All-Star Thoughts
Posted by
tgirsch
I only caught about the last three innings of the All-Star game, but I still think it’s a mere shadow of what it used to be. Despite the fact that the game now “means something,” it’s just an ugly, sloppy exhibition game, with almost no continuity and pretty much zero managerial skill. It’s all about the unwritten rules of getting every player some playing time, rather than actually trying to win the game.
Some striking stats:
- No AL pitcher pitched more than 2 innings, and no NL pitcher pitched more than one.
- Only one player — the Mets’ Jose Reyes — got more than three at-bats.
- There were ten players who got only one at-bat.
- In the game’s only legitimately memorable moment, Ichiro Suzuki hit the first inside-the-park home run in All-Star Game history.
- So much for small-ball: Seven of the nine runs scored in the game came from home runs, assuming you count Ichiro’s two-run “shot.”
Another question: Billy Wagner gave up two runs in the top of the 8th to make the score 5-2 for the AL; then J.J. Putz gave up a two-out, two-run shot in the bottom of the ninth to make the score 5-4 AL. To me, that should make Wagner and Putz the respective pitchers of record. Instead, Josh Beckett (who left after the fourth trailing 1-0) with a was credited with the win, and Chris Young (who gave up two in the top of the fifth) got the loss. WTF?
Young gave up the lead, and the AL never relinquished it. Young gets the loss.
Beckett was the AL pitcher at the time the AL took the lead, and the AL never trailed subsequently. He gets the win. Beckett didn’t technically leave after the fourth, he left after the top of the fifth, meaning he was the pitcher of record when the AL scored the go-ahead run(s).
The only time that criterion doesn’t hold true is if a starting pitcher goes less than five innings but leaves with a lead that his team never relinquishes. In that case, he is ineligible for the win because he didn’t complete the minimum inning requirement. At that point, the official scorer is given the latitude to judge which subsequent pitcher pitched “most effectively” and credit the win to that pitcher. Usually, it is the guy who replaces the starter that winds up getting it.
Comment 7/11/2007
digglahhh:
Thanks, I misunderstood the rule. I thought the win went to the pitcher of record when the winning run was scored, not when the lead was taken. Same with the losing pitcher; I thought that went to the pitcher who gave up the winning run, rather than the go-ahead run.
Comment 7/11/2007
No problem.
Of course, the pitcher who was in when the lead was taken is no longer the pitcher of record if that lead is relinquished.
I used to work for MLB.com, scoring Minor League games for the website and proofreading offical scorers’ decisions and attributions of stats. There are people whose job it is to know these things who just don’t. Official scorers who are unable to differentiate between earned and unearned runs, who don’t know the requirements for a save…
Of course, the Majors are pretty good. But Rookie ball can be a nightmare! Let’s not even get into the Dominican Summer Leagues…
Comment 7/12/2007
Right. I meant “when the last lead was taken.” (i.e., the pitcher at the time of the last lead change.)
I’ve seen some odd rulings on earned versus unearned runs even at the major league level. Although, to be fair, they might have been scoring in accordance with the rules, just not in a way that made sense to me.
An example: If a fielder makes an error on what should be the third and final out of an inning, to my mind, the pitcher should no longer be responsible for any runners on base at that time (including the guy who reached on an error). Subsequent runners, yes.
Example: Suppose a pitcher has two outs and runners on first and second, and gives up a grounder which the second baseman pooches to load the bases. The next batter hits a home run. To my mind, the pitcher should be charged with one earned run and three unearned. But I’ve seen this scenario scored where the pitcher is charged with three earned and one unearned. That may be correct according to the rules, but it seems wrong to me.
Comment 7/12/2007
Holy snikes tgirsch, if you have seen it scored that way, you have seen really poor official scoring. Unless there is a pitching change, any and all runs scored after an error that would have constituted the third out are unearned. In your scenario, if there had been a pitching change just before the home run, then all runs would have been unearned in team scoring, and three unearned would be assigned to the original pitcher, but the reliever who gave up the home run would get charged with one earned run. At least that is my understanding.
Since I have been in non-blog mode for a few days, let me comment about the game. I think as long as one accepts that the majority of players are going to play in the game, then the continual substitution should not be a huge distraction. If you look at all-star game box scores over the past 50 years, you will see a slow trend towards more substitutions, but for the past 30 years it has pretty much been the way it is today, so probably best to just accept it. There is no way a pitcher will ever pitch more than 3 innings in an NL home game, and honestly, with the huge emphasis placed on the starting rotation these days, I doubt any pitcher will ever pitch more than 2 innings under any circumstance. In fact, unless I am mistaken, I think the all-star rules have provisions for player re-entry if the game goes into extra innings so the managers have even less motivation to hold anyone back (with the exception of Pujols apparently).
It does not surprise me that small ball is not played in the all-star game. The players represented are typically skewed towards sluggers, the catchers typically have plus arms, so unless you are a real burner, it’s going to be station to station most of the time. I would also more home runs than the average because of the power most of the hitters have - and their mind set during the game (chicks dig the long ball).
Ichiro’s HR was a real freak. The ball hit a banner right to the right of a cutout in the wall behind it, so the ball caromed to the right about 40 degrees more than it otherwise would have. Junior was toast and I think Mirabelli could have made it home on that bounce.
Comment 7/12/2007
Ted:
I was wondering when you would weigh in. I knew you wouldn’t be able to resist.
Your points are all valid, but I guess that raises the question: has the All-Star game become obsolete? I mean, the games are rarely very interesting, and seeing one or two at bats does not really qualify as “seeing the best of the best play.”
You griped at me for listing the things I would change about hockey (whose all-star game is even worse), but now it’s baseball’s turn. I would drastically reduce the rosters of the all-star teams, and I would either do away with fan balloting or at least reduce it to one-third of the total for determining who plays. (I tend to favor a three-component system in which the sports media, the players, and the fans each combine to form one “vote” on a three-vote panel.) And, of course, the All-Star game will never again be truly interesting until we do away with the abomination that is interleague play (which has always been more about revenue for the New York, Chicago, or California teams than about any real fan demand). And while we’re at it, can’t we finally come to a consensus about what is or is not a strike? (Speaking of lack of consensus, don’t even get me started about the balk rule…)
Comment 7/12/2007
I don’t think the game is obsolete. To be honest, I don’t think it (or any sport’s all-star game) is for the serious adult fan. It’s for the marginal fans and kids. Plus it is fun for the players, and gives everyone else a very much needed 3 day break. It also provides a clear delineation between the two halves of the season (psychological halves, not mathematical halves).
I don’t object as strongly to inter-league play as you do, but I agree the sport would be more pure without it. Especially with the way it is now implemented. It imposes too much distortion on the relative strength of schedule for teams within a Division.
If Digg is still reading along, I am wondering if you know of any analysis that evaluates the correlation between team runs scored and various team hitting stats. Other than team RBI, which should be very strong, it would be interesting to see how team average, OBP, slugging, OPS, ARISP etc correlate to team runs scored. Use data for each of last five years. Run one set of numbers for AL and one set for NL in case DH impacts correlation. That would give you 70 plus 80 data points, which is a meaningful sample size. If OPS has the highest correlation to team runs scored, that would lend credence to the argument that OPS is perhaps the most valuable stat in evaluating a player.
I don’t think the fact that some runs are unearned will distort the findings, and I’m not sure home field bias will either. Maybe slugging gets a bigger boost than OBP in a small park, but then it probably suffers more in a big park, so perhaps the impact nets out over an entire league.
Also, if you still know anyone at MLB.com, please ask them the reconsider real estate priority on their real time viewer. I’d like to see the current pitch stats much bigger. Plus I’ve seen implementations that use color to differentiate between swinging strikes and fouls, which is particularly nice after two strikes, and also to differentiate between in play and out(s), in play no outs, and in play run(s) scored.
Comment 7/13/2007
Ted,
Sorry, I checked out for a bit.
OPS does indeed correlate better with runs scored than any other crude offensive stat.
And whoa, if I’m not mistaken, you just recognized and defined the enigmatic “team unearned run.” I’d wager than less than one in ten official scorers in the Minor Leagues can explain that rule. I’ve had phone conversations with several of them, in which it was obvious that my mention of the term/rule was the first they heard of it.
Usually, the response is one of two.
A) Wow! That’s crazy, okay, whatever you say.
B) Blah, blah, blah, I’ve been doing this for forty years.
(Um, sir, I didn’t ask you how long you had been fucking up; I’m just here the ensure that you don’t do say anymore.)
One of the many problems at MLB.com is the disconnect between the computer guys and the stats guys. Communication isn’t the greatest, and it was sometimes difficult to get get the software developers to understand all the needs of those who are going to be using it. Actually, I rarely use the Gameday. While I was working there I was using the program to enter the codes that translate to the data that appear on it. So my screen was always on “the client.” Now, I have MLB Package and a password for MLB.tv.
My girlfriend still works there though, I’ll tell her. When you say the “current pitch stats” what specifically are you referring to. Do you mean the text that says, “strike” or “ball in play no out recorded?”
Comment 7/16/2007
Wow, that last comment was terribly careless, grammatically. Even in comparison to the low bar I’ve set for myself.
How can we get an “edit” function here? I’ll pay!
Comment 7/16/2007
FTR, Correlations to Total Runs Scored Since 1975:
Avg Slg OBA OPS ISO OBP+ISO
———————————————-
0.809 0.922 0.867 0.950 0.838 0.930
Comment 7/17/2007