Why have Cincinnati’s pitchers done poorly? The ball-strike count plays a big part. In a previous column, I noted that the Reds’ strike rate was tracking with their wins and losses. This is an essay about the importance of strike rates, but let me get the caveat out of the way: Strike rates play a big part, but of course they don’t explain everything. High strike rates don’t necessarily mean success. Brian Anderson rarely gives up walks, but he gets hit hard. That said, strike rates have a big influence on outcomes. Pitchers and batters alter their approach to an at-bat on where they are in the count. Whether or not a pitcher works ahead in the count and can use his whole repertoire matters, and it matters whether a batter has to protect the plate because he’s behind in the count. Strikes reflect how well a pitcher controls a game.
What might surprise a lot of people is that there is no official method of scoring balls and strikes, just as there is no official way to publish a box score. You won’t find anything in chapter 10 of the official rules on box score formats or ball-strike tabulations. There is no official method, but for both box scores and pitch scoring there is a customary, standard way of doing things.
Under the standard, swinging strikes, called strikes, foul balls on full counts, and balls in play are counted as Strikes. All balls, including those thrown for pitchouts and intentional walks, are counted as Balls. As strikes are recorded now, a called third strike is no different than a 500-foot homer. An intentional ball is no different than a wild pitch.
Travis Hafner and Ben Broussard return to first base musical chairs. Adrian Beltre carries the banner of the BP Curse. Jeff Cirillo may still have a pulse. Plus other news and notes on the Indians, Dodgers, and Mariners.
It’s very bad news for the Expos–in fact, it could barely get much worse. Just days after losing Orlando Hernandez, Les Expos took a harder hit when Tony Armas was diagnosed with tears in both his labrum and rotator cuff. Just a week ago, the reports on Armas were glowing, so I’m not sure what changed. No decision has been made on a program, but Armas will likely be making a visit to Jim Andrews, Lewis Yocum, or another leading surgeon in the next few days. I don’t foresee him avoiding surgery, but Jim Andrews has been seemingly reluctant to cut lately, preferring aggressive non-surgical therapy.
From the files of Brad Arnsberg: A good source, Lewis Shaw, wrote in with this assessment of Javier Vazquez:
“I saw Vazquez enough tonight to have serious concerns about his elbow. He strides way too far out from the windup, but more especially from the stretch. He lands with a stiff front leg from the stretch, is violent (as indicated by his head moving all over the place), and shows maximum effort. This was not the case as recently as last season. He constantly drops his elbow below his shoulder at delivery, getting no downhill angle on the baseball. Thus, from the stretch his four-seamer is flat. He torques his elbow in an effort to get life on his four-seamer, and depth on his slider. His velocity has diminished, and he sometimes gives the impression of pushing his flat four-seamer up. As recently as the spring of 2002, his four-seamer was consistently 95 mph; now it is consistently 91-93, touching 94. He appears to have lost arm strength. Thus, given his history in 2002, he might be a candidate for serious elbow injury.”
This is not good news for Expos fans or baseball fans in general. I’m hoping to hear a lot more from Lewis in the near future.
Don’t jump, Jonah.
I’m heading to Phoenix today for an impromptu gathering of BP staffers at Bank One Ballpark. It’ll be my first ballgame there–I did eat dinner at the TGI Friday’s in the park last year–and I’ll be taking it in with Rany Jazayerli, Jonah Keri and Jonah’s lovely wife, Angele. The BOB becomes my first new ballpark since I hit Fenway last June, and I’m fairly excited. I’ll be more excited if Byung-Hyun Kim comes off the DL and throws well, as my roto team needs him to get healthy fast. (ed note: sorry Joe, looks like Miguel Batista or Andrew Good will more likely get the start tonight)
There are cabs to be caught and sheer terror to be had–I’m not a good flier–but before that happens, I wanted to throw out one question:
What the hell is up with Nate Cornejo?
In Baseball Prospectus 2003, we introduced a new rate metric in lieu of Equivalent Average (EqA), which graced the pages of previous editions. This metric, Marginal Lineup Value Rate (MLVr), measures how much offense a player produces compared to an average player. Since the publication of BP 2003, one of the most common questions I’ve received concerns what the scale of MLVr is, or in other words, what a “good” MLVr is.
As a new and unfamiliar metric, MLVr lacks the built-in recognition factor that something like EqA had, which was designed to follow the familiar batting average scale. The tradeoff, however, is that the “units” of EqA don’t measure anything–one point of EqA doesn’t equate to one run, or a tenth of a run, or a fraction of a win, or anything else that’s tangible. Equivalent Average is essentially a dimensionless index that follows offense production, but does not, by itself, measure it. Instead it’s made so that the “installed base” of baseball fans can understand it.
MLVr takes the opposite tack, choosing to express results in terms of runs per game, (and more specifically, runs per game above or below a league average player), rather than a more familiar scale. This makes it more useful for quantitative analysis, at the expense of being more opaque to casual baseball fans.
I swear I’ll quit talking about Moneyball at some point, but I honestly think it’s the Ball Four of my generation. It’s really that good. Anyway, I spoke with a friend yesterday who works in baseball, and he said something that absolutely stuck with me: “The whole book is an indictment of what we see.” And that includes injuries too–perception and accepted wisdom are sometimes tough to fight.
Something as simple as sliding is a good test. You’ll remember a couple weeks ago, I came across some research that showed head-first slides had a lesser rate of injury and an equivalent level of severity than feet-first slides. Again, what our eyes tell us is different. Tonight we have two players in key defensive positions–guys that scouts would almost universally have “great hands”–injuring their best, perhaps only, tools by sliding headfirst.
While he hasn’t done it just yet, it appears that Mike Piazza will be spending at least some time at first base this season. The Mets’ initial fumbling of the decision will push things back a couple of weeks, but the transition is coming. Piazza has fought such a move for years, but a combination of factors–including the Mets’ loss of Mo Vaughn and recent surgery that kept an otherwise healthy Piazza out of the lineup because he couldn’t squat–appear to be breaking down his resistance to the idea.
The Diamondbacks hang in the race despite losing their top three starters. Desi Relaford is having a historic season for the Royals. Brett Myers has been the victim of lousy run support. Plus more news and notes out of Arizona, Kansas City, and Philadelphia.
One of baseball’s most-mocked rules is the Infield Fly rule. Bad comedians making fun of baseball will say they understand quantum mechanics but don’t understand infield flies. Announcers frequently get it wrong, fielders don’t use it to their advantage, baserunners sometimes get confused by it. In fact, the only people who seem to consistently know what’s going on are the umpires.
There are two parts to this: An infield fly, as defined in Rule 2, and the infield fly rule, where in certain situations, the batter is declared out when he hits an infield fly, to remove the force play. With zero or one out and runners on first and second, or first, second, and third, when a ball is popped up, and the umpire declares the ball an infield fly, the batter is out no matter what happens. This is 6.05 (e): No force is on, so the infield can’t slyly let the ball tick off a glove and try to force the runners into a double or triple play. The runners can frolic about how ever they like–tagging up to try and run if it’s caught, or running on the chance it will drop–but they usually just stand on the bag and wait for the next batter to come up. Sometimes, though, things go wrong.
Tuesday night, we got to see a great example in the Giants-Expos game.
Alex Belth returns with the second installment of his Q&A with sportswriter Roger Angell, discussing the Yankees of recent vintage, Barry Bonds, Bill James, and more.
Tom Goodwin and company could allow the rest of the NL Central to catch the Cubs with Sammy Sosa out. Steve Sparks could be tossing knucklers in the 9th in Detroit. The Marlins cross their fingers on Dontrelle Willis with Jack McKeon now running the ship. Plus news and notes from 14 other teams.
I was as surprised as anyone that Ken Griffey Jr was activated today. There were bound to be some odd roster moves made to get him back active and Ruben Mateo was the first casualty. The Reds have a good reason for activating but not playing Junior, but I’m not able to explain it. The plan with Griffey is to play him and hope he helps the team. Good plan. Tim Kremchek was quoted on SportsCenter (via ESPN Radio) as saying there’s “significant risk of his shoulder popping back out while swinging the bat.” I’d like to see the entire quote and I hope my upcoming article on Dr. Kremchek sheds some new light on him. It’s not news that Griffey (and Jeter) have risk of re-injury, and any injury to a superstar player is significant. Teams take risks all the time and they’re not taking one they think they will lose.
On the other hand, it’s getting painful to watch Barry Larkin. I’ve said time and again that if I were a major league player, I wouldn’t hang ’em up gracefully…you’d need to drag me out of the game. At some point, someone needs to grab Larkin and start dragging. Once again, his calf has betrayed him, just another in a series of parts succumbing to age and tarnishing memories. Once he’s gone, we’ll forget the painful end part and remember a great shortstop. Barry, I think it’s time.