THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

I love those three bulletpoints!

so interesting… if you read any of the recaps of this game, the blame goes to Cody Ross misjudging a line drive and Freddy Sanchez making a bad throw.

In Henry Schulman’s piece in the SF Chron, he lays Bochy’s logic out clearly, but the cognitive dissonance is jarring:

“Manager Bruce Bochy rewarded Sanchez for eight shutout innings by allowing him to start the ninth in a bid for his second career complete game. The other was his no-hitter last year. Sanchez got ahead of Fowler 0-2 but then threw four straight balls, most of them not close. The lefty said he tried too hard to get the out once he was ahead.”

The most objectionable aspect of the Bochy thought pattern is the notion of “rewarding” Sanchez with the opportunity to begin the 9th inning. I’m personally curious as to how much the Giants’ win odds would have gone up in the bottom 8th with a solid PH in place of Sanchez at bat.

Good question in post #3.  Really there are two things to answer to figure that out.  The difference in win expectancy in the B8th using a pinch vs letting Sanchez hit.  Then the expected win difference in starting the T9th with Sanchez vs the top choice for a reliever.

Obviously it is going to come out to being a bad decision, but the question is by how much?

I watch a lot of Giants games and am often struck by the way so-called old school guys like color man Mike Krukow and Bruce Bochy consider individual stats when discussing game strategy.  Krukow sometimes mentions the importance of letting a guy finish the 5th so he can get the “W” even when he’s struggling, and now here’s Bochy “rewarding” Sanchez by giving him a chance at a CG even if it means putting the team at a disadvantage.

Old school guys care about stats as much as anyone. I guess they are just focused on the wrong ones.

"Rewarding” a pitcher when you are in a fierce pennant race?  Are you kidding me?  To me, that should get you instantly fired.  That is fine if you are out of the race or at the beginning of the season.

And yes, Cody Ross butchered that fly ball and Sanchez made an awful throw (a good throw gets Gonzalez at third easily), but that is a strawman.

I don’t know off the top of my head how much not PH for Sanchez and letting him start the 9th cost, but even the worst decision a manager can make NEVER costs more than a couple of tenths of a run or a few hundredths of a win.  It is the sum total of all those mistakes (of which I submit there are hundreds in the course of a season) that are costly.  You can’t let one pass without letting all of them pass. It is the “My vote doesn’t mean anything” syndrome.  Or the, “If I lose one hair at a time, eventually I will be bald.”

How many times have I said this (and given the evidence to back it up)?  The worst decisions that managers make, and they make it all the time, are letting non-elite pitchers hit in high leverage situations in the middle and late innings, and not removing their starters when they have faced the lineup 3 or more times.

The most illogical part of the whole thing, even from a “manager think” perspective, is letting him face the switch hitter (Fowler) who hits MUCH better as a RHB (for the last 4 years) and then taking him out against the lefty (Gonzalez).  Plus he could have brought in Affeldt to pitch to Gonzo and THEN brought in Wilson or left in Affeldt to pitch to the RHB and then to another LHB, Helton.

Horrendous managing by Bochy, all the way around…

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen La Russa make the exact same mistake as Bochy—lets the pitcher hit in a key situation in the late innings, then immediately yanks him the next half inning.  Never understood it, never will.

First. Obviously, he did not want to go to his closer who threw 30 pitches the night before. Even a pitcher who might not have much in the tank can get a couple of outs w/o damage if BABIP smiles on him.  Unfortunately, there is no defense for a walk, so Bochy needed to move.

Second. If he did pinch hit for him, he would have went directly to the closer, who would have faced Gonzalez anyways as the 2nd batter anyways.
Who can say what the outcome might have been except in hindsight.

Third, why he did not go to a LHP’er before going to his closer who threw 30 pitches the night before is a good question.  Maybe because Gonzalez has a a slightly higher OPS against LHP’ers (call it even), and your closer handles LHB’ers pretty well.

One more thing, even the best PH makes an out 65% of the time.  The average PH makes an out 70% of the time, while the average pitcher makes an out 82% of the time. That differential is hardly a game changer to my way of thinking, especially in a low run environment.

pft I don’t understand what you’re saying.  You say that Bochy “obviously” did not want to use his closer, but then you surmise that, had Sanchez been taken out in the 8th, Bochy would’ve gone to his closer to start the 9th?  So in reality he DID want to use his closer?

It does not matter how Bochy personally feels about using his relievers.  Clearly managers are forced to make decisions that they would prefer not to do had circumstances gone differently.  What matters is their behavior, not their personal wishes.  Managers should not be excused because they have to sometimes make uncomfortable decisions.  That’s why they’re paid all of this money and we aren’t: it’s their job to make these supposedly tough decisions.  For all intents and purposes, Bochy wanted to us his closer in this game because he did use his closer in this game.

I think this is a bit harsh on Bochy - he has many failings, but his use of the Giants pitching staff isn’t among them.  It was one bad decision.

#11—I’ve seen Bochy let a pitcher hit for himself other times when it’s late in the game, the Giants have the lead, but the pitch count and the situation suggest a substitution would be better. 

Leaving the pitcher in always gets a big cheer from the crowd and the broadcasters eat it up too.  They say it shows that he “believes” in the pitcher. I think he’s pandering to the crowd.

He’ll pander his way right out of a post-season berth with a little more of that.

Watching the Giants is so infuriating, I can’t do it anymore.

Kruk and Kuip are constantly telling me that a guy is 3-for-7 against this pitcher (so he owns him) or he’s 1-for-7 (and so he’s due.)

Bochy and Sabean probably believe that crap.  Stupidity goes all the way to the top in this franchise.

"He’ll pander his way right out of a post-season berth with a little more of that.”

Not buying it.  We’re not talking about very consequential moves here, and ignoring all the other times he makes good moves - like bringing in his closer in leveraged, non-typical-closer situations for instance - doesn’t strike me as something worth getting worked up about.

If we miss the playoffs because of manager decisions, it will be because of the lineups Bochy writes and players he chooses to play, not because of the decisions he makes with the pitching staff.