Current Record: 77-48
PECOTA Playoff Odds: 97.7%
77-49 after tonight; pretty frustrating lost. Boston lost as well, so the lead is stays at 4.5, and the playoff odds won't change too much, even with the Yankees winning.
Ned Yost's decision to bring CC Sabathia back out for the ninth, after having already thrown 111 pitches in a 9-2 game the other night has gotten a lot of attention, but Joe Maddon actually made a much more questionable move on Friday. After 8.5 innings, the Rays led 7-0, and Matt Garza had thrown 107 pitches. The Leverage Index stood at 0.04. A pretty obvious time to get your 24-year old pitcher out of the game.
Of course, Maddon had him pitch the ninth, and he ended up throwing 12 more pitches for absolutely no reason. I haven't seen Maddon's "explanation" for this, but I'd assume it was something similar to what Yost said:
"You give them the opportunity when the situation allows it. ... It's a certain mental pride knowing they can go out in a Major League game and finish what they start," Yost said. "I felt like he deserved the opportunity, no matter what the score was last night, for him to accomplish it, and it was something that he wanted to accomplish."This is particularly questionable in the case of Sabathia, who now has eight CGs this year, but it's not particularly bright for Garza either. He had just thrown a shutout a few weeks prior; do you really think he gained any substantial amount of "mental pride" by finishing off another one? I say Maddon's move was more confounding because Garza is younger, and the Rays have a lot more invested in him than the Brewers do in Sabathia, who will obviously be a free agent this winter.
Any kind of reasonable cost-benefit analysis would show that pitches 108-119 on a young pitcher's arm are much more of a negative than the additional confidence gained is a positive. Of course, the same type of analysis pretty obviously shows that you shouldn't walk a run in to bring the winning run to the plate when you're up four in the ninth, so it seems as though we have a recurring problem here. The logic behind the walk was stellar as well:
"I just thought it was prudent," Maddon said. "I could very easily see [Josh Hamilton] hitting a grand slam. He's having -- I don't want to say spectacular -- but he's having a pretty good year. I didn't like Wheeler against him, either."
"He's got a pretty good shot at tying it up," Maddon said. "With Byrd and a single, we still have the lead. Extra bases maybe ties it up, and a home run wins the game. But I could easily imagine Hamilton tying it up right there. So I chose to walk him even though Byrd was 2-for-3 with an extra-base hit off Wheeler. I'd rather see him up there.
Good to see that the soon-to-be Manager of the Year is making strategic decisions based on what he can "easily imagine". Very encouraging.
7:1 to win the NL (Bodog)
Current Record: 72-55
PECOTA: 80.4%
Same deal as last week; they're right around 12-1 to win it all everywhere else. The Brewers are +1150/-1250 to win the WS at Matchbook, and +420/-480 to win the NL. Bodog's odds are too high. I'm not sure what else there is to say.
4 comments:
Rays fans think Maddon is a genius because, like Maddon, they all believe that Hamilton would have no doubt tied it up (as if this were the home-run derby). Has anyone done any type of mathematical analysis on that particular move? If I had to guess, I would say it probably didn't make much of a difference because the Rays were 1 out away from winning but if anything it probably worsened their chances of winning by a slight amount.
I like how Bill Hall bats sixth and Mike Cameron bats seventh. Hell. One can even argue that Cameron should bat fifth.
It's a bit quick and dirty, and doesn't really do the problem full justice, but good for a rough estimation:
Assuming runner scores from first on an XBH.
Hamilton homered in about 5% of his PA's.
Byrd has an XBH in 9% of his PA's and HR in 2.5%.
Letting Hamilton Bat:
Chance of tying the game: 5%
Chance of losing the game: 0%
Walking Hamilton:
Chance of tying the game: 6.5%
Chance of losing the game: 2.5%
Adding on to Anon's breakdown, it also puts you in a much worse position if the game gets tied up. If Hamilton ties the game up, the bases are obviously empty; if Byrd does, there's at least a runner on second.
It's a stupid thing to do. It's just dumb. I thought Gameday had made a mistake when I saw the first "Intent ball". The bases loaded thing clouds the issue a bit, but think of it this way--if they'd been up 1, with nobody on and the same hitters up, would they even consider walking Hamilton? I don't think so. It's pretty much the same situation though.
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