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July 14, 2005

Crooked Numbers

Subroutines

by James Click

Baseball players are creatures of habit and superstition. Any quick viewing of Bull Durham (“If you believe you’re playing well because you’re wearing women’s underwear, then you are”) or a handshake with Moises Alou will tell you that. But it’s something that can also be easily disregarded when making personnel decisions.

The Red Sox, for example, have stated that they’d like Curt Schilling to move to the bullpen, but many of the Sox, most vocally Johnny Damon, have stated that they don’t believe Schilling will be able to make the transition based on his warm up requirements. Schilling, he believes, can’t be ready to pitch on a moment’s notice, but instead needs a fair amount of time to prepare.

Minute changes like this in a player’s routine usually can’t be tracked. For instance, we don’t know if Miguel Tejada took extra batting practice before hitting his home run off of John Smoltz in the All-Star Game; we don’t track teams’ travel plans, knowing what time they got in, if their hotel was comfortable, if they got enough sleep, etc. Like opponents' parks or the quality of the opposing pitcher or hitter, it’s easy to think that those kinds of bumps even out over the course of a season. Then again, BP does provide quality of opposing batters and pitchers reports to try to divine if some players’ bumps didn’t even out.

Along these same lines is one thing we can track--a player’s position. This change is another that players and announcers mention as an excuse for players struggling at the plate. Players who have recently moved to a new position are focused too much on learning their new defensive requirements. Players who are DHing have a hard time keeping their heads in the game. Pinch-hitting requires a special kind of player who can warm up quickly, go from sitting on the bench cold to swinging a bat on a moment’s notice.

Specifically, looking at designated hitters provides a unique insight into this question, since the difference between switching from one defensive position to another seems different than spending an hour on the bench between at-bats. We didn’t have a DH in Little League, so I can’t say from personal experience, but it’s used as an explanation often enough that it’s a theory that could use a good test.