October 22, 2012

Baseball Therapy

Are Three-True-Outcomes Players Better in the Playoffs?

by Russell A. Carleton

Let me pull back the curtain on how BP articles are made, at least at my house. This article came about when I was washing the dishes. It's my thing. I like to listen to podcasts and scrub down pots and pans. It's wondrously therapeutic after a long day at work, and BP alumni Joe Sheehan and Rany Jazayerli were keeping me company as I struggled mightily with the remnants of mac and cheese from my daughter's lunch plate.

Anyway, Messrs. Sheehan and Jazayerli (erm, Dr. Jazayerli) were chatting about the then-happening American League Championship Series (they seem to have recorded between games Two and Three) and pondering the struggles of Yankee hitters, even the ones not named Rodriguez. They brought up the struggles of Nick Swisher and Curtis Granderson, and Mr. Sheehan mused aloud about whether Three True Outcomes hitters (that is, guys who are particularly gifted in the arts of striking out, walking, and hitting home runs) as a class of players had trouble in the playoffs. They didn't linger too long on the subject, but at the end, Mr. Sheehan suggested that it might make a good study for someone to do. (To hear the original, listen to Episode 56, around the 1:15:00 mark).

And that someone just happened to be cleaning cooked rice out of a pot when he heard that irresistible dog whistle. My life is as glamorous as it gets.

As always, if you're afraid of numbers, please skip to "What It All Means".

Warning! Gory Mathematical Details Ahead!
One of the reasons that not a lot of TTO hitters have had amazing postseasons is that postseason games are better pitched, and offense in general is down. The postseason run environment is a little different. Take a look at the table below showing the frequency of events in the regular season vs. the postseason from 1993-2011. (Before someone goes and fact checks me, that's exclusive of intentional walks and pitchers batting. Also, the percentages don't add up to 100 because I left out errors and fielder's interference.)

Outcome

The rest of this article is restricted to Baseball Prospectus Subscribers. Not a subscriber? Click here for more information on Baseball Prospectus subscriptions or use the buttons to the right to subscribe and get access to the best baseball content on the web. Cancel anytime. That's a 33% savings over the monthly price! That's a 33% savings over the monthly price! Already a subscriber? Click here and use the blue login bar to log in. 9 comments have been left for this article. BP Comment Quick Links code of conduct robustyoungsoul (42732) Fantastic work. I think this type of analysis is the next step for sabermetrics - there is a "pretty good" handle on a lot of the regular season stuff, but when certain types of teams that we don't think of as "sabermetric friendly" are constantly advancing deep into the playoffs, it might be time to start evaluating whether these organizations are simply insanely lucky OR there is something wrong with our assumptions regarding playoff baseball being an extension of the regular season. Oct 22, 2012 07:02 AM link rating: 1   Russell A. Carleton BP staff (35870) There are very few teams who aren't Saber-friendly any more, or at least Saber-aware, including teams that would make you say "Really? Them?" Oct 22, 2012 07:50 AM link   Shaun P. (676) I have about 7 different thoughts after reading this article, but since you didn't ask the most obvious one directly, Russell, I'll ask it for you: so what is the (proper, right, best, accurate) way to model the postseason, if not as an extension of the regular season? As a related question, should even "purists" be very happy for the vast expansion of the playoffs under Selig? That is, without all the extra data created due to the expanded playoffs, would an accurate (etc) model of the postseason even be possible in 2012? Oct 22, 2012 07:12 AM link rating: 0   Russell A. Carleton BP staff (35870) I don't have a grand unifying theory of the post-season yet. I wish I did. I'd be rich. But, I think that we don't take into account that players deal with different types of pressures in the post-season and that these can have real effects. What exactly those effects are need to be properly studied and not outsourced to cliches, but I think we ignore them at our peril. Oct 22, 2012 08:26 AM link   Russell A. Carleton BP staff (35870) As to the second question: there have been roughly 100k plate appearances in post-season history, and about a third of them are concentrated in the wild card era. From a methodological point of view, bigger sample sizes are always appreciated. If all that we had was the pre-divisional World Series only model, that would make things a little tougher for me as a researcher. I'm personally not much of a purist. I've found most of the purist critiques of the expanded playoffs are aesthetic in nature. I have opinions on the matter (I like the expanded playoffs), but as far as arguing whether it makes the game more beautiful, that's a very subjective call. Oct 22, 2012 08:36 AM link   Richard Bergstrom (36532) Out of curiosity, do sacrifice flys also increase for TTO players in the playoffs? Oct 22, 2012 09:34 AM link rating: 0   Russell A. Carleton BP staff (35870) Not sure... I'd have to look. Oct 22, 2012 09:37 AM link   Richard Bergstrom (36532) Basically, aren't we saying that, in a single game or short series, TTO hitters are great because they won't hit in many double plays with all the strikeouts and they'll take walks and hit home runs. So, by extension, if TTOs are hitting a lot of home runs, they're more likely to be line drive/fly ball hitters and more likely to hit sacrifice flies. Oct 22, 2012 10:45 AM link rating: 0   Richard Bergstrom (36532) I wonder if the "flipside" makes sense too. Do pitchers that tend to have low BABIP tend to do better in the playoffs? Oct 22, 2012 13:41 PM link rating: 0   Sorry, fantasy subscribers cannot comment on exclusive premium content. << Previous Article Punk Hits: Three Night... (10/22) << Previous Column Baseball Therapy: The ... (10/15) Next Column >> Baseball Therapy: The ... (10/29) Next Article >> Playoff Prospectus: NL... 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