Is LaRussa right to bat his pitcher in the eight slot?
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The Hardball Times found this 10/1/2007 on www.hardballtimes.com (flag) |
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MLB
Comments (6)
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MGL If you are going to test whether batting the pitcher in any given slot in a particular batting order was correct "before the fact" (which is really the only reasonable or interesting perspective), you can't use the after the fact stats (OPS or whatever) for each batting slot. You have to use some kind of projection for each slot if you want to look at a particular team.
Otherwise, you are liable to reach ridiculous conclusions based on amsple fluctuations in the stats for various slots. For example, let's say that at the end of a certain time period, say, one season, your number 2 and 3 hitters rarely got on base. You might conclude (and correctly so) that you should bat your worst hitter in the 4 hole, since no one was ever on base when that slot came up.
Of course, we don't care about those kinds of analyses (what should we have done given what happened). We care about what we should have done given what should have happened (on the average) or what was most likely to happen, or what was the distribution of likely events, etc.
So using those particular numbers for the STL lineup, after the fact, is NOT a good way to do the analysis of where the pitcher should have batted, given what was known at the time the decision was made (again, which is really what we are after).
One more thing: "There is no doubt that LaRussa is a brilliant manager?" That is news to me. I think there is lots of doubt, regardless of your definition of brilliant.
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John Beamer MGL,
I agree with you that you are right, if you are doing a strict analysis of whether it was a good decision. I guess I was not -- that was a topic that you covered extensively in The Book. What I wanted to know was what benefit (roughly) has TLR achieved since making the switch.
I not sure I agree with you when you say that we don't care about those analyses. I find some after the fact analysis interesting. WPA is probably the most after the fact stat and, for me, that is interesting, although as a "value metric" it has severe weaknesses.
Finally I agree with you on the definition of brilliant -- that is quite a loose term. Successful would have been a more appropriate word.
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Chris Jaffe Surprisingly perhaps there isn’t that much difference between the eighth and ninth slots in terms of production. There are two reasons for this. One, LaRussa has batted the pitcher in the eighth hole for some part of the season, and two, St Louis actually has the best hitting pitching in the NL.
I can think of a third reason - pinch hitting. Cards pinch hitters have an sOPS+ of 138 on the year. Not too shabby.
I used to think that pitchers have to bat last in the order because it would ensure that they would have the fewest PA. But in reality, they rarely bat after the 7th inning anyway. Pinch hitters don't make up the difference between the #8 and #9, but it does mean pitchers won't have as many at bats as anyone ele regardless of where they are in the batting order.
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John Beamer Chis
That accounts for some of it but if you look at NL wide data from B-R (which includes ph) then you see a much bigger gap
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MGL John,
In some cases looking at things "after the fact" can be interesting, but in this case, as I said, I don't think it was really what you were after or the readers would be after. Think about the extreme example I gave.
Links (6)
Batting the pitcher 8th?
Published 10/2/2007 by Tangotiger (tangotiger@yahoo.com) at THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball
... John Beamer is on board as well: ...
Empty up Top
Published 11/13/2007 by halejon at The Mockingbird
... Something else to note is that the optimal lineup has John McDonald consistently batting 8th. It’s the same rationale that LaRussa uses for batting his pitchers there (and let’s face it, that’s pretty much the offensive level of Mr. Mac). Batting “second leadoff” doesn’t necessarily require speed, but instead the ability to get on base for the sluggers in the 3-4-5 spots. Seeing that the Jays are going to have a doubles hitter like Rios or Overbay hitting 2nd, it’s a no-brainer that Gregg Zaun, whose main offensive attribute is his ...
Lineup Retrospective
Published 12/18/2007 by cardinal70 at C70 At The Bat
... didn’t increase offense, at least in comparison to what came right before. Look at this chart: As you can see, the total numbers of the ninth-place group were severely weighted down by the lack of offense in the first two months. June and July, the offense started clicking and when the pitching matched it, the Cardinals went on a run. I know there’s been statistical studies that back up LaRussa’s thinking in this matter. In fact, here’s a discussion of the change last year from The Hardball Times , which does a lot better job than I did comparing the change. Since there’s ...
Schrodinger`s Bat: Spring Fling by Dan Fox
Published 3/13/2008 at Baseball Prospectus
... Fielder and Braun opportunities to drive him in, resulting in a net offensive gain. It appears the break-even for this strategy as far as the Brewers go is somewhere around Kendall delivering a .360 SLG . That is, if Kendall's slugging percentage were .360 or higher (while delivering the same OBP ), it would essentially be a wash as to whether to bat him eighth or ninth. Readers interested in this topic should also check out this article by James Click and some interesting analysis done by John Beamer after Tony La Russa employed the same ...
Bat the pitcher eighth? How about not at all?
Published 4/15/2008 by Pip at Fungoes
... So whether a team decides to eliminate the pitcher’s at-bats altogether or merely reduce them to one per game, that team stands to gain between 1.3 and 2.4 wins per year. That’s not chump change. Considering the fact that the Cardinals (and now the Brewers) have implemented a somewhat radical strategy that promises less — batting a pitcher eighth can yield around 15 extra runs per season, or 1.5 wins — it seems like an easy decision. We’re not going to hold our breath that the Cardinals (or anyone) will cop to it anytime soon, but it certainly makes ...
John Van Benschoten Likely to Start Tomorrow
Published 7/1/2008 by Charlie at Bucs Dugout
... In fact, the pitcher-batting-eighth thing is becoming increasingly common, particularly in the NL Central. The Brewers often do it, and the Cardinals also sometimes do it. And there's some research out there that suggests they're doing the right thing--this Hardball Times article contains some information and links to some more. ...
John, great stuff. I've been interested in this topic since the two studies (Tango et al.'s and Morong's), and it's nice to see additional work on this.
FWIW, which isn't much, I've been using a pitcher-batting-eigth lineup when playing around with Out of the Park Baseball the last few years. I've noticed two factors that are particularly important factors on when one might NOT like to use it:
* If your eigth-best position player gets most of his offensive value from his power as opposed to his on-base skills (e.g. David Ross with the Reds this season), you get better leverage out of his skills to hit him 8th than 9th. After all, he doesn't get on base anyway, so the secondary leadoff hitter thing isn't as useful.
* Since this lineup does result in the pitcher coming up to the plate one slot earlier in mid-innings, it can force your hand with a pinch hitter earlier than you'd like at times. As The Book showed, there's a huge payoff for pinch hitting for your lesser pitchers, which makes it often worth doing when you have a reasonably high leverage situation from ~the 6th inning onward. Therefore, with ace pitchers, I typically stick them in the #9 hole just to keep their PA's to a minimum.
-j