Wrapped Up On The Deuce (Sack)
Continuing the discussion from last night. These two tables give a good idea of the strategy actually employed by the home and road teams when the visiting team didn’t score in the top half of the extra inning: The first table subdivides by the batting position of the batter; the second subdvides by handedness of batter and pitcher
| Count | Intentional Walks | All Walks | Bunts | Successful Bunts | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Batter # | |||||
| 1 | 58 | 0.1552 | 0.1724 | 0.1897 | 0.1207 |
| 2 | 69 | 0.1884 | 0.2899 | 0.0145 | 0.0145 |
| 3 | 62 | 0.4355 | 0.4677 | 0.0323 | 0.0323 |
| 4 | 48 | 0.3333 | 0.3542 | 0.0833 | 0.0833 |
| 5 | 50 | 0.1600 | 0.2000 | 0.2000 | 0.1400 |
| 6 | 64 | 0.1406 | 0.1719 | 0.1719 | 0.1406 |
| 7 | 61 | 0.1148 | 0.2787 | 0.1803 | 0.1311 |
| 8 | 60 | 0.0667 | 0.0833 | 0.3667 | 0.2833 |
| 9 | 54 | 0.0000 | 0.0556 | 0.5000 | 0.3704 |
| Count | Intentional Walks | All Walks | Bunt | Successful Bunts | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Batter | Pitcher | |||||
| B | L | 14 | 0.1429 | 0.2143 | 0.2143 | 0.2143 |
| R | 36 | 0.1389 | 0.1944 | 0.1389 | 0.0833 | |
| L | L | 49 | 0.0408 | 0.0612 | 0.2857 | 0.2041 |
| R | 127 | 0.3150 | 0.3701 | 0.1417 | 0.1181 | |
| R | L | 59 | 0.2712 | 0.3729 | 0.1525 | 0.0847 |
| R | 241 | 0.1162 | 0.1660 | 0.2075 | 0.1618 |
JamesD was asking whether or not the visiting team will (or should) routinely set up the double play by walking the “meaningless” initial batter. The answer to that question is that it depends a lot on the handedness of pitcher and batter and on the position of the batter in the lineup. In these data, no one walked the 9th place hitter intentionally. That batter responded by bunting half the time, with a 74% success rate (0.37/0.5). By contrast, 3rd and 4th position hitters were walked about 40 percent of the time, and if they weren’t walked, they only bunted 6 times, all successfully as it happens.
As far as handedness goes, lefties don’t intentionally pass lefties; righties intentional pass righties at a modest, but significantly higher rate. But the majority of intentional passes come when the batter has the handedness advantage.
.
Finally (for today) we look at the result as a function of leadoff batter strategies.
| Count | Winning Percentage | |
|---|---|---|
| First Batter Play | ||
| Other | 305 | 0.5607 |
| Unsuccessful Bunt | 24 | 0.6250 |
| Successful Bunt | 75 | 0.7467 |
| Unintentional BB | 29 | 0.6207 |
| Intentional Walk | 93 | 0.5914 |
We already saw that bunts are bottom-of-the-order strategies. If you can bunt successfully, that’s your best option, though you have to be a little careful about that conclusion because there is also the effect of turning the lineup over, which is why even unsuccessful bunts have better results than the modal play.
So what about the intentional walk? It turns out to slightly increase the probability of losing , though not as much as the unintentional walk. The latter result can be explained by the fact that unintentional walks are an indication that the pitcher can’t control the strike zone, while intentional walks are not. It is slightly surprising to me, however, that even though intentional walks are focused on 3- and 4-hitters and therefore remove them from the rest of the inning, that intentional passes still yield a sub-average result.
That’s all I got to today. (“Thank God,” I hear from the Internet.)
The Game
Still in Pittsburgh (the team, not me). I saw a game there in 2013, one day before my Yale Bulldogs won the NCAA Hockey Championship downtown. Every thing everyone says about how impressive the view is is correct. And after the game, you can walk across the Clemente Bridge and eat at Meat & Potatoes. It’s a great name for a restaurant and it’s still there. If they want to support the website in return for the free plug, go to Patreon and join our 15 other members. (Am I subtle, or what?)
So today’s game pitted AJ Smith-Shawver, whose name sounds like an Oxford Classics Professor, against Andrew Heaney, who I believe is the poet who won the 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature.
I asked the Braves last night to start before the 9th inning today, and they did. Through three innings, the had no singles, but they had three doubles and a homer to take a 2-0 lead. The Professor gave up a run in the bottom of the third, but that was all anybody did off him. He was replaced by Pierce Johnson in the bottom of the sixth. In the bottom of the 7th, Alexander Canario led off with a double off Johnson, breaking the string of 26 straight batters retired by Johnson. Johnson and Dylan Lee combined to strand him there.
The Pirates scraped together a run, though, in the 8th to tie the game up on a swinging bunt by Matt Gorski. But you have to like the Braves chances this year if you’re not behind going to the 9th,right? The Braves were retired in order in the 9th, though which included pinch-hit failure from Drake Baldwin. Unfortunately, Daysbel Hernandez walked the first two hitters, but Arcia and Ozzie combined for a pretty slick double play and Arcia threw out the last standard-inning Pirate to bring us to the Land of Manfred Men.
Snitker made the puzzling decision to pinch-run Luke Williams for Arcia. Even if Williams scored, somebody was going to have to play shortstop in the bottom of the inning, and it’s hard to believe the speed difference would be that important. Pirates pitcher Caleb Ferguson then hit Verdugo, which made me realize I didn;t include HBP in my summary above. Austin Riley hit into an easy double play, leaving it up to Matt Olson (who came to bat after Marcell Ozuna was issued the intentional pass) and the last bench player (Stuart Fairchild) came in to run for him. That was a really badly managed half-inning, and we didn’t even score.
Scott Blewett took the bottom of the 10th. The Manfred Man was bunted to 3rd (See? these things I write before the game are sometimes actually relevant!) But he was thrown out at the plate with the infield in and a slow runner going on contact. After a now-meaningless single, a flyout ended the 10th.
In the 11th. Ozzie advanced Olson to 3rd with a groundout. After a Murphy groundout and an intentional pass to Harris, Matt Olson scored on a wild pitch. Luke Williams (who should have been Arcia) flew out to end the inning, and Blewett came back out to try and get the save. Now we got the last strategic element: the Manfred Man was bunted over with the home team trailing by a run. Something called Liover Peguero struck out looking and Tommy Pham grounded out to Ozzie to end it. Easy Peasy.
Statistical Stuff
New Pirates manager Don Kelly was ejected in his second game, leading all of us Retrosheet geeks to get the database of really quick hooks. CJ Nitkowski went on the air with it just after I’d run the same thing, so I have nothing direct to add, other than two facts: (a) Ted Turner was never thrown out in his managerial career, and; (b) the all time leader, Bobby Cox, wasn’t thrown out until he’d been a manager for 25 whole days, apparently for “Bench Jockeying.”)
0.500 Available Tomorrow
Let’s do it this time, OK?
Great work compiling all this information. I think the intentional walk strategy helps your odds, just not compared to the other option which assumes they don’t bunt or unintentionally walk. Could be reading it wrong or not picturing it correctly though.
I don’t think you’re reading it wrong, but when you put the guy on intentionally, the bunt by the next batter would lead to 2nd and 3rd, with the only downside that there would be a force rather than a tag at third. And of course it was already pointed that walking a guy squeezes your ability to coax the next guy to swing at non-strikes, lest the bases become loaded.
While the $161.00 50 oz. ribeye on the menu at Meat & Potatoes looks tempting, I’m afraid that would blow my booze budget for the whole week. I guess it makes the $21.50 hamburger look more reasonable. No, I haven’t been eating out much lately, why do you ask?
” AJ Smith-Shawver, whose name sounds like an Oxford Classics Professor”
Hmm. A.J.P. Smith-Shawver, Regius Professor of Modern Sliders at Merton College, Oxford. Has a certain ring to it.
The best thing on the menu at Meat and Potatoes is the bone marrow appetizer!
The only lineup that wins has Verdugo at the top. These guys can’t for nuttin’. Ozuna is in a major slump; he should not be third. One thing wrong with Rob’s lineup is that it has 4 RH hitters in a row. Snit will NEVER do that. I like the idea of installing Acuna at the top and moving everyone down one (Verdugo 2nd). Harris bats best when there is someone on base so he needs to be lower in the lineup. Ozzie is a black hole and he should be lower.
An OF of Acuna, Harris, and a Verdugo/White platoon would be nice.
I still think this would look good:
Acuna
Verdugo (Profar)
Riley
Ozuna
Olson
Murphy
Harris
Ozzie
Allen
Occasionally swap out Verdugo with White for a LH starter. But neither Ozzie nor Harris (nor Rosario for that matter) should EVER bat 1st. Also, if White can be our SuperU then we could get better players than Arcia or Williams or Fairchild on the roster – White being one of them when Acuna returns. If we get Profar back and Verdugo and White are part of the bench then that’s better too.
Verdugo now has a .656 OPS, which is very similar to his .647 OPS for New York last year that got him granted FA at the end of last year and not signed by anyone in the offseason. So Verdugo is probably not the answer. It’s short sample, only 89 PAs, so he could run into a couple hangers and all of a sudden his season line looks a lot better, but I really wouldn’t count on it. I would just be really interested to see what Baldwin could do in LF, but I totally understand why they don’t want to make their most prized prospect learn another position while learning the most difficult position, like I said before.
The best case scenario might be Murphy and Baldwin playing so well that it’s possible to start Baldwin 4 days out of 5 at catcher and trade Murphy for something useful and/or cheap in the offseason
And he hasn’t hit for any power.
Pretty obliging of the Braves to play yet another extra inning game, providing more data for your study, JF. These finishes are certainly exciting (in a nail-bite inducing way) and often strategically fascinating, but I’m ready for the Braves to win a blowout this afternoon.
I fully agree. I had to run out immediately on the conclusion on the game so I didn’t get to put this in the writeup, but the ironic thing about this game is that while it featured bunts and failed bunts and intentional walks and stolen bases and pinch runners and overused substitutions and all manner of “thinking man’s” baseball befitting the title of the post (and believe me — the “thought” that went into this fully deserves the ironic quotes) the game ends up turning on a groundout and a wild pitch. Now Branch Rickey did in fact say that luck is the residue of design, and Ozzie moving Olson to third was an intentional precursor that enabled our boys to take advantage of a wild pitch, but it does show that trying to look smart all the time can (a) make you look silly; and (b) probably doesn’t matter all that much, since it is regularly trounced by being physically competent.
Nick Allen is grading out very similar to… Andrelton Simmons. 75-80 wRC+, but lights out defense. Simmons had more power and Allen has more speed and walks, but it ends up being a wash in wRC+. If Allen can continue to steal bases and take walks, it’s possible for him to be a 3 fWAR SS for the league minimum. Which means that Atlanta would have to have a legitimate upgrade available in the trade market at the deadline, like a 5 WAR SS, to probably justify the cost of landing said SS. And I don’t see a SS that good being available.
I think we’ve also moved past the “AA is a wizard” talk, so I also don’t know if AA will come up with some genius trade to upgrade this roster, and there are not many places to do it because of these extensions.
I was bullish on the Nick Allen and Jared Kelenic acquisitions. In neither case did I have any confidence that the player would be good, but I liked the idea of betting on young men who’d had strong minor league performances and good gloves to improve their hitting in their peak physical years. These are both low risk, high reward acquisitions. So far, one out of two has worked. The more expensive acquisition, Kelenic, has been a far more abysmal failure than anyone other than the most pessimistic would’ve predicted based on his prior trajectory.
I also like the idea of filling shortstop with someone who is roughly average but cheap, like 2023 Arcia and 2025 Allen. The premium on an above average shortstop is just too great, and the value on the back half of those deals tends to be very poor. See Trevor Story, Dansby Swanson, and Xander Bogaerts. If you can develop one internally and get him locked in while young, great. Otherwise, you’re going to be overpaying.
My criticisms of AA are that he needed to pay a pitcher big bucks at some point (and my choice was extending Fried 2-3 years ago for reasonable) and it really cost us in the playoffs, and he made his 1B and catcher situations needlessly complicated and expensive in terms of prospects.
Also, Ozzie needs a phantom IL stint in the worst way. He’s lost.
Happy Mother’s Day to everyone who is a mother, has a mother, or had a mother. Here’s a mother’s day ditty from one of the great crooners of our age:
I really don’t care what Verdugo’s OPS is. With him , we win; without him, we lose. Maybe Acuna can replace that but I think keeping him in and possibly platooning with White might work. White could fill in for Harris, too. Or maybe we could install him at 2nd.
Bottom line is this team cannot hit on the road at all.
The best lineup we had was with Acuna at leadoff and Harris hitting 9th. I think Harris gets better pitches to hit knowing Acuna is next.
And that is critical given that Harris swings at everything
I do agree that Harris probably benefits from having Acuna behind him.
Money Mike can pick it.
Verdugo has a noodle arm.
They are just dinking and doinking us to death.
Yeah, if Verdugo made a stronger throw, he’s out at the plate and the inning is over.
Someone asked for a blowout. Didn’t you read The Monkey’s Paw? Careful what you wish for. As for me, time for another Monkey Shoulder.
Ozzie is making a good case to not pick up his cheap option.
This team has no power and doesn’t draw walks. Is that bad?
A stolen base attempt down three in the 8th? I’m not as down on Snit as many are, but that makes no sense.
But I will give Snit credit for pinch hitting with Murphy there against the lefty.
And that performance by Wentz shows that some good things can yet come for the Braves from the 2015-17 rebuild.
Agreed. I would not have pinch hit for Baldwin. Nothing against Murphy, but we’ve got so many guys I’m itching to pinch hit for and he’s not one. I knew we would one day reap the rewards of Wentz.
Raisel is washed.
We might not be any good
Offense is giving this pitching staff zero margin for error.
Our starting pitching and defense are quite good, but our bullpen is mediocre and our offense might be worse than that. This is not a great team.
Recapped.