Stealing First

Pitch Framing - Is it Real?

Posted by Dan Turkenkopf - 05/04/08 at 01:04:00 pm

My latest post at Beyond the Box Score looks into whether certain catchers do better than others in convincing the umpire to call close pitches strikes and how many runs might be saved by turning balls into strikes.  The results shocked me, and even cause me to question the outcome.  Check it out and let me know what I did wrong.

The Legend of Clutch

Posted by Dan Turkenkopf - 02/04/08 at 06:04:02 pm

Colin has an excellent post over at The Other Fifteen discussing the importance of narrative in how we watch and talk about baseball.

Now, when we discuss baseball statistics, what we’re really talking about is an aggregation of these records; we take the events and collect them. That’s true about the old-school triple crown stats - batting average, home runs and runs batted in - or the “new age” VORP and Win Shares. Baseball statistics are, at their heart, simply a summary of what occurred on the field of play.

But when we collect statistics in that way, we tend to do so in a way that dissociates them from their narrative context. A player’s VORP counts hits against a hated division rival in the midst of a tight race exactly the same as hits against a 30-year-old journeyman pitcher playing out the string for a basement dweller in September. Baseball statistics don’t seem to have any understanding of the fact that Yankees players are attractive, handsome stars, and that Kansas City Royals players… aren’t. There isn’t a baseball stat that measure how athletic and, really, balletic Derek Jeter looks when he does that mid-air throw or dives for a ground ball.

And yet all of those things are important, if not essential, in forming a narrative of a baseball season. All of those things add a sense of excitement and drama to baseball. And they’re the things that first attracted most of us to baseball - yes, even the Dread Sabermetricians.

He goes on to suggest that the very human need for a narrative is what leads to an inordinate focus on clutch performance and clutch performers. He offers a truce to sportswriters - declaring he’ll stop proclaiming that clutch isn’t real if they refrain from relying upon it as THE key piece of evaluating a player.

I think Colin hits the nail on the head with the importance of the story arc to our enjoyment of the game and the perceived conflict with statistics. I’m not yet ready to throw in the towel and say the two positions are incompatible though. I know there haven’t been any studies that have clearly identified clutch performers, but that merely suggests a lack of skill rather than proves it (something we all know deep down, but Bill James still felt the need to point out because we sure weren’t acting like that was the case). And I’m not completely on board with WPA - but that’s mainly due to how it’s calculated rather than any deep-seated angst against the concept of context-sensitive value.

The problem I see with Colin’s approach to resolving the stalemate between believers and non-believers is that it doesn’t resolve anything. He admits this himself, saying “This isn’t a cry for fusion, or balance, or peaceful coexistence.” But his call for a truce ends the conversation. Each side can continue happy in their supposed knowledge with little to no challenge. With no challenge, there’s often no learning. And both sides will be poorer for it.

Hat Tip: The Book Blog

Switching a Ball to a Strike

Posted by Dan Turkenkopf - 02/04/08 at 08:04:11 am

One of the cool things (ok, I’m a baseball nerd) about analyzing data is how often you discover little interesting facts that you didn’t know before.

While researching my current work on whether catchers have an effect on whether a pitch is called a strike or a ball (look for it tomorrow or Friday at Beyond the Box Score </shameless plug>), I realized I didn’t know what replacing a ball for a strike was really worth. A Google search turned up some information as to the run value of a given count, but not the information I was looking for. So I took a little detour from my planned study and decided to calculate the value myself.

Using data found in this thread at the Book Blog and the 2006 Major League splits from Baseball-Reference, I determined the value of a ball and a strike for every count (from the point of view of the pitcher). The difference between those numbers is the value of switching a ball to a strike at each count. Then I took average of the values at each count weighted by the number of plate appearances at that count to get the final number of .161 runs.

In the interest of full disclosure, and for those who might be interested in the breakdowns, here’s the data.

B	S	WOBA	LW	RV Ball	RV Strike	RV B->S	PA	Weighted RV
0	0	0.332	0	-0.0339	0.0426	0.0765	188071	0.0217
0	1	0.283	-0.0426	-0.0269	0.0617	0.0886	87779	0.0117
0	2	0.212	-0.1043	-0.02174	0.2007	0.2224	33467	0.0112
1	0	0.371	0.0339	-0.0626	0.0496	0.1122	77323	0.0131
1	1	0.314	-0.0157	-0.0504	0.0670	0.1174	72385	0.0128
1	2	0.237	-0.0826	-0.0461	0.2224	0.2685	48727	0.0197
2	0	0.443	0.0965	-0.1104	0.0617	0.1722	27566	0.0072
2	1	0.372	0.03478	-0.1026	0.0713	0.1739	38594	0.0101
2	2	0.29	-0.0365	-0.0983	0.2685	0.3667	39862	0.0220
3	0	0.57	0.2070	-0.1170	0.0696	0.1866	9512	0.0027
3	1	0.49	0.1374	-0.1866	0.0757	0.2623	16577	0.0066
3	2	0.403	0.0617	-0.2623	0.3667	0.629	23156	0.0220

Blessed are the rule makers

Posted by Dan Turkenkopf - 26/03/08 at 08:03:30 pm

Baseball history is rife with players bending or breaking the rules to gain an advantage. Whether it be John McGraw and the Baltimore Orioles of the 1890s cutting across the diamond behind the lone umpire’s back, or Norm Cash corking his bat, or the list of PED users, players will do what they can to win - rightly or wrongly. But this is not a story about rule breakers. Many words chronicling the exploits of the cheaters have already been written by much more talented writers than I. Let’s talk instead of the rule makers - those players whose actions (often creative, but in at least one occurrence tragic) led directly to the implementation of a new rule or the enforcement of an old.

It’s good to be the King

King Kelly is one of the more colorful players in baseball history, and one of its first stars. His Hall of Fame career covered 16 seasons and included active participation in the labor wars in 1890-91. For most of the early part of the game, the rules were fairly fluid and Kelly used that fluidity to his advantage. The story goes that Kelly, then Boston’s captain, was on the bench when a high pop foul was hit. Seeing that the catcher wasn’t going to be able to make the play, Kelly announced, “Now catching for Boston, Kelly” and calmly caught the ball. Under the substitution rules in force at the time, the umpire was forced to allow the play.

As you can imagine, most people, including the league office, determined that while Kelly’s action may have followed the letter of the law, it definitely was contrary to the spirit. So the rule was amended to only allow substitutions between plays.

This was the story I was told growing up. Great story, right? Unfortunately it appears to be apocryphal. It appears that there were no changes to the substitution rule between 1891 (when substitutions were allowed during innings) and 1910 (which covered how substitutions were announced). Still, it’s too good an anecdote to leave out.

You can’t steal first base

Today you most often hear that phrase in relation to a fast leadoff hitter with a low on-base percentage - think Corey Patterson or Juan Pierre. But it wasn’t always that way.

On August 4, 1911, Germany Schaefer, then a member of the Washington Senators, was on first base while another Senator held third. Schaefer took off for second base, hoping to draw a throw from the White Sox catcher, allowing the runner on third to score. The opposing catcher recognized the play, and allowed Schaefer second without a throw. Still thinking about how to get the runner home, Schaefer decided he’d like to try the double steal play again. But a prerequisite for that play is having a runner on first base. So on the next pitch, Schaefer takes off for first base, reaching safely. Sox manager Hugh Duffy was having none of that and rushed out of the dugout to protest. It appears Duffy didn’t wait for the play to complete and time to be called, because the runner on third, Clyde Milan, headed for the plate, where he was tagged out.

This is yet another instance where what I was told as a kid doesn’t match up with reality. The story as I always heard it was that Schaefer successfully stole first, and then on the next pitch, stole second again - this time drawing the throw from the catcher and allowing the run to score. Former Tigers outfielder Davy Jones remembers this happening and retells the story in the book The Glory of Their Times, but it cannot be independently confirmed. I also heard that the rules were changed almost immediately to stop this travesty from occurring again, while, in fact, they weren’t changed until 1920, when rule 7.08i was installed, stating:

After he has acquired legal possession of a base, he runs the bases in reverse order for the purpose of confusing the defense or making a travesty of the game. The umpire shall immediately call “Time” and declare the runner out.

* The details for this section were found at Schaefer’s Wikipedia page.

The pitch that killed

This story takes its name from Mike Sowell’s book about the Carl Mays / Ray Chapman at-bat that ended with Chapman dead. Before the 1920 season, baseball, for the first time, took steps to constrain defacing of the ball. Spitballs, which had been widely used previously, were limited to two pitchers per team. Umpires were expected to remove defaced balls from the game, but were generally more lenient with balls that were discolored by normal use. On August 16 that policy had tragic consequences.

In the 5th inning, Carl Mays of the Yankees was on the mound with the Cleveland Indians’ Ray Chapman at the plate. Chapman tended to crowd the plate and lean out over it a bit - and there was nothing different about this at-bat. Mays, who had a reputation as a bit of a head-hunter even before this incident, wound up and sidearmed the ball up to the plate. Accounts differ about exactly how far off the plate the pitch was (some observers report it being actually over the plate), but no one disputes that the ball hit Chapman solidly on the head - the ball bouncing all the way to the third baseman. Chapman, bleeding heavily from the head wound, was able to leave the field with help from his teammates, but died the next morning in the hospital. Chapman remains the only major league player or coach to be killed as a result of on-field activities. The immediate impact of this catastrophe was to instruct the umpires to remove discolored balls from play, thereby improving the visibility for the batter. This increased visibility not only kept batters safer, but led to an increase in offense, pulling baseball out of the deadball era.

* This section was taken largely from the Baseball Reference Bullpen page on the Chapman beaning.

1/8

In 1951, noted showman Bill Veeck (as in wreck) signed 3 foot 4 inch tall Eddie Gaedel to a major league contract for the St. Louis Browns, intending to use him as a promotion. Between games of a doubleheader against the Detroit Tigers, Gaedel jumped out a cake to a lackluster response. But that was because those in attendance had no idea what he’d do for an encore. Gaedel, wearing a jersey with the number 1/8, entered the game as a pinch hitter. As you might imagine, the Tigers’ pitcher was at a loss for how to pitch to Gaedel. His catcher, Bob Swift offered the helpful advice, “Keep it low.”

Although Gaedel told Veeck he was tempted to swing the bat, he resisted the temptation and kept the bat on his shoulder. Unsurprisingly, he walked on four pitches. After reaching first base to the accompaniment of a standing ovation, Gaedel was removed from the game for a pinch-hitter.

The next day, Gaedel’s contract was voided by the American League president, who chastised Veeck for making a mockery of the game. Veeck’s stunt also led to a rule where the commissioner’s office must approve any contract before the player can appear in a game.

* The information in this section was obtained from Eddie Gaedel’s Wikipedia page.

As time has passed, rules have become more solid and loopholes have gotten smaller and smaller. A part of me still holds out hope, though, that somewhere, a baseball player will figure out a way to take an inch and stretch it into a mile - and that baseball will be forced to react with another rule change.

WOWY - over at Beyond the Box Score

Posted by Dan Turkenkopf - 25/03/08 at 01:03:07 pm

I’ve just posted the next entry in my look at Catcher’s Block Percentage over at Beyond the Box Score.  I’ll be posting there once or twice a week - largely on stats-related work.

I’ll continue to post here, but the topics may shift more towards reactions to news and stories from baseball history rather than stats.

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