What is the next inefficiency?
by Alleghenys on Feb 1, 2012 12:04 AM EST
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Exploiting inefficiencies has been all the rage the last decade, starting with Billy Beane's prioritization of OBP and continuing with Andrew Friedman's success emphasizing defense. You could argue that Neil Huntington has tried to exploit opportunity in the amateur draft over the last several years, with the results still TBD.
Over at Baseball Prospectus, Ben Lindberg argues today that the next inefficiency could be in-game management, which he estimates could make a difference of up to 3 wins per year. Imagine Dan Fox sitting next to Clint Hurdle in the dugout and telling him that the statistically prudent move would be to have Pedro Alvarez lay down a suicide-squeeze bunt with Rod Barajas on third.
Whether in-game management is an inefficiency worth 3 games a year, I'm not sure. But I think it raises two questions: 1) What are the next inefficiencies in baseball? 2) Are those inefficiencies significant enough to make a demonstrable difference in wins?
I raise this because it's imperative for small-to-mid-market teams like the Pirates to unearth innovative and sound strategies for generating wins, and the opportunities to significantly and consistently impact the standings may be dwindling. Several writers/experts have suggested that the new wave of smart GMs around baseball will reduce the effectiveness of inefficiency exploitation, which Lindberg summarizes nicely:
We’ve established that teams are getting smarter. It’s becoming increasingly difficult for them to discover something their competitors don't already know. And as I wrote in December, “the less variation there is among GMs, the stronger the correlation between spending and winning will become.”
We'll see a MLB team in Wheeling, WV, before we see a salary cap, so how do the small-market teams like the Pirates consistently find a way to compete with the large-market clubs? Exemplary drafts on an annual basis? Acting like a wealthy team and signing big-ticket free agents? Increased reliance on specialization? More post-game concerts by Styx? Luck?
The general question may be rhetorical: The best inefficiencies are ones that haven't gone mainstream, so we'll be hard pressed as fans to come up with the answer. But it will be interesting to see if Huntington and Co. are smart enough to produce new solutions in an increasingly difficult landscape.
This is a FanPost and does not necessarily reflect the views of the managing editor (Charlie) or SB Nation. FanPosts are written by Bucs Dugout readers.
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trading closers, using your best RP in any inning or situation, at least 3 elite relievers, platoons, Edwin Jackson, trading non-elite prospects for established major leaguers, not bunting, valuing movement/command over velocity in pitchers, defense (if you can discover a method of fully and properly evaluating it), grittiness.
Those are my best guesses.
"grittiness"
We should already have a huge supply of that:
“Later that year, Grit … [was] acquired by Ogden Publications.”
A four-man rotation with a 100 pitch limit.
by sanny manguillen on Feb 1, 2012 1:43 AM EST reply actions
RP Pitcher usage
as Mr. E mentioned, but I’m thinking health could be an interesting one. Keeping pitchers healthy is particularly important, and I believe the team that can figure this out (good lucK) will gain a significant enough advantage to take.
The glare of the spotlight is harsh, and the pressure that success breeds immense. We revere our heroes, but expect much. And criticism can come as easily as praise.
Perspectives become reality.
Twitter: @shanecglass
"Health" is new market inefficiency?
And hopefully Petey is never up with Barajas on 3rd, unless he’s pinch-hitting on an off day.
could happen
With Rod batting 7th or 8th, Petey batting 4th. Wouldn’t really be a suicide squeeze situation, though — I have trouble making the numbers add up so there’s one out and no one else on base.
Not actually affiliated with whygavs.
by WHYG Zane Smith on Feb 1, 2012 10:23 AM EST up reply actions
Please, God...
no more suicide squeezes with a refrigerator on 3rd. Especially if there are runners on 1st and 2nd as well.
Sure why not?
If someone can find a better way to keep pitchers healthy, especially while they develop, it could make a huge difference. Imagine if the last ten years of draft picks didn’t get hurt.
The glare of the spotlight is harsh, and the pressure that success breeds immense. We revere our heroes, but expect much. And criticism can come as easily as praise.
Perspectives become reality.
Twitter: @shanecglass
My vote is actually on health
And I’m talking preventative. Get the best training staff and best facilities in the league. Get guys on great conditioning, flexibility and strength training regimens. Have a dietician working closely with players.
Establish health baselines for players in a lot of different ways and then track their injuries and fatigue during the season and analyze and learn from it. Figure out the best way to keep players “fresh”, manage sprains and strains, and keep your best guys on the field.
I’d rather spend 3 million more dollars a year on a great training and health program than a righty pinch hitter.
"We gon' get down. We gon' do the do. I'm going to hit these mother****ers" - Dock Ellis, May 1, 1974.
batting the pitcher 8th...
but seriously, perhaps it’s what the Pirates have preached to their minor league pitchers for years now… fastball command.
effective use of relief pitchers
this one has got to change. it’s so glaringly wrong. Use the Hammer in the toughest situation against the toughest RH batter. it’s that simple. Closers, saves. That stuff is the same as Zambelli fireworks.
I agree with the larger point that it is proper in game management though. I’d think it’s MORE than 3 wins a year
Thought-provoking post in a thought-provoking thread
First, many thanks to Alleghenys for starting this thread.
To Mingy:
I agree totally with your thought about effective use of relief pitchers….. the notion of using the team’s best relievers in the highest-leverage situations when the game is on the line, regardless of inning. Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem likely to happen any time soon.
- The closer notion and the “save” stat seem too well entrenched. Perhaps it would help if the “save” stat were officially eliminated by MLB, but probably not and it doesn’t seem likely to happen anyway.
- Managers would open themselves up to a whole lot more second-guessing and criticism than they get already….. and many won’t want that.
- The current standard of a designated closer, a set-up guy, and a bunch of middle relievers limits the money a club has to spend on its bullpen. Obviously, some closers get paid big bucks (a fairly recent phenomenon) if a team isn’t shrewd or lucky enough to find a capable low-seniority guy who can perform in that role….. but most other relief pitchers are cheap (in mlb salary terms). If a team actually spread save opportunities around, the overall price of bullpens could go up significantly.
Regarding the value of in-game management, most “experts” seem to think the rule is plus-or-minus 3 games per year, with a few who have said plus-or-minus 5 games.
- In my opinion, that’s probably accurate for most major league managers. With all the scrutiny applied to such decisions (by both those who do the hiring AND those who watch) and the amount of baseball experience almost every major league manager has (before being hired), most managers probably have a reasonable amount of competence.
- On the other hand, there are exceptions to prove every rule. I think Pirate fans have experienced that during the CLS in Lloyd McClendon, for both his lineups and his in-game moves. Fans can always find stuff to second-guess about a manager’s decisions. In my own personal experience, Jim Leyland used to do something I perceived as less than optimal once or twice a week. In McClendon’s case, that number was more like 4 or 5 times per game.
i struggle
with Clint Hurdle. I love him as a person, but bonehead decisions pour in. Less than optimal decisions.
I’m not a republican yahoo or anything but I feel that a great Clint Hurdle analogy is George W. Bush haha. He’s a cool guy and everyone seems to like him but his ‘strategeries’ aren’t very good
I had one
but there has to be a rule change first.
Over on the Hardball Times, in a thread asking whether games were becoming less exciting, I suggested a rule limiting pitching staffs to 10 or 11. Fewer pitching changes, more hitters to deploy, more excitement? Anyhoo, that would make guys like Micah Owings and Dontrelle Willis the new inefficiency. What would be wrong with more well-rounded players on the field?
Can only play 8 non-pitchers at a time
Limiting pitching staffs should be a strategic decision for each ball club based on the players they have available to them, not by some edict of the league. This isn’t the NFL where the rule is quarterbacks have to wear skirts and you can’t touch a receiver even to tackle him.
The Pirates have enough trouble coming up with 8 non-pitchers who can play, let alone having additional hitters to deploy.
I'll go the opposite way, with a plan
The 13-man pitching staff, but with a piggyback usage plan. It came up in the Karstens thread about his numbers v. times through the lineup. I.e, generally, significantly worse after 75 pitches. So how about piggybacking he and, say, Justin Wilson? Start the crafty righty, then go to flame-throwing lefty. The thing is, plan for Wilson to go 2-3 innings himself. Maybe even pair two sets of guys, like Karstens/Wilson and Bedard/Lincoln.
It’s possible the reliever is available for an inning between starts. So every five days you’d (hope to) get 5-6 from your starter, and 3-4 from your piggybacker. Over 160 games, that’s 160-192 IP for the starter and 96-128 from Piggybacker. Total, 256-320 innings out of two pitchers. Last year, DCutch and Morton combined for 256 IP. This is a way to get one reliever over 100 innings, lessening the burden on the rest of the bullpen.
Now do it with another pair.
Starter innings: 923 (this was the Pirates number last year, 29th in MLB)
Piggyback innings: 200 (hopefully conservative)
Balance innings: 326 (based on 2011, Pirates pitched 1449 innings)
It might seem like the remaining 5 guys could soak those 326 up, but it would be more than 5 guys with callups and ordinary shuffling. But any streak of ineffectiveness might cause high short-term bullpen usage, so carry a 13th guy. If you’ve got a young team, the offense shouldn’t be overly taxed with a 4-man bench. You’d have to be decisive with DL decisions (no guy hobbling around for 6-7 days to see if his groin improves, which it never does, then he gets DL’d anyway).
But you could give it a go with a 12 man staff too.
Another old school benefit is having young starters break in this way. Learn how to get guys out. Old time baseball. Earl Weaver.
Never happen.
agree, never happen
but great idea. Karstens is definitely perfect for this model, and it also fits with the pirates’ preference for developing pitchers as starters in the minors. They are more used to pitching on a regular schedule, so this would ease their transition to the majors, even if they are in the bullpen. alas….
you would need to have 2-3 other starters that were pure inning eaters to help save the rest of the bullpen.
by Cainyoudigit on Feb 1, 2012 10:48 PM EST up reply actions
Converting relievers to starters
Signing relievers that have 3 decent pitches and converting them to starters, using a one-year transistion period to increase innings. Relievers are cheaper to sign and have often been miscast as relievers at too young of an age. Finding the right guys to convert would be the key.
That's the most sensible thing I've read on this thread, Hot Dog.
And you some of that being put into practice, around MLB today. It certainly is an inexpensive way for teams to fill a hole or 2 in their rotations.
by Midnight Moose on Feb 1, 2012 2:24 PM EST up reply actions
The Cards
McLellan, Wainwright, Looper…
"We gon' get down. We gon' do the do. I'm going to hit these mother****ers" - Dock Ellis, May 1, 1974.
Heh, I'm not against this either
Though I just posted above, the opposite. Convert 2 pitch starters to relievers, but legitimately long (2-3 innings per appearance) relievers.
Predicting pitchers at risk of injury
As salaries for starting pitching skyrocket the downside risk of a pitcher breaking down dramatically increases as well. A GM with a better understanding of which pitchers are better bets than others to maintain performance would have a huge competitive advantage. I would guess it would involve developing a sophisticated model/regression that looks at more variables than just innings pitched and age (for instance – types of pitches used in high-leverage situations). Didn’t the bucs hire a stat geek to run these kind of analyses?
I also like bpfrank’s idea of converting RPs to SPs.
I think the "bullpen by best pitcher available for that situation" idea has become overrated
Stat guys always urge managers to use their best pitcher at the most crucial time of the game (and managers are generally lauded afterward when they ignore the save stat to do so), but I don’t think it’s always that clear. Unless it’s a pretty obvious situation (lineup’s most/only dangerous LH hitter up, lefty killer in the pen, late, runners on, close game), I don’t think that’s always apparent in course of the game. Managers (deservedly) get criticized for not calling on their best arm out of the pen if they’re “saving them” and wind up losing, but I think that the good ones make mostly right calls. Watch any team for a while and you’ll start to pick up on the manager’s habits: what guy he trusts in bad situations, when he’s trying to steal an out and double-switch/pinch hit the following inning, how long he trusts his guys to go.
The bullpen pitchers are just as opportunistic as everyone else: they want to pitch well, they want to know what’s expected of them, they want to get paid. “Closers” generally earn that title by being the best reliever on a team (or at least the one with the great stuff and strikeouts; again, usually). I also read every year about managers of struggling bullpens blaming guys “not knowing their roles” for poor performance. There’s no way to quantify that outside of high-leverage innings; even those don’t take national exposure or an individual’s recent success/struggles into account.
I know I’ve rambled on (and I’m sorry about that), but I hear this a lot and don’t think it’s as feasible as it sounds. LaRussa is the only guy I can think of who’s actually had any success trying anything like this, and most people think he’s overthinking and overtinkering.
I've never been a pro athlete
so maybe I just don’t understand this line of thinking. But if a pitcher asked me what his role was, I’d tell him, “Your role, when I call on you, is to get everyone out until I tell you to hit the shower. What’s expected of you is to get everyone out until I tell you to hit the shower.”
Billy Beane’s prioritization of OBP
Beane also created the false market for “closers” and sold them for high prices. Billy Taylor, Billy Koch, Huston Street, and now Andrew Bailey.
true
When rebuilding, you should try to get 1 guy racking up as many saves as possible. But when contending, you should try to use your best relievers in the right situations, regardless of what inning it is or if there is a save opportunity.
Usually see a "closer" on a contender
Once a guy’s been annointed and paid as a “closer,” I have to imagine it’s difficult for him to step back and let someone else do it. K-Rod took a bit to acclimate to Milwaukee, and he’d basically slumped as a closer and was on a team behind a really hot guy. Can you see Papelbon praising how effective Antonio Bastardo was closing the 9th after Paps got out of a bases loaded jam in the 8th?
it wont happen overnight
but eventually you can change the culture and thinking in regards to “closers.” Start by calling them more of a “stopper” or “shutdown guy,” any word that doesnt imply they have to literally finish a game to be valuable.
My picks
1. Agree with in-game decision-making
2. See comment I made above re: health program
3. Maximize psychological aspect. This is why I like Clint Hurdle, despite his tactical booboos. It’s very hard to quantify, but I think that “team chemistry” is a real thing. It’s also somewhat related to the nebulous concept of “momentum”.
Basically, what it boils down to is confidence and trust between manager and players, players and manager and between players. Having a good manager who can know what buttons to push for each player (some need more stick than carrot, some more carrot than stick) and even a sports psychologist could go a long way. Get veterans who understand and appreciate their role and welcome and help young guys. Make the young guys see that they’re ready to contribute and let them hit the ground running. Make an atmosphere where every player is excited to come to the park, get their swings in, and play the game.
I mean, we’ve all seen it. When guys feel like they should be winning (first half of 2011), they carry themselves differently and execute better. When they are in a team-wide slump, they can’t catch or create any sort of break. Get the right kind of manager, pitching coach and sports psychologists to maximize the talent.
4. Scout out miscast players and bring them in for a different role. This was mentioned re: relief pitchers being converted to starters (see: McLellan, Looper, Ogando, etc.). It could also work with scouting and targeting minor league guys who are being miscast. It could even extend to cutting spending on role players – if you’re only looking for pinch hitting and one start a week, why pay a vet 2.5 mill, when you could use a one-dimensional bat-only 1B prospect in the minors for the same thing. Maybe you get pleasantly surprised, but the cost is so low that the worst that could happen is you’d have a pinch hitter that hits .200 (which, let’s be honest, has been the norm for years anyway).
5. RP use, like everyone’s been saying. Leverage has been quantified pretty well, and we can almost pinpoint how many wins teams are punting by sticking to rigid usage rules. Easy fix for someone with either balls or the blessing of a progressive GM.
"We gon' get down. We gon' do the do. I'm going to hit these mother****ers" - Dock Ellis, May 1, 1974.
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