Ozzie also tweeted: "all these guys on mlb network right now just writing books wow genius haha"

I'm not the biggest fan of MGL, but this (as well as Ozzie's comments) is pretty cool for him. Here's Ozzie's other tweet by the way:

all these guys on mlb network right now just writing books wow genius haha

I don't know if MGL will pop into this thread, but my initial reaction to the idea that managers should pinch hit for their starting pitchers more often in innings 5-7 is that I would expect much of the increased offense to be given back by additional innings from near-replacement level bullpen guys.

Maybe I'm wrong - maybe the extra bullpen work would fall on the better pitchers. It's clearly possible for good relief pitchers to consistently throw 90-100 innings a year, but that's so foreign to current conventional wisdom that the manager who takes the pinch hitting advice would either end up putting his neck on the line by extending his bullpen more than anyone else, or dealing with an additional 60-70 innings from Danys Baez or Jeff Fulchino.

If you've got an ace going, then you might want to keep him in a bit longer. If it's a typical #4 starter, then your back of the bullpen guy is probably going to be more effective than your starter when he's facing hitters for the third time.

How early you can pinch hit depends on how rested your bullpen is. I don't think you can pull it off for the whole regular season without either running out of fresh relievers, or running out of pinch hitters, depending on your roster construction. Makes a lot of sense in the playoffs though.

I don't know if MGL will pop into this thread, but my initial reaction to the idea that managers should pinch hit for their starting pitchers more often in innings 5-7 is that I would expect much of the increased offense to be given back by additional innings from near-replacement level bullpen guys.

Maybe I'm wrong - maybe the extra bullpen work would fall on the better pitchers. It's clearly possible for good relief pitchers to consistently throw 90-100 innings a year, but that's so foreign to current conventional wisdom that the manager who takes the pinch hitting advice would either end up putting his neck on the line by extending his bullpen more than anyone else, or dealing with an additional 60-70 innings from Danys Baez or Jeff Fulchino.

If you're managing the Yankees or the Rangers or the Phillies or the Angels, yeah, don't do that. You're good enough to win if you just sit on your hands, so just don't #### it up.

But if you're the Blue Jays? You should be trying stuff like this, because it might swing a few games in your favor. And suddenly you're a managerial genius.

I don't think you can pull it off for the whole regular season without either running out of fresh relievers, or running out of pinch hitters, depending on your roster construction.

The 25-man roster makes this tough.

It's certainly possible, as Dan suggests, for good relief pitchers to throw more innings - but the issue has always been finding the right guys for that role. One reason we have the roster construction that we do is that it's a heck of a lot easier to find pitchers who can give you consistent quality in small chunks than it is to find pitchers who can give you consistent quality across multiple innings at a time. Guys with one or two quality pitches can get three outs at a time reasonably often enough to be valuable commodities; it becomes more difficult for them when they have to get six or nine.

-- MWE

"Clubhouse Confidential" is a dumb name for a show about sabe stuff.

#7, Agreed, I don't get the name either.

#3, mgl's argument as stated on the show, at least as I understand it, was that in innings 5-7 you be aggressive about pinch hitting for your pitcher (1) if it's a close game and (2) if it's a high leverage situation at the plate. His argument was predicated on the notion that as starters go two, three, four times through a lineup, they get increasingly worse. So in that sense, by that time the starter isn't much better than the reliever you'll replace him with, and so you might as well go for the increased offense.

I think he also - though I wasn't paying full attention I admit - argued that managers should be bringing in other _starters_ as the "relievers" in these situations (I guess on their throw days).

---

One thing I've always wondered: do pitchers really "have it" on certain days and "not have it" on certain days, or is this mostly random? If a pitcher gives up hits to 5 of 6 batters in the first, is this information useful in predicting what the next 6 hitters will do? If a pitcher pitches a scoreless 1st and 2nd, is that predictive that he'll pitch a scoreless 3rd or 4th? If he gets hammered in the 1st does that mean he'll more likely get hammered in the 2nd or 3rd? It seems random sometimes in that pitchers will get hit hard in one inning and then be fine the rest of the game, etc.

One reason we have the roster construction that we do is that it's a heck of a lot easier to find pitchers who can give you consistent quality in small chunks than it is to find pitchers who can give you consistent quality across multiple innings at a time. Guys with one or two quality pitches can get three outs at a time reasonably often enough to be valuable commodities; it becomes more difficult for them when they have to get six or nine.

I don't understand why the number of quality pitches matter here? In two innings, you're not facing the same guy twice.

I could believe it might be a stamina thing, although I'm skeptical, b/c they don't leave guys in even after a 10-pitch inning. But pitch arsenal shouldn't matter much, if at all, for one IP vs. two.

One thing I've always wondered: do pitchers really "have it" on certain days and "not have it" on certain days, or is this mostly random? If a pitcher gives up hits to 5 of 6 batters in the first, is this information useful in predicting what the next 6 hitters will do? If a pitcher pitches a scoreless 1st and 2nd, is that predictive that he'll pitch a scoreless 3rd or 4th? If he gets hammered in the 1st does that mean he'll more likely get hammered in the 2nd or 3rd? It seems random sometimes in that pitchers will get hit hard in one inning and then be fine the rest of the game, etc.

I don't know if this has been debunked or backed down from, but Tango and MGL ran a study that said it's mostly random. That if your pitcher got hit hard for 4 innings that the best prediction of his performance in the 5th was his current projection (that you probably had before the day started), not the previous 4 innings.

While I tend to agree with the thread CW -- I'm also of a mind that since teams have stupidly decided that current roster construction should entail a 12 man staff, the idea has merit.

In fact, if your rotation goes deep enough to extend down to AAA (not that your 4-7 SPs are any good -- just that there's not much separation between them), might tack on a shuttle service. It would take some significant coordination between the AAA rotation and the big league one -- you'd want to make sure to keep the order timed so that your AAA options are rested at the right time -- but why not just plan on only having say... your #1 through #4 work on regular rest, use your #5 as more of a spot starter/reliever than true rotation member, start him only when the season plays out that way.

If you have a #5 who is clearly and undoubtedly better than whatever you have in AAA, I suppose that's one thing... but I gotta believe there are fewer teams who could say that was the case than not.

For a bad team, it probably doesn't matter... but for a fringe wildcard team? Maybe it buys you an extra win.

I think he also - though I wasn't paying full attention I admit - argued that managers should be bringing in other _starters_ as the "relievers" in these situations (I guess on their throw days).

He spoke of "platooning" the fourth and fifth starters, which I guess means using them as hybrid starter/relievers, but wouldn't that lead to a four-man rotation? I'm not saying that's necessarily bad - I'm agnostic in the four man/five man debate - but that has bullpen ramifications of its own. Now you're either asking your 1-3 starters to start ~40 games and throw ~250 IP (if you go four-man) or you're stressing your bullpen even more than you were with all the pinch hitting (if you go five-man).

I certainly don't intend to sound overly critical here. I just want to understand the argument and I think the easiest way for me to get from here to there is to play devil's advocate.

While I tend to agree with the thread CW -- I'm also of a mind that since teams have stupidly decided that current roster construction should entail a 12 man staff, the idea has merit.

In fact, if your rotation goes deep enough to extend down to AAA (not that your 4-7 SPs are any good -- just that there's not much separation between them), might tack on a shuttle service. It would take some significant coordination between the AAA rotation and the big league one -- you'd want to make sure to keep the order timed so that your AAA options are rested at the right time -- but why not just plan on only having say... your #1 through #4 work on regular rest, use your #5 as more of a spot starter/reliever than true rotation member, start him only when the season plays out that way.

If you have a #5 who is clearly and undoubtedly better than whatever you have in AAA, I suppose that's one thing... but I gotta believe there are fewer teams who could say that was the case than not.

For a bad team, it probably doesn't matter... but for a fringe wildcard team? Maybe it buys you an extra win.

The way to do this is to have your #6 and #7 SP in the bullpen as long men.

This was pretty common in the '70s and early '80s. The staff would consist of 3-4 true SP, 2-3 "swing-men" (long RP/spot starters), and 3 short RPs.

The 3 or 4 true SP stay on regular rest. When you have off days you skip the 5th spot, and you fill the 4th/5th starter spots with a rotation of your swing-men, based on matchups, or the "hot-hand".

In today's world, it would probably be 4 SPs who stay on regular rotation, 5 short RPs, and 3 swing-men.

By carrying so many starters on the roster, the Nationals could try this if only they actually had better hitters on the bench. They could use Strasburg, Zimmermann, Gonzalez, Jackson as the main guys pitching their 5 innings, one/two at bat limit unless there's a good sized lead, and work Lannan, Detwiler, Wang and Gorzelanny as their long relief buddies, with tough matchups and later replacements for the following atbats going to Burnett, Lidge, Clippard, and Storen. It's really just Rodriguez who's the odd man out as 13th pitcher in that situation. Johnson occasionally stretched his relievers to two inning stints, trying to get more innings from Rodriguez and Clippard in particular, so he might be open to leveraging the relievers in a new way if it meant more offense, which seems to be the choice he usually opts for in game situations. Provided that he's not overly concerned with his starting catcher getting hurt (Werth, Harper can be the emergency guys) he may be able to do this if he had a set starting lineup.

I actually tried that pinch-hit strategy in a season of Diamond Mind. While I'm sure it did win me some games, it also led to a chronically tired bullpen, where you'd only have 2, sometimes 3 pitcher available per game. If a team really tried that, they'd need an elaborate minor-league taxi system to get fresh arms up. (Beyond the transactional difficulties of that, just having 4-5 semi-equal arms available is difficult enough).

It's one of those things that makes sense on paper, but just seems much more difficult to actually do.

He spoke of "platooning" the fourth and fifth starters, which I guess means using them as hybrid starter/relievers, but wouldn't that lead to a four-man rotation? I'm not saying that's necessarily bad - I'm agnostic in the four man/five man debate - but that has bullpen ramifications of its own. Now you're either asking your 1-3 starters to start ~40 games and throw ~250 IP (if you go four-man) or you're stressing your bullpen even more than you were with all the pinch hitting (if you go five-man).

I certainly don't intend to sound overly critical here. I just want to understand the argument and I think the easiest way for me to get from here to there is to play devil's advocate.

My guess is he's proposing the 4.5 man rotation. Starters 1-3 go every 5th day, they don't get extra rest when there are off days. The 5th spot is skipped whenever possible.

So you'd have your 4th-7th SP as swing-men, or in AAA, filling those 1.5 rotation spots as needed.

Based on a 180-day baseball season, your #1-3 SPs would start 36 times, and if they averaged 6.5 IP/GS, pitch ~235 innings.

He spoke of "platooning" the fourth and fifth starters, which I guess means using them as hybrid starter/relievers, but wouldn't that lead to a four-man rotation?

I suppose he could be advocating a system where you go No. 1, No. 4/5, No. 2, No. 3, No. 5/4, No. 1 (but even then, you can't use this system with equal number rest days between semi-starts.

For the numerous (and often justifiable) complaints about MGL's tone, he acquitted himself quite nicely here. Well done MGL.

I suppose he could be advocating a system where you go No. 1, No. 4/5, No. 2, No. 3, No. 5/4, No. 1

How about #1, #2, #3, #4/6, #5/7, #1? Skipping #5/7 when there's an off day.

"Clubhouse Confidential" is a dumb name for a show about sabe stuff.

It is confusing, isn't it. Literally any other show would probably be more suited to the name.

Kind of like how ESPN let the person who writes about sports less than anyone else call himself "The Sports Guy".

I think the concern about losing a #4/#5 starter and having to instead use a back-of-the-pen reliever is unwarranted. If you look at what the average team gets out of the #4/5 slots vs. what their long man gives them, I don't think you'll see much difference. In fact, the same guy who's your #5 now may be your long man later in the year, and vice versa.

If you're willing to swap these very similar pitchers in order to get a good hitter to the plate in the right situation, I bet that's a big advantage. And although they aren't going to be a David Ortiz level DH, they're going to be miles better than most pitchers.

I think the show, which I catch 2-3 times a week is very good. I've been wondering for years why someone didn't try this type of show, so I hope it is very successful.

Also, that's a really cool poster of a city that MGL has put up in his mother's basement.

Mgl is considerably older than I pictured him in my mind. Much of his off-the-cuff writing is so petulant.

"Clubhouse Confidential" is a dumb name for a show about sabe stuff.

"Notes from Mom's Basement" would be truth in advertising, but less salable.

Here is an old SI article (1972) discussing Earnshaw Cook.

One specific suggestion is very much on topic

In each game, a reliever should start, go two or three innings and come out for a pinch hitter his first time up. He would be followed by a starter type, who would go about five innings, batting the first time he came up, but going out for a pinch hitter his second time up.

The idea of starting the short guy is for platoon busting purposes. Cook did understand that you just couldn't pinch-hit every time.

It's a strategy that would have worked pretty well with some teams of that general time frame. I've tried it in sims with some of the Reds and Pirates teams of the day and it worked fine. Works less well when you have a team with an elite starter or two and a lot of dreck at the tail end of the staff. Like it or not these guys will have to pull important innings from time to time.

Plenty of real world issues with the players though.

EDIT: (hopefully) for clarity

For the numerous (and often justifiable) complaints about MGL's tone, he acquitted himself quite nicely here. Well done MGL.

Agreed.

Plenty of real world issues with the players though.

OTOH, your starters would be in line for more wins than they are now.

But if you're the Blue Jays? You should be trying stuff like this, because it might swing a few games in your favor. And suddenly you're a managerial genius.

The Blue Jays can also take advantage of an obscure rule in their league which allows them to send a real hitter to the plate in place of the pitcher, without requiring a substitution.

In each game, a reliever should start, go two or three innings and come out for a pinch hitter his first time up. He would be followed by a starter type, who would go about five innings, batting the first time he came up, but going out for a pinch hitter his second time up.

You can definitely do things like this once rosters expand in September. One thing I like to do in APBA is, when I have a particularly weak hitter at 2b, ss, or catcher, to pinch hit for that spot with my extra 1B/DH types.

One thing I like to do in APBA is, when I have a particularly weak hitter at 2b, ss, or catcher, to pinch hit for that spot with my extra 1B/DH types.

I was in an APBA league years ago in which one team went an entire season without allowing a shortstop to hit.

That's maybe a bit much, but I admired the guy's willingness to try new things.

That's got to be tough to do. Most of my teams use 11 man pitching staffs. So if I have a backup catcher and assume it's a DH league, I have 4 other bench spots. I can pinch hit twice for my SS and replace him in the field. After that I've either got to let the SS hit or play the slugger in the field.

Option 2 is not disastrous in APBA, since SS have a fielding rating of 6 to 10, and anyone not rated specifically gets a 6 rating. That includes Frank Thomas and Manny Ramirez.

I guess it would be a lot easier in APBA if you were playing with a different era where you can go with an 8 man pitching staff.

Yep, he went the "slugger in the field" route, and we were playing the basic version so he just wound up going Fielding Two. It was completely against the spirit of the game, but there was no rule against it so we couldn't really do anything about it.

I can't think of any names for the show that would be more accurate and more saleable than "Clubhouse Confidential".

Not to threadjack, but I haven't seen any discussion yet of "Baseball IQ". What do people think of it? The matchup format I thought was spot-on to have front office people from MLB teams face each other. Even if you don't know the answers, a viewer has a team rooting interest for or against. That's better than just random BTF or SABR people, even though some of those folks are even more knowledgeable. I think the list format gets boring after a while. I would have preferred a traditional buzzer format that could bring in the more obscure interesting facts of baseball history that don't lend themselves well to lists.

This would be much easier to do if you sacrificed the advantage of being able to use your best guys in high leverage situations for a bullpen rotation and sacrificing the platoon advantage. If I have four decent relievers, basically initially pair them up and have throw on alternating days. If your starter goes the distance or someone doesn't get used, you bump the unused guy to the next day and drop everyone down a notch. The rotation swing man is mostly around to handle blow-outs or blow-ups.

I understand why people don't use a bullpen rotation, but it seems that it would help roster planning significantly (and would justify spending a lot more on your bullpen, as you would definitely need to have four very dependable guys to pull this off).

I don't know if this has been debunked or backed down from, but Tango and MGL ran a study that said it's mostly random. That if your pitcher got hit hard for 4 innings that the best prediction of his performance in the 5th was his current projection (that you probably had before the day started), not the previous 4 innings.

Did they correct for selection bias? I mean, if a pitcher sometimes doesn't 'have it', and a manager is able to detect that some of the time, then those pitchers will preferentially be taken out before the 5th inning, so wouldn't be counted.

How about #1, #2, #3, #4/6, #5/7, #1? Skipping #5/7 when there's an off day.

Problem is that off days don't always cooperate. Let's say that you never want to skip your top 4, but you want to skip 5 as often as possible. When you have 4 games in a row then an off day (PPPPOPPPP), fine, skip him. But what about 5 in a row? (PPPPPOPPPPP) You have to pitch 5, then 1-4 all on extra rest and then pitch 5 again.

PPPPPPOPPPP - You still had to pitch 5 and 1 on regular rest and now what do you do for game 7? You don't skip 2 or 3 so they just go on extra rest. You could choose to skip 4 and pitch 1 on regular rest, but then 5 has to pitch anyway.

You can certainly skip the 5th starter when needed, but you'd actually have to look and see how many chances there are. Having a set 1-3 and skipping either 4 or 5 when the chance happens is probably a better idea. If you have the personnel to do that.

Yep, he went the "slugger in the field" route, and we were playing the basic version so he just wound up going Fielding Two. It was completely against the spirit of the game, but there was no rule against it so we couldn't really do anything about it.

I once tested the impact of fielding in the computer game by taking two exact teams, rating the fielders at the maximum for one and the minimum for the other. The good fielding team usually went 92-70 or about.

Problem is that off days don't always cooperate.

Sure. That's why it ends up being a 4.5 man rotation.

PPPPPPOPPPP - You still had to pitch 5 and 1 on regular rest and now what do you do for game 7? You don't skip 2 or 3 so they just go on extra rest. You could choose to skip 4 and pitch 1 on regular rest, but then 5 has to pitch anyway.

The only situation where it doesn't buy you an extra start from a good pitcher is PPPPPO ... or a couple of variations thereof. For this one ...

123451O2341

And you've got an extra start from your #1. You don't "skip" to keep everybody on 4 days rest ... when an off-day pops up that allows you to give your 1-4 an extra days rest you use it.

The Braves did this flawlessly in the early 90s. The 93 Braves got 142 starts from Maddux, Glavine, Smoltz and Avery, leaving just 20 for Smith and Mercker.

But if you're the Blue Jays? You should be trying stuff like this, because it might swing a few games in your favor. And suddenly you're a managerial genius.

It's too bad that the difference might be between winning 83 and 85 games, which no one will notice (even if you make the playoffs, this won't be considered the reason) whereas if it doesn't work you're in trouble.

For the numerous (and often justifiable) complaints about MGL's tone, he acquitted himself quite nicely here. Well done MGL.

Yup. As an occasionally voice/public-speaking coach I'd encourage him to work on trimming the "um's" as those distract from his meaning, and aim to put more changes in pitch into his voice; pitch changes go a long way to highlighting a speaker's meaning. As is, he changes volume more than he does pitch, which is like leaving irons 5 through 9 in the clubhouse.

It's too bad that the difference might be between winning 83 and 85 games, which no one will notice (even if you make the playoffs, this won't be considered the reason) whereas if it doesn't work you're in trouble.

Yeah, this is always the problem with something unorthodox. If batting the pitcher 8th gains you an extra win, then on balance it's a good thing. But the first time that the pitcher comes up with the bases loaded and grounds into an inning-ending double play, you'll be crucified by the press and the fans.

#33 One thing that Cook was very clearly wrong about. He didn't believe there was such a thing as the platoon advantage. Makes constructing a roster to take advantage of his proposed strategy if you're playing the Stratomatic basic game.

One thing I've always wondered: do pitchers really "have it" on certain days and "not have it" on certain days, or is this mostly random?

Of course. They're human beings, not robots. Hitters have bad days, pitchers do too. Everyone does. And at such a high level of competition you only need to "not have it" by a little to matter a lot.

#40 I can recall the last few trials of a 4 man rotation. Quite literally everything that went wrong was blamed on it.

In other words, something that you can objectively point to as being connected to the experiment would not be required.

One thing I've always wondered: do pitchers really "have it" on certain days and "not have it" on certain days, or is this mostly random?

Of course. They're human beings, not robots. Hitters have bad days, pitchers do too. Everyone does. And at such a high level of competition you only need to "not have it" by a little to matter a lot.

Brief Google search doesn't turn it up, but Walter Johnson had a great line about this. Something like, "Some days I had the good fastball, some days I didn't. I don't know why, and I don't know if anyone can ever really know for sure." Big Train would know, I reckon.

One thing I've always wondered: do pitchers really "have it" on certain days and "not have it" on certain days, or is this mostly random?

I have no doubt that pitchers can have it/not have it on certain days. I have considerable doubt we can identify the former from the results of the previous inning(s).

"Some days I had the good fastball, some days I didn't. I don't know why, and I don't know if anyone can ever really know for sure." Big Train would know, I reckon.

All of the evidence I've seen suggests this is largely or completely wrong. A pitcher's early-game performance has almost no predictive value in terms of projecting what he will do for the rest of the game. Beyond the analysis in The Book, MGL has looked at this a number of other times, and always finds the same thing. And managers seem to understand that somewhat better today (though not completely), as they are much less likely to take a starter out very early in the game.

And I wouldn't expect a pitcher (even the Big Train) to know the right answer here.

Brief Google search doesn't turn it up, but Walter Johnson had a great line about this. Something like, "Some days I had the good fastball, some days I didn't. I don't know why, and I don't know if anyone can ever really know for sure." Big Train would know, I reckon.

Exactly. Like I said, they're humans. Sometimes we have bad days.

All of the evidence I've seen suggests this is largely or completely wrong. A pitcher's early-game performance has almost no predictive value in terms of projecting what he will do for the rest of the game. Beyond the analysis in The Book, MGL has looked at this a number of other times, and always finds the same thing.

As said in #34, if a guy doesn't have it in the first few innings, many times he's not sticking around for the later innings to show up in such a study.

As an extreme example, it's pretty obvious that Rick Ankiel didn't have it the day he threw 42 wild pitches and wasn't going to get it if he kept pitching. (The next game he pitched, granted it was the next season, he struck out 8 in 5 innings and didn't throw a wild pitch.) Or conversely, Kerry Wood struck out 20 guys in one game. Obviously he was really on that day. There is no reason to believe that he can't also be really off another day. (Cue jokes about him being off for the rest of his career.)

I forget who the story was about - Steve Carlton or Tom Seaver or someone - but I remember hearing that on the morning of a 17 strikeout performance (or some similar feat), the pitcher looked down at his arm during warmups in the bullpen and felt like it didn't belong to him, like it was some alien appendage.

I do believe that a pitcher can have it or not have it on any given day. But another problem in the analysis is that a pitcher can lose it or get it in the middle of a game. "It" doesn't just reset to a different level every morning.

Jim Bouton wrote about a similar feeling too.

But another problem in the analysis is that a pitcher can lose it or get it in the middle of a game.

Absolutely. We see it in other sports all the time, a guy has a lousy game for three quarters but has one quarter of really good play. Sometimes it's at the end of the game so we call it clutch, sometimes it's not.

You can break it down to pitches and swings if you wanted to. Not every decision will turn out well even if it was the logical one. But that's no fun.