THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

I’m in total agreement here, and this is one of those mistakes that is literally made on a daily basis throughout baseball. Similarly frequent are teams who use one of their worst hitters or even literally their worst hitter in the starting nine to hit leadoff (looking at you, Terry Francona and Ozzie Guillen).

Based on the book, and on other things posted here, and some obvious things, I’m thinking a manager who followed game theory to a tee could be a new market inefficiency, literally a 5+ game improvement.  Who knows how many wins a lucky (as in things fall their way, not normal) team could add following game theory (10?).  Someday, somebody’s going to take the ball, and make baseball people think.  For a second or two.  I doubt much more than that though since despite moneyball, OBP and defense are still undervalued.

Well, getting lucky (10 games) is not the point, is it?  Teams can get lucky or unlucky no matter what they do, right or wrong.  The point is to add that 5 extra wins in expectancy, just like you do when you add a great player.

Someday it will occur.  It is almost a guarantee.  Once information is known and the use of that information is profitable, it is only a matter of time until that information is used for profit.

Defense is still “undervalued” in the sense that few baseball insiders know or understand how to measure and quantify it.  I never really understood what “OBP being undervalued” even means (other than just a silly, simplistic way of saying that sabermetrics is not understood among baseball insiders).  Good offense (and good pitching) is still undervalued to some extent because few (more than the defensive few though) baseball insiders understand how to measure and quantify that as well.

When teams like the Yankees and Red Sox build their offenses around high-OBP players, I’m not sure you can still call it undervalued.

Minor point, but Cormier actually batted 2nd in the 6th inning.  At that point he had only thrown 75 pitches, and the Braves bullpen threw 5 2/3 innings on Thursday night.  Therefore, I don’t see a problem with letting him go out for the 7th where he threw 15 more pitches.

I agree though that he should not have come out during the 8th, but it wasn’t as easy as you said in that he simply could have been pinch hit for in the 7th, since he didn’t bat in the 7th.

MGL—I hear you completely on Cox. I agree that he certainly isn’t the most strategically astute manager. However, he has been extraordinarily successful, no question. As I’m sure everyone appreciates there is a lot more to being a successful manager than nailing in-game strategy all the time. The benefit of this is as long as he does the right things SOME of the time he is effectively invoking game theory without realizing it, albeit inefficiently. Cox is a tremendous people manager. The players would die for Cox and he is fiercely loyal to them. That counts for a lot. The question is could Bobby take outside advice on strategy and be an even more effective manager? Yup, undoubtedly he could. But does that make him a bad manager. No.

John, I probably agree with you about Cox being an otherwise good manager. The only problem with that is that it is difficult if not impossible to say how good or whether we are even correct or not. As always, when I say a manager is good or bad, I am only referring to in-game strategies, lineups, roster construction (if he has any say in that), and the like.

And for the record, there is no “game theory” involved in most baseball strategies, so being “right” some of the time is NOT an optimal thing.

MGL, #3, that’s more or less what I meant.  I think it’s more power numbers, particularly HR (as a counting stat) is overvalued relative to simply getting on base.  Perhaps it has to do with the widespread acceptance of OPS as some kind of standard.  I agree though, teams like the the Red Sox have built great offenses based on getting on base.

Again, it is really just a lack of knowing how to quantify and project offense as it relates to marginal wins that allows sabermetric teams to get an edge in the trading and salary market.  Sure, overall, among the non-sabermetric teams, probably walks are undervalued and HR’s are overvalued.  But there is a lot more to it than that of course.  Positional adjustments are not understood, so that corner OF’s and 1B man are overpaid.  The expectation that 1B should be power hitters gives sabermetric teams opportunities to get non-power hitting but otherwise good first baseman at a bargain.  Sample size and regerssion is definitely not understood by most teams so sabermetric teams have opportunities to get rid of players who have done well lately and pick up players cheaply who have not done well lately.  Aging curves are not understood by non-sabermetric teams (many of them think that players peak in their 30’s).  Veterans are (probably) overvalued as are players who are perceived as “leaders” in the clubhouse.  Catcher defense is for some reason overvalued, such that you can probably get a decent or good hitting catcher who is not perceived as a “good handler of pitchers” or a “good receiver” cheap, like Ramon Castro of the Mets.  Etc.

So yes, “OBP being undervalued” as the poster child for sabermetric player dealings is silly.

Cox has always had the same characteristics as a manager- excellent with players, weak on strategy.  We saw that in spades in Toronto in 1985.

Do we have charts on average starting pitcher effectiveness following a good first 4 innings (say 1ER or less, FIP of 3.00 or less), a good first 5 innings, a good first 6 innings (2ER or less, FIP of 3.00, less than 90 pitches)?  I’d be interested in “next 5 batter performance” in each case.  My theory is that it would be no better than league average in each case.

Mike, in The Book, I looked at this issue, and found barely no difference.

I presume you are asking for this kind of breakdown on a manager-by-manager basis?  That is, how often does a manager pull a pitcher after 6 good innings after cruising say through the 5th/6th?  You’d also have to worry if he was lifted for a PH in a close game.