball, etc.

So basically they both should be using game theory to mix up their pitches and what they are looking for.

For Lohse to almost definitely throw an offspeed in a fastball count to anyone but a brain dead batter would be ridiculous.  Which is why I am puzzled when commentators think that can tell you what the pitcher is going to throw, unless it is obvious (like a 3-0 count to the pitcher).  If the commentator knows the pitch, then certainly the batter knows that same pitch and the pitcher shouldn’t throw it (or at least should mix it up).

Sure, sometimes the score, inning, batter, outs, etc. dictate a certain pitch almost 100% of the time, even if the batter knows it is coming, but that is obviously not always the case or perhaps even rarely the case…

What’s the ump trained to look at there? Anybody know? It seems obvious to me, but is he trained to be watching the bag and ignoring everything else?

By the way, when they issued the IBB (in the 4th) after going 2-0…

Since almost all IBB’s are marginal plays from the outset, a manager should ALWAYS start out pitching normally to the batter and if the count goes to 1-0 or 2-0 (depending on how marginal the IBB was in the first place), THEN the IBB should be issued.

That is how you leverage the IBB…

mcsnide, on what play?

MGL:

Can you unpack/expand on your #7 post about leveraging the IBB.  I don’t quite follow but your point would be a major one about in-game strategy if I understand your conclusion correctly.

MGL:

Can you unpack/expand on your #7 post about leveraging the IBB.  I don’t quite follow but your point would be a major one about in-game strategy if I understand your conclusion correctly.

I’m not MGL, but I believe it’s because your expected success goes up a LOT with count, so once you get to 2-0 say, the expected wOBA from pitching to him exceeds that of a walk (well, with the other factors included as well).

I was referring to the blown call at 1st on the double play that wasn’t. Napoli caught the ball up high and tagged Holliday on the way down, a full step before the bag, but Holliday was called safe.

The umpire is going to stare at the bag and listen for the sound of the ball hitting mitt.  But obviously if the throw is off line he has to adapt and try to watch everything he can, which is a difficult thing for him to do…

McSnide:

I think you’d be disappointed about the lack of science/structure in umpire training. What you want is a guy in pos to capture the image of ball arrival and foot touch, to be amended in a split second when the 1B comes off the bag you know it’s going to be a tag play (re-focus your eyes) or the ball will get away.

WW, let’s say that the IBB at the start of the PA is neutral - i.e. the win expectancy is the same from pitching or IBB’ing.  Well, you simply wait for the first pitch. If it is a strike, obviously pitching to the batter at the 0-1 count yields a higher WE than walking him.  If the count goes to 1-0 then if you pitch to him, the combination of the possible UIBB and the batter being a better hitter results in a higher WE for the batting team by hitting then by getting the IBB.

It is even possible that the IBB is the correct play at the outset - that it yields a higher WE for the pitching team, but by waiting for a count, the WE for the pitching team is even higher.

As I said, since most IBB’s are marginal at best, it is almost always better to wait for a count…

I wonder if anyone who watches Texas everyday might know why Washington prefers Napoli at first to Young. Neither has enough innings for their UZR to be meaningful, but based on athleticism and where they’ve been on the defensive spectrum in the past I suspect Young is the better option. And Texas has a 3rd catcher (Treanor) on the bench, so it’s not that Washington is afraid of a catcher injury and subsequently losing the DH.

Good pitching change for STL, if only because Lohse is not such a good pitcher in the first place and he is facing the order the second time, close to the first time, and because the LI is starting to creep up.

The only think I don’t like is when a manager lets the outcome dictate the pitching changes.  What should matter is the time through the order, the leverage, the batters coming up, and the difference between the current pitcher’s true talent and that of the reliever or relievers coming in…

I would think that Young is a lot better at first, being that is an infielder.

Man, Yadi has a gun!

Where is Mitch Moreland in all of this?

re: the hitting by count discussion

http://www.insidethebook.com/ee/index.php/site/comments/graphical_woba_by_count/

McCarver:

“Tailing by 2 instead of 1, he has to hold him (Napoli) at third.”

Seriously, does this guy have any analytical skills?

In the 4th inning, it makes almost NO difference whether they are down 1 or 2 in terms of sending the runner.

And that was not such a great throw from Holliday, if only because he did not back up on the catch and then come in.  With Napoli running, that should not have been a close play!

The throw was clearly accurate, but it must not have had anything on it…

Looking at that replay, it looks like a rainbow…

That batted ball by Young in the 5th is a perfect example of how a defensive metric like UZR would not necessarily be very accurate over a small sample and would not accurately represent what actually happened. UZR would utilize the location and speed of that ball as the parameters to determine the average likelihood of it being caught. It would be a hard hit ball hit right at the 3rd basemans normal position. That would probably be an 80% out or so. But given the tough short hop and extreme speed it is probably in reality a 10% catch rate.  Interesting I think…

Isn’t Edwin Jackson a better pitcher than Kyle Lohse?  Why didn’t Jackson get the start for this game?  I think it is a pretty important decision since Lohse would be the guy lined up to start game 7 (if necessary) now rather than Jackson.

Good pitch by Lynn and nice job by Napoli. You’d have to think that he would have been looking slider on that pitch.

One of the things I don’t like about traditional statistic-keeping: Why isn’t Murphy’s groundout in the 4th scored as a sac hit? It’s the same result as if he’d bunted, just because he ‘wasn’t trying to’ (i.e. he wasn’t bunting) means he gets credited differently?

Yes I think that jackson is a better pitcher.

If the Save Rule didn’t exist, the closer (or best reliever) should be in here, I would think.

If you’re forced to bunt of course you shouldn’t be penalized.  If you move a runner with a ground out it is somewhat of an accident.  Which is similar to a sac fly. I guess they decided that a sac fly should be no AB because the result is so good and because they think that the batter has a great deal of control over the sac fly which he doesn’t at least “net” wise.

McCarver just rambled on about how it makes sense to bunt in front of some of the best power hitters in the game.

Wouldn’t it make more sense to bunt if a singles hitter was coming up?

This sort of thing drove me nuts with the Yankees this year.  Girardi called for a bunch of bunts with Granderson and Teixeira due up (after the bunt), yet those guys don’t hit too many singles so I didn’t really understand the need to get the runner to 2B at the expense of an out. 

Though Pujols, Berkman, and Holliday hit for a much higher average than Teixeira and Granderson so perhaps it isn’t a great comparison.

Not sure that the leverage index is high enough. That is the main criterion.  It’s easy enough to look up however.

"Wouldn’t it make more sense to bunt if a singles hitter was coming up?”

Yes for sure. In general you would tend to bunt more often with a singles hitter who does not walk much coming up.

Wow.  That was a thing of beauty. 

Is anybody going to remember that blast in future years when they use the tired cliche that you can’t win with 3-run homeruns in the playoffs?

With a HR like that by Pujols you have to wonder if he was guessing fastball or a great batter is able to identify a pitch or just react that quickly.  Those are the things that reporters need to ask players rather than the ubiquitous and obligatory, “how did u feel when you hit that,” or “what did he throw you,” as if we don’t know or can’t look that up ourselves.

Divisible by 7:

Even with the Save statistic, best reliever should enter the game in first “high leverage” situation after starter is removed.  “Ace” relievers (whose stuff doesn’t consistently deteriorate by the length) should also more routinely get more than 3 outs of high leverage.  Along with lineup construction, a lot of bullpen strategy remains very archaic.  How many games are lost between the 5th-8th innings by middle relievers?  Answer: More than if ur best guy came in those situations even if the “lesser” reliever would later end up blowing some games late that he’d be forced into (after “ace” reliever’s outing ended), they would negatively impact fewer games than the ace reliever would positively impact (I guess I’m referring to WE here) by coming in sooner in high leverage. Obviously each staff would have to decide how to define “high leverage” but the point is the same.

I don’t even mind saving your ace (closer) for the latter innings. The bottom line is to use your best relievers in the highest leverage situations AND to make sure you use your scrubs in low leverage innings so that those good relievers are available and fresh as much as possible.

Of course complicating issues are warmup pitches and platoon and other matchups.

Perfect example here. STL up by 6 in the 6th inning. I assume very low leverage.  Use your worst reliever even in the post season until the leverage should increase.  Take Lynn out and don’t use Dotel.  Of course managers are scared to death to lose a big lead so they overuse good relievers.

Wait, weren’t you just saying how Lynn isn’t good the other day?

I was especially annoyed with bullpen usage in these playoffs when Mariano Rivera only threw 8 pitches in the entire ALDS, whereas all of the other 10 Yankee pitchers on the roster threw at least 27 pitches in the series. 

Some manager needs to be bold and grow a pair and stop managing according to bullpen ‘roles’ like ‘8th inning guy’, etc.  I wonder how much longer it will take to improve this inefficient management of leverage.

"Wait, weren’t you just saying how Lynn isn’t good the other day?”

Waiting for someone to take the bait!

Yeah, in the post-season if your aces are not getting lots of TBF, you are probably doing something wrong.

Also, Mike Gonzalez is a very good reliever, against both RH and LH batters. He should probably not be pitching in a low leverage situation and where has he been all post-season?

Hey it’s Dotel!

"The only way there can be fan interference is if a fan touches the ball.”

I guess next time I’m at a game, I’m just going to jump on the field and tackle the fielder!

Aside from a manager growing balls (or more appropriately a brain), I think the more likely genesis of this (similar to better lineup construction) is going to require a GM/pres on the baseball operations side to hire or guide the ML manager/staff with better understanding the benefits of these strategies.  There are a few other corner-cutting novelties that I’d like to see a team commit to: 4-man rotation, pitchers capable of hitting and/or playing a bench role in other ways, literally squeezing that much more value out of your 25-man.

Yeah, well, you can’t blame Tony for making sure he protects an 8 run lead in the 7th!

I would have put in Westbrook in the 6th and then gone into the clubhouse to get a sandwich and take a nap!

"4-man rotation”

Why?  The research we did for The Book suggests that 4 days of rest is optimal.  And it would depend on the personnel you have. If your 5th starter is a big decline from your 4th, then you might want to use a 4 man rotation.  Plus, you sometimes use 4 and sometimes use 5 (or 6) anyway, depending on your days off, etc.

Yeah I don’t really understand wasting one of your better relievers when you are playing 2 more days in a row after tonight and will likely need him in much more critical situations in those games. 

Westbrook should be able to hold the lead until the end.

By “4-man,” I didn’t mean 4-man exclusively so that those guys are making 40 starts.  I mean not using a 5-man so that your top 4 make 35-36 starts and a “5th” is used only the 12-17 times throughout the schedule when he’s needed in order to keep the “top 4” on optimal rest.  Now, that “5th” can be a ML swingman, may be rotating 40-man guys that can be up/downed (haven’t thought this part all the way through) or maybe your 12th man starts and then you relieve him based on the situation.  But the cost of starting pitching and the relative ineffectiveness of 5th starters to me suggests a value margin to be gained by paying/using 4 more effective starters more often and then figuring out what to do on the intermittent 5th-man days.

We suggest in The Book, using a few relievers on the 5th day.  Each one pitches 1 time through the order unless the leverage is low, in which case you can leave someone in there to eat the innings.

Again, your 4 best starters should all be used on 4 days rest, more or less.  I think that is what most teams do, don’t they?

I also strongly dislike the Sunday “off day” culture for established everyday players.  By resting multiple regulars (often starting with the catcher) on the same day, you seemingly lower your WE unnecessarily.  It’s like managers can’t be bothered to stagger off days throughout the week, they’d rather just use Sundays for convenience rather than track rotationally and/or evaluate something else empirical (performance), though I realize that does play into the timing of some off days (the latter that is).

MGL:

It’d be worth looking up but I’m pretty sure the recent ML rotation management approach is to have 5 fulltime starters and have them each take their turn.  Now, because of injury/effectiveness issues, you don’t get 5 guys at the end of the season with 32/33 starts, typically but I think everyone’s ST and midseason goal is to identify nominally a 5th starter and 5-man rotation… I do like, along the lines of what I’m thinking, the rolling reliever thing on the necessary 5th days w/leverage playing into things.

I guess next time I’m at a game, I’m just going to jump on the field and tackle the fielder!

My friendly advice is to make sure it isn’t Matt Holliday.

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It bothers me that Jackson is not starting in favor of Lohsebag. Kyle is going to start a game in this series anyway, but Jackson is by far the better pitcher, and he could pitch both games 3 and 7 on regular rest. Now, we’re set up for Lohse + everyone available in game 7.

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Tim McCarver is surprisingly bad, and I empathize with the situation. As a catcher for so many years he really should be better, especially in aspects pertaining to pitching and/or recognizing pitches.

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Pujols is a very interesting hitter (duh) in that he hits for power but without the standard high bat speed (Type A = ~100mph like Fielder and Howard, Pujols is type B = ~90mph) and without the standard “C-Path” swing plane. His swing is essentally flat on the bottom and combined with starting the hands high, he is able to hit high pitches with authority whereas other batters foul those off or swing and miss.

Surprisingly, pitchers were getting him out with high heat regularly earlier in the year when he was struggling. The swing path is one reason why he able to drive the ball so well to the opposite field due to the barrel barrel staying in the hitting zone for a longer period of time.

A little Edgar Martinezish.

With minimal stride (actually no stride just a toe rotation) and not much bat “tip” (hands go back barrel points toward CF or opposite field), he’s very unique.

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I don’t think TLR is pitching Dotel because he’s scared of losing a big lead. My guess is Dotel is a guy that is sharper with regular work. He has been used in a lot of games since acquired by StL.

Pujol$$$

Wow.

Jeff, I don’t know that staggering regular days off is any better than all of them taking off on one day, do you?

IOW, it may be that staggering reduces your WE by 3% over 4 days, and all of them taking off one day reduces your WE by 12%.  Those have the same impact.

Plus, usually only the regular catcher is rested on Sat night or Sunday day (day game after a night game).  Other than that, if you look at the average lineup (say, measured in overall wOBA) on Sunday versus an average day, you are not going to find much difference.

Anyway, good game for Cardinal fans and we’ll see you tomorrow!

And of course if Pujols’ performance in the post-season affects his FA compensation by more than 1%, someone is an idiot…

@54/mgl

haha.  it might adjust his FA compensation up just as much as his slow start this year pushed it down.

I can see where Pujols’ performance in the post-season could affect his FA compensation without any GM being an idiot. It could be a question of game theory. If Pujols’ agent is clever enough, he might, for instance, be able to convince a GM that other teams were so impressed by Pujols’ post-season performance that they’re willing to pay him substantially more than his true value. This GM might then, in turn, offer more than Pujols is worth, while knowing full well that he’s doing so. That might make the GM in question a poor negotiator, but not necessarily an idiot.

I missed the game but I checked the vid of Pujols’ 3 homers. And I wondered, why was he batting in the 9th inning with an 8 run lead? Wouldn’t a smart manager take his 1 or 2 big star batters out, to protect against them getting injured on a HBP or running the bases?  Would that be seen as disrespectful to the opposing team?

I wonder the same thing about star QBs late in the game with a big league.

#57

I would assume what was running through TLR’s mind:

“Given the park and the Rangers offense, I will not pull my top defensive players at any point with any score.”

I could be wrong.

As I said, managers are scared to death that they might blow a big lead, especially in the WS.  If you were to point out to them the unlikelihood, they would point to the Rays’ last regular season game and other historical instances.  Of course that would be like if someone told you that getting hit by lightning was an extremely rare occurrence and you countered with, “But....” and then you went on to cite all the instances of people getting hit by lightning…

---"As I said, managers are scared to death that they might blow a big lead...”
***************

Sure, but if Pujols had gotten hit and broke his hand, LaRussa would come under heavy fire for leaving him in, and he knows that. But if he takes Pujols out and SL blows an 8 run lead in the 9th, I don’t think anyone would rake TLR for having taken Albert out…

i was a little surprised that larussa let pujols hit again too.  not only is there the usual injury risk, but there is also the chance that a rangers pitcher throws a pitch at him.

being a bunch of runs down and after the two hr he had already hit...not that i condone it at all, but i’ve seen pitchers throw at hitters for less.

Yes, these threads are mostly about trying to identify “sub-optimal moves"--the kind where you need win probability tables and other detailed data to evaluate a close decision. But there are also “blunders"--which can, in one sense, be defined as mistakes where no math or stats are necessary to identify it. For me, letting Pujols bat in the 9th falls into the latter category....

Well at least Wash wasn’t dumb enough to bat Napoli 8th in Game 3…

I actually never thought about taking Pujols out. You don’t see that all that much in baseball.  The chances of a player getting injured in one inning is really small-maybe 1 in a thousand.

I don’t think managers are rational with big leads in important games. Managers forget the easy wins but always remember the blown leads.

The phrase we always used was “don’t give em a sniff”. Regukar season games, obviously, are a different story.

I don’t think using Dotel, for example, makes him unavailable or ineffective in both games 4 and 5.

If anything I think a case could be made against giving the batters another look at him, but that may just be marginal.

"I don’t think using Dotel, for example, makes him unavailable or ineffective in both games 4 and 5.”

Maybe not.  But unless a reliever needs work, using him on any given night always decreases the chances of being able to use him, or of him being effective, in the future.

Tango and I have studied reliever usage. There is a direct relationship between how likely a reliever is to pitch and how many pitches he has thrown in the last X number of days…

That’s another aspect where common reasoning would say “relief use on consecutive nights decreases performance” and sabermetrics can quantify the decrease.

I’m not going to offer any “yeah, but ...” commentary. *grin*

Someone asked about Westbrook earlier. IMHO, JW is being saved for the situation of Lohse or Jackson not being able to make it out of the 1st or 2nd inning, well like Game 4 possibly.

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To a different comment wondering if TEX would throw at Pujols in the last at bat. Not a chance.

That reliever would be gone for the series, although I suppose if it’s Mark Lowe and he injures Pujols it would be a good trade off for TEX, but I don’t think these managers think like that. That’s the highest level of bush league.

#5/mgl

Please don’t use the poker metaphor. It’s not accurate.

I may be a newbie around here, but I probably know poker better than any of your other readers, and I can tell you, the idea that players “must” mix up their play is not a good one. In fact, years ago, the idea stunted my poker growth in a big way.

While the metaphor may seem OK for the purpose of illustrating the concept of a Nash equilibrium, it is not a good illustration of how poker works.

Two rules of thumb for real-life poker:
1) If you’re making a profit, you’re more sophisticated than most of your opponents.
2) Since the cards are both hidden and random, and since the ONE optimal play for each situation depends on your opponent’s overall style, your play will naturally mix itself up appropriately, even if you play each situation the exact same way every time.

Though the need to play the same hand differently at random might exist for a hypothetical 50,000-hand headsup match between two world-class players, it doesn’t come into play in most real-world poker situations.

Besides, poker is not a good analogy for how pitching works; if the pitcher were “dealt” a 3-1 count and the hitter had no way of knowing what the count was, then poker would be a good metaphor. (And in that situation, I would recommend ALWAYS throwing a fastball in a fastball count, since the hitter doesn’t know what the count is and therefore can’t adjust to the count.)

A better metaphor for pitching would be something like a blind auction game, where the “cards” are known but player actions are hidden.

Bill, I appreciate the input.  I also happened to have played high stakes poker for many years - quite successfully as you might imagine.  So I kind of know what I am talking about when it comes to poker!

I don’t usually make reference to things I am not grounded in…

Sorry, I guess I shouldn’t have assumed you were a non-player. When I read a sentence that started with “They say,” I automatically thought you were talking about something you’d read or heard in an abstract discussion of game theory.

Still, it seems weird to me that you would phrase things the way you did, especially when complaining about bad TV announcers, because from my perspective, the idea that you “must” mix up your play or that you “must” engage in elaborate third-level metathinking about what your opponent thinks you think they think sounds more like something a bad announcer would say during a televised poker tournament than something a good poker statistician would say.

There may be nothing I can say to convince you that your description misrepresents poker reality or that the idea is harmful for people trying to learn the game, but I’m going to try one more time.

Here are the main reasons:
1) Nobody can possibly do the kinds of thinking you describe (at least not in a useful/effective way) without first learning a ton of more basic skills, from the ridiculously basic stuff like pot odds to the intermediate stuff like adjusting to your opponent’s overall play style (e.g. if your opponent folds too much, you’ll see more situations where a steal would be profitable).
2) Learning all those prerequisite skills (and learning to consistently use those skills at the appropriate times) takes many years.
3) Once you have learned all those skills, it will still be very difficult to use any kind of advanced metathinking without losing track of the more basic stuff. And the effect size of the more basic stuff is almost always larger than the effect size of the meta stuff; if you try to be really advanced but forget about something more basic in the process, you’ll make much bigger mistakes than if you just ignored the advanced stuff altogether.
4) The class of players who can USEFULLY engage in that kind of advanced thinking is extremely small; over 90% of poker players can never hope to make even one decision that nuanced in their entire lifetime.
5) When a young player hears an idea like this—that you “must” mix up your play, or that you should expect your opponents to mix up their play, or that you should expect your opponents to adjust to your play—and tries to apply it, he’ll start losing money, even in a low-stakes game he’s been easily beating without that stupid advice.