THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

I think I said once that the breakeven point for the guy on 3B with 2 outs is 25-30%.  Would be even less if Punto is at bat.

It was a short fly, and it was Griffey who at this point probably has no better than an average arm (though MGL would think it’s even worse).  It would take an almost perfect and fairly average strength throw, and that’s what we got.  I have to believe that if Griffey makes that throw 10 times, he’ll get it there no more than 5 times.  So, a good running play by Cuddyer.

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Anyone else think that the mid-inning relief change kinda took the oomph out of the game at that point?

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The announcer was calling Junior’s replacement a pinch hitter, instead of runner.  He made another obvious gaffe, that I don’t remember.  And no one corrects him.  I’d rather see the correction made.

Oh yeah, there was a double down the left field line that went to the wall.  The announcer said that if the LF could have cut it off, he could have held the batter to a single.  That’s ridiculous.  His momentum would have carried him away for a good 2 seconds. 

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This game is what soccer fans enjoy.  I love 1-0, 2-1, ballgames.  I don’t know why soccer gets blasted on it, but baseball doesn’t.  Close games, with close plays, and limited errors is what makes a great game.  Be it baseball, soccer, hockey, I love them all.  I don’t in football; it’s hard to have that kind of game in football (low score and limited errors as a good game).

I’ve always wondered about that - is it really so hard for networks like TBS to find a decent crew of baseball announcers? There are a lot of people working in television, and only 30 teams and three national networks - can there seriously be so few announcers available that you can’t find 80 or so for the entire country that are well-versed in baseball?

Colin, our idea of a good announcer is completely different from what the networks (and probably the average fan) consider a good announcer.

Darling is very good with Hernandez and Cohen on the Mets broadcasts (other than the fact that how are you supposed to tell the difference between 2 guys with lisps?).  It is just that Reynolds (who was always bad yet occasionally decent) and Stockton (I know nothing about him as a baseball announcer) just bring him down.

Anyway, I agree with Tango 100% about the Griffey/Cuddyer play. 100% the correct move to send Cuddyer (lots of 3rd base coaches would NOT have sent him though).  What was really annoying was all the announcers going on about what a “great” throw it was and how it was so indicative of Griffey’s “gold glove” caliber defense (they did at least admit that his defense is not what it used to be).

For one thing, as WE know, arm is but a very small component of OF defense.  For another, Griffey indeed has an average arm NOW, at best (the data indicate that is a lot worse than average).

For another thing, Griffey’s defense is as far away from GG caliber as a major league player can humanly get.

Finally, and most importantly, it was a good throw because it was reasonably accurate.  NO ONE would have to make a strong throw in that situation because the fly ball was so shallow and Cuddyer (despite being an OF’er sometimes) is slow.

And the throw was not even all THAT good.  It was a 2 hopper from about 200 feet and kind of tailed at the end.  Everything just worked out well for the Sox on that throw and AJ did a good job holding onto the ball.

Don’t get me wrong.  It wasn’t a bad throw.  It was a good one considering that it just needed to be accurate.  What can you call a throw that is going to nail a runner 50 or 60% of the time no matter who throws it?  An average one?  Sure. A decent one?  Sure. A “good one?” Maybe.  A great one?  No, you cannot call a throw which happens 50 or 60% of the time from any fielder a “great one.”

Other than that, I didn’t pay that much attention to the game.  The Sox certainly seemed to have played well and pushed all the right buttons.  Unlike DET who looked like a single A team last night (3 walks, 3 wild pitches, and a grand slam on a cookie right down the middle, all in one inning!) and during much of the season.  I guess Leyland won’t be winning the MOY award this year.

From a VERY casual soccer observer, I think the main problem I have with soccer is not necessarily that it’s low-scoring - it’s because it’s so hard to score.  If a team has a 1-0 lead late in the game, their chances of winning are huge (at least from my limited observations).  If they have a 2-0 lead, forget it - why even play?  The losing team should just forfeit right there. 

I’d say that each soccer goal is equivalent to 4 or 5 runs in baseball (in that a team coming back from a 2-0 deficit with 10 minutes to play is about as likely as a team coming back from a 10-0 deficit in the 9th inning).  Do you agree?

One of the things that makes baseball great for me is the variety of scores.  We have 3-1, 6-5, and 11-8 games every night and those scores are all perfectly normal.  No other mainstream sport aside from football can say that.

And a team coming back from a 1 or 2 run deficit is normal as well.  Coming back from a 3 or 4 run deficit is just likely enough to allow the losing team (and its fans) to maintain hope.  In soccer, you get out to an early lead, and the game’s over.

Sorry to hijack the thread…

On announcers: Dick Stockton over-explains every detail, no matter what the sport. You’d think he’d be a radio guy with as much talking as he does. But I guess it’s what the networks want for Americans with short attention spans who aren’t naturally drawn to baseball.

On mid-inning relief: I’m guessing Tangotiger is referring to the move to bring in Nathan to face Dye. If so, I have to say I agree with you there. I don’t see why you bring Nathan in at that point. When I saw him warming up in the pen, I figured he’d be saved for a higher leverage situation after someone reached base.

No, I was thinking in the 7th inning.  I didn’t necessarily mind the strategic move.  Just pointing out that I really enjoyed the back and forth between the two starters, and then the reliever comes in, we take a commercial break, and now we have a new dynamic.

I don’t have a problem with bringing in your best reliever regardless of situation.  And remember when I said that on multiple mid-inning switches, you get to start the batter at 1-0, 2-0, 3-0?  I’ll make one exception: let the manager before the game designate his “closer”.  When THAT guy comes into the game, he gets a freebie on a mid-inning switch, if it happens in the 8th or later innings.  Doesn’t actually have to be Nathan.  Maybe a loogy.

I think the throw by Griffey was a very good one.  There are so many centerfielders with rag arms these days, I don’t think most of them would have made it.

Griffey ranks poorly on arm ratings, using pbp data, because he’s slow and runners do most of the advancement before he even picks the ball up.  When he was younger Griffey had outstanding arm ratings.  Given the situation, where he had all the time in the world to make the catch and get in throwing position, it played to Griffey’s remaining strength.  He can still throw the ball.

Still, I agree 100% that given the base-out situation, you had to send the runner.

Thanks for the clarification, Tangotiger.

Good point too. I had to double check using Gameday, but Blackburn had only thrown 89 pitches when Gardy yanked him, which you could really say was 85 because of the intentional pass to Alexei Ramirez right before the switch was made. Also, looking at the pitchF/X in Gameday, Blackburn left the ball up and out over the plate on both the Griffey double and the Thome HR. Probably a case of Gardenhire being conservative and not wanting a second run to cross from another mistake pitch. Of course, if that had happened, the break may have felt a bit more natural to the game flow.

I wonder if the pF/Xers can find anything to support/refute the idea of Blackburn fatiguing.

As somebody who has watched very little soccer, here’s the difference from how I see it: In baseball, scoring can happen at pretty much any moment. There is tons of tension, even in a fast-paced 1-0 game. In soccer, most of the game appears to be purposeless running around. Now, I know that’s not actually the case. I’m sure there are strategic elements I just don’t understand going on. That might make it compelling to play, but for me it doesn’t make it compelling to watch because I’m reasonably sure that if I walk away for 5 minutes I won’t miss anything. I held off on getting a drink from the fridge last night because I knew that at any moment I might be missing the most important pitch of the game.

As for Griffey’s throw, the real point here that has been overlooked is this: Wouldn’t the White Sox be significantly better off with Anderson in center and Swisher in left than the Griffey/Wise combination? Anderson is a meh hitter with a little pop, and Swisher has been very unlucky this year. Neither Griffey nor Wise have done much with the bat either. The difference is that Anderson, at least by the eye test, is a phenomenal defensive player in a key defensive position. I would think the defensive upgrade there (and I’m not sure you lose anything significant with Wise/Swisher in left) more than makes up for a minimal offensive boost the Griffey/Wise combination gives you.

If you miss a goal in soccer, that will definitely be the most high-leverage play you will miss.  If you miss a pitch in baseball, it won’t be the most high-leverage play. 

Given both games at 1-0, you’d be nuts to walk away from a soccer game with 20 minutes to go.  The next score (by the losing team) will turn the game from a very low leverage to very high leverage.

Walking away from a 1-0 baseball game with 2 innings to go means that a run or two from the losing team goes from a medium leverage to a medium leverage game.

That said, the chances of getting a score in baseball will be much higher than in soccer.  Your overall payoff is still the same.  In baseball, you buy some to alot of fun along the way.  In soccer you either buy a little or tons of fun along the way. 

I highly prefer baseball’s pace, but soccer does have good pace too, and fantastic pace in World Cup.

I just don’t like those who automatically give soccer a knock because “uh… 1-0”. It’s just so small-minded, especially since the fan base in soccer is far far far greater.

Whitesox fans think that Anderson is the best fielder on the team.  But, as far as CF go, he’s 12th out of 52.  Swisher is #52.  Wise is #42.  The 35 Whitesox fans who took the time to evaluate Anderson would call him pretty good.

If Junior had enough playing time in CF, he would be dead last.  So, given the 4, it’s an enormous benefit to have Anderson in CF.

As for the bat, Anderson, in 650 career PA, is horrible.  Swisher we all know.  Griffey is ok.  Wise is 30 years old and has 500 PA.  Of the 4, Wise is the useless one.  Of course, this year, he has 6 HR in 20% of a season.  It’s like the Shane Spencer question 10 years ago.

If you have to select 2 of them, I don’t see how Swisher is not the one that definitely plays. 

The easiest way to think about their value is: how much would you pay them for next year?  Swisher would get lots of millions, while for the other 3, you can argue than any of them will be out of baseball in 2010, so how good can they possibly be right now?

It’s frankly embarrassing that you have to choose between those 3 guys. 

I think I’d put Swisher in CF, Junior in LF, and after Junior’s 3rd PA, bring in Anderson to CF, and shift Swisher to LF. 

If you insist on putting Junior in CF because he’s too old to adapt to LF, then fine.  Swisher still needs to be the regular.

Is Swisher hurt or something?  I assumed he was because I can’t imagine playing Wise over him by free choice.  Maybe a leg injury that prevents him from running, because he came in for late inning 1B defense?

Rally - He’s not hurt. Ozzie Guillen just looks at his .219 average and doesn’t realize he’s been one of the (if not the) unluckiest hitters in baseball this year.

Tango - On the soccer point: I think a better comparison is hockey since the sports are in many ways very similar. I enjoy hockey just because it appears that more is going on. I don’t get the same impression from soccer. And I think soccer’s popularity has everything to do with tradition and accessibility than some inherent excitement value.

As for defense: Swisher really isn’t that bad. As I said in another thread, I believe White Sox fans are taking out their frustration over his offense on his defense. He isn’t a CF, but he’s not dead last in baseball. I’d love to see where Swisher ranks in some of the metrics. At least Guillen gets it right against LHP, where Anderson plays center (he does slug .563 against LHP this year, even if it is a small sample size) and Swisher plays left.

Wow.  I didn’t realize that it was a platoon.  Even having a terrible year by his standards, Swisher is about even in OPS+ with Wise.  Obviously he projects better.

For me, it’s never been about the amount of goals, just the CHANCES of scoring.  A 1-0 hockey game with 70-80 shots on goal between the two teams is wonderful.  A 1-0 hockey game with 25 shots between the two teams is horrendously boring.  In soccer they seem to go hours without even being within a chance of getting a shot on net, which takes away the excitement for me.

October is my favorite month of the year by the way.  MLB Playoffs finally start, and the NHL gets underway.  What time is better?

JD - agree with you on soccer.  If I understood the game more I’m sure I could appreciate the “running around.” And also agree about the reasons for its popularity. 

Another thing I prefer about baseball is its suspense.  The tense moments last for much longer than in other sports.

For example - 8th inning, tie game, man on 3rd, 2 outs.  That situation can exist for many minutes.  Tension is building all the time.

A comparable situation in soccer would be a close game where the losing (or tied) team has the ball close to the opponent’s goal, and can make a shot on goal.  First problem doesn’t even happen very frequently (at least to this observer), and second, the moment lasts for a couple seconds.  Sure, that one second where the ball is in the air headed towards the goal is incredibly tense, but to me it doesn’t match the experience of living and dying with each pitch and pickoff throw in a tense baseball situation.

As a huge observer of both soccer and baseball, I say they are both equally entertaining to watch. As for suspense during the game, I’d say there are just as many in soccer as there are in baseball. One example is the Barca game today, who came back from being 1-0 with like 10 minutes left in the game and won 2-1, and not just the last 10 minutes, either. Anytime there was a free kick, corner kick, or the other team had the ball on our half, it’d make me want to go nuts. Build-ups and just the act of searching for a goal when the game is close carry a lot of tension, or at least for me.

The “running around” is strategic. Not sure if strategic is the correct word, but yes, they do serve their purpose. One thing that strikes are always told is to “recycle their runs”, which means they need to continually be checking to and away from. The majority of the running is simply to create space, check to the ball, or make a run to receive a ball and get into attacking position.

I’d just like to give a big thanks to Lou Piniella for deciding that out of the following pitchers:

* Carlos Zambrano
* Rich Harden
* Ryan Dempster

he decided that Ryan Dempster was his staff ace.

That is all.

I’m convinced that the play-in game alone will make the Griffey trade a great one in the minds of a lot fans.

General playoff/sabermetric question. I always hear about how “playoff baseball is a different animal” or something to that effect. So here’s my question: Should a manager change what he does during playoff games?

Actually, scratch that. Lots of managers do dumb things, so of course they should change that. A better way to ask the question: Do the normal rules (many of which are rarely followed in real life anyway) still apply to the playoffs? I remember a while back MGL made a post to the effect of “What I would do if I were manager.” Would any of this change? If not, does that make all the talk of how playoff baseball is different untrue (or only true because managers change their style for no reason)?

Colin, Lou, like everyone else, believes in the magic fairly dust of a pitcher pitching “well at home” or on Tuesday’s or on days with a half moon, etc.

A healthy Harden is 100 times better than either of those pitchers (I don’t know if he is healthy) and a healthy Zambrano (don’t know about him either) is better than Dempster.

At least he got the list itself (his 3 best pitchers) right.  Hey, Marquis could have started game 1!

I have a few non-sabermetric observations from the BOS/ALA game:

The umpire had a refreshingly tight strike zone.  None of those “6 inches off the plate but the pitcher hit the catcher’s mitt” strikes.  He was consistent too.  The only egregious error he made was when he rang up Lowrie on the check swing.

The home plate umpire should not ring up a batter unless the check swing is obviously a swing, and they rarely do.  In this case, not only was it not an obvious swing, it was not a swing.

Buck Martinez is a really poor analyst.  To the average fan, he probably sounds like a genius.  If you really know about the game and pay attention to what he says, you will realize that he says a lot of stupid things.

For example, he said, when Vlady got thrown out at third, “There is no reason to take that risk.  He was already in scoring position.”

Of course it is EXACTLY the opposite.  Any Little Leaguer can tell you that in a 1 run game with 1 out, you definitely DO want to “take a risk in getting to third.” How much of a risk, of course, is the operative question.

Plus, it is no wonder that Buck was a lifetime (amazingly in 2743 AB) .225/.284/.343 hitter.  He kept trying to tell us exactly what pitch the pitcher was going to and was supposed to throw.  Unfortunately, I think he was right like 1 in 10 times.  Then he would go on and tell us why the pitch he did NOT call was the right one.  He also spoke as if there were no such thing as game theory.  That a pitcher decides what pitch to throw in any given situation and then throws that pitch 100% of the time.  Since he was a catcher for like 17 seasons, you would think that he would have noticed that you can’t really predict a pitcher’s pitches with any degree of accuracy (other than perhaps a 3-0 fastball and similar situations). If he or anyone else could, that pitcher would likely be selling pizza rather than pitching. 

Speaking of the Vlady play, I do not believe it was a bad play.  It was a minor miracle that Youkilis was able to pick up the ball so quickly.  Usually after a dive and a miss, the ball kicks away or the fielder has a lot of trouble picking it up and then getting back on his feet.  Youkilis made a very good play after he dove for the ball, and there was a lot of luck involved in the ball not kicking away.

Vlady saw that the catch was not made and kept going to third. I think it was a wise play on his part.  If not wise, it was close.  It was not the blunder that EVERY one of the broadcasters made it out to be.

Why can’t otherwise knowledgable and intelligent broadcasters, ex-players not think and/or communicate logically.

BTW, according to Martinez, all pitchers struggle in the first inning and then get better, or at least the good ones do.  Of course we hear that all the time.  Then why do pitchers do BETTER the first time through the order and then progressively worse after that (which we also hear from the broadcasters). I would love to ask them sometime, “Which is it guys?  Pitchers often struggle in the first, or batters need time to get used to the pitcher.  You can’t have both!”

Oh, and teams that win the first game in best of 5 series usually win the series because they have the momentum going into the rest of the series.  Silly me, I thought it was because they won the first game and the other team has to win 3 of the next 4 games to win the series, which is hard for any team to do (plus the team that wins the first game is more often than not the better team!).

Finally…

Lester pitched brilliantly and if he does not get hurt, there is little chance I think, that he won’t be a star or superstar.  His stuff is awesome, he knows how to pitch, he rarely throws to the middle of the plate, his command is great, and he mixes up his pitches terrifically. At least he did all that the few times I have seen him.  I realize that on any given night, you can see just about anything from any pitchers, although “stuff” does not fluctuate much.

I don’t think I’ve even seen a pitcher that likes to pitch inside as much as Lester.  You would think that lots of other hard throwers would and should do the same thing.  About the only beef I have with Lester is that he throws the fastball inside TOO much.  Anytime you do anything almost all the time, it loses its effectiveness, game-theory-wise.  He did throw a few outside fastballs (on purpose - BTW, don’t you hate how when a pitcher completely misses his target in a pitch and the announcer pretends like the pitcher meant to throw it there!) and it froze the hitters.  He needs to do more of that if only to keep the hitters honest.

For example, let’s say that I knew a certain pitcher only threw inside.  Well, I would just move away from the plate and all those inside pitches would be right down the middle!

A pitcher *should* struggle, it would seem, in the first inning, compared to *settling down* in the second, considering he is facing the top 1-2-3-4 hitters usually in the first inning, and then the bottom of the order later.

Nick, that is true of course and that is why the first inning has the highest average runs I think, but of course that is not what the announcers mean.

Regarding the Vlad play, does anyone know if the 3rd base coach put up a stop sign? I remember while watching the replay, Vlad had barely touched 2nd when Youkilis threw the ball. Vlad was at most 10 feet from the bag, probably less, if I remember correctly.

Not only that, but I also distinctly remember there was nobody covering 2nd. When the throw came into Lowell at 3rd, I remember seeing someone (I guess Lowrie) scrambling to get to 2nd in case there was a rundown. If the 3rd base coach had put up a stop sign and Vlad had seen it, he could have EASILY gotten back to 2nd.

I was just curious if Vlad ran through a stop sign (maybe he didn’t even look for the 3rd base coach) or if the 3rd base coach was asleep at the wheel

The announcers kept saying that he “ran through a stop sign.” However, that is not really even the correct terminology (imagine that, ex-player announcers saying the wrong thing).  The only time you really refer to a player going through a stop sign is at third base going home.  In that case, the decision is the coach’s only.  At any other base, the coach is merely an “adviser” and ultimately the responsibility is on the player.

That being said, Vladdy should have been looking at the coach as he rounded seconded and the coach definitely should have signaled for him to stop.

So while I think it was correct for Vladdy to start to go to third on the assumption that the ball would not be retrieved too quickly, it was also his mistake if he did not look at the coach after rounding second and the coach’s fault if he did throw up the “stop sign.”

You teach a player, by the way, to pick up the coach before touching the bag and then again after touching the bag, if at all possible.  You also teach him that the ultimate responsibility for baserunning is the runners other than at third base.  That is not to say he is supposed to disregard or disobey the coach at other bases.  It is to say that he is supposed to make the decision on his own and then use the coach for support.

With this play, it is more likely that a player would use his coach as the ultimate decision-maker, as opposed to say stretching a double into a triple which is normally 100% the runner’s decision.

In non-sabermetric terms, a runner really has to use the coach in that situation because the only other way he can know where that ball is going is if he’s looking behind him, and that’s clearly going to slow you down quite a bit. And, the announcers noted, he did slow down around second base. I’m not sure if he looked back or just hesitated, but either way he made a baserunning error even if going to third was the right move (because of the score, inning, where the ball was, etc.). Perhaps this is a good example of how doing the right thing but in the wrong way can hurt you.

The 3rd base ump let a big one go when he didn’t call Ortiz check swing a strike, when he clearly didn’t check it. Obviously, I had the advantage of a great angle. Wasn’t that the PA in which Ortiz singled in a run?

As for the Vladdy play, a lot of credit has to be given to Youk on that. That was a brilliant play. Vladdy clearly didn’t think Youk was going to scoop it and react so quickly.

Martinez really was saying a lot of stupid things, and not just from a saber perspective.

Regardless of whether Vlad ran through a sign or not, why didn’t Scioscia use a pinch runner like Willits once Vlad reached?

Also, Evan Longoria is a beast.

Yup, Vladdy is pretty slow now.

I remember the Ortiz check swing.  It was a swing, but not ridiculously so.  Easy for a third base umpire to occasionally miss I would think.  I think that was in the AB prior to the single, but I’m not sure.

The idea that Alexi is the ROY as opposed to Longoria is laughable.  Of course, most of the Ramirez ROY talk came after his grand slam.  I can’t imagine that one AB can (should I should say) ever have much impact on an award other than in the minds of the voters.

The reason why Alexi gets a lot of love for ROY and having a “great” (he didn’t) season with the bat is the same reason (one of them at least) the fans chose the clutch team they did.  Walks.  Look at Alexi’s walk total for the year.  The average fan (and sportswriters) do not like walks when it comes to things like “clutch” and MVP and awards.

The Ortiz check-swing that should have been strike 3 came in the first inning.  After that, he popped up, so no big deal.

Lowrie got called out on a check swing, but so did Mark Teixiera earlier.  I don’t think the umpiring affected the outcome.

Going to third raelly only needed to be a 50/50 shot for Vlad to break even.  What bothers me is that he hesitated going around second base.  It may have been the right thing to try for the extra base, but he needed to commit fully to that course of action, or default to his coach’s judgement and stop.

BTW, I’ll be the first one to mention this, but TBS doing the post-season so far is about 10,000 times better than Fox that I think that Fox ought to retire from baseball permanently (not the Fox sports affiliates, but network Fox).  Why is that?

One, while the TBS announcers are not all that great, they are not even close to being as annoying as the Fox ones.  Two, and this is the prime reason, they are simply broadcasting and showing the games without all the stupid, stupid, gimmicks and schmaltz we are used to seeing from Fox.

OK, the Frank TV commercials are mildly annoying, and can anyone tell me why Ripken Junior says, “really” off-camera at the end of that of that Holiday Inn commercial?

Did anyone see the Frank TV commercial throughout the games where Frank says something along the lines of, “I never played baseball, never watch it, but I still love it”?

Any chance the guy from FJM(Junior, I believe) who writes for Frank TV was behind that and wrote it as a satirical dig at saber guys?

MGL, I think he’s saying “Really?” to the guy wanting to have “Snake Eyes” as a nickname. Like “Really, _that’s_ your choice?” Could be wrong in interpretation there.

So, anyway, here’s a good one. Cubs/Dodgers. Listening on the radio as I’m driving. Martin hits the bases-clearing double and the color guy, I think Sutcliffe (it sounded like him, but correct me if I’m wrong. It wasn’t Jon Miller though, definitely the color guy) says something to the effect of, “Manny Ramirez was responsible for that and all he did on that play was stand in the on-deck circle. Carlos Zambrano saw him there and had to throw a good pitch to Martin.”

Yep, Zambrano threw Martin a meatball because of Manny. It had nothing to do with the fact that the bases were loaded (no place to put him), two runs had already come in (didn’t want to walk him and add a third run), and Martin is a pretty good hitter. And, just maybe, Z is off tonight. None of that. It was all Manny, who was barely on the field of play.

From everything I saw (was/am at work so I missed some innings) Zambrano was on, or at least good enough - 3.99 FIP-ERA? I’ll take that. The infield defense was quite frankly embarassing. I am, say again, embarassed by our infield play tonight.

Billingsley is a very good pitcher (BTW, another Cub infield error as I type) and the Dodgers obviously have a decent lineup.

Almost every post-season game is a 40-60% deal for one team or another (probably 85% of the games).  There ain’t much to say when either team loses a game or series other than the ball just didn’t bounce their way.

To “predict” that one team will beat the other in a series, other than just calling one team a small, medium, or large favorite, is an exercise in profound silliness.

So far, I had the Phillies a 57% fave, the Rays and Cubs 59%, and Boston 55%.  With those numbers, obviously no result can be even remotely surprising.  BTW, that is a decent amount of parity for a typical post-season.

Yeah, I had the Cubs at like 60% to win the series. It’d be a bit easier to swallow if these were close games, I guess, not that the results are any different either way.

I have to laugh that Theriot made a throwing error. I’m going to be expected to comment on that later (Theriot is well-known to be my least favorite player), and I don’t know if I can.

Colin, not sure if your Z comment was in general or directed at my #34. I wasn’t saying that Z was off, but just that it was a better explanation than some voodoo magic provided by Manny. I just found it absurd that the color analyst ignored all the possible reasons other than the guy standing in the on-deck circle.

Lou’s going to get roasted for leaving Fukudome in the game. Not saying he did the wrong thing, but Cubs fans are very disappointed in Dome this year.

And why is he “driver” in the Captain Morgan commercial annoyed when he gets the text message?

1) Why did Lou let Zambrano hit in the bottom of the 6th?  He’d made 98 pitches, it was 6-0.  You need baserunners.  I realize he had a good year with the bat, but his lifetime OBA is .246.

2) Why did Ozzie use Brian Anderson to hit for DeWayne Wise?  Has he decided that he hates Nick Swisher (my favorite player, incidentally) so much that he’s even behind Anderson on a list of pinch-hitting candidates?

MGL - Because his friends take a picture with hot girls, acting as if the bar is the place to be. He gets there and it’s dead and the girls were just on a poster. He was going to have a good time, they called him to drive them home.

I think I watch too much TV.

Patriot - I’m not saying it’s right, but Anderson is at least decent against lefties and I believe Swisher has been especially bad (or especially unlucky, I haven’t looked it up) from the right side of the plate this year. I’m sure that’d be Ozzie’s answer if you asked him. Is it satisfactory? Probably not.

JD, no, when he gets the text message that says “O’Reilleys, Girls” he acts annoyed.  I know why he is annoyed when he gets there.

After getting a headache listening to almost 3 hours of Harold Reynolds, please give me Buck Martinez!  Reynolds!  Is!  Horrible!

In the same vein as Joe Morgan.  He never stops talking but there is very little signal and a whole lot of noise.  I forgot how nice it was while he was gone.

watching Kevin Youk. at the plate you would think it’s raining. I never seen a guy sweat so much!!

The guy who announced the game with (can’t remember his name) H. Reynolds is also really annoyed too with him. He eventually stopped talking after 2nd inning because Reynolds couldn’t stop ranting about every little darn thing. I think Reynolds is trying really hard to get his job back.

Torii Hunter: funniest thing of the postseason thus far.

He had a good beef.  I think it was at least a tie.  Not sure though.

Why does Buck Martinez keep telling us what great command Dice-K has with his pitches?

Buck, why do you think he has 174 walks this season?  174! Granted, he likes to nibble and he doesn’t like to throw pitches down the middle when behind in the count, and thus intentionally sacrifices some control, but NO ONE with 174 walks has great command or control.

Also, when a pitcher has a 3-run lead in the 5th and walks the first 2 guys, there is a good chance that he does not have great control.

Buck, DICE-K HAS A LOT OT THINGS GOING FOR HIM.  GREAT COMMAND IS NOT ONE OF THEM.

That would be 174 walks over two seasons.

Matsuzaka had a lower strike rate this year than Oliver Perez and Barry Zito.

Either Buck or Caray said “Dice-K is starting to lose his command.”

.....as if he ever had any.

And Dice-K better not come out in the 6th.

Why would Tito allow Okajima to stay and face Vladdy?

And I would have had Papelbon start the 8th inning.

Why does Francona suddenly believe Masterson is superior to Delcarmen? Delcarmen has much better predictive stats both this year and last. And I agree with the above post: Papelbon should have started the eighth.

Why would Tito allow Okajima to stay and face Vladdy?

Because managers like to think that they have to do something unconventional to prove that they are geniuses.  Of course Masterson is the right move there.  It’s not even close.

And I would have had Papelbon start the 8th inning.

Yes, of course he should have.  He could have used him for 2 innings or if the Sox scored 3 or more in the 9th, he could bring someone else in the 9th.  These is the frickin post-season and managers should be well prepared to use their best pitchers for 2 innings (or the 7th or 8th only) if necessary.

Why do people get so easily impressed with any play that involves reaching for something?  Anyone with moderately decent hand-eye coordination could have made the catch that Youkilis just did.

Is any pitcher ever going to throw Howie Kendrick a strike again?

He is a guy that had very good MLE’s in 05 and 06 and has been a mediocre batter (about average for a 2B) the last 2 years.

He was supposed to be an eventual “batting champion,” no?

I have not seen him much in the majors (in fact, I don’t recall any of his AB), but he looked as bad as anyone could look tonight.

Rally?

These is the frickin post-season and managers should be well prepared to use their best pitchers for 2 innings (or the 7th or 8th only) if necessary.

It’s not just that - it’s that Papelbon was not “his guy” before the triple, but magically was after it?  I understand needing Papelbon in that situation, where the value of a strikeout is so high, but if he was prepared to use Papelbon with a man on third and nobody out, he should have been ready to use Papelbon at the start of the inning.

Howie looked as bad as possible the last 2 nights.  He’s had stretches like this before, usually when he just comes off the DL and has no timing and/or is overanxious.  There’s no reason to throw him a strike right now.

Eventually his approach improves, he takes enough pitches to make the pitcher throw at least close to the strike zone, and Howie runs off 15 hits in 25 at bats or so.  Then he pulls a hamstring, sits out a month, and comes back looking clueless again.  Give him 5-10 more games and his timing will be back, but if he doesn’t start hitting tomorrow it’s a moot point.

Funny thing was that I though he had his best chance against Papelbon, who rarely throws sliders and doesn’t have a curve ball.  Then he (Kendrick) goes and swings at a fastball at his shoulders (actually Paps did throw him 2 sliders).

While I am on the “commercials which make no sense” kick, they show someone holding an iphone playing video games.  The graphic at the end is “the funniest iphone ever.” Why is it “funny?” “Fun” maybe, but funniest makes no sense.

And I still want to know why the guy is annoyed when he gets the text message that his friends are in a bar with girls.  If he was busy and so annoyed, why did he go?

The graphic at the end is “the funniest iphone ever.”

i think it says, “The funnest iPod ever.”

iPod, iPhone, what is “funny” about it?

d00d, it’s, like, totally hip. Everyone has one. It makes you, like, cool and different. Don’t you grog?

It’s not funny.  It’s fun.  In fact, it’s the funnest (not funniest) iPod ever.

The iphone is friggin’ garbage. Don’t get one.

i think it says, “The funnest iPod ever.”

Now, I get it.  I misread “funnest” for “funniest.”

Now we are left with the guy annoyed when he gets the text message and Cal, off-camera, saying, “Really?” with an intonation that makes no sense to me.

MGL:  Regarding H. Reynolds and Joe Morgan--I totally agree.  They are both SO bad that I refuse to listen to them.  I’ve discovered a wonderful alternative--it’s called the Mute Button.  I press it once, and they are silent!!  You really should try it.  The silence is marvelous, and who needs those chumps to tell us what’s going on?

Yeah, the mute button is good.  It gets a little boring after a while, but it may be better than listening to those drones.  In the old days, a lot of people listened to the radio while watching the game on TV.  Radio announcers are usually much better than TV ones.  I don’t know that people do that much anymore. I’m not sure why.

I would love to see, just once, a manager start the 9th with his lefty reliever (with a lefty or two batter coming up of course) and THEN bring in his closer, especially when that closer is not dominant, like Torres.

People do - they’ll even use their TiVos to sync the game broadcast up with the radio.

There’s often a delay on either the TV or the radio broadcast, and it results in a really annoying offset.

And of course, if any of the announcers had ever actually played baseball, as opposed to sabermetricians, they would know that it makes virtually no difference whether that the run scored or the runners were sent back to second and third.  The only difference is that if the next batter wallks there is now a force at any base (as opposed to if the run scores and there is a runner on third only and the next batter walks, there is only a force at second).  In fact, if I were the Brewers, I’d probably trade the meaningless run for not having a runner on second to possibly steal the signs or distract the pitcher.

Maybe I’m crazy here, but Stockton just said that Ramirez got a ball on “a very close pitch,” and I’m thinking to myself, “If it was close the catcher wouldn’t have set up behind the left-handed batter’s box.”

Now the announcers just talked about how Harden would love to get a double play. With two outs in the inning. Seriously?

Not that it matters - Harden gives up a double.

And Stockton now thinks that Edmonds, Cubs CF, grounded out to Mike Fontenot, Cubs 2B.

Geez.

What the heck is the purpose of throwing four pitches during an intentional walk? Anyone?

The game is slow enough as it is. The comissioner sometimes talks about speeding up the game. He can start with the IBB.

Occasionally, the pitcher F’s up during the IBB and something interesting happens.  I’ve seen a few wild pitches on IBB’s, and I think I remember Miguel Cabrera actually hitting a HR off one before a couple years back.

Which should be an immediate banishment to the minors, really.

Thoroughly enjoyed that. Fun for the whole family. Bring the kids.

I think I’m pulling for the Rays from here on out. (The postseason, I mean.)

Now everyone is gonna be saying Joe Torre is some sort of genuis. BS in my opinion. Nonetheless it was fun to watch the Cubs go down in a such an embarrassment.

You and I obviously have very different definitions of fun.

different is good! that’s what makes us, humans, unique IMO.

In high school I think, you don’t have to throw 4 balls for an IBB.  Just tell the umpire. Of course there is always the “mouth pass” where you go to your mouth 4 times while on the mound, although I think the umpire can toss a pitcher for repeated violation of that rule.

I agree that one small way to speed up the game is to get rid of the 4 ball IBB. I don’t think that the fact that the a pitcher occasionally F’s up is a good reason not to get rid of it.  It’s not like we hold our breaths while a pitcher issues the IBB, just waiting for a WP or a pitch in the zone.

BTW, I forgot who it was - I think it was Johnny Bench - but on a 3-2 count, the manager called for the fake IBB and the pitchers threw the ball over the plate for strike 3.  I think that ever since then, every batter is on his toes for a pitcher in the zone. Kind of a waste of energy.

Another thing they should do to speed up the game, is to have a quick replay from camera booth about the close calls at 1st base. They can do it within 5 to 10 sec.

Intstead having the coach run out there and dispute it for over 2 min. Kinda like tennis the get something like 2 challenges and if they lose the call the lose a challange.

One MLB ump. once said (didn’t give his name) that “using cameras for things like that would slow the game down.” WHAT!

If that’s what he really said, then he is probably afraid of losing his job down the road to a camera.  I doubt that would happen.

Regarding the fake intentional walk, I thought I remembered that it was AGAINST Bench, and not with him behind the plate, so I did a Google search and found it in an article about Dick Williams.  Williams was managing the A’s in the 1972 World Series when the A’s struck out Bench on a fake intentional walk.  The article said Gene Tenace was behind the plate (the pitcher may have been Rollie Fingers).

Yes, that’s what I meant - Bench at bat.

Is my memory going or didn’t a mgr in MLB used to be able to “call for” an IBB and the batter just went to first?  I seem to recall that MLB then changed the rule so a pitcher now actually has to throw the four pitches....

Why was Ellsbury awarded a single (where the 3 runs scored) in that goof up? I don’t understand.

It’s generally accepted that when no error is charged when a fielder doesn’t touch the ball.  It’s a dumb policy, but so is the whole concept of the error.

I just turned on the Red Sox game.

“What a job by Francisco Rodriguez—walking the bases loaded and then getting Jed Lowrie to line out to right field.”

Um, that doesn’t sound very impressive!!

Manufacture.

I heard that word 83 times tonight. 72 of those times coming from the mouth of Chip Caray.

Arthur, he was not “awarded” anything.  The ball fell in without anyone attempting to catch it, whether they could or they couldn’t, so it was a hit.  Ellsbury only made it to first, so it was a single.

Yes, one of the silly unwritten rules in baseball is that when a player or player does not go for a ball because they think someone else is going to catch it, it is usually scored as hit.  Obviously that should be an error.  The other scoring decision I don’t like is when an outfielder takes a bad route or gets turned around, the ball falls untouched and the scorer scores it as a hit.

Official scorers seem to be stuck in Little League where the unofficial rule is that if a ball is not touched, even if it goes through a fielder’s legs, a hit is awarded to the batter.

Harvey, I am pretty sure (99.9%) that there was never an automatic IBB in baseball.  Certainly not in my lifetime.

#88, you know how it is, no matter what a pitcher does, if no runs score, “He did a great job.” He could let up 2 screaming singles, a 4-pitch walk and a 429-foot fly ball to the warning track, and he “did a great job.” For some reasons, announcers will never admit when a pitcher pitches like crap and gets out of an inning by the skin of his teeth through sheer luck.

And how many times do we have to listen to Buck Martinez tell us what pitch the pitcher is going to throw and then be wrong 50% of the time?  I said this before, but as a catcher for 15 years or so, doesn’t he realize that if he could tell us what pitch the pitcher is going to throw, so could the batter?

I am not sure who was left in the pen, and Byrd is an awfully bad pitcher, but bringing in Lopez to face 2 righties to start the 12th seemed like an awfully bad decision. I was also surprised that he threw so many fastballs to those righty hitters, especially with 2 strikes.

Of course, Martinez was telling us that he wasn’t just one of those mid 80’s lefty pitchers - that he had an “overpowering fastball (direct quote from Buck).” Lopez then proceeded to throw 86-88 from what I can recall, hardly overpowering.

I love to see stupid trends (and misconceptions) go down in flames:

1) The Cubs and Dempster can’t lose at home.

2) Beckett is a big game post-season pitcher - never loses a post-season game.

3) Suppan is a veteran presence that you want in your post-season rotation.

BTW, does anyone know why all of a sudden, only in Firefox, when I go to the comments section (all of them) of this blog, the font is so small?  It just started the other day.  The initial page is fine and everything else in my browser is fine.  If I change the font on this page (the comments page) to look normal, all the fonts on every other page are too large.

Any help?

The most annoying stuff that Caray said in this postseason was how everything was coming from 2 outs (singles, doubles, runs etc...) I mean he really beat this trend to a bloody poll. He went as far is to say “that double came with 2 outs and 2 STRIKES in the inning, that’s amazing!” That guy is a square. He sounds like a really nice guy; nonetheless he is a square!

Mick is right, they really do talk about some stupid trends, and way to often. I wonder many years from now, like 20, if this sillyness still exists.

BTW, did you guys see what they did in the Cubs dugout before game 2 started. “They” (Lou or whoever) brought in a priest to go around with a censer. I might have become a beliver if they didn’t lose that night. Just kidding.

1. Show of hands please: who sticks with the game through commercials with mid-inning relief changes?  That’s my cue to watch 2 minutes of House.  That guy is a funny f-ck.

2. Are those TBS graphics the worst graphics in the last 30 years?  At first, I thought, good, we will see the boxscore for the guy’s at bat showing what happened, where the ball landed, who fielded it, what the pitch count was, where the runner finished the inning.  You know, a standard boxscore that you would fill out if you were really into scoring.  What do we get?  What I would fill out the very first day in my life I learned how to score a game.  That is the least amount of information per amount of graphic ever conceived. 

The graphics at the top showing the game state (score, runners, out, inning, count) are perfect, and exactly what I need when I need to explain what is going on with my wife, the few times she is too tired to leave the couch.  She can actually follow along.

She also made a point that while she doesn’t like most baseball movies, her pick for best baseball movie was… Naked Gun.  I can’t disagree with her there.

I expected to see some praise for the Phillies manager for pinch-hitting for Moyer in the top of the fifth with a man on first and one out.

I wasn’t watching that game, but if that’s what he did, then good job.

1. Show of hands please: who sticks with the game through commercials with mid-inning relief changes?  That’s my cue to watch 2 minutes of House.  That guy is a funny f-ck.

Not I. I definitely get a snack, use the bathroom, check my email, get some work done, etc.  Apparently, the target demographic for these games are fifty year old men (Viva! Viagra, Cialis, Flomax, Charles Schwab) who need to be reminded over and over again that erections lasting more than four hours require immediate medical attention.

Speaking of target demographics...what makes me sad is that, in a few years when my son is old enough to enjoy watching games (IF he enjoys watching games), he’ll have to go to bed before all the good stuff.  I don’t think I could justify having him stay up late for a month straight.  Any tips from people with older kids?

Anyone else think it was weird that K-Rod only pitched one inning last night?

I’m a little behind, but I generally don’t visit here on the weekend.  I was at Saturday’s Phil. @ Mil. game and a few things really bugged me:

1. Letting Villanueva bat in the 6th instead of using another pitcher in the 7th or double-switching (probably Gwynn for Hart) in the top of the 6th when they brought in V.

2. Letting Gagne face Utley (bottom 8) and then Torres face Howard (top 9) instead of bringing in Shouse to face them both.  I don’t think Shouse even warmed up in that game. Screw the save!

3. Fans bitching about taking out Bush in the 6th because “he was pitching well” or “he only had 85 pitches” when Howard was at bat and the pitcher’s spot was coming up in the 7th.

4. Double switching Eyre in so he can face Fielder was fine, but then leaving him in to face Hardy and Hart was stupid in a close game.  Then, MIL pinch hits (lefty) Brad Nelson when noone is warming up in PHI’s bullpen.

Just terrible in-game strategy.

K-Rod threw 33 pitches in that inning, and just barely scraped his way out of it.  I was happy to see Weaver come in, because at that point I didn’t think K-Rod had much more to give.

If I was managing at that point, I would have had Weaver treat it like a start in case the extra innings continued, have him pitch 7-8 innings if need be.  He’s well rested, hadn’t pitched in about a week.

33 pitches ties his season high.  Good news is last time he threw that many pitches, he came back the next day to pitch a scoreless inning and a save.  So if the Angels can get him the ball tonight, he should be ready.  Shields will have no problem, and while I’m not sure about Arredondo’s recovery ability given the situation they’ll have to push him.

I doubt Weaver will pitch again, he’s never tried pitching back to back days before.  Another extra inning game and I bet we would see Garland instead.

I’m a little behind, but I generally don’t visit here on the weekend.  I was at Saturday’s Phil. @ Mil. game and a few things really bugged me:

1. Letting Villanueva bat in the 6th instead of using another pitcher in the 7th or double-switching (probably Gwynn for Hart) in the top of the 6th when they brought in V.

2. Letting Gagne face Utley (bottom 8) and then Torres face Howard (top 9) instead of bringing in Shouse to face them both.  I don’t think Shouse even warmed up in that game. Screw the save!

3. Fans bitching about taking out Bush in the 6th because “he was pitching well” or “he only had 85 pitches” when Howard was at bat and the pitcher’s spot was coming up in the 7th.

4. Double switching Eyre in so he can face Fielder was fine, but then leaving him in to face Hardy and Hart was stupid in a close game.  Then, MIL pinch hits (lefty) Brad Nelson when noone is warming up in PHI’s bullpen.

How about:

5.  Starting Suppan instead of Gallardo?

Starting Suppan over anyone was a poor decision.  As I have said, he is a near replacement level pitcher who has benefited from some good w/l records, good ERA’s, good defense when with STL, a good post-season and WS with STL, and just some general overall undeserved over-evaluation over the years. a 33-yo pitcher with a lifetime ERA of 4.63 and a career K rate of 5 per 9 IP (4.8 the last 3 years) just ain’t a good pitcher.  You don’t throw someone like that in a post-season elimination game unless you absolutely have to.

But....but...he’s a big game pitcher!

"Garret Anderson, usually a very patient hitter, swinging at the first pitch against Lester.”

I hate baseball announcers so freaking much…

Buck says, “by walking of the mound like (on a 2-2 to Tex.)Lester is NOT going to get that call, if he tries to throw in that area” On the next pitch Lester throws a pitch almost in same spot gets the K. Nice call Buck!

MGL/89:  I think the Firefox problem must be in your cmptr.  I use Firefox and haven’t noticed anything.  Tried a reboot?

Has there been any work done on whether there’s a penalty to a switch hitter for an at-bat when he has to switch in the middle of a game?

For instance, let’s say Teixeira is a better left handed hitter (I’m not sure that he is, but pretend). Given that Lester has now thrown 109 pitches, is there an advantage to switching Teix from right to left in the middle of a game?

I have seen Coco Crisp switching sides in a middle of the game. I’m not sure if it was against the same or a different pitcher. Is your question about switching sides against the same pitcher?

Why would Francona use Masterson ahead of Papelbon or even Delcarmen? That’s just awful.

No. I mean if a guy has been batting left handed all game versus a righty, is there a penalty (sort of like the pinch hitter penalty) for bringing a lefty pitcher in and making the guy switch sides.

Nick: I like the idea for a study.

I agree w/MGL on using Lopez last night, and Phil/106 on using Masterson tonight.  Delcarmen should have started the eight inning, and he certainly should have started the ninth.  Two games in a row Tito’s made lousy pitching decisions

Nick I did some research on Google and someone wrote this:

“The only restriction is that the batter cannot switch when the pitcher is on the rubber.

I saw this the other day. The batter started out LH because he wanted to try to drag bunt. After this failed attempt, he went back to his standard RH stance.

The rules also dictate in an ambidextrous pitcher situation that the pitcher may change hands only once during at AB. The rules also state that after the pitcher has changed, the batter is permitted to change only one time.

In the first example, (switching boxes while the P is on the rubber) the batter is out.

However, in my second example (ambixtrous pitcher) there is no penalty for either except that if either continue to switch they would be ejected.

that the only restriction is you can only do it once at-bat switch sides even if they bring in a different pitcher.”

Hope this answers your question.

Tried a reboot?

yes, as I said, it started a few days ago, and it is pissing me off.  Everything else is fine except the comments pages on this blog.

Tito seems to be in love with Masterson.  I assume that Del Carmen is better.  Masterson might be someone you use when you need a ground ball/DP.  With 2 outs runners on 2 and 3, all you need is an out.  Should have used Del Carmen or Paps there.

There is going to be controversy about that tag on the busted squeeze, especially if Boston wins the game.  Many umpires, maybe even most, would have called Willits safe after Tek dropped that ball.

Well, big win for Boston.  Good luck Tampa, the Cinderella team of the post-season.

Hey Mick, did you lay anything down for the Rays to win the ALDS or ALCS this year or just the WS?

The squeeze play: he dropped the ball after hitting the ground.  No controversy.

***

Willits dives for a play, where 90% of the time, it’s an out or inside-the-parker.  The other 10% of the time, it’s a double.  If he doesn’t dive, it’s a double.

With 1 out, the Sox had a 58% chance of winning.  If Willits lets it drop, the Sox go to 70%.  That’s the starting point.  An out sends it back to 53%.  A dive and miss means game over (100%).  So, -17% for Sox if an out, and +30% if HR.  For Willits to dive, he’s got to be almost twice more sure to make the out than not. 

That was a reckless desperate play.  He’s lucky that the ball bounced out of play for a double.

What’s the analysis on the suicide squeeze call?

It was funny because I said “I wonder if Scioscia calls a squeeze?” and then they play was on. Not exactly a surprising move by Mike. Even worse, it looked like a pretty lackadasical attempt by Aybar. I mean, you HAVE to get a bat on the ball. He just sort of looked like “opps...”

Matt

Hey Mick, did you lay anything down for the Rays to win the ALDS or ALCS this year or just the WS?

A few bucks in Vegas on TB for the division, pennant, and WS.  Couldn’t resist.  I think it was 30-1, 50-1 and 100-1.

The suicide squeeze with a good bunter is almost always a good play.  The only reason you can’t do it that often is that it is too easy to defend against (pitchout).  Game theory brings down the correct percentage to something pretty low (10%, 20%?).  Managers probably do it less than they should, because they don’t like risky plays and plays that make them (as opposed to the batter) look bad.

Tango, you can’t assume an inside the parker when the guy makes a decision to dive.  First of all, if it doesn’t bounce in the stands, I think it is 50% a triple and 50% a HR.  From the standpoint of Willits making the decision, I think it is like 20% double, 20% HR, and 70% triple.  Or something like that.  Certainly not 100% HR if he misses it.  Probably still a bad play since the difference between a single (or double) and a triple with 1 out is a lot.

On second thought I agree with the dropped ball thing, I was thinking it was like a catch in the OF, where if the ball drops out of the glove when the fielder hits the ground it is no catch, even if he has control of it in the air or before he hits the ground.  On the other hand, there are definitely some umps that will call that runner safe as soon as he sees that Varitek drops the ball.  In fact, I am not sure at what point the boundary is between safe and out.  If the play is at home and the catcher clearly has the ball in his control, and the runner knocks the ball out of his hand, he is safe, even though he may have had control at the moment of impact.  Trust me, a lot of umpires would have called the runner safe and I don’t think that would have been all that controversial.

I agree with Mick’s, catcher at home plate, analogy:

“If the play is at home and the catcher clearly has the ball in his control, and the runner knocks the ball out of his hand, he is safe, even though he may have had control at the moment of impact.”

I think the ump. had him called out (in his head) before the fact of the dropped ball. Then for whatever reason he choose NOT to reverse the call. If he was “ more open minded” and/or showed more patients( now and then, I see some umps more patient than others before making the judgement call) the call may have went Angeles way. I think it should have. I’m just speculating.

During Game Summary, one announcer gave the American Football analogy. He said something like, “if a football player has possesion of the football then he goes down for whatever reason and his knee(s) hit the ground in fair ground, and the ball pops out of the hands then the play is dead and it’s not considered a fumble.”

I don’t see how this is relevant tonights baseball play, but that’s what was said to justify for what happened to Variteck.

As I said, I think the ump made the right call, but I also think it could have gone the other way with little fanfare or controversy.

That being said, Varitek should have thrown the ball to whomever was covering third base.  Diving after him at the last minute was not a good play.  He barely made the tag and the runner was like 3 feet from the bag.

Mick, do you agree with the umps. call because that’s the correct call in the mlb rule book? (which I dunno myself if it is, or isn’t technically speaking) or because you just agree?

Nevermind Mick, I don’t care anymore. After the game the umpire stated that, Varitek had possesion of the ball in his glove when he applied the tag, so the ball popping out of the glove after hitting the ground doesn’t matter in this case. Next time, I’ll do some snooping around before I ask a question. I also take alomost everything back from post #117.

Arthur, you have a point actually.

Varitek had possesion of the ball in his glove when he applied the tag...

I don’t necessarily buy that argument from the umpire.  Isn’t that also the case when the runner knocks the ball out of the catcher’s mitt in a collision at home plate?  The catcher has possession of the ball when the tag is applied.  But the runner is ruled safe.

The umpire should have said that if the collision knocks the ball out of the glove, then the runner will be ruled safe, but if the ball is knocked out of the glove after the tag is made, for whatever reason, then, the runner is ruled out.

Even that argument does not necessarily work in some cases.  What if the fielder makes the tag while in complete possession of the ball and then immediately drops the ball after the tag?  Not while taking the ball out of the glove but just drops the ball after the tag.  Again, most umpires will rule the runner safe even though the fielder had complete control over the ball when the tag was applied.  So I don’t think the “control when the tag is applied” explanation is a good one.

As I said, I think the ruling was correct and I don’t think it will generate much controversy or disagreement.  On the other hand, if the call went the other way, I don’t think it would have generated much controversy either.  One of those coin flips, like a “tie” between the runner and first baseman at first base.

I don’t think there is anything in the rule book regarding this play.  I think it is one of those things that they go over in umpire’s school or at their meetings, or at least they should.  What happens when a fielder makes a tag on a runner and then drops the ball?  What happens when a fielder dives or falls while tagging a runner and the ball pops out when the fielder or his glove hits the ground?

BTW, I just looked up my current projections for Del Carmen and Masterson.  Manny is much, much, much better than Masterson. In fact, Masterson is not even very good and Del Carmen is closer quality.

There was no excuse for Francona to use Masterson in the 8th rather than Del Carmen.  Other than righty/lefty switches, the clear order of relievers should be Paps, then Okajima or Del Carmen, and then everyone else a distant 3rd.

Toto sure made a lot of basic mistakes this series.  As far as I am concerned, he is no great tactician by any means.  With all the analysts working for his team, how hard is to advise him to use his best relievers in high leverage situations and his worst in low leverage. It is not like the gap between Del Carmen and Masterson is small.  It isn’t.

Also, Francona’s refusal to ever bunt is really bad.  As I have always said, while teams tend to sac too often, being predictable in either direction is really bad.  If the infield does not expect a bunt from you or they are agnostic, then with a decent bunter who is fast, a bunt is really in order, if for nothing else it forces the defense to play closer so that when you don’t bunt, you get more hits.

The perfect bunting strategy is to mix up your bunts and non-bunts randomly.  Being predictable in either direction is really bad baseball.  The best way to do that is to actually mix it up during an AB.  If you don’t do that, then the defense knows exactly what you are going to do after the first pitch.  And the batters who give away the fact that they are bunting by squaring early - well, that is just ridiculous. Of course, most managers believe that a bunt is so important when they do bunt, that they don’t care whether the defense knows it or not.  What they don’t realize is that the knowledge and position of the defense is critical to the overall success of the bunt.  Without those singles and errors, a sac bunt attempt is almost a terrible strategy…

This was what was said “word for word”:

“Manager Mike Scioscia was left to argue that his runner should have been safe at third.

Umpire Tim Welke disagreed, insisting that Varitek held the ball long enough to tag out Willits even though it popped loose when the catcher hit the ground. This was not a case where the ground can’t cause a fumble.

“That’s the NFL,” said Steve Palermo, the Major League supervisor of umpires, after the game. “We don’t have that in baseball. He had possession of the ball when he made the tag.”

What about the other day in Mil. playoff game. The ball was hit to the right field. The right fielder “made” an amazing leaping catch, then he rolled in a funky way with the ball in his glove, and then ball poped out. The Ump. didn’t consider that an out. He held it as long as did Veritek, IMO.

So, it is what it is. I guess the ball lingered long enough in the glove to make that OUT call. I also think the call could have gone either way. Who knows.. Soscia, as a former catcher, ran out there for a reason, right? Maybe, he was just desperate.

Maybe, this is where home field advantages has a role to play. I’m kidding of course, but possible… Maybe or maybe and more maybe’s, that’s life.

I agree using Paps or Del Carmen in before Masterson, BUT consider the following:

1) Francona knew something about his relivers that night that you didn’t. Personally, I think he went of his feeling, as they often do.

2)As for Masterson vs. Del Carmen. Francona went of what have you done for me lately scenerio, I think.

3)Some announcers said he didn’t use Pap. in the 8th because he was used to much already in the series. Last night he was used for 2 inn.

"The umpire should have said that if the collision knocks the ball out of the glove, then the runner will be ruled safe, but if the ball is knocked out of the glove after the tag is made, for whatever reason, then, the runner is ruled out. “

Right.  Varitek had possession of the ball while he was running.  So, that part was not in doubt.  He applied the tag with the ball in his hand.  That was not in doubt.  He tumbled, and at some point (hitting the ground), the ball popped.

This is unlike a play at the plate where upon collision, it’s hard to tell if the ball popped out on collision, or following collision.

As for the catch in the OF, it’s not the same because at no time did the umpire know that the ball was in the glove in terms of complete possession.

MGL, do you have Masterson projected as a starter or reliever?  He began the year starting, wasn’t very good, and finished it up from the pen and has been excellent.  SSS to be sure, but he may very well be someone who improves substantially as a reliever (substantially meaning greater than that .70 ERA, or whatever you guys use for the typical starter-to-reliever improvement).

"As for the catch in the OF, it’s not the same because at no time did the umpire know that the ball was in the glove in terms of complete possession.”

Excellent point

“Varitek had possession of the ball while he was running.  So, that part was not in doubt.  He applied the tag with the ball in his hand.  That was not in doubt.  He tumbled, and at some point (hitting the ground), the ball popped.”

Excellent point. Makes more sense to me now. Oops on my part.

MGL has pointed out Francona’s numerous managing blunders this series. How about not pinch-running for Ortiz in extra innings during Game 3 when they were down by 1 run. Ortiz led the inning off with a walk. Casey was the only available position player, but why couldn’t he use a pitcher in this situation?

Why did he pull Lester after 109 pitches? He could of at least let him start the 8th.

Suicide squeeze analysis:

http://www.lookoutlanding.com/2008/10/6/629912/i-love-the-suicide-squeeze

Maybe, Scioscia should of had someone pinch hit for Aybar, if he sucks as bad as people say.

yay, nay?

Scioscia must of had a ton of faith in Aybar’s bunting skills. He must have, I think.

Aybar is a great fielder, which cannot be discounted in a close game.  It seems to me calling for the squeeze there seems reasonable.

If I recall correctly, wasn’t it a 2-0 count when Aybar attempted the suicide squeeze? I know it was a 2-1 count after the attempted squeeze, and I’m assuming strike one came on the missed bunt attempt.

If it was 2-0, that’s a pretty good hitters count. According to B-R.com, AL batters hit .288/.508/.497 after a 2-0 count this season. Also, this season with a runner on 3rd, less than 2 out, AL batters hit a sacrifice fly about 18% of the time. So, even taking into account that Aybar is a weak hitter, you gotta assume he’ll drive in that run about 40% of the time (maybe 25% via a hit and 15% via a SF), and most of the remaining 60% will be harmless outs that allow the on-deck hitter (Figgins) a chance to knock the hitter in.

I don’t know...it seems like Scioscia kinda out-thought himself there. If you’re going to squeeze, do it on the first or 2nd pitch, not when the hitter has worked a hittable count

"Ortiz led the inning off with a walk. Casey was the only available position player, but why couldn’t he use a pitcher in this situation?”

Do they have any pitchers who can run?  I know Buchholz is very fast, but not on the postseason roster.  Guys like Lester, Byrd, Wakefield do not strike me as fast runners, and even if say Lester can outrun Ortiz, his inexperience at baserunning may outweigh that.

Dice-K is a good athlete, maybe he should have pinch run.

I make adjustments for whether a pitcher is a reliever or a starter to the tune of almost 1 run per game.  Either way, I have Del Carmen as about .6 runs (per 9) better than Masterson.

The only thing Masterson has going for him is that he is a GB pitcher, so he can be used when you need a GB.  Other than that, there is no excuse for him being used in the 8th.  Not using Paps I can understand for the reason Arthur stated.  As I said, Tito is in love with Masterson, who has a 4.69 FIP for Boston this year and decent, but not great, MLE’s in 07 and 08.  Del Carmen has a 3.39 lifetime FIP in the majors, a solid reliever at least.

Bad pitch to Hunter.  With 2 strikes, you have to throw him a breaking pitch most of the time, or at least a high fastball out of the zone, as he will swing at those pitches much of the time.

That is the other reason why you don’t see the squeeze all that much.  You want to use it on a 1-0, 2-0, 2-1 count to avoid the pitch out, but as Tom says, that makes hitting that much better.

Another thing leaning towards not using the squeeze is that a walk is not bad at all for ANA.  You are probably not going to double up the next batter Figgins, and because it is the TOP of the 9th, you have the chance to score several runs.

I also thought that a pinch runner was the right thing as soon as Papi walked.  I actually did not realize that no position players were left.

One of the problems with pinch running a pitcher, even a fast one, is that they are not good base runners, and don’t read the ball very well off the bat.  (I think it was in the MIL game, one of the pitchers who was pinch running had a horrible read on a bloop hit to the OF and did not score from 2B, which he should have easily.) And Ortiz, despite being pretty slow, is actually a good base runner.

But, all in all, I think that Tito showed that he is NOT the great tactical manager that some people make him out to be.

I have unstickied this thread, and will resticky for the next round.

I read the post on Lookout Landing.  He gets an approximate BE point of 70% (which he admittedly says is VERY approximate, which it is).  That seems pretty high to me.  I would say that based on that alone, the squeeze is marginal.  How he concludes that the 70% barrier is easy to break, I don’t know.  Enough things can go wrong in a squeeze (missing the bunt on a strike pitch, a pitch way out of the zone, a pop up double play, a bunt right near the catcher at home plate), that 70% success is pretty optimistic.

Maybe squeezes are successful 75 or 80% of the time, but I don’t think it is obvious that they are successful greater than 70%.

As well, as Tom points out, the numbers for not squeezing change a lot with a 2-0 count.  You could certainly justify swinging away on the 2-0 count and if the count goes 2-1 to put on the squeeze.

Plus, this statement is ridiculous:

If Scioscia lets Aybar swing away, odds are fairly high that he doesn’t drive the runner home from third. Not only because he’s bad, but also because a sac fly seemed unlikely; Delcarmen throws hard, fly balls already tend to be hit the other way, and left field in Fenway is shallow.

For one thing, Willits is one of the fastest players in baseball.  Almost ANY fly ball to the OF scores him.  Bay has an average arm, and Ellsbury has a noodle.  And the shallow left field at Fenway is meaningless.  How does that affect a sac fly opportunity, other than the left fielder plays a little more shallow so he can catch an occasional short pop fly that might drop in for a hit at another park?

The more I’ve thought about it since last night, the more I’ve backed off. I still like calling for the squeeze, but I don’t think it was nearly as obvious as it seemed to me at first glance.

The idea behind the LF statement is that Bay would be playing shallower, thereby making it more difficult for Aybar to drive in the run with a fly ball. He doesn’t have any power and his hit chart shows a lot of fly balls that would’ve made that play really, really close, regardless of who was throwing.

I dunno. I’m open to having my mind changed on the matter, because I’m not sure how to weigh all the different variables. All I really wanted to do was express my love for the squeeze.

"But, all in all, I think that Tito showed that he is NOT the great tactical manager that some people make him out to be.”

I don’t think anyone considers Tito a great tactical manager.  The praise he gets is more that he avoids completely dumb decisions (probably on advice of all the advisors on payroll) and that he’s a good handler of people, generally a good guy who you can be sure isn’t going to throw his players under the bus if something goes wrong, and doesn’t get overly emotional.

That’s it, he’s a people person.  HE’S GOOD WITH PEOPLE! WHY CAN’T YOU PEOPLE SEE THAT!

According to The Fans:

Willits is #41 out of 467 for fielding speed.  (Usually means running speed too, but not always.) The top 5 are all CF (Gomez, Ellsbury, Gathright, Taveras, Davis).  So, he is very very fast.  I don’t know if I’d call him one of the fastest in baseball.

Bay indeed has an average arm.

Out of 167 outfielders, Ellsbury has the 11th worst arm strength.  The real noodles belong to: Pierre, Damon, Stewart, Dellucci.

So, we’ll give MGL a B on Willits, an A- on Ellsbury and an A+ on Bay.  Not bad.  And he said that he’s not able to evaluate players just by looking at them.  I’ll give him an F for self-evaluation.

It seems entirely plausible to me that Tito had already decided to “pitch around” Aybar knowing full well that Mike would try a squeeze. If Aybar walks he is set up for a double play and move his corner infielders back. Chone is not a power hitter. The better call in my mind would have been to let Aybar walk or swing away after 2-0 and then have Chone squeeze if Aybar walked. The squeeze was just too predictable, considering the Angel’s proclivities, at that point.

I agree that Scioscia outsmarted himself this time.

And he said that he’s not able to evaluate players just by looking at them.  I’ll give him an F for self-evaluation.

Good one!

As I always say, I watch a lot of baseball, and unlike the announcers on TV who sometimes seem to be watching a different game than everyone else, I pay keen attention to what is going on.  In fact, it is to a fault and it often drives me crazy.

That being said, speed and arm strength are the easiest things to “see”.  They don’t fluctuate much.  What you see is usually what you get.  Arm accuracy, on the other hand, can fluctuate from throw to throw and from game to game, of course.

“one of the fastest” as in “one of the top 47 fastest...”

I don’t know what Tito or DelCarmen’s pitching plan versus Aybar was.  It is too hard to tell.  Maybe if I watched the video again, I might have an idea, but I don’t remember off the top of my head.

You would think that Varitek, Tito, and maybe Delcarmen would have had an idea that Scioscia might squeeze.  As I said, that is why you can’t squeeze that often.  Even if the pitching team does not pitch out, they might decide to throw high inside fastballs (like the 2-0 pitch), especially if they don’t mind walking the batter.

Then again, as I always say, it is hard to criticize a decision by a manager or pitcher that involves game theory and randomness.  You have to know what the decision maker does “per 100 decisions.” Maybe the correct move by Sciosca is to squeeze 20% of the time.  How would we decide whether the squeeze was “correct” or not?  We can’t!  Maybe Scioscia flipped a 5 sided mental coin and came up with the 20% side!

When it comes to decisions that involve game theory, you can only evaluate them in aggregate.  If there is any percent (1% even) that is correct for Scioscia to squeeze given those exact circumstances, then we have no idea whether his decision was correct or not!  I shouldn’t say no idea.  If the correct percentage is low, then the fact that he did squeeze suggests that he does it too often, even if that one opportunity is all we are aware of. However, there is a certain chance that he was correct and we were wrong and that he only planned on doing it the correct percentage of time and we just happened to see it.

Dave “Soup” Campbell, who is a pretty good announcer and smart guy, thinks that Willits should have been ruled safe by the umpire and he makes some cogent arguments.

He says that if the runner barrels over the catcher at home plate, and the catcher has full control of the ball, falls down and drops the ball (the ground causes the drop and not the collision), the umpire usually calls the runner safe.

I agree with that.  I also agree that it is a similar situation.

He explains that there is absolutely nothing in the rule book which helps to illucidate this issue and he is right about that.

He also thinks that the umps should have conferred.  He might be right about that, although I think that the ump who made the call was the crew chief and it wasn’t like he didn’t see anything that he needed to see.

As I said, I honestly think that it could easily have gone the other way.  Some things are just near 50/50 and I think this was one of them, and that you can’t really criticize it either way.  kind of like a ball/strike call on the literal boundary of the strike zone.  Either call is reasonable.

To be perfectly honest, I think that the umpire called him safe before he dropped the ball and just didn’t want to change the call since the ball was not dropped immediately.  I think that if he had not made the call right away and had waited to see whether Varitek held onto the ball, as they often do on a tag play, and certainly on a “collision play,” he would have ruled the runner safe and no one would have thought anything of it, other than that Varitek did a stupid thing by not throwing the ball (which he did).

MGL wrote in post:

“To be perfectly honest, I think that the umpire called him safe before he dropped the ball and just didn’t want to change the call since the ball was not dropped immediately.  I think that if he had not made the call right away and had waited to see whether Varitek held onto the ball, as they often do on a tag play, and certainly on a “collision play,” he would have ruled the runner safe and no one would have thought anything of it, other than that Varitek did a stupid thing by not throwing the ball (which he did).”

Mick, in your the first sentence, I think you meant to say the umpire called him OUT not SAFE before the officall call, out, was made.

BTW, this is what I tried to convey in my earlier post, #117. That some umpires rush to a quicker call then others, which could definitely play a role in making a call. I don’t know about the 50/50 thing, maybe 80 out 20 safe.
Willits thought that the right call was made.

MIKE SCIOSCIA after the game said this:

“You know, he’s got to have—I feel he had to have control of the ball. It depends on what they consider control. You know, Tim felt, you know, Tim Welke felt that the tag was made and the out was recorded before he lost the ball. But it’s like, you know, guy slides into the bag, you put a tag on him, and if the infielder drops the ball, there is a gray area there of interpretation of what happened. He felt he had control of the ball.”

So wateva…

This is unlike a collision at the plate.  The only common aspect is that it’s the catcher, which is irrelevant.  In the collision, you have no idea if he has control of the ball since a 20 mph force is hitting the catcher.  In the tag play, it’s the catcher going after the runner.  In any other tag play where the fielder chases the runner, as soon as the tag is made, the runner is called out.

Whether runner or fielder initiates contact is irrelevant.  Contact is contact.  If fielder chases runner and runner is tagged out but a millisecond after the tag, the fielder drops the ball, the umpire is usually going to call safe I think.

So I agree with Scioscia that there is a gray area. Again, I think that the right call was made, but had the call gone the other way, it would have been accepted and acceptable, although perhaps with more controversy, I don’t know.

Thankfully for everyone involved, it is not considered to be an error by the ump, let alone an egregious error, like the Denkinger call at first base or the Eddings call at home plate, both of them game changing plays, as was the this, “Welke call.”

” ... there is absolutely nothing in the rulebook which helps to elucidate this issue ...”

I disagree. In section 2.00 (Definition of Terms):
“A TAG is the action of a fielder in ... touching a runner with the ball, or with his hand or glove holding the ball, while holding the ball securely or firmly in his hand or glove.” in 7.08 (c) “A runner is out when ... He is tagged, while the ball is alive, while off his base.”

Put the two together. The tag is essentially an instantaneous act. If the ball is jarred loose in the tag itself (as in a collision at the plate), it is reasonable to infer that the ball was not held securely. But if the ball is jarred loose after the tag has been completed, that is irrelevant.

Common practice by umpires in enforcing the rule is a different matter than whether the rule itself is adequately clear.

Right.

In applying a tag of a ball already being held firmly in a glove while said fielder is running with the ball, the expectation is that at the moment of the tag, the ball is secure.  It would be a fairly rare play (in MLB) that at the moment such a fielder tags a runner, that he no longer has secure possession of the ball.  That’s why, at the moment of the tag, the ump is going to call out right away.  He’s not going to wait to see the fielder hit the ground first and come up to see if the ball stayed in the glove.

For the play at home, it is not uncommon for the collision play to pop the ball out of the glove.  So, the umpire, impossible for him to determine if at the moment of the tag the catcher actually had secure possession of the ball (how could he know) will infer it based on “when the dust settles”.  If the catcher has secure possession, he’ll infer he had it upon the collision.  If he doesn’t, then the umpire will reverse engineer it and come up with his best judgement.

Like I said, the only commonality is that it’s the catcher.  Had it been Youk who applied the tag under otherwise normal conditions, and then he fell, I don’t think it would get this scrutiny.

Great!! So we can all agree that Willits would be called out 80% of the time, on that play.

Relax.. Tom or whomever I’m just kidding!

Joe, I agree that the rule book seems to make it clear.  In practice of course, an umpire will almost always call a runner safe if the fielder drops the ball immediately AFTER the tag, even though “at the moment of the tag” the ball is held securely and firmly.  In fact, the only way, according to the rule book, that the runner can be called safe is when the fielder is “bobbling” the ball just before, and therefore at the moment of contact.

Even if a collision or the tag itself causes the ball to the jarred loose, I think you can create a good argument that the ball was held firmly at the “moment of impact” and dropped a moment (nanosecond perhaps) later.

But the more I think about it and we discuss it, I’ll say that they probably got the play 99% right.

I do still think that it is one of those plays where even though there is probably a 99% chance they got it right, according to the rules, and perhaps what is even fair, that had the call gone the other way, it would NOT have been considered an egregiously blown call.

Remember when I said that I sometimes wondered whether the announcers on TV were watching the same game as we are?

I just turned on the game tonight and Hammels was pitching against Loney.  I saw a curve ball followed by a change up for ball 4.

The next batter was Kemp and when he threw him a change up, McCarver immediately said, “That was the first change up he has thrown.  Thus far he has thrown all fast balls.”

Incredible!

Tango, can you “stick” this thread again until the post-season is over.

OK, this is the last time I am going to say anything about McCarver.

The 1-1 pitch to Manny in his second AB is an 83 mph change up away.  Unless you are blind, not watching the game at all, or know nothing about baseball, you can clearly see that it is a changeup even if you don’t see the speed graphic.

McCarver says, “That was a tough fastball to Manny.”

Seriously, what is wrong with this guy?  How is he supposed to analyze every pitch, as these commentators are prone to do, when he can’t even tell, or doesn’t even bother to watch, what they are throwing?

Watching the LA/Phi game today, there was another case of defensive indifference.  Am I the only one who hates this play?  Why in the world doesn’t the defensive team try to throw the guy out at second?  If they don’t try, they give up the opportunity for a force at second.  And they will get him out a reasonable amount of the time, and teams will stop just taking the base if they know you’ll throw through.  Downside?  Well they might make a bad throw and the guy could end up on third, but so what?  If they didn’t care if he went to second, they shouldn’t care if he might get to third.

BTW, in the last four innings (it’s starting the sixth now), DiceK has been better than I’ve ever seen him.

Defensive indifference is usually or at least often when the first baseman is not holding the runner so that there is no chance of getting the runner and the only thing that can happen is an occasional error on the throw (although whether the runner is at 2nd or 3rd doesn’t really make a difference either).

I don’t think that teams don’t throw just for the sake of not throwing.  If they thought they would have a chance to get the runner they would.

In the bottom of the 8th in the BOS/TB game, Pena is 3-0 on Okajima with two runners on and no outs.

Now, I am not a big fan of taking at 3-0 just for the sake of taking (batters take too often), but with no outs and a lefty/lefty matchup, I am pretty sure that a take is correct.  Lefties don’t see the ball well against lefties (to NOT take, you want a batter with a good eye and good pitch recognition skills so that they only swing at very good pitches to hit), and it is not easy to “square a ball up” against a lefty pitcher even if it is a good pitch to hit.  And again, the fact that it is no outs is a big factor.  With 2 outs, certainly a green light is in order and with 1 out it may be marginal.

After than, Longoria had an absolutely awful, rookie at bat.  2-0 on the Maserson, he swings at 2 pitches almost in the dirt and then grounds into a DP. The 2-0 and 2-1 swings (and decision to swing) were just awful.

I am afraid that things like this are going to make TB more of a dog for the series than it looks like on “paper.”

Their general approach with Dice-K on the mound was awful as well.  I am sure that they were heavily “briefed” beforehand that Dice-K rarely gives in no matter what the count, that he often pitches “backwards” and that he can throw anything at any time and mixes up his pitches very well (therefore, don’t guess against him).

They also have seen him several times this year I think. Yet, they looked like that had never faces him before.

Well, they finally fixed the Captain Morgan commercial!  In the new version of the “Girls, Oreilleys, Now” the guy is happy and excited when he gets the text message.  In the old version, he is annoyed when he gets the message, which makes no sense.

Good points on the Pena at bat.  I thought swinging away was okay (or, at least not bad), particularly because Longoria is struggling and they were two runs down.  But you raise good points.

And I missed the change in the Morgan commercial. I’ll look for it—that petulant reaction bothered me too!

I am not a big believer in pitchers having “good and bad” days, but it sure seems like Beckett is not healthy, if nothing else from his diminished velocity.

I am very surprised that Francona left him in as long as he did tonight.

Talk about announcers making things up (which they do all the time, as they apparently get paid by the word, at least guys like Martinez, Reynolds, Morgan, and McCarver).

(BTW, Ron Darling is not nearly as good without Keith Hernandez.  When one announcer says something stupid during a game, the other ones seem to be compelled to agree with them.)

Anyway, tonight they spent a few minutes in the 6th inning telling us how Joe Maddon gave a “sign” with his hands to his head to JP Howell to stay focused with Ortiz at the plate.

I am 80-90% sure that he was simply adjusting his glasses (he does that all the time) as he walked to the mound.  Check out the video.

I am a little surprised that Maddon is staying with Bradford.  He is basically a ROOGY.  While his career numbers versus lefties are around league average, I would have to think that he has faced a below-average group of lefties and if we regress those numbers towards the mean of a sidearming righty who throws in the high 70’s, I think that his true talent versus lefty batters is quite a bit below average.

And I don’t know what Martinez is talking about with Bradford on the mound and Crisp on first.  He says that he is “having trouble reading his move,” and that “he should take a gamble and just go on first move.”

Martinez used to be a manager?  All of that terminology is appropriate with a lefty pitcher, but NOT with a righty!  Sure, a good “move” by a righty makes you shorten your lead and makes you careful about not leaning, but the primary deciding factor on whether you go versus a righty pitcher is his time home.  And you ALWAYS go on “first move” against a righty pitcher!  You teach Little Leaguers that as soon as the righty so much as twitches that front foot, you can take off from first!

Again, if you feel compelled to speak continuously for 3 1/2 hours, your signal to noise ratio will be quite low.  And even then, if you have been in baseball for 40 years, you ought to know a heck of a lot more about baseball than guys like Martinez and his ilk know.

"One of the hardest things in baseball is to find left-handed pitchers who can get left-handed batters out.”

Buck Martinez.

I kid you not.

O.K., I promise no more ragging on poor ole’ Buck…

Tight strike zone the whole night by the home plate umpire.  Then with Price on the mound, 1 out and 2 runners on, he decides to call strike 3 on a pitch 2-3 inches off the plate.

In the bottom of the inning ball 4 to the lead-off batter was closer than the strike 3 Price pitch.

I still don’t know why managers walk the bases loaded and then play the infield in.

Don’t tell me, “Now they have a force at home.” If they don’t walk the bases loaded and play the infield in, the runner on third generally doesn’t go, so there is NOT play at home.

And you can’t get the DP with the infield in especially with Upton at the plate, except for a rare 1-2-3.

You pitch to Iwamura and try to strike him out.  If you walk him, you walk him.

Beckett hasn’t been healthy during the second-half of the season. Kazmir hasn’t looked like himself either the last 3 or 4 times I have seen him pitch. Recently, Kazmir’s has lost all movement on his pitches. His slider has been flat and his fastball is straighter than an arrow. Beckett seems to have lost command of his curve-ball. MGL also noted that Beckett’s velocity was down as well.

Game 2 of the ALCS took 5 hours and 27 minutes to complete. I would bet that this was the longest 11 inning game in baseball history.

Beckett should not have pitched today. It was clear from his first pitch that he didn’t have anything last night. From that moment on, I was telling everyone watching with me that he was going to get hit hard and needed to be replaced. Of course, it took Francona five innings and eight runs to figure it out. Ridiculous.

Yes, while personally, other than the reduced velocity (which is a lot in and of itself, plus indicative of a problem), I couldn’t swear that Becket “should not have been pitching” (sometimes even healthy pitchers look terrible at times), it amazes me how often a manager will let a pitcher pitch when he is NOT healthy.  Like Sheets in the NLDS (or was it before the NLDS?).  Anyway, do they simply ask the player, “Can you go?” If yes, that is stupid of course.  Most players will say, “Yes,” or, “I think so Skip.” How about they watch them extensively in the bullpen first. 

I am afraid it is another example of how the idea that managers, coaches, and scouts can clearly “see” things that even the experienced fan can’t see, is nonsense.

(But Beckett is a “big game pitcher!")

Can we please bump this thread up?

What does it say about Theo Epstein, Terry Francona et al that he has to start Mark Kotsay at 1B throughout the playoffs, even against a LHP. Or the fact that Ellsbury starts against a LHP but Drew doesn’t? Or the fact Alex Cora starts over Jed Lowrie?

And how horrible was that IBB to Manny in the first inning?

You will often see particularly bad decisions in the post-season as managers try to show how “smart” they are (like the IBB to Manny). 

As if you DON’T try and maximize your WE in the regular season, but you do in the post-season.

You know that if Joe Buck and Tim McCarver don’t like an IBB, then it is probably bad.

If nothing else, walking Manny in that spot is “chicken**it.” Not that “chicken**it” is necessarily the wrong thing to do, but in this case, it probably is.

Here is how the conversation would go if I were a reporter during the post-game press conference:

Me: Charlie, would you have walked Manny in the exact same situation in the regular season?

Manuel:  No, of course not.

Me:  Then why do it now?

Manuel:  I can’t let Manny beat us in these important post-season games.

Me:  Well, does walking Manny in that spot increase or decrease your chances of winning the game?  If it increases them, then you should do it the regular season also, and if it decreases them, then you shouldn’t ever do it, regular or post-season, right?

Manuel: Next question.

With the hit and run with Pierre on first, why does the speedy Pierre get thrown out easily on a bad (high) throw no less?

Because somehow on a hit and run, runners don’t get good jumps and/or run as fast!  And don’t tell me that they have to look back and see whether it is a pop fly or not.  When runners are stealing, they often do that.  And if it is a line drive, you are going to get doubled up anyway.

On a hit and run, the runner should get a jump like he were stealing and run as hard as he can, like he were stealing.  There is no reason for Pierre to get easily thrown out on a hit and run since he would virtually never get easily thrown out on a steal.

Yes, and Tango, can you PLEASE stick this thread to the top?

We’ve seen some bad umpiring behind the plate in the post-season so far, but Barrett is one of the worst so far.  That 3-2 pitch to Manny was much closer than half the strikes he has called so far. (And, Joe Buck, can you please stop saying that a pitch is “right down the middle” when it is not even in the strike zone?)

Joe Blanton has possibly the worst swing I have ever seen from a pitcher at the plate.  He is 2 for 26 career with no walks.  I would think that if he comes up at all in a medium or high leverage situation you would want to pinch hit for him.  My guess is that he is a bad bunter too, as he seems to have no eye or pitch recognition skills at the plate at all.

You know I dislike managers in general (not personally, of course).

I have watched Charlie Manuel for several years now, and I think he is one of the worst in-game managers. Almost embarassingly bad.

With Victorino up and runners on 1 and 2, it is not that it is a bad play to bunt.  It is that it is bad to let the whole world know that you are going to bunt.  As soon as the Dodgers know it, which they did, it becomes a really bad play.  With first and third playing so far in, expecting the bunt, it is a perfect time NOT to bunt of course.

Manuel does not understand that, nor does he understand that he has to be unpredictable with respect to the sac bunt.

And of course, as BP pointed out before the post-season, his stubborn refusal to split up the lefties Utley and Howard is going to cost him some serious wp.

Speaking of BP, Gary Huckabay has said a couple of embarrassing things over at BP’s playoff round table.

“Joe Sheehan (6:35:20 PM PT): Clay, Nate...anyone...when do batter/pitcher matchups attain significance?

Gary Huckabay (6:42:05 PM PT): Statistical power of the matchups increases with the number of PA. The cutoff for utility is pretty subjective. 14-for-25 is worth paying attention to, IMO.

So is something wacky like 8 for 9 or something. You could do hypothesis tests if you were so inclined.”

“Gary Huckabay (7:24:00 PM PT): Hey, Pedro Feliz is a great player. He’s way better than say, 40-50% of AA players.”

Chad Durbin is a replacement-level pitcher who had a lucky season this year, in 70 IP.  The Phillies are paying the price for that now.

Just awful situational pitching by the Phillies pitchers.  First the 0-2 terrible pitch to Loney in the first (?) inning.

Then the leadoff walk to Furcal in the 5th and the bad first pitch to Manny in the same inning.

Then the complete horrible pitching by Durbin in the 6th.

“Gary Huckabay (7:24:00 PM PT): Hey, Pedro Feliz is a great player. He’s way better than say, 40-50% of AA players.”

I don’t get this?  Who is saying what and why?

What he said about batter/pitcher matchups is not necessarily wrong.  In fact, it is essentially correct (the more PA you have, and/or the more anomalous the result, the more it might mean, and there is no magical cutoff point).

What he is missing of course, is how much to regress the sample numbers.  What we found in The Book is that there is apparently almost 100% regression even for large samples.  Apparently Gary does not know that, but I am not sure we can fault him for that.

I didn’t read the roundtable.  I don’t know much about Huckaby.  I do know that some significant percentage of what Joe Sheehan says is nonsense, or at least “talking-head speak.” I have little use for BP these days.  They have become largely just another mainstream baseball site with lots of fluff pieces and very few things that any serious “sabermetric-oriented” person would be interested in.  Not completely devoid of good analysis.  Just a lot less than I personally would like and not enough for me to get excited about frequenting their site more than once a week or so.

Basically, Huckabay is saying, via hyperbole, that Pedro Feliz sucks. This is in response to him entering the game to hit for Dobbs when a LHP is in the game.
Feliz, of course, is a pretty good player because he’s about a win above average in fielding even though he’s about a win below in hitting. That’s what I was referring to.

O.K.  Feliz is not that bad of a hitter.  As you say, maybe 1 win below average.  And most of his “bad offense” is in not walking much, which is the last thing you need with 1 out and runners on 2nd and 3rd.

Funny, how when there is a bad hitter coming up, the commentators say, “Don’t bunt, because the next batter is bad.” If the next batter is a good hitter, they say, Don’t bunt because then they will walk or pitch around the next batter.”

Well, which is it?  You only bunt with average batters coming up?  I don’t think it matter that much, but I think several researchers have shown that the bunt is more effective with low walk singles hitters coming up, exactly as you would expect.

While Feliz does not have a higher BA, his lack of walks and the fact that they won’t pitch around or walk him makes him a decent hitter in that situation.

You don’t want Dobbs versus the lefty batting, because he would be too prone to the K, I assume, so what is Manuel supposed to do there?

Plus, by bringing in two pinch hitters, Manuel actually burns a couple of the Dodger relievers.

Anyway, I turned off the game after the error by Howard (who really is a DH), so I did not see anything that happened until the bottom of the 8th and 2 outs. 

Boy, if you are not looking for the slider with Lidge on the mound these days, you are not paying attention.

While Lowe seemed to have pitched decently tonight, he usually has a hard sinker, in the 90’s I think.  Tonight he threw lots of offspeed pitches and much slower sinkers. There is a reason why pitchers don’t go on 3 days rest anymore.  You can’t just throw them on 3 days rest in the post-season because you are down a game or two.  If you could, every manager would use only their 3 best starters in these 7-game series rather than the 4 pitchers which they generally use.

That was a weak “roundtable discussion” BTW.  I definitely am not interested in seeing BP guys crack jokes and engaging in idle chit-chat while doing very little analysis of the game.

Will Carroll (5:56:20 PM PT): Do we have any defensive numbers or scouting reports to go on with DeWitt? If we call that a success, do more teams try to shift guys over—I know the Dbacks are considering it with Mark Reynolds (who is much smaller than I imagined for some reason.)

Do we have any defensive numbers to go on? Seriously, you ask the question? And nobody answers?

(The answer is yes, you do. He’s -3 according to RAA in 27 games, for what little it’s worth.)

I’m surprised I haven’t heard anything about Torre letting Kuo bunt with two on and one out in the 7th. I know Kuo was dealing in his inning, but you have to go for the kill in that spot IMO.

I was not watching the game at that point, but managers love to use their pitchers to bunt if they can, when they don’t really want to take them out of the game. Their thinking is that since I ws considering the bunt anyway, I might as well let my pitcher do it and keep him in the game.

As I’ve said a million times, when a pitcher bunts, the WE of a team is drastically reduced as compared to any position player either hitting away or bunting, because pitchers almost never get a single or ROE when they do bunt the ball and they strike out a lot after bunting with 2 strikes.

Again, managers do NOT realize that the only value in the bunt are the singles and ROE’s that occur a fairly significantly percentage of the time (10-20%) when a good bunter and/or fast runner is at the plate.

Again, Torre has never been a good strategist and Manuel is a terrible one.  This is a battle of bad managers, which is funny since both of them will probably get some MOY votes simply because their teams made it into the post-season and they were not “favorites” to do so when the season began.

MGL--this question isn’t meant snarkily, and I realize that you may find it meaningless, but here goes:

what % of a manager’s value resides in in-game decision-making?  (include lineup construction in that category...)

Nick, it doesn’t sound like a snark question.

Honestly, I have no idea, because I have no idea what their other attributes are worth.

Certainly, if I am hiring a manager, there are all kinds of qualities I would be looking for.  Not that I would be qualified to identify and evaluate those attributes in a potential managerial candidate. I wouldn’t.

But, if I were in charge of running a team, and presumably I hired a manager who had all or most of the “other” qualities I was looking for, I would also make sure that he understood and utilized as many optimal strategies as feasible and practicable.  If it were one of those managers who had no use for that kind of “meddling” or was thoroughly incapable of handling and/or understanding how to optimize his in-game decisions, I would not hire him, I don’t think.

So, sure there are probably many, many attributes that a good manager has that don’t include in-game decision-making.  What they are and how to measure them, I have little idea.  I leave that to the owners and GM’s.

As far as what “proper” in-game strategy is worth, as compared to “average” ones (given the managers we have now), or even what the spread is between the best and the worst strategic managers, I can only guess that it is 3-4 wins a year.  It could be 6 or 7, and it could be 1 or 2, I suppose.

I honestly don’t think that it would be too difficult, as far as being part of an organizational philosophy, to take an intelligent, open-minded manager like a Francona, Yost, Maddon, etc. (I am guessing of course as to which managers might fall into the various categories), and teach them how to make better in-game decisions without them thinking that the organization is being out of line.  And again, if I have a manager or potential manager who is so opposed to learning new things, or thinks that he knows everything or virtually everything, I don’t want that kind of person in my organization at any level.

I barely heard the commentator with the “Lindsay Nelson” sport jackets.  What idiot had the Rays at 50,000 to 1 to win the WS?

He also said that the Vegas line was 50-1 to win the pennant and 100-1 to win the Series.  Actually the prevailing line was 75-1 and 150-1 (although every place is free to post whatever they want, and it changes all the time as money comes in).

He also said that “100-1 is the most that Vegas is allowed to offer on any team.” Allowed by whom - the betting police?

The can post whatever odds they want.  Typically teams like WAS or PIT or KCR are 300-1 or thereabouts.  Obviously Vegas “knew” that Tampa was not a total long-shot (although they greatly underestimated them of course - as all they had to do was look at BP’s team forecasts).

mgl, this is one thing that has always annoyed me.  There are so many people that are extremely well versed in betting for all of these sports, but somehow the various networks seemingly want to pretend that betting doesn’t exist or something, so they employ people ignorant of the very basics to talk about it.  just another example of how poor the quality of tv information.  examples abound.

#183, I agree.  It is a silly inconsequential thing, but why say something that is clearly wrong on National TV.  And where did they even get something stupid like that (the limit in Vegas is 100-1 on the WS).

Hey at least they got the odds roughly correct.  What was that 50,000-1 thing?  As I said, I wasn’t really paying attention.  Someone probably simmed a season using last year’s win loss record as TB true wp. A team that has a true wp of around .400 is probably something like 50,000-1 to win the WS.  That would probably shock someone actually - that a team that bad can actually win the WS (a lot) more often (like 40 times) than you or I could win a million dollar lottery.

#181 Has anyone looked at which managers/teams actually make the correct decision depending on the game situation (i.e. the bunting situation you just mentioned)?  Could call it BDPG (Bad Decisions per Game) or WWJMD (What Would Joe Morgan Do?).  It would end a lot of cooler/forum debate, but might get some manager/execs thinking about their decisions.

#185, not that I am aware of.  It is on my list of “things to do.” You would have to look at some things in aggregate, because they involve game theory.  Like the bunting, where for any given type of hitter and situation, it might be correct to bunt, say 50% of the time.

It is easy to say now (3 errors in one inning), but I have noticed all week that Furcal does not look healthy running or fielding, after coming back from his back surgery.

I’ve never had back surgery, but I imagine that it’s usually pretty serious stuff.

The two called strike threes, one to Martin, and one to Kent, both key outs, were pretty weak.  Again, pretty poor umpiring behind the plate during the post-season.

I realize that discerning pitches thrown 90+ mph, and sliders and curveballs, is difficult, but I am comparing these guys in the post-season to the average umpire I see, not some theoretical perfect umpire.

And when do you think that the pitchtrax or whatever it is they use on TV is going to expand their box just a little bit to actually include pitches that almost all umpires call strikes?

There was an article a few months ago that showed that the TV box is smaller than the real strike zone.  You think?  Almost every pitch that is close to the corners but clearly a strike is outside of the box.

I just noticed that the Dodgers used Maddux as a reliever in the Postseason. Interesting.

Gotta love the un-clutch-itude of Brad Lidge.  Ever since 2005 when we found out he was a bad pitcher who has no heart, he’s been blowing leads in key games left and right.  Amazing.  [/sarcasm]

#186 Let me know if you need any help(wydiyd at hotmail dot com).  I have several other projects also, but would not mind at all helping find an answer to the manager debate.

191, Sure, thanks.  It is a big project that I probably won’t do for a while, if at all.  But you never know.

Funny, if you watch Lidge pitch, you can almost guarantee that he got incredibly lucky this year.  His fastball, which used to be around 96-98 is now 92-94, and his slider, which he throws much more often now than he used to, is more of a slurve than it used to be.  In addition, he doesn’t have the greatest command in the world.  My guess is that he is an average closer, maybe a little better, in true talent.

Early congrats Mick!

#133, a little too early.  Tie game.

Is the media going to take back everything they’ve been saying about how great Tampa is and now tell us what choking dogs they are?

Speaking of, if Dan Wheeler had any ba**s at all, he would have thrown Crisp a change-up.  Despite what Buck Martinez was saying (almost everything he says is wrong anyway), you CAN NOT worry about walking him and having to pitch to Pedroia (of course).

If you throw the same pitch 8 times in a row and the batter KNOWS exactly what pitch and in what location is coming, what do you think is going to happen?

“We knew we were not out of the game.  This team never gives up.  Etc.”

I am just writing the script for the Boston players if they win.

Am I missing something?  Shouldn’t Howell or Miller or Price have been pitching to David Ortiz and/or JD Drew?

They should if you didn’t think that you were going to win the game no matter what, like Maddon apparently did.

In all fairness, the leverage, at least with Papi at the plate, is pretty darn low so it doesn’t make much difference who you pitch.

Worst part was walking leadoff batter with a 3-run lead.  NO pitcher should ever do that, not that he is trying of course.

And, as I said, terrible 3-2 pitches to Coco.  No reason to keep throwing fastballs away.  The idea of being afraid to walk him and having to pitch to Pedroia is ludicrous.

Papi’s attempted bunt is not a good idea for two reasons:  One, there is 1 out. And two, you don’t want to have to pinch run for him in case the game goes on for a while.

Rare throwing error by Longoria and has plenty of time.  Seems to casually make a bad throw to first.  What a bunch of choking dogs.  Nice scoring by the OS (hit and an error).

Joe Buck tells us that walking Bay to set up the lefty/lefty matchup is an example of the “unconventional thinking of Maddon.”

Good analysis Joe.

You’ve got to be kidding me. I turned the game off after Tampa Bay went up 7-0 in the Top of the 7th. I check the score about an hour later and it is tied at 7-7.

It seems as though Joe Maddon knew something like this was going to happen. Every time the TV cameras showed Maddon, he looked very anxious, even with the big lead. Did anyone else notice anything pecuilar about Maddon’s demeanor tonight, or am I just making a story out of nothing?

In all fairness, the leverage, at least with Papi at the plate, is pretty darn low so it doesn’t make much difference who you pitch.

I can see that being the case with Ortiz, but not using your lefty for JD Drew makes little sense.

Oh well, looks like Howell can’t get Drew out anyway.

I didn’t even mention the pathetic throw by Gross in right on Coco’s single.  Kotsay should have been out by a mile on any decent throw.

Game over.  Now the entire story in the media has to change.  TB is now potentially the young team that couldn’t handle the pressure of the post-season.  Earlier they were the team that wasn’t bothered by the pressure at all.

Me and one of the anchors stayed after work to catch the end of the game. He was convinced that the Rays should have been stealing a base in the top of the ninth.

Neither of us could believe the ruling of the official scorer on that Longoria error. He insisted that it had to be the announcing crew getting it wrong.

No, the scorer’s “logic” on that play is that Longoria made a good play in fielding the ball (which he did) so even though he threw away a fairly easy ball to throw, it is a hit.

That is the way “scorer logic” works.  They somehow manage to get the calls wrong an amazing percentage of the time when it doesn’t really take any effort to get them right.

In the top of the 9th, they did try to steal, I think.  Bartlett led off with a hit.  He tried to steal with no outs but the batter flew out.  Then he tried to steal with one out but the batter walked.  I think that was the 9th.

There is no doubt that some managers do NOT like to steal in a close game when the BE point is low because they are “chicken***t.”

What is troubling about Maddon, among many things, is his refusal to bunt sometimes in order to keep the defense guessing.  I don’t think either manager is a particularly good game strategist.  But in this game, the players on TB definitely blew the game with some awful play (the bad throw in RF, the error by Longoria, the terrible pitching strategy to Coco with the 3-2 count, and bad relief pitching in general (not that that is their conscious “fault")

Not to mention, Coco is supposedly one of the game’s best fastball hitters.  Theo said something to this effect when we picked him up… apparently his last year with the Indians he was the “best” fastball hitter in the AL.  Best in terms of what, I don’t know.  But it makes me agree that it’s probably a bad idea to all but telegraph you’re going to keep throwing them to him.

Does fangraphs, or anyone else, keep a running total of cumulative WPA during a playoff series in the same way the site does for the regular season?  It seems to me it would be quite interesting to track, say, who has the highest overall WPA for the 5 games of the Red Sox/Rays series”, i.e., who has been the WPA “MVP” for the series thus far.

"In all fairness, the leverage, at least with Papi at the plate, is pretty darn low so it doesn’t make much difference who you pitch.”

True, LI for Ortiz’ PA was .39, compared to 2.03 for Drew.  But does that really capture the importance of getting Ortiz out?  After Ortiz HR, Sox’ WP was 8.4%.  If Ortiz had made out, it would have been about 0.8.  So the HR increased the Sox’ chance of winning the game 10-fold (vs. making an out).  Drew’s later HR roughly doubled the team’s chance of winning, although it produced a much larger absolute change in WP.

I’m not saying LI is “wrong.” But it does seem to me that the Ortiz PA is crucially important:  get him out, and there’s less than 1-in-100 chance you lose the game.  Give up the 3-run jack, and it’s 1-in-12.  Seems like a big swing to me, and well worth bringing in the LHP.

Using Guy’s example, what you need to do is factor in the probability of those happening (plus the single, double, triple).

And all we care about is the absolute difference, not the percentage change.

Going from .001 chance of winning to .011 chance of winning (1000% more) for one team is identical to going from .999 chance of LOSING to .989 chance of LOSING (1% less) for its opponent.

The absolute difference in this case is .010 for each team.  And all we care about is the absolute difference.

The question I’m raising is whether the LI of 0.39 is a good indicator of this PA’s importance.  That would suggest this PA was of trivial importance, much less important than a typical PA.  But what I think that misses is the impact of the Ortiz HR on leverage for future hitters.  The LI for the Sox at the start of the 7th (down 7-0) was 0.15.  But at the start of the 8th, it was 1.1—7x greater.  (And after Bay’s leadoff walk, over 2).  But without the Ortiz HR, it would have mattered far less what Bay, Drew, etc. did. 

To some extent, this is a twist on the old debate about the value of WPA once a game is over.  WPA tells us that in the Sox’s march from 2% to 100% WE, Ortiz’s HR contributed 6%, while Crisp’s single added 28% and Drew’s single 39%.  We don’t need to rehash that debate.  But in making a real time decision on who should face Ortiz—or whether it even matters—I’m not sure LI is giving us the right answer.

Just to follow up:  The Rays are up 7-1 and need 7 outs to win.  The question is how to decide whether/when to deploy relievers.  It seems to me that you want to look at some version of “run expectancy leverage,” rather than LI, to make that call.  When Ortiz comes up w/ 2 on and 2 out, the out-vs.-HR swing in RE is 3.11.  That’s huge. (Obviously, that’s not the most sophisticated way to estimate a PA’s “run leverage,” but clearly this is a high-impact PA in terms of runs allowed).  The manager knows that it’s not likely he will face another PA with that much run leverage. It seems to me that argues strongly for gaining platoon advantage and/or bringing in a superior reliever. 

In contrast, if we rely on LI it tells us that the first 3 runs we give up don’t matter much, while the next 3 runs are hugely important.  But in fact they’re ALL important—I can only lose if I give up 6 or more runs.  If I can snuff out the 7th inning rally, I’ll never even get to a high-LI PA.  So faced with a high-run-impact PA, and a power hitter up, I think you should treat it as a high-leverage situation.

When you’re facing the f***** Red Sox in an elimination game, there is no such thing as low leverage.

Balfour is statistically their best reliever, so I can’t blame Maddon too much for sticking with him.  I would have preferred a lefty myself.  Maybe Miller to face Ortiz, then Bradford to face Youkilis/Bay.  After that use Wheeler or Howell depending on what the game situation is.

Let’s look at the Ortiz play.  Here’s the situation: Sox are down by 6, there’s runners on the corners, and there’s 2 outs, in the bottom of the 7th.

The STANDARD win expectancy would say the chance of winning is .022, with an LI of 0.42 (presumes a 5 runs per game environment).

But, with Ortiz, things are different.  Let’s run through the basic scenarios, and resultant WE:
out: .010 (end of inning)
walk: .033 (bases loaded) ... new LI is 0.89
single: .042 (run scores, 1b goes to 3b) ... new LI is 0.75
double: .060 (2 run scores) ...new LI is 0.68
HR: .089… new LI is same as old LI… 0.42

So, that’s your range of possibilities.  Typically, in a random situation, the out removes .027 wins and a HR add .123 wins.  So, there’s a .150 win range between the two.  In the Ortiz situation, the range is only .079 wins.  So, right away, we can see that this situation is a less than average leverage situation.  About half the range.  (That’s why the LI is 0.42.)

To argue against this is to basically argue that virtually ANY Ortiz PA is a high-leverage PA.

Moving on, let’s say that with a really bad pitcher, Ortiz has a .500 OBP, with .200 of that being a HR, .100 being a walk, .100 being a single, and .100 being a double.  That’s a .676 wOBA which is like Bonds facing a replacement-level pitcher. 

And let’s say with a more realistic scenario, he has a .360 OBP, with .090 being a HR,BB,1B, and 2B.  That’s a wOBA of .433.  That’s a bit below Pujols, but otherwise fantastic.

If you multiply the frequencies by the individual WE, you get the WE in the “realistic scenario” as .0266, and in the ungodly one being .0363.  That’s how much it makes a difference here between expecting a .433 wOBA and .676 wOBA: .010 wins.

Now, in a random situation, the difference between .676 and .433 wOBA is .243 wOBA points which is .211 runs, or around .020 wins.  However, as I showed, the difference between a souped-up Ortiz facing a replacement-level pitcher, and a good Ortiz facing an average pitcher in the actual game situation is .010 wins.  That’s half what you’d expect from a random situation.  And that’s entirely consistent with the LI being 0.42.

***

Now, if you have NO REASON to wait to bring in your better reliever, then bring him in!  Clearly, if rest is not an issue, it is beyond foolish to let your best reliever sit.  You don’t need to wait for a better opportunity (THAT MAY NEVER COME).  From this respect, a run is a run is a run.  And so, stopping Ortiz here would be exactly as important as stopping him in the bottom of the 9th with 2 outs, runners on the corners and down by 3 runs.

The entire point of the discussion is one of human resources management.  But, if you can get away with using your best reliever today without worrying about tomorrow, then you use him today, regardless of what LI says based on the win expectancy model, and instead rely on the LI based on the run expectancy model (which I think is Guy’s point).

Tango:  I think we’re on the same page.  What I’m really saying is that, once you’re into the late innings with a large lead (and having pitchers rested for tomorrow isn’t an issue), you want your best pitcher matchups in the PAs that can produce the most runs.  The only reason not to go to your best matchup is because there might be an even more important PA later. 

Now, how do we decide how “important” a PA is, compared to those we may face later?  I’m suggesting that LI is not the right tool for that.  LI is a function of 1) score, 2) men on base, and 3) outs.  But in this situation, #1 doesn’t matter.  We want a measure of “run leverage” based only on factors 2 and 3 (and quality of hitter).  And if you’re faced with a high run leverage PA, as in this case, you should make the pitching change even though the LI remains quite low.

Right.

I offered this Base/Out Leverage Index:

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

Which seems to be exactly what we are talking about.

Agreed.  And just to complete the circle, a few key PAs from yesterday to illustrate the difference:
LI(WE) / LI(RE)
Ortiz 3R HR:  0.42 / 1.81
Drew 2R HR:  2.07 / 1.52
Crisp single: 3.47 / 1.13

Looking at traditional LI(WE), the Ortiz PA is by far the least important.  But in reality, it was the PA where the Rays had the greatest need to maximize their advantage.

Still with you.

The BRAA metric at Fangraphs (which is the deltaRE) would be the one that you would most support then.

In fact, I would say the best metric then, in this respect is:
WPA / weLI * reLI

We’ve talked about WPA/LI before, and it simply forces each PA to be worth exactly one, while handling the nuance of the impact of each event based on the game state.  At the extreme, ninth inning bases loaded, tie game, 2 outs, a walk is a HR.  So, WPA/LI handles that.

However, since it has greater oomph (based on the base/out state), then we multiply it by the LI of the baseout state (which is reLI).

So, there you have it: WPA/weLI * reLI.  A stat that me, Peter Jensen, and Guy can rally around.  I hope.

Guy, of course if you don’t care about any future considerations, you simply want the best reliever facing each batter.  That gives you the greatest chance of winning the game.  But, we all know that.  That is tautological.

The discussion was, or at least should be, how big a mistake was it to NOT use your best reliever against Ortiz and then Drew? And the answer, at least for Ortiz (I did not realize that the leverage was so high for the Drew PA), is that, “It was not a big mistake at all.”

That is why I said, “It was no big deal.” I did not say, “Yes, not bringing in a lefty was the RIGHT move.” Only that it didn’t matter all that much, which is correct.

And LI gives you a good idea as to how big a mistake it was.  That is the whole point.  If it is a small mistake to not bring in the optimal pitcher and you are gaining something more in the future, then you don’t bring him in.  If it is a big mistake not to bring him in, then you probably should bring him in, since it is unlikely that you are gaining more in the future.  And LI is a good way of figuring out how important not doing something optimal is (that and how much you lose by the mistake itself).

Your analysis is faulty on two levels.  It is NOT like if we bring in a lefty pitcher, he gets Ortiz out, and if we leave in Balfor, he hits a HR.  He is a little more likely to reach base, hit a HR, etc. against a righty than against a lefty, but that difference is NOT that important in terms of the change in WE.  Sure, if we compare an out to a HR, the absolute change in WE will always be large in almost any inning and any score.

The second thing, which Tango already mentioned, is that we are interested in the absolute change in WE and not the percentage increase.  As an extreme example, if a team goes from having a 1 in a million chance of winning to a 1 in a 100,000, no one really cares even though their chance of winning “went up 10-fold!”

MGL:  I agree with your last point—the 10-fold increase is not an important consideration.

But I think you’re wrong on the rest.  What we (the Rays, in this example) care about is identifying the PAs which have the greatest impact in determining whether we give up 6 or more runs over 7 outs.  The metric that answers that question is Tango’s, let’s call it “run leverage”—and not LI.  The outcome of the Ortiz PA was more important in terms of the aggregate likelihood that the Rays would score 6 runs than the Drew or Crisp PAs.  If bringing in a LH reliever gives you a better matchup, you should do it.  At that point, it’s unlikely you will later face a PA with a higher run leverage.  So whatever small price you pay—not having that LHP available to face a LHB later, or not having Balfour available for future hitters—is worth paying.

LI creates the illusion that later PAs are vastly more important—that Crisp’s was 9x more important than Ortiz’.  But it’s the run potential we should care about in this context.

Interestingly, the Sox recognized this principle in reverse context, when they brought Papelbon in with 2 on, none out in 7th.  The LI was virtually zero, but the run leverage was high.  It didn’t work out—he allowed the 2 runs—but I think it was the right move.

If bringing in a LH reliever gives you a better matchup, you should do it.  At that point, it’s unlikely you will later face a PA with a higher run leverage.  So whatever small price you pay—not having that LHP available to face a LHB later, or not having Balfour available for future hitters—is worth paying.

We are not in disagreement about whether it was correct or not to bring in the lefty with Ortiz at the plate.

What the LI does tell you though, is the relative magnitude of the mistake.  It was a bigger mistake, after the fact, not to use the lefty against Drew.  The fact that the LI was 4 or 5 times higher tells us that.

It is simple to figure out.  Compute how much WE it cost you with Ortiz, going from say, a .400 OBP hitter to a .350 one (RHP versus LHP) and then do the same thing for Drew.

I am pretty sure (not 100%) that the difference in WE with the Drew PA will be 4-5 times higher, a much bigger mistake.

I could be wrong though.

I thought Iwamura made a bad choice to go to 2B, but Coco Crisp ran like he thought he has the speed of Frank Thomas.  Is that the worst baserunning of this post-season?

When, on the ground ball by Ortiz in the 8th with runners on 1 and 2 and 1 out?

I didn’t think Crisp was running slow, his problem is that he went for the infielder instead of the bag.  Looks like he beat the throw, but he’s not touching the bag until after the slide.

MGL: yes.

Rally: I said it wrong.  I’m trying to say that Coco should have known that he would have made it easy (he had enough time to run hard, slide into second, pop up from his slide, and THEN the ball would have arrived).

If you watch the play from the 3B angle, you will see that Coco, at about 20 feet or so take a HALF STRIDE, as he prepares to slide into the fielder.  Watch that play from that angle.  You will be mortified.  At that point, he ran like Frank Thomas.  It was purely horrendous.  He ran as if the play at 2B was a foregone conclusion *AND* that a play at 1B was still a possibility! 

Can someone count for me the number of times the ball hit the ground in the grass before crossing Crisp’s running line?  If it was at least 2, that would mean at least 4 bounces before reaching the secondbaseman.  And, a guy with Crisp’s speed, under those conditions, should be thinking that he will be safe.  And furthermore, that there would be no chance for a DP.

And to add insult to injury, his a$$ reached the side of second base as the ball reached the SS.  He had a brain-lock. 

Iwamura, an excellent fielder, took an enormous gamble on a play where the ball took as long as it did to get to him, with a runner as fast as Crisp on.  I will (purely) guess that he has to get the runner out at least 80% (if not 90%) of the time to make the play he did worthwhile.

I’ll check as soon as post, to lock in my guess.

Ok, fielding team up by 2, 1 out, top of 8th, the choices are:

runners on corners, 2 outs
runners on 2b, 3B, 2 outs
bases loaded, 1 out

Here are the win numbers:
.854, .832, .669

So, the easy play (get Ortiz out at 1B) means they have a .832 chance of winning.  Going for the tough play means .854 (+.022) if you are right and .669 (-.163) if you are wrong.

That’s the tradeoff: .022 to .163, or 7.4 to 1.  Iwamura has to be right 88% of the time for that play to have made sense.

Sorry, but Iwamura was dead-wrong for going to 2B, and Coco Crisp made an even worse play by running like he did.  Iwamura at least had a poor grasp of the probilities in terms of throwing to 2B (he might have thought that maybe it was a 50/50 proposition).  Crisp was simply not thinking at all when he ran like he did.

I agree, a bad decision by Aki is bailed out by a bad decision by Crisp.  But of the two, Aki was in the better position to make a judgement, he could have looked at 2nd, thought no chance, and had plenty of time to get Ortiz at first.  By the time Aki fields it, Crisp has his back to the play.  At best he’s extrapolating from what he saw before Iwamura fielded the ball.

Right.  My point is that the ball was not that sharply hit (I’m sure it was at least two bounces before it crossed his running line).  The inference that Crisp has to make is that it is more productive to presume that it’s not a bang-bang play than to presume that he must go out of his way to take out the SS.

How would Crisp have even known if Iwamura bobbled the ball?  Not to mention it was not the typical short throw from 2B to SS that you’d expect.

Crisp presumed alot, far more than we could have accepted.  Not to mention that he left himself with no alternative, seeing that his a$$ was already past the side of the base by the time his hand touched the bag.

Of all the things that Crisp presumed and did during his run, he failed at each and every one.  Is there even one thing he did that was good?

I’d be up-in-arms about this play.  Is the press giving him a pass?

At the game it just looked like Aki made a pretty good play.  It did not look at all like Crisp was going to be safe, or made a mistake in his baserunning, but we really couldn’t tell, especially without benefit of replay and various angles.  No one said a word about that play at the game.

If you can get a video of the play from the 3B side, you will see what I mean.  Hopefully.

I’m not questioning your assessment at all.  Just thought it was interesting that it didn’t look like anything special in person.  I’m probably going to watch the whole game again anyway.

The video at MLB.com doesn’t show the 3B angle.  However, it does show only two bounces on the grass, and then into Iwamura’s glove.  It was not sharply hit, and Iwamura was pretty far from 2B meaning there was no way to turn two.  That’s the first important point.  With no expectation from the runner that this would be a DP, why think about breaking up the DP?

The second important point is that Crisp is fast.  Even with the chance to break up the DP, more important is the chance to be safe!  This is the equivalent of a productive out!  A regular slide would be enough to slow down the SS if he even had a chance at the DP.  You would make the slide Crisp did if the SS had a great chance at the DP, and you need to take him out.

Finally, if you see it from the 3B angle, he does a half stride, as he prepares to do a takeout slide.

Here’s the video from the usual angles:
http://mlb.mlb.com/media/video.jsp?mid=200810193632027

When Iwamura released the ball, Crisp was ten feet away.  I don’t know how Iwamura can make a throw under those conditions, knowing the breakeven point was almost 90%.  And I don’t know how Crisp can think of not trying to be safe, knowing that it was not a sharply hit ball, and Iwamura was pretty far from the base.

Well, 2B are taught to try and get the runner at second if they can, unless it is a pretty meaningless out, as compared to the one at first.  Aki probably thought that getting that out at second was worth more than it was and he was probably pretty sure that he was going to get it.  Had he not gotten it, it would have been another big TB blunder that might have cost them the series. And it’s not like fielders and runners have any time to make any assessments like that of course, although somewhere along the lines they should be taught rules of thumb for plays like that (like the “don’t make the 1st or 3rd outs at third” rule).

I watched the video. It looked like Aki had a good chance to get him when he fielded the ball. I’m not sure I would consider that much of a mistake in judgment on his part even though it ended up being close.

Crisp was running hard.  It was just that he did not slide into the bad with his feet.  He slid into the fielder, Bartlett and then tried to tag the base with his hand I think.  Has he slid directly into the bag, he might have been safe, although umpires tend to give the benefit of the doubt to the fielder on close force plays at second.  Even the commentator Darling said that had he slid directly into the bag, he might have been safe.

More of a mistake on Crisp’s part.  He should have known that there was no chance for a DP and just tried to be safe.  Then again, runners are used to trying to break up DP’s on ground balls right to fielders (as opposed to, say, balls in the hole of where the fielder has to charge the ball).

I’m going to move these betting posts here:
http://www.insidethebook.com/ee/index.php/site/comments/odds_of_the_rays_winning/

Mick, what was the % or money line you got from your sim. for game 7 and the series?

#232, move those questions to the thread above (#231).  Which series?

Anyone watch BJ Upton’s DP in the first inning?  The announcers said that when you check swing, you usually have a hard time getting out of the box.  That is more or less true.  What they didn’t tell you was that he also practically jogged toward first, apparently because he was PO’d that he hit a likely DP ball.  Did anyone tell him that he was playing in the World Series? I mean, I really have no words for not hustling in the biggest series of a player’s career.

How many uncontested stolen bases does Philly have to have before the Rays pitching coach or manager tell their pitchers to pay attention to the runners?

What is it about batters that they refuse to look offspeed and get embarrased by the fastball?  During the Phillies/Dodgers series, I said, “If you don’t look slider from Lidge these days, who are you going to look slider from?” Or something like that.

First at bat, Pena is way ahead of a first pitch slider, takes a second pitch slider right down the middle, and then swings at a third pitch slider in the dirt.

Second batter, Longoria, strikes out on 3 straight sliders.

It is criminal that the Rays’ manager or hitting coach do not tell the Rays’ batters, “With Lidge, look slider.  I don’t care if you look foolish on the fastball.” Period.

The general strategy of looking fastball and adjusting to the offspeed is fine if a pitcher is throwing the typical 70% fastball or so.  If a pitcher is throwing substantially fewer fastballs than that, that strategy goes out the window.  Of course.

That is somewhat the case against Hammel, who throws a lot of change ups.  Against a pitcher who has a good change up and can throw it in good locations, you have to guess change up or look for it a lot.

Basically, as a batter, game theory dictates that the better a pitch is, the more you have to look for it, in order to force the pitcher not to use it so much.

With few exceptions, if a pitcher is throwing a certain pitch a lot, the hitters are making a mistake in not looking for it enough.  The exceptions are when a pitch is so good (or so much better than the pitcher’s other pitches) that even if the batter is looking for it on neatly every pitch it is better than a pitch that he is not looking for.

I only saw 1.5 innings of that game last night.  so i have almost no opinion on most of it.  However, the one thing that really struck me is exactly what MGL said above: if Lidge is going to come in and throw 80-90% sliders, how is it that the 3-4-5 hitters can’t even get one good swing in?  They looked absolutely clueless at the plate, especially Pena and Longoria.  i was flabbergasted.

I wondered if Lidge’s slider just was so good they could not handle it.

At least one Rays hitter (I think Iwamura) was clearly sitting on changeups against Hamels.  He swung way late on a 90 MPH fastball right down the middle.  Next pitch he got his changeup and hit it for a single.

One thing that REALLY frustrates me about umpires is how they always give the hitter the benefit of doubt on an 0-2 pitch, and the pitcher the benefit of doubt on a 3-0.

Case in point: In Utley’s first at-bat last night, Kazmir gets him in an 0-2 hole. On the 0-2 pitch, Kazmir appears to throw a perfect slider on the lower/inner corner of the strike zone. I feel like on any count besides an 0-2 count, ump calls that a strike. Yet, the ump gives Utley the benefit of doubt, and two pitches later Utley hits a 2-run HR, giving Philly a lead that they never surrender

What frustrated me more was Fox’s refusal to use their “strike-tracker” (or whatever the hell it’s called) on that pitch. But on the next pitch, a slider in the dirt, they used the strike-tracker!

So, they don’t use it for the close pitch, but they use it for a pitch in the dirt. Does that make any sense?

Tom, there was a study a while back using pitch f/x data that suggested that umpires do NOT give the pitcher the benefit of the doubt on 3-0 counts.  In fact, the opposite. I would have agreed with you (about the 0-2 and 3-0 counts) until I read that study.  We have to be careful about what we think we know based on biased and inefficient processing of observational data.

I remember that pitch against Utley that I wanted to see but Fox didn’t show it.  I thought the same thing as you on the next pitch in the dirt - why are they showing us the pitch trax on a ball in the dirt?  In general though, they show us many, if not most, of the close calls, so I don’t think they did that on purpose.

Keep in mind when you watch the TV strike zones (pitch trax of whatever it is called) that there was also an article by one of the pitch f/x guys that showed that those TV strike zones were smaller than the real strike zone, at least according to the pitch f/x “real” strike zone.  Which is why you see most umpires consistently (or as consistent as they can be) calling pitches strikes that are appear inside and outside of strike zone, according to that TV box.

Welke’s strike zone last night was as bad as many of the umpires we have seen in the post-season.  He completely missed that low and away fastball on Howard that tailed back over the plate.  Also, why was Howard “jawing” with the umpire on that called strike 3 which had more of the plate than Kirstie Alley at her favorite restaurant (hopefully she doesn’t read this blog)?

Ah ok...I wasn’t aware of the 0-2 and 3-0 count study. I take it back then. I guess it must be selective memory.

I’m glad somebody else noticed how stupid it was of Fox to show the location of the pitch in the dirt, and not the close pitch right before. I’m sure it wasn’t intentional that they didn’t show the close pitch. Just stupid.

I also noticed the thing with Howard jawing at the ump. According to Fox’s system, the pitch was in the upper part of the strike zone, so maybe it was one of those high strikes that some umps call but others don’t? As far as the horizontal level goes, it was right down the pipe, so Howard couldn’t have been arguing that it was anything but high

Yeah, it was a little high, but when a pitch is in the TV strike zone, it is definitely a strike!  As I said, the pitch f/x guys have shown that the TV zone is a small zone.  Most of the borderline calls which are strikes are well out the TV zone or right on the edge.  If a player complains about a pitch that is completely inside of the TV zone, he is out of line.

OK, Manuel bats Utley and Howard back to back because he thinks they are his best hitters and he can’t imagine splitting them up (he used to bat Utley 2nd actually, which would be fine of course).

But is there ANY reason why Maddon has to bat Crawford and Floyd back to back?  I think that either one of those players can bat in several other positions in the lineup.  Certainly Crawford can.  Why does a manager have to go out of his way to bat back-to-back lefties?  That seems insane to me.

First inning, 2nd and 3rd no outs and Myers throws 4 straight curve balls to Pena.  O.K.

Buck says, “That tells you that he doesn’t mind walking Pena.” McCarver says, “That’s right.”

I know I’ve said this before about McCarver, but did he ever actually play professional baseball before, and as a catcher, no less?

Of course he doesn’t want to walk a guy with no outs in the first innings!

And you wonder why I think managers know very little about what is the correct strategy for even simple, basic things?  Commentators like Buck Martinez (who says so many wrong things, it is not even funny) and McCarver are from the same pool of people who manage teams.

McCarver: “You have to have a very good changeup to throw two in a row.”

Wow, is that an incredibly dumb statement!

I found it funny what Buck and McCarver said of Maddon last night:

Buck: Maddon’s a thinking man’s manager
McCarver’s reply: He’s a renaissance man.

They were talking about what a great defensive 3B Longoria is at the start of the game.  Maybe I just haven’t watched enough of the Rays, but it seems to me like he bounces every other throw to first.

He did bounce a critical throw in game 5, and another one that Pena caught in game six or seven.  He had a zero UZR this year.  But, once someone says something about someone and it “gets around,” it becomes the gospel according to these “blow-hard” commentators, and McCarver is THE blow-hard of blow-hards.

I am seriously thinking about writing a book, tentatively entitled, “Why Tim McCarver (and all the rest) is a big, fat liar.” A take-off on Al Fanken’s book of course.

Basically, it would be a compilation of all the hundreds of stupid things that we hear every day from these so-called baseball experts and how I can easily refute them with - get this - facts!

Why is a nightclub singer eating a five dollar bill?  I fail to see the connection with Quiznos.  Why not a dog?  Or a little kid?  Or a man wearing a costume?  Or a woman in a bikini?

I don’t think “book” was the term you were looking for. Have you considered “encyclopedia”?

When I would play RF, I used to love doubling guys off 1B.  There’s really no excuse there.  I’m going to guess that the breakeven point for something like that (with good hitter on deck) must be almost 100%.

http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/gameday/index.jsp?gid=2008_10_23_phimlb_tbamlb_1

I decided to watch the Gameday while watching Fox.  I just did it with the Ryan Howard PA (6th inning).  On Fox, pitches 4,5,6,7 were all in the same general vicinity.  I’d like to think so anyway.  But on Gameday, it didn’t look like that at all.  Just 2 looked like they were mapped properly.

I’m wondering if the success rates of Gameday depends on whether the batter makes contact.

Just choose one PA, whatever one comes up.  Hopefully you get at least 4 pitches.  Then, tell me if, relative to each other, the 4 pitches are mapped properly.  I don’t care so much if they all miss 6 inches high or low or left or right.  At least, that’s a systematic bias.  I’d like to see how well it simply handles it for one batter.

Just list the batter and inning.

Chalk one up to game theory on Victorino’s single.

I’m still trying to get used to this CF camera shot, to be honest.

Dobbs, 6th inn: I don’t think the three pitches were as close as Gameday says they were to each other.  Also, the ball bounced in front of the plate, but gameday shows it bouncing at the end of the plate.  That might be a default setting.  I’d rather it default to the front of the plate.

This is what I’m doing: after I see the pitch, I put the mouse over where I think it went.  Then I wait 10 seconds and see where Gameday shows it.  If it’s anywhere close, I’ll accept it.  If not, then I wait to see the next pitch and see if I’m biased one way or the other.

I dunno, but so far, after 2 batters, I’m not impressed.  Maybe I’m not impressed with myself.

Feliz, 6: ok on the three pitches.

Gameday let’s you see move the angle, enough that you can actually be behind the pitcher.  So, that’s what I’ll do for the next batter.  This way, I will see it on gameday the way I see it on TV.

I’m doing a few other things so I’m not fully paying attention, but I’ve done 3-4 scattered pitches and it seems fine to me.

Is Gameday the same as pitch f/x? I guess that’s two questions.  One, is it supposedly using the same data?  Two, if yes, is the graphic supposed to correspond to the actual pitch f/x location or is it just someone looking at the pitch f/x data and then clicking a mouse over a template of the strike zone using their “eye?”

Floyd, 2 pitches: ok.

Navarro: ok

Baldelli: I don’t agree with pitch #2.  I think Gameday showed it way too in.

Man, this is tough…

Pitch F/X data is made available through the Gameday XML files - Gameday is our source for Pitch F/X. So yeah, they should be the same thing.

Who does Maddon play Baldelli (especially against a RHP) when he looks like he can’t even lift a bat, let alone play baseball?

Ruiz: 10 pitches.  I think pitch 7 is wrong.  The height is right, but it was not off the plate away.  Can someone verify?  I missed pitch 10.  The others were right where I had them.

I’m going to stop now, because this is too much work…

OK, I’ve got Rollins in the top of the 7th on Gameday.  First you gotta center the view.  The default view is from a slight angle.

Pitch 1 a little high on the game day., Pith two, too much plate on the Gameday Pitches 3 and 4 pretty good.  Pitch 5 too high on the Gameday.  Pitch 6 a little too high and too much center of plate.

Not too impressed.  But not too horrible.

Werth

Pitch 1, a little high on the Gameday maybe.  Pitch 2 pretty good.  Pitch 3 right on the money.  Pitch 4, too much plate on Gameday.  Pitch 5, too outside on Gameday.  Pitch 6, right on the money.  Pitch 7, a little high.

Not too bad really. I didn’t see any bad misses.

What a great David Bowie song (Ground control to Major Tom)!

Did Joe Buck just say that “lefties don’t bother Ryan Howard,” and then quoted some numbers?  Seriously, I wasn’t paying attention.  He has a 241 point platoon differential (last 3 years)!

I am proud of the people who serve our country in the military, but that God Bless America was awful!  Sounded like me singing in the shower.  OK, maybe not that bad.  When I sing in the shower, the soap gets up and walks away…

Seriously, I should be writing these down…

He qualified it with “for stretches,” but yes, yes he just said that.

Doesn’t this count as writing them down?

MGL,

Too bad it’s a horrible rendition of David Bowie’s “Space Oddity.” The original is one my favorite songs.

Another one of my favorite songs The Who’s “Join Together” is also featured in a car commercial. I can’t remember which commercial.

Really? Price again?

Pretty marginal leaving Price in there.  Why not just bring in Balfor to pitch to Ruiz, Rollins and Werth, and then Howell to pitch to the lefties, if necessary.

Buck:  “Price did not get the statistical save, but he sure saved the game for the Rays.”

Huh, by coming in with a 4-run lead, giving up 2 runs and then allowing the tying run to come to the plate, not to mention the break on the hit by pitch to Rollins?  Yeah, great job!

Hey Price, you’re allowed to tell the truth on the hit jersey!  (He said, “Oh, you mean the jersey. It could have. I don’t think so.")

Doesn’t this count as writing them down?

Yeah, but that will be 1/10 of one percent of them, and I won’t remember where I “wrote” them anyway.

“ for stretches.”

Fill in the blanks.  You can put anything there and it would be true.

I didn’t mind the version of the Bowie song.  I like those Lincoln commercials except maybe the “technologic” one.  That is a really obnoxious sound effect.

Tango, any way I can host a chat during one of the games on this blog, or a few of us can have a round table chat with or without readers being able to ask questions or participate (I’d prefer questions)?

Would that be easy/hard/possible to set up on short notice?

http://www.coveritlive.com/

The Howard comment was typically dumbassed--Buck referred to “stretches”, and then gave as data to support a “stretch” theory...that Howard hit 14 HR off lefties THIS SEASON!

I see three possibilities--either Buck thinks this entire season was a good stretch off lefties (and it wasn’t, Howard was lousy against them) or he is willing to insult his viewer’s intelligence by providing clearly irrelevant data, or he’s just completely non-analytical.

Why can’t it be all three?

Colin, thanks.  Looks interesting.  Do you know if viewers can ask questions that can only be seen by the blogger?

That’s how I’ve seen it used before.

The game hasn’t even started yet…

Buck says, “Moyer is one of the best pitchers in the NL.”

I guess that is true if you insert “100 best” or something like that.

McCarver says, “Moyer rarely throws above 85.”

How about NEVER throws above 85 and rarely throws above 82?

Should Garza have been pitching in the 6th against Utley and Howard?

Of course not.  Any of the lefties in the pen are going to be much better than Garza.  Garza is a very good pitcher, but not a great one.

Managers will simply not take out a good pitcher who has only let up 2 or less runs unless they have a high pitch count.  In the WS, you have plenty of opportunities to use you pen.  And you should.  Early and often.

Should Moyer be pitching in the 7th?  Not even remotely close.  Any pitcher in the bullpen is better than Moyer the 4th time through the order.

But Manuel, being the genius he is, will wait until Moyer allows 2 or 3 base runners or a run or two and THEN he’ll take him out.

And Crawford was out by a mile of course.

Garza should have been pinch hit for in the fifth and, of course, should not have faced either of the lefties in the sixth as MGL said.
Also, why did Gabe Gross start this game against a lefty but Baldelli started the game against a righty?

I can barely watch baseball anymore, the managing is so bad.  One time, I would like to see a baseball game decided on the merits of the players and not on the continuous dumb decisions of the managers (and bad umpiring).

And now Chad Durbin, arguably the worst pitcher on either team, enters in a crucial situation.

Yeah, but Durbin has pitched well this year so he must be good.  Yes, he is definitely the worst.  Just terrible managing and advance scouting by both teams.  I was really looking forward to seeing Lidge in the 9th just to see if the Rays have finally realized that he throws lots of sliders.

A terrible job by both teams in the series so far in keeping runners from stealing.  McCarver actually something intelligent - that it is hard to keep a runner from stealing second (unless you have a slide step as a pitcher).  But when a runner steals third in a crucial situation, someone made a mistake.  The Phillies basically let Upton have third.  And I assume that the catcher went out to the mound to tell the pitcher to watch the runner on second.

Basically the tied game is on the first base umpire’s head for a terrible call, and on Manuel’s head for letting Moyer start the 7th, which was a joke.  Can you imagine what Moyer’s true talent wOBA against is in the 7th inning compared to ANY of the relievers in the bullpen coming in fresh?  Not to mention the fact that in the WS (any post-season game) you have the luxury of bringing in lefties and righties galore from the pen.

Also, why did Gabe Gross start this game against a lefty but Baldelli started the game against a righty?

Because Maddon is a megalomaniac who thinks that he is a genius, that’s why.

Honestly, with Baldelli’s illness, I have no idea whether he can start any game.  Nor do I have any idea what his true talent level (projection) is.  So I give Maddon a pass on that.  Plus, Moyer does not have a gigantic platoon split, as you would think with the number of change ups he throws.  Then again, Gross has a gigantic platoon split.

As I said, both managers, in their own ways, are pretty bad, bordering on really bad.  Maddon with his obsession with doing things unconventional, which more often than not, wrong.  Manuel with his traditional ways and stubborn refusal to do anything but what he usually does, for example batting the lefties back to back, and using his starter until the 8th (unless the starter gets in trouble or has a high pitch count), at which time he brings in Madson only (rather than any lefty/righty), and then Lidge.

I am done with baseball!  How can Utley NOT drop a bunt down?  There is no one on the left side of the IF! And how can Maddon do that?  Both managers are simultaneously showing how dumb they are, both in perfect alignment with their weaknesses that I described above.

That was awful base running by Werth.  With 2 outs!

No Tim, he didn’t “turn the wrong way.” Let’s see, if I remember back to my Little League coaching days.  Oh yeah, Tim, the pitcher has two moves to second.  One is the step off and turn towards your glove side.  The other is the “whirl” move where you turn towards the ball side.  Howell did the latter.  But McCarver never played baseball before, so you have to excuse him.

Why wouldn’t Balfour start the inning to face the righty if you are going to bring him in to face the switch-hitter?

I’ve talked about this before, but what is the point of walking a batter or two here with the winning run on 3rd and 0 outs?  You have to play the IF in, so a force at home doesn’t really help you (because the runner on 3rd won’t run with the IF in).  The only reason for walking one batter is to get a better matchup at the plate.  Walking two batters is almost never correct because the walk or HBP with the bases loaded loses the game.

Can anyone tell me the advantage of walking the bases loaded?

well, the obvious advantage is the force at home/ double play home-first, but I doubt that outweighs the walk factor...I presume you’ve done some math on this?  With a groundball, control pitcher, it could be viable I suppose--wbut ith Balfour??

I was wondering the same thing. Considering that Balfour already threw a HBP and a wild pitch (not that he is more likely to throw another, but it illustrated that his control isn’t that great to begin with) it seemed to be pretty imprudent.

The double play, home to first, is a rare play.  As I said, there is no advantage to the force at home!  If you don’t walk the bases loaded, you play the infield in (as you do with the bases loaded).  On a ground ball that is fielded, the runner at third holds and you throw the runner out at home.

Did anyone else think that Longoria should(could?) have let that ball go foul? It seemed like even the perfect play wouldn’t have recorded the out.

I think that’s a tough call.  It’d be very hard to just stand there and watch the ball maybe go foul, and if it doesn’t, you lose.

At the same time, there were no outs, and the bases were loaded.

The odds are that a run adds +.066 wins (and a win for the game) and an out at the plate removes .100 wins from the Phillies.  Letting it go foul will keep the odds the same (there were 2 strikes).

The argument should be how close should Longoria have been playing. I’d like to see a chart showing the percentage of times we expect a GB out (at home) or line drive out based on whether Longoria is playing at 50, 60, 70, 80, 90 (where Longoria was playing), 100, 110, 120 feet.

MGL, there’s no chat software associated with this blog, but there’s plenty avaiable around.  I think Yuku.com is one.

I think if Longoria had made a decent throw, then Bruntlett may of been out. I do think Longoria made the right decision in fielding the ball.

This World Series has certainly had it’s fair share of bone-head plays, oddball strategies, and bad umpiring. During the pregame, the Phillies even introduced their lineup backwards.

Regarding the pickoff play on Werth during the 8th inning, who didn’t foresee that happening. Bartlett was standing right on top of the bag and Werth had a huge lead. What the heck was he thinking in that situation. I guess that he had already made up his mind that he was going to steal 3rd with the shift on. I’ve never seen a middle infielder hold a runner on 2nd base like that before.

I wrote a summary of last nights’ poor managing by both managers at about 3 in the AM after the game.  Most of the same stuff I posted here.  THT was kind enough to put it on their site.

http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/a-battle-between-two-very-poor-managers/

It could be just “recency bias” but I don’t recall ever seeing such poor managing in a post-season.  What do you guys think?  Or are all these blunders just typical of most managing, magnified by the fact that it is the post-season, and now World Series?

It pisses me off that Maddon is getting a reputation as a great tactical manager.  As I have said many times, if you are the type of manager who likes to do things against the (traditional) “book”, like Maddon, you are in trouble. Of course, if you are an old-school manager, you are in trouble too.

I’m thinking about doing a live chat for the last game in Philly, game 5.  It looks like the chat software, like the one Colin mentioned, can be embedded on this site.  Do you know how that works, Tango?  I’ll take a look at Yuku.com as well.

MGL,

I would just sign up for the software that Colin suggested. Click on the ‘Try It Now’ Icon, fill out the registration, and go from there. You’ll have to play around with it and see how it works. The free version probably has some limitations though.

I too wondered about Longoria letting the ball go foul, but only after seeing the first instant replay.  It was most likely lose-lose either way.  On the wild-pitch, wild-throw that sent Bruntlett to 3rd base in the 9th inning, I did notice that the centerfielder Upton, did a terrible job of backing up the throw.  Instant replay showed him just watching the play flat footed, never moving until the throw got by the fielder covering 2nd base.  Once the batter did not swing, he should’ve moved in a little closer behind second base.  Having done this, he may have prevented the runner from taking third base.  Maybe.
vr, Xei

I did notice that the centerfielder Upton, did a terrible job of backing up the throw. 

That does not surprise me.  Even after the much ballyhood benching for not running out a GB, he still does not run out gb’s, especially on a DP ball.

I signed up for that chat software and I will play around with it tonight.

Maddon benched Upton a few times (maybe it was only once) during the reg. season for a couple of games for not showing any effort for his baserunning obligations, not to mention his fielding blunders.

I don’t think Upton is doing it on purpose. I think most of the blunders have something to do with his poor common sense. Great talent, but dumb as a rock. I think most of you guys already know this.

Watching you guys point out the mistakes that the managers are making so far this post-season, makes me realize how small of an effect managers really have to a team. To think the that Phillys or TB made it this far with managers like that.. wow! Maybe it doesn’t matter much how dumb these 2 managers are because 95% to 99% of them are that dumb.

BTW, watching Longoria play third base and his PA’s is ugly. He looks horrible on inside pitches. Going forward Lon. is going to be overrated by the mainstream, I think. At least TB signed him for a “bargain.”

Following up on mgl/289 and the excellent column in The Hardball Times, I have two simple questions:

1) Does it *ever* make sense to walk the bases loaded?

2) Is it the dumbest play in baseball?

My answers are “no” and “yes”.

I suppose with runners on second and third and 1 out, in order to set up the DP.  Maybe if the batter/pitcher matchup were favorable enough to overcome the extra win percentage generated from a walk/HBP winning the game.  You would certainly want to do it with a control pitcher (low walk rate) on the mound if you did it at all.  Grant Balfour is not the best guy with the bases loaded and no outs and the winning run on 3rd. Although in all fairness to Maddon, that is a good matchup for TB (Balfour and Ruiz).

So I wouldn’t say “never” but I always thought it was curious that it is generally accepted by managers and commentators that you automatically walk the bases loaded with the tying run on 3rd.  The “reasoning” is always that the other runners “don’t mean anything” which they don’t of course.  Somehow the pundits forget that you can’t walk (or hit) anyone once you load the sacks, as if that is a rare event.  Same thing when announcers talk about “choosing player A or player B” when contemplating an IBB in the middle of a game.  As if the walk doesn’t add anything to the batting team’s wp.  As if you can tell the other manager which player you would rather pitch to without putting anyone on base.

Arthur, I agree that one, most of the managers are in the same boat, so that a “bad” manager is generally right around the middle of the pack.  Also, there is no such thing as a manager who does the right thing most of the time.  That animal does not exist. The best manager in baseball (in-game strategy-wise) makes 50 wrong decisions a year, at least, and costs his team 2-3 wins as opposed to the “perfect” manager.  Two, all of those mistakes don’t really add up to a whole of wins.  As I said, maybe 2-4 wins a year.  Maybe less.  That isn’t wood (or cheese) though. Equivalent to an extra star player!

I take it back when I stated, that most if not all, managers are dumb. I’m in no position to make a claim like that. The words I was looking for was ill-informed, poorly advised, stubborn, naive. I won’t take it back when I wrote that Upton is a duffis.

Don’t you guys think that if you were managing a baseball team ( it could any of the managing pos. like gm, team manager, of course not 1st base manager, or the like) that you would be reading or doing some type of rigorous baseball research (especially if your team has been poorly performing for some time now)?

A lot great books are available almost at every local book store. For ex., THT, BP, etc.. I even found your book, THE BOOK, almost at every decent book store. Does the front office or managers think that they know so much, that this is not neccesary whatsoever?

I would love to be an insider of any MLB team(s) to find out what the managers do in the offseason (or during) to follow baseball. That would be cool to get info like that in detail. No?

I even found your book, THE BOOK, almost at every decent book store.

Did you find it in any indecent book store?

I agree with everything you said.  The world is not rational and certainly not efficient.

"Did you find it in any indecent book store?”

Hahaha..! Sometimes I make little sense. It must be a Russian thing. I’m joking with you, MGL.

Well, Steve Phillips, ESPN’s resident genius says that “not losing to Cole Hammels” is a “major win for the Rays.”

The problem with his logic (you won’t often see that word juxtaposed with Steve Phillips) is that the Phillies now have a (slightly) better chance to win the game than they did before the game started.

MGL - do you have the numbers for the rays’ win% before the game versus what it is at now, and do they factor in Hamels in some way? I would think that with fewer innings there’s higher variance, and that having it be a bullpen game instead of a game started by Hamels/Kazmir would make up for the extra three outs the phillies get, but obviously you’ve actually run the numbers and I haven’t. Could you post the win expectancy for both situations if you have the numbers handy? I’m curious, thanks.

Funny, as I can’t find The Book at any bookstore. Now that I got my 1st job (reffing soccer games), I think I’m going to buy it.

What’s the ISBN for The Book?

Also, should the Rays start the game with their bullpen, or give the ball to one of their starters?

If you click on the Amazon link at the top of any page on this site, you will see the 10-digit and 13-digit ISBN number.

#308 http://www.fangraphs.com/livewins.aspx?gameid=281027122

#311 - thanks, I see how he arrived at the current win% for the game. But this graph starts at 50/50, and I think we would all agree that Philly had a better than 50% chance to win it off the bat. I was just curious what exactly Philly’s chance to win it at the beginning was, as determined by one of the various simulations you guys use that factor in starting pitcher, home field advantage, etc. as well as the relative talent levels of the two teams. Seems to me like a shorter game (not to mention not having to face Hamels) leads to more variance and hence a better chance of a Rays upset than a full nine innings would.

#312

Phillies = 60%

http://accuscore.com/option,com_acc_mlb_game_preview/Itemid,/game_id,2463/tab,stats/

The fact that Philly had a pinch hitter and then the top of the lineup coming up, and TB led off with Navarro, was one reason for the line.  Plus obviously any team that is batting in the bottom of the inning in a tied game is going to be a favorite, especially late in a game.