The Hardball Times:Ten things I didn’t know last week

• studes

  +1

  Chris Jaffe has posted a very nice detail of which teams changed their pitching rotation approach in 1976 over at Baseball Think Factory

  Posted 4/17/2008 [reply] [flag]

• earthdyedred

  +1

  I'm not convinced that free agency changed 1976 in the way you proposed, as it was pointed out on BBTF that free agency didn't start en masse until 1977, but what it might have done was create market uncertainty to such a degree that no team knew what was going to happen and therefore switched to a 5-man so that if one starter left for free agency, the team had somebody with major league experience.  It's somewhat of a bet-hedging idea, though I'm not sure I believe my own proposal.

  Posted 4/17/2008 [reply] [flag]

• studes

  +1

  Obviously, it's just a hypothesis, but I don't know that a class of free agents would have a greater effect than just the recognition of a few million-dollar contracts (Hunter, Messersmith, etc.) on managerial behavior.

  Also, it's not that teams switched to a five-man rotation.  Many teams had five-man rotations before 1976.  It's more subtle than that -- it's how much they rested starters between starts, and how often they used that fifth (or sixth, or seventh) starter.

  Posted 4/17/2008 [reply] [flag]

• higherpie

  +1

  Thanks for the MLBlackout blog plug, Dave. As I wrote in my latest post over there, we are making a little bit of progress.

  Posted 4/17/2008 [reply] [flag]

• studes

  +1

  I received this email from a reader with some personal perspective on the time:

  Your article brought back memories, as I've been a baseball fan since 1962.  This is admittedly anecdotal, but I would credit the Cincinnati Reds for the 5-man rotation and the resulting extra day of rest between starts.  Their success and, not coincidentally, their World Championship in 1975 demonstrated that teams could win without a dominant starter in the Koufax-Gibson-Marichal mold.  As I recall, lacking such a pitcher (and Billingham was never in that league), Sparky Anderson instructed his starters not to pace themselves for a complete game, but to throw as hard as they could for as long as they could.  Hopefully that would be the 7th inning, at which time the bullpen could be counted on for fresh pitchers.
  
  Given the difficulties inherent in finding Hall-of-Fame caliber starting pitchers, this approach had an obvious appeal.  I remember the Dodgers announcing their shift to a 5-man rotation in 1976 based on the fact that they had five good starters and saw no reason not to use them.  Of those five, Don Sutton made the Hall of Fame, but he was not then considered to be quite that good.
  
  As I said, this is anecdotal and based on my memories which I don't have time to research.  Thanks for the good article, though.

  Posted 4/17/2008 [reply] [flag]

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Links (4)

THT: Studeman: Ten things I didn’t know last week
Published 4/17/2008 at BBTF's Baseball Primer Newsblog
THT: Studeman: Ten things I didn’t know last week Studes with his latest TTDKLW (which I believe was Bill Mlkvy’s original name). A couple of weeks ago, I talked about the essential place wins and losses have in the sabermetric universe. There are a lot of stats that track a player’s contribution to his team’s wins (you can probably come up with a good one yourself), but Bill James’ Win Shares is perhaps the best known. It’s not necessarily the best, but it does things that few other win stats do. Well, guess what. Bill James has changed the system. In a couple of articles on ...

Loss Shares and Win Advancements
Published 4/17/2008 by Tangotiger (tangotiger@yahoo.com) at THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball
... Studes has a little program as to how to calculate WPA Above Baseline.  He actually taught himself PHP so that we have a simple calculator.  Sweet.  I think the algorithm needs modification though.  He ...

links for 2008-04-17
Published 4/17/2008 by billfer at The Detroit Tiger Weblog
... Because it’s fun Old Boss/New Boss: Indians vs. Tigers - FanHouse - AOL Sports Blog Building a rivalry Ten things I didn’t know last week — The Hardball Times Just because Studes “10 ...

Friday Night Fungoes: Dan Fox, Projections, and the Future, man!
Published 4/19/2008 by Justin at On Baseball and the Reds
... as a secondary reason. I have to say, I might start paying a little bit more attention to the Pirates in coming years. I like what I see and hear from their front office since they hired Neal Huntington, and I will be living minutes from their AA-franchise. I don't know if I could ever really leave the Reds and root for an NL Central foe, but you never know. Projection System Showdown I missed this when it happened, but (with a hat tip to studes) Tom Tango recently did a rather careful study of projection accuracy for ...