“If a major-league team or minor-league team has a hard pitch count across their whole organization, they can do better than that”

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That’s Glenn Fleisig talking to Baseball Prospectus on pitch counts, innings limits, and how organizations maximize the health of their pitchers. The interview is republished on Deadspin. 

The relevant question-and-answer:

BL: So without commenting on any specific team or pitcher, would you say that a team that puts hard innings limits in place is just sort of going overboard with risk aversion or covering their own ass? I mean, I’m sure they must base it on some sort of research, but maybe they’re not looking at the right research.

GF: Yeah. I do say that. If a major-league team or minor-league team has a hard pitch count across their whole organization, they can do better than that. They should be using—because they have professional coaches throughout their major and minor leagues, and a professional medical staff—they should be using pitch counts as a feel, as a guideline for who has pitched a lot, who hasn’t pitched a lot, and then they should individualize it and know each of their pitchers, each of their athletes, and know who is a quick responder, who’s doing well on the physical assessments with the trainers and medical staff, who has good mechanics according to the pitching coach, things like that. And they should individualize it and they should say, ‘Oh, Rodriguez, he recovers quickly, but Johnson, he’s always in pain, so let’s keep Johnson lower than Rodriguez,’ and individualize it.

Plus, even within a person—even if they say, ‘Rodriguez, he seems to be healthy and doing well and good mechanics and very fluid and in good shape, all those things,’ they shouldn’t set a pitch count number for him; they should set a soft pitch count number—‘He can go to this level, 100 pitches or whatever”—but then game by game, they should monitor and take him out when he’s giving signs of being fatigued or if there’s a history of he’s been pitching a lot recently, or he’s stinking tonight, other things where you individualize it. But a hard pitch count is really for youth baseball and perhaps high school baseball, when you can’t assume the coaches are all experts.”

This is really a question about the Nationals and Strasburg (and Jordan Zimmermann). This isn’t just any yahoo they’re talking to, either–this is Glenn Fleisig, the leading scientific authority on pitching mechanics. And I don’t mean “scientific” in the 19th-century quack medical sense–I mean peer-reviewed. I have quoted his work debunking “inverted W” scaremongering before. So at first glance this looks like an indictment of the Strasburg limit. In 2012, the Nats had Strasburg on a hard innings limit, just as they had Jordan Zimmermann on a hard innings limit in 2011.

But before you grab your pitchfork and light your torch to storm Mike Rizzo’s office, stop and think for a minute. Rizzo refused to commit to a hard innings limit until Strasburg was finally shut down. At all times, Rizzo said that he was going to monitor Strasburg for signs of fatigue.

Here’s what Strasburg was doing in his last few starts of 2012:

  • August 21, 2012, vs. Brewers: 6 IP, 4 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 1 BB, 10 SO, 0 HR; 94 pitches.
  • August 28, 2012, at Marlins: 5 IP, 9 H, 7 R, 5 ER, 1 BB, 3 SO, 1 HR; 84 pitches
  • September 2, 2012 vs. Cubs: 6 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 1 BB, 9 SO; 97 pitches.
  • September 7, 2012 (“Shutdown Day”) vs. Marlins: 3 IP, 6 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 1 BB, 3 SO; 81 pitches.

What do we make of this?

I’m not really sure. Strasburg himself insisted and continued to insist that he was ready and able to pitch after Shutdown Day. On the other hand, his final appearance showed him laboring against the lowly Marlins.

What you make of this as a Nats fan is really a reflection of what you think of the Nationals and their management. If you tend to trust GM Mike Rizzo, then you will have to assume that the organization had been observing Strasburg’s rest and recovery cycles all season, and decided that those observations, plus the disastrous outing against the Marlins, led them to believe that the time was right to shut down Strasburg.

If you are disinclined to trust the organization, then you’re going to have to assume that there was a hard innings limit from the outset, and that the club refused to deviate from that limit even to the last. One disaster against the Marlins probably shouldn’t have been enough to convince the organization to shut Stras down.

Honestly, I don’t know what else to say about this.

Rendon doesn’t play second base yet

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This is, of course, an obvious statement. The Nats third-base prospect, currently with AA Harrisburg, doesn’t play second base yet. He didn’t play second base as a collegiate ballplayer at Rice. And, although the Nats intend to have him take reps at second base and shortstop, that’s not the same as playing second base.

Why am I wasting your time repeating the obvious?

Because the Nats played awful infield defense in this weekend’s series with the Reds. Ian Desmond was charged with a staggering six errors. Chad Tracy had another.

The vagaries of the rulebook meant that Danny Espinosa escaped without an error–but is still largely responsible for the margin of defeat in Sunday’s loss, when, in the sixth inning, he chose to launch a wayward throw that failed to get the runner coming home. A run scored, leaving two runners on with no outs recorded–both of whom subsequently scored, too. That goes as a fielder’s choice in the scorebook, and it’s a terrible choice, but it’s not an error.

All these misadventures, and more, were enough to get the “CALL UP RENDON NOW” brigade active on twitter.

To whom I have this to say: you mean to tell me that, to fix a series where the main problem was lousy infield defense, you want to call up a young player with extremely limited experience playing precisely the infield positions (shortstop, second base) were all the bad defense was happening?

Wait, what?

Anthony Rendon is a talented player, and, if reports are to believed, a fine third baseman. He may yet become a second baseman or a shortstop. He is not yet that–and, until he is, you’ve got to hope that the current middle infield of Desmond and Espinosa shrug off this weekend’s performance and regain their usual defensive form.

Bryce Harper, Cricketer

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My good friend Stu over at How Do I Baseball called attention to Bryce Harper’s extreme front-foot batting mechanics in this post today. Go over and read it.

The upshot: “orthodox” baseball batting technique will tell you that Harper, by taking his back foot off the ground, is somehow over-committing and giving up power. As Dave Nichols said:

But, as Stu pointed out, the extreme front-foot batting mechanics aren’t unheard of. Frank Thomas did the same thing from the right handed batter’s box–and nobody ever said The Big Hurt wasn’t a good power hitter.

After comparing Harper to Frank Thomas, Stu went on to wonder:

It will be interesting to see how far Harper can take his unorthodox hitting mechanics, and how much success can be obtained with them. While many would believe that this front foot approach would make a hitter susceptible to offspeed pitches, if Harper’s two HR’s off of Marlins starter Ricky Nolasco are any indication- both were hit off of offspeed offerings – he has made the proper adjustments to make him fall victim to offspeed and breaking pitches less frequently in 2013 than he did in 2012, using these hitting mechanics.

What struck me, when looking at Harper’s home runs on Monday, was how familiar they seemed–not to baseball players and fans, but to devotees of the other great ball-and-bat sport on this planet: Cricket. To answer Stu’s question directly, the body of cricket scholarship suggests that Harper can be very successful indeed with his “unorthodox” mechanics–because, at least as they presented themselves on Monday, they were perfectly orthodox cricket batting mechanics.

Such extreme front-foot batting technique isn’t unusual in cricket–in fact, it’s extremely orthodox. Have a look at the BBC’s cricket skills pages, and you’ll see this batting technique:

The straight drive in cricket, as played by a right-handed batsman. Notice: the right (rear) foot is practically off the ground, just like Harper batting

This shot is the straight drive. Now let’s look at Harper’s home run swing [UPDATE: I erroneously ID'd the following photo as having been from Monday. Analysis still holds, but if anyone has a photo of Harper's HR swings from Monday, post it in the comments]:

Harper’s home run stroke, shamelessly ganked from Stu’s post at HDIB. Notice the similarity to the cricket shot?

Harper’s head is over the front knee–aided by the extreme unweighting of his back foot. As England Test Captain Michael Vaughn explains here:

The most important thing for me is to get your head over [your] front leg…now if your head stays mid-centre, the ball has to go square of the wicket.

[In baseball terms: if you're trying to hit off the front foot, but try to keep your head back, the ball will be pulled foul on your pull side]. Vaughn goes on to explain the role of the back foot in maintaining proper head/body alignment: unweighting the back leg forces the head to go forward naturally, putting the head over the front leg and enabling the player to hit, as we would say in baseball, a line drive only moderately to his pull side.

Notice also that Harper’s bat is surprisingly vertical when he makes contact with the ball–which recalls the orthodox cricketing advice to “show the [bat] maker’s name” as one drives through the ball.

Now, not every shot in cricket is played this way. One of the basic skills of a cricket batsman is selecting which shot to play depending on the delivery of the ball. Again, the BBC’s cricket skill pages demonstrate:

How to pick which shot to play in cricket. We are interested in the drive shots: the “off drive,” “straight drive,” and “on drive.” These are played off the front foot.

Now let’s reverse-engineer Harper’s home run swings in a cricket context. Here’s Harper’s Opening Day spray chart, from TexasLeaguers:

Both home runs land in right-center field. In cricketing terms, they would be “on drives”–driven on the batters’ side. Now, orthodox cricket shot selection doctrine says:

If you get a half volley on leg stump, you hit it back towards mid on with the full face of the bat.

Translated to baseball terms: if you get a ball on the inner third of home plate [and low: cricket balls are bouncing up from the ground], drive it to right-center field [if you, like Harper, are left-handed].

So, where were those pitches that Harper hit to right center for home runs?

Here’s the first one, a home run in the first inning: it’s number 2, obviously:

Hey, would you look at that. It’s low and on the inside third of the plate. A cricketer sees a half-volley on leg stump! How about the second one?

It’s the one marked “in play (runs),” obviously. And again, it’s on the inner third, and low. Yup, another half-volley on leg stump.

Bryce Harper’s front foot hitting mechanics may look strange to baseball fans, but he is behaving exactly like a well-taught cricket batsman would behave when confronted with balls located in that location. He judged the position of the delivery of the ball well. He selected the shot he wanted to play (the drive off the front foot). He executed his plan, and did it powerfully, scoring runs for his team in the process.

We have no evidence that Harper ever played any cricket at all. But, at least when confronted with the ball on the inside third of the plate and low, Harper seems to have solved that particular batting problem in exactly the same way that generations of cricket batsmen before him have solved it. How classic is Harper’s approach? Here’s the great Australian cricketer Don Bradman [the Ted Williams of Cricket, who actually met Babe Ruth once] demonstrating the “orthodox” shots for British newsreels in 1930. Look at how powerfully he is able to drive the ball off his front foot at 2:36 or so. Look again as Bradman demonstrates the drive shots off the front foot, starting at 3:36. See how little weight he puts on his back foot?

And, if you don’t think this shot can be played for any power at all, here’s a supercut of the great West Indian batsman Sir Viv Richards absolutely killing a lot of cricket balls--many of the driven off the front foot in exactly the same way that Harper hits baseballs.

This, to me, is a fascinating case of the convergent evolution of two closely-related bat-and-ball games, baseball and cricket.

This has implications for the way baseball players look at batting mechanics and batting technique. There has been a huge body of scholarship built up around cricket batting over the years, and nobody has yet seen fit to study it and see what insights might be useful to baseball players. Most interestingly, there seems to be at least some movement to use quantitative optimization models to teach batsmen to get the bat to the ball as quickly as possible. I am not aware of any similar work being done in baseball–and it might not be a bad idea for a progressive baseball organization to start investigating this sort of thing.

About Strasburg’s Innings Today

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I wasn’t at the park at Opening Day today. I had to tune in and listen to it on the radio.

I missed a hell of a time to be there. The Nats beat the hated Marlins 2-0 behind two Bryce Harper homers and seven shutout innings from Stephen Strasburg.

Indeed, Strasburg was out of the game after only throwing 80 pitches. The sound of fans griping about yet more “kid gloves” treatment for Strasburg could be heard all over Twitter. Strasburg was dealing–why limit him now?

Even Barry Svrluga, veteran Post-ie, seemed to take issue with the sudden, unwelcome appearance of Captain Hook:

Here’s why Strasburg was out of the game with 80 pitches: the Nats have the day off tomorrow (Tuesday), and the bullpen is currently hurting for work.

In the last week of Grapefruit League play (including the exhibition game against the Yankees), going back to last Sunday,  the Nationals relievers that are on the actual big-league staff right now have pitched only 16.2 innings.

Would I love to see a complete game shutout from Strasburg? You bet. But there’s no reason to leave Strasburg hanging out there on a cool, misty afternoon to get a complete game just for the sake of getting a complete game. I would prefer to see Strasburg–or any starting pitcher, really–get a complete game any day but Opening Day.

Later this year, there will be periods during which the bullpen will be taxed. There will be long extra-inning night games that last into the wee hours of the morning, followed by brutal afternoon games, followed by travel. There will be times where a starting pitcher doesn’t get through a lot of innings. There will be doubleheaders. There will be stretches where relievers will appear on three consecutive nights–like Storen did when he entered the game in NLDS Game Five.

I would much rather that a Strasburg complete game happen during one of those periods, where it does the most good. An opening day win against the Marlins (who are expected to be the worst team in the division) is nice. A complete game, saving a tired bullpen in the middle of a tense series with the Braves would be much, much better.

Needless Beanball Drama

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It’s March 7 as I write this, and already I’m having to write about beanball wars.

In a spring training game at the Phillies facility in Clearwater, Stephen Strasburg hit Chase Utley in the back leg. I wasn’t at the park, but on TV, it sure as heck looked like Strasburg was out of control and hit Utley accidentally.

The Phillies, apparently, weren’t going to take this “insult” lying down. Next half-inning, Doc Halladay threw one behind Tyler Moore’s back. A beanball war in spring training? I’ll let the beat writers tell you all about the rest of it. 

This blog is no stranger to Philadelphia/Washington beanball wars, alas. As far as anybody can tell, this all began on on July 26, 2007 in Philadelphia, where John Lannan hit both Ryan Howard and Chase Utley, earning himself an ejection in his major-league debut. Last year, during the Cole Hamels/Bryce Harper affair, I examined it from the pitcher’s point of view:

Let’s set aside the fact that Hamels freely admitted that he beaned Bryce Harper on purpose–supposedly in the service of “old-school” prestige.  Even without Hamels’ boasting, we could have easily surmised that Hamels beaned Harper intentionally. Lannan was not suspended because, in all probablity, he had no idea where those balls were going when they left his hand.

***

And what about the other protagonist in Sunday’s beanbag war–Jordan Zimmermann? He hit Hamels in the shin, but has continued to maintain his innocence. The stat sheet should make us doubt that claim, as well. He has a career BB/9 that rivals Hamels at 2.15, and only 3 wild pitches in 323 innings of work. I don’t think anybody can doubt that he knew where he put that fastball.

[Parenthetically, I must not be the only one amused that John Lannan has gone from Public Enemy Number One in to Starting Pitcher Number Five in Philadelphia.]

So, what to make of the Crisis in Clearwater?

First in the dock is Stephen Strasburg. In his brief career, Strasburg posts a 2.40 BB/9, 7 wild pitches, and 4 hit batsmen. That’s tremendous control–especially compared to Lannan.

But in mitigation, it was Spring Training. Strasburg is manifestly in “working on stuff” mode–and it’s possible that at least for one pitch, stuff did not work for Strasburg today. It happens.

And, speaking of stuff happening, here’s something interesting: Since his debut in 2003, nobody in baseball has been hit by more pitches than Chase Utley. Chase Utley has been hit by pitches a staggering 151 times in his career. Since 2003, the next-nearest MLB player is Jason Kendall, plunked 121 times. Trailing Utley on the National League leaderboard for HBP since 2003 is Rickie Weeks, a distant second at 108 HBP. 

Utley’s staggering ability to be hit by pitches is even more remarkable when we consider that Jason Giambi leads active MLB players in this category, with 175 HBP. But Giambi’s been playing since 1995, which makes Utley’s 151 HBP since 2003 a staggering achievement in being hit by pitches.

Indeed, if we take Utley’s career average, we would expect him, in any 162-game stretch, to be hit by pitch 21 times. To put that in perspective, in 2012, any given team in the major leagues could have expected to be hit by a pitch around 50 times. Utley’s career average HBP would, by themselves, account for nearly half of an average team’s HBP.

That’s astonishing. Could it be that there’s just something about Chase Utley that makes him that much more likely to be hit by pitches? Is it his batting stance? Is it a habit of crowding the plate? Is it a failure to make a reasonable effort to avoid being hit by the pitch? (To be fair, Utley DID make quite an effort to avoid Strasburg’s wayward pitch yesterday).

But if the Phillies want to react to this by bristling and hurling beanballs willy-nilly, I guess there really isn’t anything we can do about it.

Suzuki Synthesizes the Data

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If you haven’t already read this morning’s Morning Brushback over at Nats Journal, you should. Adam Kilgore goes into how Kurt Suzuki researches opposing hitters and prepares his game plan. 

Zuk, it turns out, is a stat-head. He likes to use statistical data on opposing hitters to figure out just how he should call a game. But that’s not all:

“I think you look more than just the stats,” Suzuki said. “If he’s hitting .600 on fastballs inside, you look to see if they were hard hits or bloopers or grounders or choppers or something like that. They might be hitting .600, but they’re not hard hits, so you still go in there. So sometimes you have to dig a little deeper than just the stats.”

Sample size and recency play a major role in how Suzuki prepares, and why he chooses to mix in video study with the work on tendencies. He knows the numbers when he sits down to watch video of hitters. He wants to know how legitimate the numbers are, and/or if a hitter has changed his approach recently to make the numbers less relevant.

 

It’s a good synthesis of the “eyeball” and “moneyball” schools of thought. Suzuki is trying (perhaps in vain) to exploit micro-level fluctuations in a hitter’s performance day to day and series to series. All of those fluctuations come out in the wash for us stat-heads, because we like to study good, long track records. But Zuk’s busy trying to figure out what might happen tomorrow or next series, and he doesn’t really have all that much data for that.

I tend to think about it like this: stat-minded fans like me are trying to figure out long-term trends and fundamentals. Suzuki is more like a day-trader, trying to time the market.

The Illusion of Control

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Image courtesy Nationals101

I had scarcely posted my latest projection on Twitter when I got hit by a barrage of tweets asking me to adjust the relief pitching innings.

That led to another discussion as to whether I had too many innings in total. The revised model has a total of 1475.2 IP for the whole Nats staff. That’s a lot of innings.

But I’ve decided to freeze my projections at 98 wins, and 1475.2 innings, because, at this point, I feel like I’m tinkering at the edges.

The hard thing about doing this, I find, is that as I keep running the model, something else comes up that I think I can control for. Pretty soon, I’m drowning in complications.

The whole exercise reminds me of a flyer I saw once in the Old Building of the London School of Economics. The flyer was promoting a special lecture that was to be given on “The Illusion of Control in the Social Sciences,” and it had an illustration of a man, hunched over, buried in charts, graphs, data tables, volumes of historical statistics, adding-machine-tape, etc. The point was that we can model and predict, and in doing so, we may fall prey to the notion that we can actually control the universe we’re trying to observe. Of course, that’s not entirely true.