THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

Thursday, September 27, 2007

The Joba Rules?  How about the Papelbon Program?

Ah, this I love to see.  Data recorders actually recording data in a stuctured manner, and data analysts analyzing that structured data.  And The Deciders making an informed decision.  Here’s the relevant quote:

The next morning team doctors and officials began devising the Papelbon Program. It covered two pages and was divided into three parts: how often he could be used, a daily testing program and a custom shoulder-strengthening program. For instance, Francona was not to use Papelbon three days in a row, or even two days in a row if he was coming off a high pitch count. Nor could he use Papelbon the day after he had pitched more than one inning.
...
Each day, when Papelbon reports to work, he sees Reinhold and estimates the fatigue level of his shoulder on a scale of zero to five, with five being the most tired. Then Reinhold hooks him up to a strength-testing machine that supplements Papelbon’s subjective score with an objective measurement of his shoulder strength. A report of the scores is logged along with Papelbon’s recent usage patterns and presented to Francona and front-office officials. A summary advisement is included, which might give Francona clearance to use Papelbon aggressively or keep him from using the reliever at all.

As more data gets collected, the Red Sox hope to draw some links between Papelbon’s usage and his fatigue. Are four-out saves, for instance, more taxing than working consecutive days? The program has worked so well and kept Papelbon so strong that Boston began loosening the rules in September, allowing Francona to use Papelbon three straight days for the first time this year.

The above article was in the magazine. For whatever reason, I prefer to read on paper than on a screen.