In-game_Strategy
Some nice work from Patrick, with a focus on the Mariners.
It would be nice to see if there's been any kind of historical shift in MLB in who/when the sac bunt is employed, either at the player or manager level.?
The good news is that the researcher did alot of research. He also tackled alot of different issues. And he brought alot of those issues together. If you keep your expectations from that standpoint, I think you can get alot out of the article.
There's a few things that are correctable, such as the writer needing to do things on a per-rate basis, and not correlate gross numbers. Disspelling with the notion as to what's an acceptable correlation (expecting r=.84 is going to make you wait a long time and end up missing alot). And talking about Carlos Pena and not talking about shifts. There's a few others, but, I'm not in the mood.
I think that the article would have played better as a series of smaller articles, so that the writer could have incorporated ideas from readers.?
Paraphrasing, he's saying: process over outcome. Here's what he actually said.?
A reader on Bill's site suggested:
the manager is free to send hitters out in any sequence he wishes, so long as all nine players bat before any one player gets an additional turn. In other words, the scoreboard could feature an indifferently ordered list of nine names that'd be scratched through one-by-one until they were all gone, at which point the scratches would vanish and the skipper would be again free to bat whomever in whatever new order... None on, two outs? Send the pitcher up in the first inning... Man on third, two outs? You could bat your star or save him for a hopefully more lucrative chance down the road?
I remember Patriot offering this alternative, but only for the DH, that you can use him at will, as long as he doesn't bat more often than anyone else has at that point. Everyone else remains fixed in order. You may actually WANT to put say Pujols at DH and not 1B, figuring that taking a chance of being able to leverage Pujols for 3 PA, maybe 4, is better than guaranteeing 4, maybe 5 PA, and his glove on the field.
I love this kinds of ideas. It's really the closer-usage conundrum the manager faces, holding back your better player for an opportunity that may never come. You're hoping for a base/out Leverage Index (LI) of say 1.6 or 2.1, and instead you are getting 1.2 and 1.4, so you wait, until all that's left at the end is to use him with an LI of 0.7.
Note: if you don't like this party, don't poke your head in to tell us so. We get it, you prefer inertial reasoning which you will wrap with your tradtionalista flag. If you can join the party, and make it more fun, feel free to comment.
Great analogy from Bill James, which leads to Jason making this statement:
Barry Bonds was intentionally walked 688 times in his career. That is, an entire Barry Bonds season was wiped out, stolen from baseball fans
Love it! And I agree, the walk should be a penalty to the pitching team, not a reward. We already have good options on the table, from past threads over the years.?
Dave shows what happens at the plate when you issue an IBB. Basically, the production of the batter at the plate is about 15% lower than what an average batter would be. That costs about .02 runs per PA. But, putting a runner on first base, say with two outs, adds .13 runs per PA. The net effect based on just these two quick views is .11 runs.
In any case, Table 4 in The Book has the data needed. In the base-out states before an IBB is issued, there's an average of 0.743 runs to end of inning. In the base-out states after an IBB is issued, an average of 0.845 runs score. That difference is 0.102 runs, which is the impact of the IBB. And, it matches up nicely with the sniff numbers in the paragraph above. ?
Anyway, we have a whole chapter devoted to the IBB, so, it's definitely worth a read.
***
Doing a quick google, here's MGL talking about the IBB.
I seem to have this memory of Tim Raines being bunted over to secondbase this one time, and that Raines was plenty upset about it. I don't know if it's a real memory or a nightmare. But, I can't imagine a scenario where it would make sense to bunt the greatest basestealer in history, rather than giving him the chance to steal second. And I can't imagine a scenario where Rickey's ego would allow for it either.
Matt is placing Mike Trout in that company, and asking why did Scioscia make that call.
Change one rule that is disruptive in-game. For example, mid-inning relief changes, managers getting on field of play, pickoffs-without-penalty, batters-stepping-out, pitchers-holding-ball, commercial-waiting, replays, etc, etc, etc. Anything that is noticeable, that takes away from the enjoyment of the game.? Which rule would you change?
The other is part of the fabric, that wouldn't even necessarily notice on any given play, that you might not even notice for the whole game, but you might notice it over a series of games. The DH for example. Allows each park to set the feet between bases to something non-standard. Boundaries of strike zone. Bat or ball composition. Four out innings, seven inning games, 3-balls, 3-strikes, etc, etc, etc. So, think of a rule that you'd like to see changed.
And don't say anything negative about someone else's idea until you propose your own first. We are not politicians.
Studes highlights work that Matt is continuing:
Most importantly, Matt found that fastballs are underused with no strikes on the batter and overused with two strikes on the batter. On the other hand, he found that batters swing too often with two strikes on them. Reality is no longer reflecting theory.
Bill James made a proposal on his site about how to change the rotation setup. Instead of having gone from a 4-man to 5-man, Bill proposed going the other way, down to a 3-man rotation. Don goes through Bill's comment about PAP in a fair way.
Anyway, Bill proposed a three-man rotation of 54 starts each, but a ceiling on pitches, much like we saw with the Rockies for three weeks.
When it comes down to it, you can probably make as good a case for a three-man as you can for a 4-man, 5-man, and 6-man rotation. Or even a mix, so that some guys start every three days and others start every five days, and others every seven days.? Naturally, the guys starting every three days are going to get pulled far earlier than the other pitchers.
Since every pitcher is different, it's obvious that every pitcher needs to be treated differently.
What will stop any change however is the Won/Loss rule. You can only get a win as a starting pitcher if you pitch at least five innings, but you can get a loss any time. Which is of course a silly rule. So, if you have a starting pitcher scheduled to go for say 60-80 pitches, there's really no reason to make him start the game. He can just as easily come in relief in the third inning, after the first starting pitcher gets pulled for a pinch hitter.
Anyway, lots of potential crazy setups.
?Jeff took the slowest working pitcher (Papelbon at 31 seconds between pitches) and the slowest working hitter (Pena at 28 seconds) and wondered what happened when they actually faced each other.
There's two schools of thought here: the pitcher controls the pace, and if Papelbon takes 31 seconds, then there's nothing a slow or fast batter is going to do. It'll take 31 seconds.
The other is that both have an impact. If let's say the average pace is 22 seconds (guessing), then Papelbon is +9 and Pena is +6, and so the two facing each other would give us +15. So, we'd expect 22+15 = 37 seconds.
And it seems the second method works best.
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Walking Aaron Judge with bases empty?
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When football strategies come to baseball
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Should Miguel Cabrera have swung at an intentional ball?
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Revenge of The Shift, part 2
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