On behalf of High Heat Stats, I contributed a piece to the May 11-17 issue of USA Today Sports Weekly. This one is all about extra innings: why they have become more common in recent years and how managerial decisions play such a major role in determining extra-inning winners.
Here is the link to the column. And remember that HHS appears in the magazine every week this season! Stay tuned for future links or consider picking up a print copy.
A very interesting piece, Ely. If your conclusions are correct, and the proliferation of extra-inning games is significant enough to warrant modification of roster design, it places pressure on front offices at the same time as they are in the midst of reconceiving roster design because of the increased magnitude of postseason play, and the differential between optimal design for regular and postseason needs. Since roster design can only be predictably fine-tuned up to a point, I wonder whether teams will consider this issue. I suspect that, given the relative uncertainty of any lasting trend in extra-inning games vs. the… Read more »
Thanks for checking it out. My plea for factoring this into roster construction is directed more specifically at rebuilding teams. I see the Braves, who are built EXACTLY like last year: an impotent lineup and a bullpen taped together with washed-up vets and fringe prospects. They actually have a decent starting rotation, which will lead to a ton of low-scoring, extra-inning games (8 already in 2016). But their interim manager is going to run into the same obstacles Fredi Gonzalez did, with no appealing matchups to go to as the roster thins out. The long-term plan (I assume) is to… Read more »
The Royals, for what it’s worth, were involved in four of the six extra inning games post season in 2014-15. They played in 15 during the regular season in 2015.
I haven’t had time to go into the details of their success or failure in such games, but it might be a fruitful pursuit for someone with more time and more statistical chops than yours truly.
I wonder whether MLB might consider supplementing team rosters, especially for the postseason, with a small number of position players who would be activated only if the game reached extra innings. I’d anticipate they’d be speedy/bat-control/glove players whose skills would reflect the increased extra-inning value of a single run—Charles Gipson, an elderly Ichiro Suzuki, Scott Podsednik. Think of them as the position-player counterparts to an increasingly specialized pitching staff. Fresh position players are at a premium in extras, since they get burned through faster as pinch hitters, especially in the NL. AL teams might elect to activate more pitchers. I’m… Read more »
You mentioned that BABIP rises in extra innings and ascribed that to “desperate” defensive positioning intended to prevent the winning run from scoring. Another factor that might be at play is more counter-intuitive, namely who pitches those extra innings. While pitching options will inevitably dwindle as a game goes deeper into extras, a reasonable level of discretion is available at the outset of extras when managers would presumably put in their best available pitchers in situations when preventing runs (or just one run) becomes most paramount. Yet, too often (in my estimation), the n-th best pitcher is sent in while,… Read more »
At the opposite extreme lies the famous 26 inning duel in 1920 that ended in a tie. Pitchers Leon Cadore and Joe Oeschger face 96 and 90 batters respectively, Oeschger got out of a base-loaded, one-out jam in the 17th without being pulled, and as for substitutions, there were only three, all occurring in regulation innings. The Dodgers won the pennant that year and had some good hitters on the bench and some good arms in the bullpen, but Uncle Robbie let the game play out. There were 9 walks total and 14 strikeouts in 186 plate appearances, so the… Read more »
Sorry, I’ve been absent here (or elsewhere). Has anyone seen this yet?:
Age 27, ERA+, Qualified for ERA Title
1 Jose Quintana 255 2016
2 Chris Sale 248 2016
3 Pedro Martinez 243 1999
4 Carl Lundgren 213 1907
5 Roger Clemens 211 1990
6 Ron Guidry 208 1978
7 Drew Pomeranz 196 2016
8 Ed Siever 195 1902
Pretty amazing – and a real strange coincidence with Sale and Quintana both being 27 and the best ever at that age….at least, for now.
And then Pomeranz just down at #7. The rest don’t seem to follow any clear pattern that I can see. 1999 was a big offensive year and 1902 was a but above average as well. 1907 was near the trough of the first dead ball era. 1978 & 1990 we actually slightly below average scoring years if anything (This all assumes I’m reading the fairly small graph I’m looking at correctly) Dunno how 2016 compares to average so far but the most recent years have been fairly close to what appears to be the “norm”, which seems to be around… Read more »
Pomeranz always had great stuff. Fully washing Coors field out of his system seems to have cleaned him up nicely. Obviously I don’t think he’s going to finish the year with an ERA+ north of 150 but it’s nice to see him establishing. I looked at Kershaw not realizing his age 27 season was his “down year” with only a 171 ERA+. Slacker. I have to say that right now if he just said “Meh, I’m done” and walked away from baseball forever, I think he’s a hall of famer. I’m also not sure I wouldn’t vote for Trout under… Read more »
Some follow-ups from comments on this and other previous threads: Whereas on April 21 Birtelcom noted that run scoring was way up in the NL and down in the AL, now the AL is at 4.48 RPG, the NL at 4.31. April 22, David P doubts his projections that the Braves might end up with 151 wild pitches and the Red Sox 140 hit batsmen. After 69 games the Braves have 38 WPs and the BoSox 31 HBPs. April 30. Kahuna Tuna noted that Paul Goldschmidt and O. Herrera were drawing walks at a rate more than 30% of ABs.… Read more »
