MLB – notesfromnokomis

Tonight is the first time that the 2021 baseball season could end. The Braves have won three games, a fourth victory concludes the World Series. This is always a bittersweet day for me – exciting because there could be a new champion, sad because it will be a long wait until meaningful games are played next spring.

[The grand slam that Adam Duvall just hit makes it much more likely that the season will end tonight.]

I watched a lot of games this summer.[1] First, it was nice to have full summer of games after last year’s pandemic-induced truncated season. Second, the Red Sox played well, much better than last season, and a bit better than expected. The Red Sox were quite brutal last year, winning only 40% of their games, which was fourth worst in the majors (there are 30 teams). This year they won almost 57% of their games, which only six teams bettered.

[The Braves 4-run lead lasted less than two innings, though they have regained the lead 5-4.]

But the turnaround was not entirely unexpected, even to non-fans of the Red Sox. There is a baseball website (indeed there are so many good ones that even I can’t read them all) called Fangraphs,[2] which predicts how each player will perform and, based on that, how many games each team will win. They predicted that the Red Sox would win 88 games; they finished the season with 92 wins.

Below is a chart that shows (according to Fangraphs) how each team fared against its expectation. You will see extreme variability. This is not necessarily a fault of the prediction system. It is common for teams that play well (in the first half of the season) to improve their team with trades and therefore win more games than would have been expected based on the season-opening roster. And – teams that aren’t playing well often make trades that weaken their roster this year, while (hopefully) strengthening their team in the future.

Team	Predicted	Actual	Wins over
	Wins	Wins	Prediction

Giants	78	107	29
Mariners	73	90	17
Rays	83	100	17
Brewers	79	95	16
Cardinals	79	90	11
Dodgers	96	106	10
Reds	76	83	7
Astros	89	95	6
Rockies	68	74	6
Athletics	81	86	5
White Sox	88	93	5
Red Sox	88	92	4
Tigers	73	77	4
Blue Jays	89	91	2
Phillies	80	82	2
Braves	89	88	-1
Cleveland	81	80	-1
Pirates	65	61	-4
Royals	78	74	-4
Yankees	96	92	-4
Marlins	72	67	-5
Cubs	77	71	-6
Angels	84	77	-7
Rangers	71	60	-11
Mets	91	77	-14
Orioles	67	52	-15
Padres	94	79	-15
Twins	88	73	-15
Nationals	83	65	-18
Diamondbacks	74	52	-22

As you can see, the Giants massively exceeded expectations in winning the most games in the league. But the Dodgers, who were predicted to win more games than any other team also substantially exceeded expectations. And even teams expected to be bad can underperform. The Orioles and Pirates were predicted to have the fewest wins in the AL and NL respectively (seemingly perennially) and they both managed to underperform.

This chart is a proxy for how each fan base feels about their team. Those with an overperformance, like the Mariners and Reds, probably have pretty happy fans. Even though they didn’t make the playoffs, they were playing games that mattered deep into September. On the other hand, fans of the Padres and Nationals, who began the season with championship aspirations, are rather despondent.

Over or under performing is all well and good and might influence a fan’s psyche over the course of a season. But what really matters is making the playoffs, and eight of the teams that made the playoffs exceeded expectations. Only the Braves (one game fewer) and the Yankees (four fewer) made the playoffs while winning fewer games than expected.

I was quite happy with the Red Sox season. They led their division for 74 days in the middle of the season. They won 46 games against teams with a winning record, only three teams won more. They dominated teams with a losing record, going 46-22, but this highlights a huge inequity in baseball scheduling. The Giants and Dodgers, who led with majors with 107 and 106 wins respectively, played 99 and 100 games against teams with losing records, at least 30 more games against weak competition than the Red Sox.

[The Astros now lead 9-5 in the eighth inning, which almost certainly means there will be a game six in Houston.]

To top off the season, the Red Sox played their archrivals the Yankees in the AL wildcard game and prevailed. Then they played the top team in their division in a best of five series. The current playoff system is relatively stupid. It rewards teams who win a weak division more than teams, like the Dodgers, who won the second most games in the majors. And in this case, it forced the Red Sox to play the Rays, whom they had already played 19 times.

Quick fix for playoffs system, no wild card game. Only the top four teams make the playoffs, without regard to division, and all series are best of seven. (I may have written about this before. If I did, it bears repeating.)

The Red Sox beat the Rays in four games and then fell to the Astros in six games. Then I started rooting against the Astros, who are something of a pariah team based on a cheating scandal from a couple of years ago. I’m looking forward to seeing how the Red Sox tweak their roster during the off-season.

[Astros won 9-5.]

And I’m looking forward to at least one more World Series game this season.

[1] Major League Baseball sells a cable package for a bit under $200, which provides access to almost every game played every day of the season, and which I consider about the best money I spend every year.

[2] https://www.fangraphs.com/depthcharts.aspx?position=Standings

I love baseball. I love watching it, reading about it, and thinking about it. I help organize the youth baseball program in Worthington. We have 12 travel teams, 700 or so boys in a summer program, and roughly 200 boys who play fall ball. I enjoy riding my bike to the fields and watching the boys play. They smile much more than major leaguers do. I love baseball at all levels, but – when I say “baseball,” I usually mean “Major League Baseball” or “MLB.”

Baseball has a statistical record like no other sport. It dates to 1876. Every single player who has appeared in a “major league” game is part of that statistical record. One of the greatest websites of all time is https://www.baseball-reference.com/, which has all of the normal statistics, much information derived from those statistics, and even more information that is tangential, such as biographical and (when available) salary information.[1]

Despite this trove of fascinating information being available to them, my operating assumption when watching or listening to a baseball game is that when the commentators are speaking about statistics, they are almost certainly wrong, unless stating a fact. For instance, when a commentator says “Billy Ray has a hit in his last nine day games on the road,” the mumbo-jumbo being muttering is almost certain factually correct. Alas, the fact’s accuracy tends to be directly proportional to its significance.

The other side of my assumption is that when a baseball commentator is saying something significant or strategic, he is probably wrong. Here is a baseball truism that is spewed in virtually every game I have ever watched: the first pitch (of an at bat) is extremely important. I’m sure the commentator’s Little League coach mentioned it back in the sixties or seventies or eighties, but the coach was wrong then and the truism is just as wrong now.

On average, when major league players swing at the first pitch, they bat .342. That is all-star caliber hitting (leaving aside the fact that batting average isn’t the best way to measure how good a hitter is). When the count is 1-0, presumably a better situation for the batter, otherwise why talk about the first pitch being important, MLB players bat .337. That, my friends, is not better than .342. When the count is 0-1, and the pitcher theoretically has the advantage, MLB players still bat .321. Slightly worse, but not enough to suggest that the first pitch is especially important. Moreover, .321 is excellent when, as now, the league average is .248. (It would have been less impressive in 1930, when the National League batted .303.)

Consider this, only 47 players in the history of baseball (with at least 3000 plate appearances) have a career batting average higher than .321. There is no compelling reason to consider a first pitch strike to be a difference maker.

In reality, the most important pitch is the 1-1 pitch. When the next pitch is a ball, and the count goes to 2-1, players bat .327, right in line with other early counts. But when the third pitch is a strike and the count goes to 1-2, players bat only .164. That is a massive difference.[2]

Count	BA on the next pitch
0-0	.342
0-1	.321
1-0	.337
1-1	.319
1-2	.164
2-1	.327

Joe Lemire, The Myth of the First Pitch Strike (http://grantland.com/the-triangle/debunking-mlb-first-pitch-strike-myth/ )

On the ESPN website in January 2016, Dan Szymborski discussed the issue in relation to OPS. “OPS” stands for on-base percentage plus slugging percentage. Even though the math is suspect – because the denominator of on-base percentage is plate appearances and the denominator of slugging percentage is at bats – the derivative statistic is a pretty good proxy for quality. As we speak (so to speak), the league average OPS is .728, which is a handy comparative tool when you are trying to gauge approximately how good the players on your favorite team are.

Count	OPS
1-0	.815
0-1	.609
2-1	.873
1-2	.423

Whether the first pitch is a strike or ball leads to an OPS difference of .206 (.815 minus .609). That is a real difference, but whether the third pitch (after a 1-1 count) is a ball or strike leads to a massive .450 (.873 minus .423) difference in OPS. The bottom line is that the 1-1 pitch is much more important than the overhyped first pitch.

Steven Wright, the comedian, not the Red Sox pitcher, has many great one-line jokes. He stated that “42.7% of all statistics are made up on the spot.” I’m pretty sure he made up that statistic on the spot and I’m pretty sure that he is essentially right, especially with respect to baseball commentators.[3] Everything they say should be regarded with a healthy dose of skepticism. The next time you watch a game, focus on the 1-1 pitch and (basically) ignore the first pitch, it’s not nearly as significant.

[1] Omar Vizquel, who never signed a big money long-term contract, was paid at total of $63,210,668 over the course of his 24-year career.

[2] Please note that this discussion is truncated. I am only discussing the pitch immediately after the given count, not all of the subsequent possible counts.

[3] I was watching the Yankees and Red Sox play last night. (Yankees won 3-2.) The commentators were predictably horrid. They spent much time discussing the Yankees need to win to prove that they could beat the Red Sox. Silly. As well as the Red Sox have played this season, they have lost 47 games, including two recent 8-0 losses to the Mets and White Sox. It’s baseball, even the best teams lose lots of games.

My favorite exchange occurred during the 7th inning when they were talking about the Yankees having the chance to beat the Red Sox A-team, as if that matters. But they said it matters and they asserted that the Yankees were playing the Red Sox at their best. Sure, maybe – if you ignore the facts, which baseball commentators often do.

Mookie Betts, MVP candidate, did not play. Andrew Benintendi, who is third on the team in hits, runs scored, and runs driven in, did not play. Nathan Eovaldi, the starting pitcher is eighth on the team in games started. Eighth! The commentators singled out Brandon Workman and Ryan Brasier, two relievers who pitched, as being a significant part of the A-team, even though 13 pitchers on the team have pitched more innings for the Red Sox. Baseball commentators should be treated with a healthy dose of skepticism.

Tag: MLB

Baseball 2021

The First Pitch Isn’t That Important