From 10-6-2008

Manuel throws SABR-heads under bus



On his first full day as the Mets' long-term manager, Manuel forcefully attacked the SABR-type mathematical analysis some have fixated on in recent years.

"You get so many statistical people together, they put so many stats on paper, and they say, well, if you do this and you score this many runs, you do that many times, you'll be in the playoffs," he said.

"That's not really how it works, and that's what we have to get away from. And that's going to have to be a different mind-set of the team in going forward. We must win and we must know how to win rather than win because we have statistical people. We have to win because we have baseball players that know and can understand the game."

Have fun missing the playoffs for the next ten years Mets fans.

“They lead the league in categories that, ironically, don’t generate runs. Walks score by default and they got lucky last time they were home due to a couple of bullpen implosions.”

  “The reality is if you’re taking that first pitch strike, if you’re taking that called 3rd strike, if you’re taking so many strikes… It affects your situational hitting and you’re not getting good pitches to hit.”

Two points. One, how do people still not get that Walks are a good thing? I mean really, baseball is timed by outs. The sign of a good team, is that it doesn't make outs. The team has exceeded expectations in no small part due to the fact that they are doing a very good job of not getting out.

Two, has anybody, ever in the history of the universe, said that its a good idea to take strike three? I guess somebody might have mentioned it in a conversation about double plays, but I have a hard time figuring out who he's arguing with here.

Ignoring the barrel teeming with fish, is it really true that "the organization has forced the players to adopt" a passive, patient batting style? Can anyone find a reference for this? Almost all of these players were signed by Minaya, and they were all similarly patient during the Minaya years.

On called strike three -- I think the point folks like Ojeda are trying to make (and not clearly) is that the batter should swing at borderline pitches with 2 strikes in hopes of fouling it off. The patient crowd (seem to) advocate still not swinging at a pitch you think is outside the zone which inevitably will lead to more called strike threes. I would assume there is some small correlation between called third strikes and walk rates.

I'll also say I don't have a clue what Ojeda means by "walks score by default" and so no idea if he's actually anti-walk.

As to the Mets -- they're third in BA and only 5th in walks so what's Ojeda complaining about really? OK, they are first in Ks (first in Ks, 3rd in BA doesn't sound sustainable to me). They have a team 329 BABIP which can't be sustainable I wouldn't think. So I guess that's what Ojeda's annoyed about -- they're "swinging the bats well" when they swing them so (duh!) swing them more. Anyway, the Mets prior problem is a lack of power (11th in ISO) and I don't see that improving by swinging more.

I'll also say I don't have a clue what Ojeda means by "walks score by default" and so no idea if he's actually anti-walk.

Based on Ojeda's following sentence, I think he's referring to last week, when the Mets tied a game in the 9th by drawing 4 consecutive walks and two days later again drew 4 consecutive walks late in a game to take the lead. I guess it's probably not a repeatable skill, but the Mets' exceptional patience helped cause those implosions.

Anyway, I think it's very fun to watch this team hit. Even though I mostly disagree with the idea, I do understand the rationale of wanting a Dunn or Bautista to swing the bat more. I don't really understand being upset by Ruben Tejada or Josh Thole taking borderline pitches.

Maybe he's auditioning for Kruk's job.

The patient crowd (seem to) advocate still not swinging at a pitch you think is outside the zone which inevitably will lead to more called strike threes. I would assume there is some small correlation between called third strikes and walk rates.

That's it. MGL made this point once upon a time. Most close pitches on a 3-2 count should be taken, not swung at. It's counterintuitive but works when you think through some numbers. Your chance of a hit by swinging is maybe 30%, and let's say 10 percentage points of that is a double. So even if there's a 60% chance that the incoming pitch will be called a strike, you should lay off since the 40% expected value of the walk is superior.

Not to defend Ojeda, who really was spouting nonsense, but there's still within the game a notion that pitchers are fully responsible for bases on balls. Couple that with a general preference for aggressiveness over passiveness in all facets of the game ("he really makes things happen out there), and you get notions that hitters who are "looking" for walks are just being unacceptably passive.

Manuel's comments are a different barrel of fish.

Happy Base Ball

Based on Ojeda's following sentence, I think he's referring to last week, when the Mets tied a game in the 9th by drawing 4 consecutive walks and two days later again drew 4 consecutive walks late in a game to take the lead. I guess it's probably not a repeatable skill, but the Mets' exceptional patience helped cause those implosions.

Just reading the excerpt, having no knowledge of the games, my first thought was to wonder if walks helped lead to the bullpen implosions.

Methinks Ojeda believes pitch counts are for sissies as well, so any "well managed" team that regularly leaves it's starters out for 150 pitches will be immune to the patient hitter strategy.

I do understand the rationale of wanting a Dunn or Bautista to swing the bat more.

Wasn't that Ozzie's approach to Dunn last season, Alan? That did not go very well.

...Great job and I bet Sandy Alderson can’t be too happy hearing that. Like I said before – these people like Alderson think they’re smarter than the game and the game of baseball is going to come back and bite them in the you know what.

Just PLAY THE GAME and SWING THE DAMNED BATS and let’s drive in some runs!

one thing that i think about when i see people talk about plate discipline and patience, is that some people seem to view it as solely a tactical concept. but i think there's an element of skill building to it as well, in that, the more pitches that a batter sees, the better he gets at seeing them. pitch recognition is a skill, and patience and plate discipline is an offshoot of that skill. taking pitches seems to be the best way for a player to refine his pitch recognition skills, so i think that's another unspoken upside to the focus on OBP

That's it. MGL made this point once upon a time. Most close pitches on a 3-2 count should be taken, not swung at. It's counterintuitive but works when you think through some numbers. Your chance of a hit by swinging is maybe 30%, and let's say 10 percentage points of that is a double. So even if there's a 60% chance that the incoming pitch will be called a strike, you should lay off since the 40% expected value of the walk is superior.

i'm not a really big math guy, but if you take 3-2, with the expectation of walking 40% of the time, that would leave you with a .400 OPS. even if you assume the batter will get a hit just 25% of the time, and even if you assume that all of those hits will be singles, that's still a .500 OPS, which beats the .400 OPS that you'd get by taking every borderline pitch.

i'm not a really big math guy, but if you take 3-2, with the expectation of walking 40% of the time, that would leave you with a .400 OPS. even if you assume the batter will get a hit just 25% of the time, and even if you assume that all of those hits will be singles, that's still a .500 OPS, which beats the .400 OPS that you'd get by taking every borderline pitch.

A walk doesn't have a SLG of zero, since SLG requires an official AB, which a walk is not. So you can't use OPS here.

Better to think of it in terms of bases per PA. One base 40% of the time creates more bases than one base 25% of the time. The difference is how many extra bases/runs the singles produce by advancing other runners. My guess is MGL knows the general values extremely well.

In addition to what ValueArbitrageur said, another approach is to figure it as bases per out, since outs are the currency and clock of baseball. The free swinger will earn 40 bases (by my postulate of 30 hits, 10 of which are doubles) per 70 outs. The walker earns 40 bases per 60 outs.

Of course there's situational modifiers to this generic overview - of course you swing more often with a guy on 3rd and one out.

Wait a minute, how are fouls accounted for? You can only get those and possibly a better next pitch by swinging.

Wait a minute, how are fouls accounted for? You can only get those and possibly a better next pitch by swinging.

I'm sure somebody's done this ... no idea what the numbers come out at.

The other piece missing from this discussion is that it's not just the outcome of this PA but also the next one. Even in cases with men on base where the walk doesn't advance runners while the single will, you've still got the chance the next batter gets a hit/walk.

A key thing to keep in mind though is that the BABIP on a borderline pitch isn't likely to be anywhere near 300 or even 250. The BABIP on GBs and FBs is pathetic (somewhere around 150 if I recall) and BABIP is driven by LD%. I don't know how often LDs are hit on borderline pitches but I assume not very often. Of course there must be some non-zero chance of a HR on a borderline pitch.

There is still the question we can't answer about the batter's reaction time. What Ojeda sees -- and it inevitably happens from time to time -- is a batter taking a pitch he assessed would be borderline only to have it end up a very hittable pitch for strike three. And it would seem likely that if a team were to emphasize taking borderline strikes that the hitters might be more likely to screw that up -- i.e. if they're worried about swinging at a borderline pitch they're going to take too long assessing the pitch that they won't be able to swing at a good one anyway. But I doubt any team stresses it to such a great degree.

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i'm not a really big math guy,

Ok...

but if you take 3-2, with the expectation of walking 40% of the time, that would leave you with a .400 OPS. even if you assume the batter will get a hit just 25% of the time, and even if you assume that all of those hits will be singles, that's still a .500 OPS, which beats the .400 OPS that you'd get by taking every borderline pitch.

Oh, this is just ghastly. You should have trusted your instincts.