In-game_Strategy
In-game_Strategy
Wednesday, April 16, 2014
Good stuff from Ben. He notes that between 2010 and 2014, the number of seconds between pitches is up by about 0.85 seconds. With nearly 300 pitches per game, that's over 4 minutes. Game time is up by 12 1/2 minutes.? So, it's not just the time between pitches.
Fangraphs has the Pace figures for all players, including in this handy leaderboard.
Sunday, April 06, 2014
?Interesting that the discussion got into the nuances of the ball-strike count.
Friday, April 04, 2014
A straight arrow reader reminded me of this solution we had. I don't remember what our ultimate opinion was, so, I'll throw it back out there again. I also sent it to Poz and Bill, and maybe they'll talk about it as well.
One of the Straight Arrow readers had proposed that: in any 4-pitch walk (or hit batter), the batting team has the option to send the on-deck hitter to first base, and keep the batter at the plate to start at 0-0. (If you must, you can limit it to 1 or 2 outs, or if you really must: 2 outs.)
Basically, trade spots with the on-deck hitter.
So, for those teams that like the idea of "setting up the DP", they can still do it.
For teams to walk the #8 hitter to face the pitcher: that will stop tomorrow.
For teams to walk Cabrera (even unintentionally, but without a strike) to face whoever is on deck: well, now Cabrera is guaranteed to get either at least one strike, or have at least a runner on base.
Let's just say this is payback for all the times he was handcuffed.
?
Friday, March 21, 2014
?Jeff takes a look.
Friday, February 28, 2014
Jason on Fangraphs rolls up his sleeves, and does terrific work in looking into each Rangers bunt to see how it matches to The Book. The aspiring saberist out there should do it for every team, and see how each manager ranks.
***
As an aside, in reading the comments to that article, I have to keep reminding people: we do not, EVER, care about scoring "exactly" 1 run. It is ALWAYS about "at least" 1 run.
This is much better understood if you focus on win expectancy (WE) and not run expectancy (RE), then we wouldn't ever be having this at least / exactly discussion. The Book provides those WE tables, so, I'd like to see those cited instead of RE. RE is a useful proxy, but when readers get confused with the at least / exactly 1 run, then we should simply talk about WE.
Thursday, February 20, 2014
?These guys not only claim to have a model that highly predicts when a manager will pull a pitcher, they also claim their method for pulling pitchers is better. PDF is here.
Monday, February 17, 2014
?His hitting coach with the Yankees said this:
[quote] “He overcame so much while he was here,’’ Long said. “As a young kid there were holes everywhere. There were holes in his swing, in his makeup, in his body composition. This kid grew and grew and grew.
“All the other stuff … he’d take plays off in the field, he’d give away at-bats in RBI situations. He made a lot of personal decisions to get over the hump in those areas. People don’t know how hard he worked, how many times he was the one asking me to do extra work in the cage.’’[/quote]
Fortunately, we have a pretty good stat that tells us how a hitter hits in various base-out situations. It's called RE24 (run expectancy by the 24 base-out state), which you can find at both Fangraphs, and Baseball Reference. Since BR has the data I need in one nice little chart, I'll reference that one. What we do is compare his actual performance in the 24 base-out states, to his overall performance. That is, compare his RE24 to his "BtRuns". And from 2005-2009, his situational performance was 56 runs lower than his overall performance. So, there's definitely a strong indication that he did not tailor his performance to the base-out situation in his youth. Since then, his situational performance was 17 runs higher than his overall performance.
Whether all this was a conscious decision, or simply luck, you guys can look into it more.
***
As for his lack of hustle tainting him: as I've said in the past, at the minimum, you should run out as hard as you would in practice. That's because, at the very least, you would treat the game as if it was practice. It's NOT a question as to whether running at 60% or 90% will add bases or runs or wins to THIS appearance. No, that's a strawman. It's simply the exact same idea as to why you run at 90% or higher in practice: to develop good habits so that when it DOES matter, you will be running at 100% in the future.
Basically, if it came to an actual real-game close play, who is more likely to have run at 100%: the guy who always runs at 100%, or the guy who picks and chooses when to run at 100%?
That said, what counts in the end is your performance. You don't knock Gretzky down because he didn't finish his checks. You don't knock MVP candidate Vlad down because he chased pitches. Not unless you think these things are ultimately indicators of a poor future.
So, don't knock Cano's supposed lack of hustle for the same reason. Especially since is the last guy who got a bunt double.
Tuesday, February 11, 2014
?We've talked about this a few times on the old blog (due a search for Catfish, McDowell, a few others). Neil brings it up today.
I don't remember what we had concluded, but going through it quickly: there's some 20 or 30 points of wOBA of advantage you'd gain, and if it's for two plate appearances, that's worth about 0.04 runs each inning. Fielding-wise, you have to figure you've got a Frank Thomas kind of fielding player, which means it'll cost you some 20 to 30 runs per 162 G on the field to knock out your 1B, or an average of under 0.02 runs per inning.
The other aspect is the injury factor of making someone play an unfamiliar position, but presumably they'd have plenty of practice beforehand.
Naturally, if you are going to knock out your 1B from the game, it better be the 9th inning, and the 1B's turn at bat is not due to come up. So, you have to also figure out the chance that the game will go into extra innings without your 1B batting. Someone else can take it from here...
Friday, January 03, 2014
?I like the question and love the approach.
Approaching it from the other angle, the authors of The Book found that relievers "can handle a much heavier workload than current managers are imposing" without diminishing their performance. This suggests that bullpens may not need as much saving as is usually assumed.
Working off this research, I wanted to determine the dynamic impact a longer-than-average start has on a team's winning percentage in subsequent games. If, as is claimed, a starter who pitches longer into games refreshes the bullpen, we would expect to see the performance of a team's bullpen improve, translating into a greater-than-expected winning percentage in the few days after a long start. And if this effect exists, it should be included in our calculations of pitcher value, as it suggests that an "innings-eater" -- those starters who can be counted on to pitch a large number of innings, year after year -- adds value to his team not only on the days he pitches but also on the next few days.
?An interesting article that missed one important item, best captured here:
Looking at the all-time IBB leaders, their average WPA per IBB cluster around that number: .0107 for Hank Aaron, .0100 for Willie McCovey, .0102 for Manny Ramirez, .0106 for Ken Griffey, .0101 for Prince Fielder, .0105 for Albert Pujols, .0111 for Miguel Cabrera. Vladimir Guerrero is the far outlier, at .0120 per walk. Bonds, at his peak, nearly doubled that.
WPA assumes "average" future conditions, and average present conditions. A great hitter, like Aaron, Junior, Pujols, etc, are worth, on average, about +.07 runs per PA. But in IBB situations (runner on base, 1B open), it's probably more like +.10 runs per PA, which is +.01 wins per PA. And, lookie there, the WPA of their IBB was +.01 wins per PA. This is why we call IBB win-neutral: it's not that their win value is 0, but that their win value relative to the other options (pitching to a great batter) is win-neutral.
So, when the author states that Bonds doubled their numbers at his peak, well, I think that's fine. After all, at his peak, 2001-2004, generated +.17 runs per PA in all situations, which means that in IBB situations, he would have otherwise generated +.23 runs per PA, or +.023 wins per PA. That he was issued IBB below this level, on average, likely shows that many, most, of his IBB were good IBB.
But what about that bases loaded one? I talked about it here.
Monday, December 16, 2013
Bill James makes a comment that the economic bubble will pop in under five years.
If you can bunt for a hit, it almost always makes sense to do it. That's why this era we are in, with the great frequency of defensive shifts, will probably end in about five years. Young power hitters will figure out that they can hit .700 against it by bunting, and they'll start bunting, and force managers to abandon the shift. It only works because people don't bunt.
By the way, I made a similar point this spring, and added that "sometime this year, I expect to see some hitter bunt for a double." I didn't see it all year, and I was thinking I would have to acknowledge my error on that one, and then, the last time the Red Sox played the Yankees, Robby Cano bunted for a double up the left field line.
?
A big focus of the Yankees was pitch-framing. Was it something they taught?
I don't know if they really taught it. I know they're really big on it. They might do it in their lower system now. But when I was there -- I was there for two years in the minor leagues [2008 and 2009]. It wasn't really that big of an issue. I think in the last year or two it's really kind of taken off. They're able to quantify how it affects the game. So I think more teams are trying to catch on to it. It's something I've always done pretty well, so it's actually nice. I have a skill set that I think doesn't get measured on paper -- yet. It's starting to come around, and they're starting to see how the small things I do affect how a pitching staff does. I think that's why the Yankees brought me back two years ago, because they liked my pitch-framing and how I worked with the pitchers.
Do you think [it's] a skill that can be developed, or something that you just naturally [are good at]?
I think it's a combination of both. Obviously, you have to have the ability to have soft hands. I played shortstop in high school. [But] you can definitely work on it. It's just repetition. It's bullpens. You try to stay soft and try to catch the ball. It's about reading the ball and catching it in the umpire's strike zone. If, say, a curveball drops low and it's going to drop down out of the strike zone, I catch it back here, or I try to catch it out there in the strike zone. There's a lot of mental preparation going into it -- how you're going to catch balls in a certain area. The idea is to make everything look like a strike to the umpire. It may not necessarily be a strike, but if you make it look like a strike. Or even if the umpire calls it a ball, if you make it look a lot closer than it was, in the umpire's mind, he's thinking, 'Okay, this guy's around the zone,' so therefore, maybe a ball two or three inches off the plate, he's thinking, 'Okay, this guy's been around the zone. Been throwing strikes. That might have been a strike.'"
So if you catch a pitch that he calls a ball and it's close, [and] you made it look like a strike, that might affect a pitch later on?
Later on. Exactly. That's the idea. Make everything look a whole lot better than it was. I don't want the umpires to feel bad, but at the same time, I'm trying to get every pitch called a strike.
?
Tuesday, November 26, 2013
Well, whoever this hitter is, he's my hero.
Who was the only player to successfully reach base via a bunt against a shift four or more times during the 2013 season?
UPDATE: The answer was posted in the comments. It was:?
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Monday, November 25, 2013
Pizza notes that you can get the better fielder 10% more plays (and the worse one 10% fewer naturally). So, a RF that is +15 runs better than average would gain +1.5 runs to be at +16.5, while a LF that is -15 runs relative to average? would end up being -13.5, and so, another +1.5 run gain, for a total of +3 runs. For the season. That's the way these optimizations usually work, two runs here, three runs there.
But beyond just lefty-righty, we can see an actual time this happened:
"After Thigpen threw a ball to Cromartie, Chicago manager Jeff Torborg switched outfielders, moving Tim Raines from left to right and Sammy Sosa from right”
...
“Torborg, anticipating a late swing, switched Tim Raines and Sammy Sosa in the outfield, putting Sosa in left. And that’s where the left-handed Cromartie hit”
...
“Manager Jeff Torborg explained later he was playing a hunch Cromartie would go to left. Sosa has the best arm among White Sox outfielders.”
***
I don’t think there’s a saberist alive that would have the b-lls to do what Torborg did.
The amount of second-guessing when a hitter hits a ball to an out-of-position and worse-fielder is going to be enormous. And, it'll happen alot. The manager is going to get no credit for when it works, and all the blame for when it doesn't. Beyond the spectacle of seeing outfielders trade spots between batters is that the manager has to explain himself on every play.
Thursday, November 14, 2013
MGL is what is called a "subject matter expert" (SME). One of the key decisions we made with The Book was that one of the three of us wrote a chapter independently, while the other two would provide the constructive criticism in the review process. As you might expect, MGL pulled no punches with us, and this was good, because he made our chapters bullet-proof. I would even say that every saber-book should go through MGL for review. (And Phil Birnbaum too.)
Anyway, I thought this clip, among many others, was interesting:
And BTW, telling us that a bunt results in reaching base 58% of the time is not quite the whole story. We also need to know how many bunt attempts resulted in a strike. Imagine that if a player attempted to bunt 10 times, fouled it off or missed it 9 times and reached base once. That is probably not a good result even though it looks like he bunted with a 1.000 average!
It is also curious to me that 7 players bunted into a shift almost 4 times each, and reached base 16 times (a .615 BA). They are obviously decent or good bunters. Why are they not bunting every time until the shift is gone against them? They are smart enough to occasionally bunt into a shift, but not smart enough to always do it? Something doesn’t seem right.
?
Tuesday, November 12, 2013
This is something that MGL has said quite a bit, and Brian says here:
Whatever is good for me is equally bad for you, and vice versa. So if stopping the clock right now is not what you want, then it must be what I want. It can't be possible for both teams to benefit from allowing the clock to run down. One or the other team derives an advantage, however small, from stopping the clock.
He notes the exception is when it goes beyond this particular game, like an injury. So if ever you don't know what to do, do the opposite of whatever your opponent wants you to do. If your opponent puts four infielders to the right of the 2B bag, then bunt to the open side.?
Monday, November 04, 2013
?GuyM makes a fantastic point here:
Many commenting here believe that Farrell had enough “inside” information not available to MGL or other outside analysts — about Lester’s future performance, the future performance of Tazawa or other relievers, and/or Napoli’s hitting performance — to make the decision to let Lester hit at least potentially correct.
Fair enough. But I’m not sure they realize what an immense amount of hidden knowledge this theory requires. If the secret information available to managers has enough predictive power to make this decision correct, or even a 50-50 proposition, that basically means we cannot analyze or second guess any decision that any manager ever makes. The decision to pinch hit for Lester, using data and traditional quantitative analysis, is about as black-and-white as any decision a manager will ever make. Benching Allen Craig at DH in favor of Kozma would have a smaller negative impact on a team’s WE.
If managers have enough secret knowledge to override the standard statistical conclusion here, then there is virtually no tactical decision that any manager will ever make that we can criticize from the outside. It will always be possible that the particulars of the situation, known only to the manager, made his decision correct.
So take this position if you feel you must. But I hope all who do will at least be consistent and promise they will never again second guess any decision made by any MLB manager. Because by your own logic, you don’t possess enough information to evaluate anything that these men do.
Wednesday, October 30, 2013
?I'd rather watch pitchers-as-batters than see an IBB being issued.
The fix is easy: give the team that gets the walk the option of sending the batter or the on deck hitter to first base, while the other gets to bat.
Glove-slap to whichever Straight Arrow reader suggested it.
Matt uses Andy's charts in The Book, along with his estimates of the talent of the Sox hitters with/against the platoon advantage. You can compare this to the chart I did for Bonds, back in 2002.?
Tuesday, October 29, 2013
Watching Lester squaring up to bunt against Wainwright (*) was the low-light of the game. It's like making sure everyone has a chance to touch the ball or puck, so you have to pass the puck to the guy who can't skate, just to make sure that he was able to touch it. Jon Lester has no business being at the same plate as Mike Napoli, just as Mike Napoli has no business being on the same mound as Jon Lester.
(*) Why was he throwing curve balls??
The difference between hitting and fielding is that in hitting, everyone has to bat around. They are all equals. In fielding, you can put the best fielder on the field where he's most likely to make an impact (SS), while a pitcher will rarely be involved in a play. There's no rotation system to ensure that each fielder plays each spot each inning. Why? Because that would be ridiculous. We want to see Andrelton Simmons at SS, and not splitting his time there and at 1B and at Pitcher.
If we insist that the batting lineup must be "equals" and "rotation", then there's zero reason to require the pitcher hit. None. Hoping for a Felix v Johan scenario means sitting through thousands of Lester v Wainwright scenarios. That's not a good trade.
Instead, we can go with the one-and-done DH (someone recommended the single-use DH). Or you can call it the designated-pinch hitter. Whatever. In this scenario, Napoli would have come to bat in the 5th, and spared Lester. Then at the end of the half-inning, the manager decides which of the two stays in the game. So, Napoli is out, and Lester remains. (Lester would have still batted for himself in the third, because Boston wouldn't want to burn through their bench so fast.)
And in the 7th inning? Once again, someone comes to bat for Lester, and after the half-inning is over, the manager decides which of the two to keep in the game. (Or none actually, and replace them with a third guy. Just not both.)
In the end, maybe the pitcher will come to bat once a game, out of every 4 times the slot come up. And that's perfectly in balance with the SS fielding 4 times as many balls as the pitcher.
***
Now, some of you argue that the NL rules are perfectly fine. Well, you're wrong. It's an opinion you will argue. Well, no, you are wrong about that too.
The pitcher is highly specialized, like a goalie and a QB. They simply have very specific individualized rules for these players. A goalie and QB can't be touched. A goalie can't even go into the penalty box, even when assessed a penalty (a skater takes his place, like a courtesy runner in low-level baseball). And a pitcher is on the roster SOLELY because of what he does on the mound while pitching. No matter how good or bad a hitter, no matter how good or bad a fielder, the decision to put a pitcher on the mound is dictated entirely by his perceived talent while pitching.
To then make that as something more, that he happens to be on the field, and so, "hey, let's make him bat too!" is to hold your nose, close your ears, and squint your eyes to see something that simply is not there. That's simply politcal reasoning, looking at an issue in such a slanted way, in order to make your tenuous point.
And if DH had been in existence across MLB in 1973, we'd never even have a discussion to allow pitchers to hit. Ever. It's simply the combination of inertial reasoning and "purity of baseball" that this situation has festered for as long as it has.
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