An Idiot Asks: Baseball Edition

[ursus arctos]

Which spoke volumes about the fielding prowess of your Designated Hitters at the time.

[WOM]

We had a good couple of years, but we're on the slide now. Edwin's gone and Jose just played his last with us. Pillar is gold in field, but uneven at the plate. We're going to be rebuilding for a few.

[ursus arctos]

Having thought about it, one possible explanation for the fact that fielding positions are named from the perspective of the catcher, rather than the pitcher, is that the early game featured a single umpire who stood behind the catcher. It was also common for those who wrote about the game to serve as umpires.

The number of umpires increased over time (you will notice that there is one on each of the foul lines in the outfield for the post-season), but the umpire behind home plate has always been the most important of the "crew". The members of an umpiring crew of four will rotate positions from game to game, largely because many umpires are not in good enough shape to do consecutive turns behind the plate.

[Janik]

I would have thought the positions are defined that way because its how the field is seen by the batter. If he hits it to his right, he has hit into right field. Therefore a fielder placed there ready for this gets called the right fielder.

[ursus arctos]

That's likely also a factor.

So is the direction in which the bases are run.

[San Bernardhinault]

So, it appears that my understanding of DH is basically right, that it's a silly anti-sporting gimmick to raise the number of runs scored. You're basically replacing Jimmy Anderson in your batting line up with late-era-can't-field Chris Gayle, just, well, because.

[ursus arctos]

Quite

It also was, especially initially, a way for aged sluggers to remain active. Hank Aaron ended his career as a DH with the Milwaukee Brewers when they were in the American League.

[caja-dglh]

DH's are a bad thing because they mean things like this don't get to happen.

[WOM]

Colon: "Here's my one trick. Want to see it again? How about again? How about again? Ready...I'm going to do it again."

[ursus arctos]

[San Bernardhinault]

GO PADRES!

[Hot Pepsi]

Yep, if you're a fan of a National League team, you hate the DH pretty much without exception. It's weird and rare when you meet an NL fan who likes it.

The 1960s were the era of the pitcher for the reason you mentioned - teams would build new stadiums with exceptionally deep power alleys, mounds weren't regulated and teams would build them well above the 18 inch maximum (the Dodger Stadium mound was compared to the White Cliffs of Dover). They finally cracked down on mounds after 1968, when the American League hit .230 for a season and Carl Yastrzemski won the batting title with .301. Just as importantly, they shrank the strike zone from the shoulders to the letters on the uniform. The American League was notorious for the high strike then.

Now here's where the fun begins.

After a brief boost in offense, the AL began to regress starting in 1971 (the National League did not). By 1972, their hitters hit just .239. I don't entirely know why. Perhaps the high strike made a comeback, aided by the bulky chest protectors AL umpires wore then (the leagues had different umpiring practices, since the leagues were much more independent then and would remain so into the 90s). AL ballparks did seem to be more spacious than National League ones, lots of teams with 380-390 foot power alleys versus the NL.

The AL was generally the weaker league then with lower attendance. They were still getting over the hangover of the Yankees pounding them into submission year after year after year. They had been slower to integrate than the NL. They probably had more bad owners - Finley* certainly, but also Bob Short of the Senators/Rangers, the Indians were bounced around and should have been sold to George Steinbrenner, CBS was screwing up the Yankees then, Tom Yawkey with the Red Sox, etc.

I suspect they panicked and decided to bring in the DH to help boost offense and therefore attendance. They all hated Finley to a man, but who wanted to see the pitcher hit anyway?


* Finley was a baseball operations savant; he never had a general manager and basically built the 1970s A's (who won the World Series three straight years, and won the AL West five years in a row) and the early 1980s A's (the Billyball team) himself. But he was a dreadful promoter, mostly due to being a cheapskate but I think also due to being, essentially, a contrarian who had to zig left while everyone else zagged right.

This is all good info.

One of the things I picked up listening to a recording of Roger Angell's essays from the 60s was that, aside from the Yankees, the AL was clearly inferior, both in quality and popularity, to the NL for a lot of its history. Indeed, there have been years in my memory - late 80s or early 90s, as I recall, when the whole AL East was hot garbage.

[Hot Pepsi]

Two of Toronto's best fielders (Pillar in Centre, Bautista in Right) are also two of our best hitters. Whoever's in Left is usually a mess in position, but can generally hit.

Our best slugger ever, Encarnacion, was hidden safely at first. When they do the traditional 'post-out throw around', they never included Edwin because he genuinely couldn't throw the ball.

Indeed. In Moneyball (in real life, the book, and the film) Scott Hatteberg is moved from catcher to first base because injury has ruined his throwing arm.

It's also probably the safest position, which is all the more reason to have the best hitter there. Joey Votto played 162 games this year. Cal Ripken notwithstanding, it's very hard to play every day all season at any other position. (It's not even likely at 1B, but more likely).
And it favors left-handers and left-handed hitters tend to be better power hitters. They're also totally unsuitable for the other three infield positions. If you don't see why, just think about trying to catch with your right and throw with your left arm to your left. It's a lot harder and slower than the other way around.

[Hot Pepsi]

So, it appears that my understanding of DH is basically right, that it's a silly anti-sporting gimmick to raise the number of runs scored. You're basically replacing Jimmy Anderson in your batting line up with late-era-can't-field Chris Gayle, just, well, because.

The DH is also used in college and in the lower levels of the minor leagues. In AA or above, it depends on if the home team is an NL or AL affiliate (I think that's the rule. I can't recall, exactly) The idea is, I guess, to give more non-pitchers at-bats to develop their hitting since that's what they need to learn how to do. But then that just means the pitchers lose that many more years of hitting experience and get that much worse at it relative to everyone else. If they make it to the bigs in the NL, they may be about as skilled at hitting as you or I (except that they're world class athletes and have a lot of coaching).

However, some pitchers can hit Ok. Or, are at least not an automatic out, certainty to bunt.
http://www.foxsports.com/mlb/gallery...itchers-042117


In the AL, the rule as it is now is that the DH has to take the place in the line-up of the pitcher. As I understand it, that is not the case in high school, at least some states. At that level, the pitchers are often the best athletes in the school and can hit better than many or their fielding teammates. So the DH may be used in place of a different fielder and the pitcher can hit.

When I was in teener league (13-14 years old), we had a 10 man line-up with a DH and the pitcher hitting. Just got more kids into the game more often.

And softball has something called the "designated player" that I don't understand at all, though I did once. I just forget.

[San Bernardhinault]

More idiot questions coming up:

If you have all your starters hanging out in the bullpen, and your actual starting pitcher has a total stinker of a first inning - as happened in the Wild Card game last night - wouldn't you just put another of your starting pitchers in, to pitch the second inning?

Particularly if you were the Twins yesterday, and you apparently know that your reserve pitching is basically a bit shit? In regular season, I suppose it might make sense to keep firepower back for future games and just accept that today's is lost.

But when you're in a one-off wild card game, surely there's nothing to be lost from knackering a second starting pitcher by throwing him in? It's not like it's worth saving him for a game that won't happen.

[caja-dglh]

It is a balancing act though. If you win, you have got them all out of their regular rest cycle. Plus pitchers are very programmed on their cycle from what I understand.

Then there is the psyche - established starting pitchers probably don't really like coming out to clear up a mess of an inning. The mental aspect to the game has to come in to it.

[Hot Pepsi]

It is a balancing act though. If you win, you have got them all out of their regular rest cycle. Plus pitchers are very programmed on their cycle from what I understand.

Then there is the psyche - established starting pitchers probably don't really like coming out to clear up a mess of an inning. The mental aspect to the game has to come in to it.

Yes. But you might do it in the post season.


BTW, the other starters are not always or even usually hanging out in the bullpen. They're often in the dugout just hanging out.

And in the minors - at least the New York Penn League - the other starting pitchers aren't on the field at all. They're in street clothes sitting in the stands behind homeplate gathering statistics on the game. One of them usually has the radar gun while the others write all kinds of stuff down or enter it into a lap top. They go over all this with their coaches. On a few occasions I've sat next to these guys and asked them how they're liking it so far, etc. I've obtained a few autographs for my nephew this way too.

[Patrick Thistle]

This is a great thread idea. I will be posting loads of questions as I think of them.

[ursus arctos]

The scenario that SB describes is exactly what would have happened in last night’s game up until the 1980s or so.

Since that time, the advent of specific roles (closer, 8th inning, 7th inning guy, one out lefty, etc) for relief pitchers and routines for starters that are both detailed and rigid (full rest on day after a start, soft toss on day 2, X pitches off mound on day 3, etc.) have made pitchers, pitching coaches, managers and front offices all more reluctant to use a pitcher outside of his role. The groupthink is that strict adherence to the roles makes life easier for pitchers both physically and mentally, therefore optimizing performance from athletes who are more subject to serious injury and tend to have greater inherently greater variance n their output than their teammates.

There are a few signs that some managers may be starting to chip away at this trend, but any material relaxation of the rigidity is likely to take as long as it took to get here (absent rule changes like a serious reduction in the size of pitching staffs, etc).

[San Bernardhinault]

So these always lead to extra questions:

Starting pitchers are basically withdrawn after about 100 pitches these days (a quick online search suggests that even this might just be a bullshit number, and there's no reason for it). And then they get 3 or 4 rest days.

But, with the rest of the bullpen, when they throw 15 pitches or 25 pitches, how long do they generally have off? It doesn't look like the whole bullpen plays every night, and closers certainly don't seem to close on consecutive nights despite only throwing one inning.

And is there actually any rhyme or reason to why someone is a "closer" rather than a "7th inning" pitcher? Surely if you have the skill to shut it all down, it would be better to use that "up the order", earlier in the game, to keep pressure on the opposing team?

[San Bernardhinault]

I've finally realised what was bugging me about the thin edge thing, and how it's resolved. I realise I was wondering why we never get any umpiring controversy, and why there isn't a baseball equivalent of hot-spot and ultra-edge. But if it only matters on the third strike, then it becomes irrelevant if the batsman feathered the ball or not, because it's out either why: either a third strike or a catch behind, so the whole thing becomes moot. Clever.

[ursus arctos]

Billy Martin disagrees on the absence of controversy

[Hot Pepsi]

Some relievers pitch almost every night - like the designated closer - and some only pitch every few games. The ones that tend to pitch less per outing tend to pitch more often, of course. It's just a different skillset and pattern of rest.

And is there actually any rhyme or reason to why someone is a "closer" rather than a "7th inning" pitcher? Surely if you have the skill to shut it all down, it would be better to use that "up the order", earlier in the game, to keep pressure on the opposing team?

You've noticed something that far too many highly paid managers, not to mention most fans, haven't. Indeed, "closers" are overpaid based on the idea that there's something especially difficult of coming in the ninth inning, when in fact, there's just something especially irritating about losing a game in the ninth inning. In reality, all the runs count the same no matter what inning they're in.

So a few managers - and a lot of stat-heads - are promoting the idea that you bring your best reliever in for "high leverage" situations, regardless of the inning, i.e. when the opposition has the greatest chance of scoring runs that may cost you the game - either because there are runners on base/and or the heart of their order is coming up to bat. But a lot of managers and fans still don't accept this and insist on assigning certain innings to certain pitchers. Dusty Baker drove Reds fans crazy with that shit. Especially when they had Chapman. He'd never let him come in for a four out save in the 8th even when it was clearly the best chance to win. His argument was that over the course of the season, using relievers for more outs than they're standard number would wear them out, but it seems like in this day and age with modern nutrition and training, that issue could be overcome.

[Hot Pepsi]

Billy Martin disagrees on the absence of controversy

Yeah, once in a blue moon, there might be a pitch where there's doubt about whether it was a foul tip or a clean miss and the catcher misses it. But that doesn't happen very often at the professional level and most managers wouldn't throw a fit over it because that behavior would be, I think, covered under the semi-unwritten rule of "you can't argue balls and strikes."

But Billy Martin was different and the umps were different back then. More arrogant and combative. Really, the manager freaking out is just part of the show.
You just can't say certain words.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8olTfKZnFiM

[ursus arctos]

On SB's last set of pitching questions, entire forests have been eradicated in the attempt to answer those questions.

Right now, at the MLB level

1) most starters have a set pitch count. 100 is not a magic number and many starters will have a somewhat higher number (105, 110). Most managers will also allow pitchers to exceed the count in special circumstances, particularly if they have a no-hitter going.

2) pitchers and pitching coaches (who are all former pitchers) have come to believe that individual pitchers are best suited to particular roles. A significant number of observers who aren't "baseball men" question just how much truth there is in this (while at the same time acknowledging that some pitchers are more physically and mentally suited to be effective over 20 pitches, rather than 100).

3) Closers will sometimes pitch on consecutive days (and even three days in a row during the post-season), but everyone would prefer that they do not. Non-closer relievers tend to be more flexible (part of why they are in that role to start with), but a LOOGY (left handed, one out guy) could literally pitch every day, as he probably throws about five pitches an appearance on average.

4) Closer usage is a huge point of contention between the "analytical" community and "baseball men". Analytics supports the view that you should use your "closer" in the most "high leverage" situation, which isn't necessarily the ninth inning (e.g., if the opposition's best hitters are up in the eighth, or runners are on base eariler). But "baseball men" will tell you that closers have a special mentality, and that their effectiveness is reduced if they are asked to come in in an inning other than the ninth, or with men or base, etc. Closers themselves will say just that, at least in part because they are much better compensated than other relief pitchers.