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Wednesday, January 06, 2010
Who gives up the fewest bad intentional walks?
Cool article by Steven Biel:
In Chapter 10 of The Book, Tom Tango, Mitchel Lichtman, and Andy Dolphin analyze when issuing a free pass does and doesn’t increase a team’s odds of victory and provide a very helpful table listing all the different base-out-score situations when an IBB might be beneficial, depending on the relative strength of the hitters due up.
Determining the relative strength of the hitter at the plate and those due up is more than a bit subjective, including the hitter-pitcher match-up, the health and recent performance of the hitter, and a host of other factors. So I’m (very generously) giving managers the benefit of the doubt there. Instead, I’m just pulling together all the instances in which a free pass was issued in which there’s no statistical chance that the walk improved the pitching team’s odds of winning.
I didn’t realize that the D’Backs only issued 3 IBB all season (two of which, apparently, were wrong). Rox were second at 11, and Mariners third at 13. On the flip side is Macha of the Brewers with 60 IBB, of which 23 were apparently very wrong.
Great job. I love it when people expand on existing work, and roll up their sleeves and give us some good research.
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