March 03, 2006
Summing Up the Lineups
The Educated Sports Journal surveys and sums up various articles on lineups that were published on the web over the last month.
And many thanks to that site for it's support of the Baseball Musings Pledge Drive.
Posted by David Pinto at
03:23 PM
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Strategy
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Biggest problem with the lineup generator: in the NL, you simply cannot have your pitcher batting 8th. If he does, in the 6th or 7th inning, there's a greater chance of him coming up to bat when you as a manager might want him to go one or two more innings.
If he's up to bat in a tied game in the 6th, two outs, one on, well, no matter how well he's pitching, unless he's Roger Clemens, you pinch hit for him. If it's your normal #8 hitter, they probably pitch to him, knowing that you'd pinch hit for you pitcher in the #9 hole. If the batter makes that out, you still have you starter for one more inning, where you'd almost certainly not if he's batting 8th.
I'm not sure how this would be proven statistically, but I am certain it is true. I am just amazed it has not been discussed with all of the lineup chatter this program has generated.
Note that in the AL, putting your worst hitter #8 makes a lot more sense.
How often does that situation actually occur? It may cost you one game out of the entire year--at the very most.
Also, the regression analysis does not take individual situations into account: it merely looks at which lineup spots demand what amount of OBP and/or SLG.
Stat man, do you have any stats to back up that opinion.
Well, I didn't make any opinion. All I did was ask how many times the situation you described actually occurs, and then I stated that Morong's regression analysis does not take individual situations into account.
Pawnking's question is reasonable and certainly worth consideration. He's shifting the question a bit from a lineup which maximizes run-scoring to a lineup which maximizes winning.
Since we know that over the course of the season the #8 spot gets about 18-20 more PA than the #9 spot per team in the NL, we can extrapolate that through 6 innings, the #8 spot would have about 12 more plate appearances than the #9 spot. That probably amounts to 5-6 PA with runners on base. I don't know offhand how often you'd have a close score, (tied, + or - 1 run) at the six inning point where the manager might be "forced" to pinch hit. Half the time is probably a close enough guess for these purposes. This strategic situation pawnking raises may come up around 3 times a season. Of those, it's not usually going to be your ace starter with something left whom the manager is faced with replacing. On the other hand, no matter who you're replacing, you're using up the bench and bullpen a little quicker. I think it would be hard to get a handle on the costs of that without simulation.
This hidden cost of batting the pitcher 8th looks like it's going to be pretty small, but it may not be negligible.