THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

I want to pick Strasburg. I’ve seen him pitch, and between my observation and his fantastic SO and BB numbers, I think that part of him is for real. On the other hand, <50 balls in play at the major league level isn’t enough for me to be certain he can continue a similar level of performance.

Lee is a pretty sure bet.

I think a reason to pick Lee over Strasburg is that he should be expected to pitch for you for the rest of the year.  There is a lot of talk about limiting Strasburg’s total innings this year to around 150.  He’s got 75 so far.

Lee should pitch 18 more times in the next 90 games, 7 innings per start, for about 126 innings total.  Big advantage there.

I understated Lee’s innings, if he keeps up the pace.  He’s averaging 7.7 per start right now.

The advantage to having Strasburg will be off the field and monetary, a big attendance boost as everyone wants to see the new kid in town.

Rally: I don’t believe the “innings” count.  It has to be by pitches thrown.  The focus should be on pitches (or batters faced).  Innings makes no sense, because a 3-batter inning can’t be matched to a 7-batter inning.  I have no doubt that the “inning” limit is an approximation of a pitch limit.

Unless we’re including box office attendance figures, Lee all the way. Strasburg has pitched great, but hasn’t exactly faced the stiffest competition thus far:

6/8 PIT
6/13 @CLE
6/18 CHW

I don’t think Tango means anything to do with money. If you are considering “extra revenue” and the like, then you have to consider salary, in which case it becomes a no-brainer. I think he means simply in on-field performance.

I’m not even sure he wants you to consider Strasburg’s total pitches limit (and I agree that it is pitches and not IP).  If Strasburg is going to be shut down in September and Lee obviously is not, then it is a no-brainer again.

I voted for Strasburg, because I think he is a better pitcher, inning for inning. There is a small benefit to the pitcher when a batter faces him for the first time, although when the pitcher has been around the league that benefit diminished because of scouting reports and video.

I think it depends what team I’m rooting for. Lee is the ‘safe’ choice in that we have a very good idea of what he brings to the table. Strasburg is the ‘wildcard’ because his raw stuff is better but we don’t know how he’ll hold up 60 innings (or however many pitches) from now.

This is just for illustration purposes. Let’s say Lee is a 3 WAR pitcher from here on out and Strasburg is a 2-4 WAR pitcher. If the acquiring team is confident 3 wins will get them a playoff berth but is less confident in 2 wins, they should take Lee. If they either think they need 4 wins or else are indifferent between 2 and 3, they should take Strasburg. (I suppose in the 1 year time frame, indifference should mean ‘flip a coin’ )

Definitely limited to on-field performance, otherwise, as MGL said, we’d have to include salary.

I was not really including pitch limits, other than whatever you would want to impose.  I asked which pitcher would you rather have this year.  If Strasburg was on a pennant contender, I don’t believe you (or any team) will be so strict on the pitch limits.  And certainly you’re going to pitch him in the post-season, regardless.

The better my team’s defense, the more I’d lean towards Lee.  If we’re using the YTD stats as our estimate for true talent, you’re talking about 190 batters that will not have one of the three true outcomes against Strasburg, and 232 against Lee.  For a league average defense, that’s a difference of about 13 more hits allowed by Lee, which is worth around 7 runs or so. 

If I’ve reverse-engineered their FIPs correctly using the available data in this post, I get Strasburg at 2.11 for 79 innings and Lee at 1.94 for 76 innings.  So Lee would have a FIP advantage of about 2 runs.  So unless your defense is about 5 runs better than average over however many innings you’d estimate to have them pitching going forward, Strasburg seems like the better choice.

But this assumes you’re taking Strasburg’s minor league performance at face value, and not discounting it for strength of opposition.  Once you factor that in I’m assuming Lee is the better choice.

I think I’d rather have Cliff Lee and I’m not exactly sure why.