“Experts”* put too much stock in that stupid win statistic.

Padre pitcher Greg Maddux has allowed 2 or fewer earned runs in 8 of his previous 10 starts, without earning a W.

Maddux’s streak of pitching well without earning a “win” to show for it isn’t illustrative of “bad luck” without support from the offense.  The streak is a perfect, right in your face example of why the “win” is a garbage.  It does not adequately measure a pitcher’s ability.  A starting pitcher is, at best, responsible for 50%** of earning a win.

The stat enjoys entirely too much credence with the mainstream media, who continues to recite the same meaningless rhetoric about the win.  The Padres (or whatever team) need to “step it up” on offense to support their pitcher.

Whatever that means.  Somehow it is the offense’s responsibility to earn the pitcher credit for a good performance?  Come on, experts.  Does that make any sense at all?  This is the best you can do?

Just stop with the wins. They force you to make crazy ass-backwards assertions to avoid admitting a mistake.

* I don’t mean to pick on Krasovic here.  I enjoy him more than other columnists / pundits.

** Sorry, I made this number up.  The real answer could easily be 60% or 40%.  The point still stands.

photo credit: SD Dirk

On June 22, San Diego Union Tribune writer Tom Krasovic published an article covering the year long ineptitude of the San Diego Padres.  Of course, any writer could find evidence of this printed on a bottle of baby powder, the way the team’s poor play slaps viewers across the face.

Unfortunately Krasovic chose to stretch the limits of traditional statistical analysis by addressing the rather infamous topic of hitting with runners in scoring position.  To throw fuel on the fire, he mixes that with some hot strikeout hating action.

Compared with the National League average, [the Padres] are 13 percent more likely to strike out with a man in scoring position.

One short line, no big deal, right?  The problem, is he is dead wrong.

Tom Krasovic is the UT’s expert. He misinformed readers who trust him to teach important statistical concepts and instruct fans about the game.

Strikeouts

We’ve covered the strikeout controversy already.  Mark Grant’s criticism prompted a post that ranks 2007 teams by total strikeouts.  We found that more playoff teams were actually in the top half of the league in strikeouts rather than the bottom.  One reason is because striking out is often an essential ingredient to hitting for power.  Big guys have to swing hard.  And sometimes, you miss hard.  (Have “that’s what she said” jokes gone out of style again yet?)

Another reason strikeouts don’t keep good teams from winning is that with runners on base, a strikeout is not the worst a batter can do.  That honor belongs to hitting into a double play.  And the double play, believe it or not, has never happened off a strikeout.  Strike-em-out throw-em-outs don’t count.  Because I say so.

With runners in scoring position

Every study I have ever seen on “clutch hitting” comes to the same conclusion: there is no such thing.  Allow me to take a small page from these studies and present a comparison.

There is clear evidence that the Padres strike out less with runners in scoring position, not more.

It does appear that striking out less with RISP is normal.  And while they may strikeout more than the league average in general, don’t complain to the 2007 Diamondbacks, Indians, or Phillies.  Those teams struck out the third, sixth, and seventh most in all the majors last year, you can see how shitty things turned out for them.  They all made the playoffs.

Conclusion

Krasovic’s data may be factually correct, but it signifies very little about the Padres hitting ability.  Which is odd, because you don’t have to look hard to see how bad the team has been.

I sent Tom an email to clarify what he meant by the statement. It is indeed his contention is that a higher strikeout rate with runners in scoring position is in fact an example of poor hitting, which just isn’t the case.  Readers who depend on sportswriters to provide accurate information deserve better.

Today is July 1st, meaning that there is officially less than a month left till the trade deadline. With the Padres’ hopes for the season fading away, it seems likely that the team will be sellers and, over the course of this month, we here at The Sacrifice Bunt will try to stay on top of all the rumblings surrounding our team. Think of us as a low-rate, more specific version of M.L.B. Trade Rumors.

Speaking of that fine website, they gave a rundown of Peter Gammons‘ latest blog entry discussing the Cubs and their starting pitcher search. While there’s no talk of Greg Maddux becoming a Cub for the third time, there is mention of Randy Wolf.

Gammons reports that the Cubs have interest in Wolf and Wolf has interest in playing for a contender. And for good measure, Gammons mentions that the Padres still show interest in Matt Murton who’s been on our radar for a minute now. Of course, we already have a full outfield, complete with players who buy into the team’s philosophy of getting on-base. Where would Murton play? Would one of the outfielders have to change positions, possibly moving back to the position he played in the minors that is currently manned by a free-swinger? Hmm.

(jes’ sayin’)

In more Wolf news, the Phillies have demoted Brett Myers to Triple-A. Wolf is a former Phillie (Philly?) who rebuffed their attempts to bring him back after the 2006 and 2007 seasons. I have no idea who they’d give us in return, though.

Ray’s update: Of course, not if Wolf’s value plummets.

There’s little more dangerous than someone who thinks they’re clever. Even if they are clever, once the idea gets in their head, it’s over. Take Chris Ballard, for instance.

Let me take a step back first. Before George Clooney dropped out of the W.G.A. to protect him from having to take responsibility for “Leatherheads,” Rick Reilly was the cornerstone of Sports Illustrated for over 20 years. That ended recently, though, when Reilly made his way over to rival E.S.P.N.

Left Reilly-less, Sports Illustrated established a section, “Point After,” in which a carousel of writers take over the space left by Reilly. Ballard is one of those writers and this week, he wrote an article entitled “Let’s Play Milton Bradley!” The gist of Ballard’s article, which I can’t find online, is that Bradley’s life is a board game because, as you may or may not know, Milton Bradley is also the name of a company that manufactures board games. So Ballard has combined both worlds, making the player a board game/making a board game of the player.

Reilly had a tendency to get really sanctimonious, which is one of the reasons I was never able to really get into him, and Ballard keeps it up. He really hits the Milton highlight reel: the incident in Los Angeles with the plastic bottle (in 2004), the incident in Los Angeles with Jeff Kent (in 2005), and the incident with the three-day stay in jail (in 2003). For good measure, he does mention the incident in San Diego with Buddy Black (in 2007), but a lot of the article is based older Milton Bradley incidents.

For his own good measure, Ballard mentions Bradley’s positive qualities, like his Run a Youth Charity, his role as a good teammate in Oakland, how The Fountainhead is his favorite book (that’s a good thing?), and his incredible year this season. But this part of the article comes off as incredible hollow, as if Ballard strove to be fair in his scathing expose of the Milton Bradley the public doesn’t know.

Oh wait, this is the same shit that’s been following Bradley his entire career. The same shit that prompted him to try to confront Royals announcer Ryan Lefebvre, after Lefebrvre brought up Bradley’s struggles to highlight teammate Josh Hamilton’s redemption. The same shit that made Bradley break down in tears and say “All I want to do is play baseball and make a better life for my kid than I had, that’s it. I love all you guys. … I’m strong, but I’m not that strong.” after manager Ron Washington and general manager Jon Daniels brought him back down to the dugout.

It’s time to change the record and recognize that Milton Bradley is a human being. He’s not the first baseball player to be hounded for what he’s done, just ask Barry Bonds. But where Bonds’ actions threatened the integrity of the game itself, Bradley is only a threat to himself. And he’s been trying, Ringo; he’s been trying real hard. Ballard makes note of Bradley’s six different teams in a very pejorative tone, ignoring that his departure from Oakland was more an act of philosophy and his departure from San Diego wasn’t from a lack of trying by the Padres. Bradley would have to start taking steroids to be strong enough to survive the hounding he’s received. The hounding he’s receiving.

It’s interesting to note that Ballard’s column comes in the same issue of Sports Illustrated as articles about Hope Solo, goalie for the U.S. national soccer team, battling back against her criticisms of her coach and teammate, and Jared Allen, defensive end for the Minnesota Vikings, battling back against his troubles with the law. But while Allen and Solo got a couple thousand words each to cover their troubles, Bradley got a couple hundreds predictably sarcastic words covering his.

The problem here isn’t that Ballard’s article is sloppy, ill-informed, and reeks of self-satisfaction. The problem is that it’s about someone whose problems have been well-documented, much less so than his efforts to clean up his image. Any good writer has been told that sometimes you have to kill your babies. That not everything you write, no matter how good it may be, has to be published. That there are a number of reasons why your gem, your baby, just isn’t going to work.

But, of course, it’s easy for me to point that out. I don’t write for Point After.

Following Trevor Hoffman’s departure from last night’s 3-1 loss to the Twins, boos rained down from the bleachers. Boos, it would seem, intended for the future Hall of Famer after surrendering back-to-back home runs, including the game winner. This didn’t sit well with the Padres clubhouse.

“I didn’t like it,” said manager Bud Black. “This city should be very proud of a player like that for everything he’s done on the field and in the community. I don’t like it. I don’t think it’s fair.”

—–

“It’s disheartening, knowing what Trevor has meant not only to the organization but the city, and his level of accomplishment is unmatched in our game,” (Tony) Clark said.

—–

Jake Peavy, who started the game, said he heard the boos in the clubhouse. “I could not believe that,” he said. “That is as disheartening as it gets. I don’t understand it. When you look at all of his achievements, what he has meant, it’s ridiculous.”

—–

Said teammate Shawn Estes: “How soon they forget.”

—–

(Heath) Bell didn’t hear the boos that came after Hoffman gave up two home runs in an inning for the eighth time in his career. “If the fans were booing him, shame on them,” he said.

Hoffman hears boos in Twin killing

While we here at The Sacrifice Bunt don’t condone booing, we don’t condemn it either. There is a time and place to boo, although we couldn’t say if that time was following Hoffman’s poor performance. While there are shades of grey when discussing the merits of booing, the merit of the Padres post game conversation seems a bit more black and white.

The Padres lost last night 3-1. They again squandered a great performance by Peavy. In the bottom of the eighth, they had runners on first and second with no out and neither runner made it to third. In the seventh, they had runners on first and third with no out and two ground balls ended the inning with only one run scoring. Jody Gerut was caught stealing on what appeared to be a botched hit-and-run attempt when Edgar Gonzalez flailed futilely at what would’ve been ball four. In back-to-back at-bats, Gerut and Craig Stansberry were unable to get down sacrifice bunts. Oh, and the team’s increasingly unreliable closer came in and jumped his ERA up half a run.

It was an ugly game.

The fact that the Padres find it shocking that the fans could boo their performance seems naive or arrogant, or maybe a little bit of both. The team has fallen back into last place, setting themselves up for a potential rematch of the worsts this weekend when the pitiful Mariners come to town. The offense and pitching are below average. They let Milton Bradley slip through their fingers in the off-season and now he’s leading the A.L. They signed Jim Edmonds to man centerfield, then dumped him after a month and now he’s caught fire with the Cubs.

Now, it should be said that this season is an aberration. The current Padres management has put together the best run in the team’s almost 40 years and we haven’t even begun to reap the benefits of the new farm system. But that doesn’t affect the team that is currently taking the field right now. And the responses of the players from last night suggests they are more concerned with something other than their performance.

Again, we want to be fair. We’re sure that the players are as concerned about their performance as we are. But when the topic on the tips of their tongues is the reaction they got from the crowd, red flags go up. Maybe the fans aren’t what the players should be concerned about. The boos from the stands are a reaction to what is taking place on the field.

More disconcerting is the reaction of manger Buddy Black. For starters, he’s called out the entire city, which seems disrespectful given everything this city has done for the team. At what point does protecting become coddling? A good manager should stand behind his players, but at what point do these players take responsibility? If they continually fail to put down a bunt, a skill practiced by children, does he simply give them a pat on the back? And this doesn’t even get into the idea that Black is asking players ill-equipped to handle a task attempt to perform it anyway.

It’s not like this kind of whining is anything new. Be sure that if the Padres decide to trade a player sometime between now and July 31st that the Union-Tribune will be filled with quotes from players, decrying the actions of the management. We’ll leave you with some past highlights.

“Incomprehensible,” was Trevor Hoffman’s reaction. “Four other teams in the National League West are awfully excited. I probably need to take a day before I say something about this because I’m going to say something stupid.”

—–

“You have to trust your front office when you are in the middle of a playoff run,” Jake Peavy said. “But, man, to trade away your setup man . . . what kind of a message are we sending here?”

Padres trade Linebrink

Ever wondered how much time you waste being advertised to during a normal baseball game?  During a Channel 4SD broadcast between the San Diego Padres and St. Louis Cardinals on May 20th, 2008 I decided to find out.

The game of baseball has changed a lot over the years.  Technological advancements, most recently those of the Internet age, have changed the rules of interaction between the entertainer and the entertainee.

The fears of broadcasters that were envisioned when home videotaping was declared legal, are finally coming to pass.  People are watching fewer commercials and baseball is no exception.  Yeah no shit Melvin, enough with the overly dramatic intro.  Get to the point.

Wait, did I say that or just think it?

The point, jerk, is that Channel 4 San Diego, the Cox Communications owned cable channel that broadcasts the Padres, has to find a way to turn a profit in this difficult landscape.  Their response, has been to increase sponsored broadcast time during Padres games in addition to standard commercial breaks.

The San Diego Padres, in conjunction with the City of San Diego own and operate Petco Park.  To boost revenues, the small market team sells advertising signage in a multitude of sizes and locations throughout the ballpark.  This of course, though the sign density has varied in ballparks throughout history, is not news.  What is news, is that new signs are still popping up, they even hinder fan views of the game. (Hat tip Gaslamp Ball)

How much does that add up?

Lots of new information about the nature of baseball was discovered over the last decade or so.  We learned most of it by taking a new approach, using evidence and data to support theories.  My intent is to apply this principal to another aspect of the baseball fan experience.  Instead of simply estimating,  I want to know exactly how much time we spend being marketed to while watching a San Diego Padres broadcast.

My plan is to accurately measure both normal commercials and in-game advertising.  To do this, I used two watches and measured each category separately.  I hope you’re envisioning this beautiful image of me sitting in front of both a TV and computer, taking notes, and intensely operating not one but two stop watches.  If only my high school crush could see me now.  Lucky for my pride it was only a Tuesday night.

The first stop watch was the easy one.  It kept track of time during every commercial break, of both the national and local variety.

The second watch was the doozie.  It ran during every second that a viewer saw or heard any type of paid marketing message, not including normal commercials.  This also did not include in house MLB or Padres messages.  Though those types of messages were included if they were corporate sponsored messages, which was usually the case.

The study includes any shilling from Mud for his various spokesdeals, though it deserves mention that play-by-play was called by Steve Quis on this particular broadcast.  The guys in this game kept the paid lauding to a minimum.

In addition, any time a stadium sign ad was clearly readable, time was kept.  This constituted behind the plate ads seen from the center-field camera angle, and ads in the dugout.  I watched on an older 19” standard def television, from about 8 feet away.  It’s safe to say that this setup, a bastion of bleeding edge television technology, didn’t offer any unfair viewing advantage.

The results

Here’s a list of the various sponsored baseball happenings, brought to you by this or named after that through Cox Channel 4.  I’ll leave out the names of the corporate sponsors, though any semi-regular watcher could probably rattle them off quicker than names of family members.  Most of them appeared more than once throughout the broadcast.

• SAP telecast
• defensive alignments for both teams
• lineups for both teams
• “mlb comparisson” stat board
• trivia question
• bottom of the screen out of town scoreboard
• all middle of the inning pitching changes, plus select new inning pitching changes
• “major league leaders” stat board
• the box score
• beyond the box score
• postgame show
• pregame show
• pitch tracker
• various incarnations of replays

Moving on to the meat, the total game time was 144 minutes. Of that, the regular commercials lasted 28 minutes and 30 seconds.  The total in game advertisement time including all shilling and visible stadium ads came to 33 minutes and 55 seconds.  This means that both categories of product hawking during the broadcast took up a grand total of 62 minutes and 25 seconds, roughly 44% of total game time (there is a small amount of round off error in the chart).

What does Melly Mel think?

If it isn’t clear from my tone, I’m not all that into advertising.  That said, it doesn’t take a Joe Morgan intern to glance at the sidebar on the right and notice that even the great Sac Bunt sells advertising space.  The big deal to me is that while broadcasters are working to compensate for viewers watching fewer commercials by selling airtime during games, they still show as many commercials as ever.

It’s a long slow process, I know.  But I think the graph above demonstrates that shit’s getting a bit excessive.  It needs fixin.  As more in game advertising increases, lets spend less time dilly daddling around with the same old crap in between innings.

Whatever changes happen, they have to start with the fans.  If the powers at be think we’re ok with it, they’ll pile it on til the cows come home.  This goal of this article is to draw attention to what is happening, and encourage people to speak their mind about it.  For all I know, people might be ok with the clutter.  But considering the reaction to the above mentioned Spider Man movie debacle, I don’t think this is the case.  That’s why we should talk about it.

Fresh off of his simmering interview with XX, Towers unleashed this beaut in the Union-Tribune:

“It’s the way you play the game,” said Towers, visibly angry. “It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see the intensity and how you carry yourself.

“We’ve got some hungry players down below looking for an opportunity. There’s not one player in the system who is going to turn it around. If we make changes, it will be wholesale.”

He also said, “We’ve been bad, no question about it. There’s been no signs to tell us or our fans we’re going to turn this around. I’m not going to watch this for another four months.

“Morale shouldn’t be good. If it’s good, we have other issues. If morale is good, they have no expectations of being better. Morale should be horrible.”

“It’s a reflection of all of us. It’s got to be tough for all of our fans. This isn’t pointing fingers at all of the players. It’s all of us. I hope we all have the same feeling it hurts.”

Towers seeing red after tough loss: If changes come, they’ll be big ones, angry GM says

The real stinger, however, was provided by Tom Krasovic, who wrote:

The ballpark vibe recalled Mission Valley, 2003, when San Diego crowds oohed and aahed over the exploits of visiting players and the home team gave little cause to cheer.

Kevin Towers was on XX Radio this morning and talked about the state of THE Chase Headley. Some notable quotes include:

Headley’s the guy that we’ve got our eye on. I mean, he’s really started to heat up with the bat and that’s what we were hoping for. When people were asking “Why isn’t he coming up?” a couple weeks ago, he was hitting about .220 and we want this kid, when he gets up here, to have a great deal of confidence, not only offensively but defensively, and hopefully put him into a situation where there’s not a lot of pressure this guy’s going to be the savior of this ballclub and I think that time is close.

He is the one guy that we’ve got our eye on, just because we’ve struggled in left field. I think if you put Headley in there now with Jody Gerut and Giles, it’s a middle of the order type hitter that should be able to provide a little bit of offense, and I think that’s been the biggest discouraging thing about this ballclub.

So there you have it. Expect Headley sometime before, oh I’ll say August.

There’s a vote of confidence in there as well for the TSB endorsed Gerut. That’s nice.

In honor of Padres broadcaster Mark Grant’s criticism of the Padres’ high strikeout totals during the pre-game show and during play today, I submit for your review the following table courtesy of ESPN.
For informational and entertainment purposes, teams who made the playoffs have been highlighted.  Anyone see a trend here?  Because I sure don’t, and I’d love to hear Grant’s explanation:

Granted, high strikeout numbers aren’t a particularly good thing.  But in the grand scheme of performance indicators they don’t mean a team isn’t playing well.

Further in his analysis, Grant goes on to advise hitters to shorten up their swings to put more balls into play.  This plan will likely lower strikeout totals.  The downside though, and this is a biggie, is it effectively eliminates power.  I’d love to hear that conversation between he and Ryan Howard or Dan Uggla on the horrendous problem of strikeouts and why they need a new approach.

edit 5/18: Ray suggested I take a look at changes in hitting on two strike counts. The idea is that hitters often take the Grant’s suggested approach with two strikes on them. Batters shorten their swing to “protect the plate”, or avoid the strikeout. We can use this situation to imitate how slugging shapes up under Grant’s recommendation .  Here’s the “pass through” count data from 2006 courtesy of Tom Tango:

This simple analysis shows that when hitters (presumably) shorten their swing with two strikes, even with full counts, their power deteriorates significantly.  It should also be mentioned that hitters’ OBP and wOBA drop way down with two strikes on the batter.

*This is 2006 median, not mean, slugging

In the top of the sixth during the Padres-Braves match up tonight, Matt Vasgersian and Mark Grant were discussing Padres 2008 second baseman Tadahito Iguchi and his hitting troubles this year.

Vasgersian, using Iguchi’s single on a 3-2 count as an example, proclaimed that Iguchi’s key to hitting success, along with the key of many others in the game, is to work the count.  Let me say that you’re not going to get much of an argument from me about that.  Working the count and taking walks are an important part of not making outs, which in turn is important to winning ballgames.  However, a quick check of Baseball-Reference.com shows some amusing numbers:

Pitches per plate appearance of course are the most elemental aspect of “working the count”.

30 seconds.  30 seconds is how long it took me to fire up B-R and check if the facts support a theory.  It probably would have been faster if I spelled Iguchi’s name right my first try.

This is more than just one event

I don’t want to hang this one on just Vasgersian and Grant.  The segment sounded like it came from a producer.  Reason being that when the subject was introduced, a quick recap video of Iguchi’s previous plate appearance was cued up and ready to go.  It’s just a guess from me, but the whole segment seemed a bit polished to be just Vasgersian rambling to kill time.  (If it didn’t come from a producer, then I’ll admit that changes things.  I don’t expect the play-by-play guy to check b-r for every off the cuff remark on a live broadcast, I know it’s a hard enough job.)

This gaffe represents the Padres’ broadcasting crew, run by Cox communications, and their poor regard for the proper use of statistics.  Statistical sampling issues, among others, abound on nearly every broadcast.  Arbitrary constraints are thrown in to samples sizes which apparently make the information “interesting”, but end up being misleading and not at all helpful to the fan’s understanding of the game.  The number of outs made on Tuesdays that Brian Giles tans before the game are what we end up hearing about, and it sucks.

Things may not get better.  Producer Ed Barnes had this to say regarding statistics recently, courtesy of the Union Tribune:

“I don’t want it to be wall-to-wall stats,” he said. “I’m not the guy who’s going to be introducing EqA – equivalent average – to the show or something like that. . . . If we can find a way to put a nice bow on something and provide a nice context, then I don’t think a new stat is necessarily a bad thing. But we are not going to be scanning ‘Baseball Prospectus’ from this year and putting that on the air.”

This isn’t what I’m asking for, wall to wall nerdiness.  Except maybe equivalent average, I am asking for that.  Because it’s easy, and it includes a buttload more information than just hits divided by at-bats.  Plus it’s set to the scale of batting average, so .260 is about average and .320 is very good.  That doesn’t sound too terrible does it?

What I am asking for, is a little responsibility.  Spend 30 freaking seconds on Iguchi’s pitches per plate appearances, even less time if you can spell.  Don’t needlessly limit sample size “for fun” without telling people that doing so totally craps up the data.  Times are changing.  It’s funny that it the improvement on the subject had to happen from the bottom up.  It’s time for those with all the resources to respond to the innovations made by those who don’t.

Anyway, this kind of turned into a rant.  I’m only halfway sorry about that.

PS: I still love you Matt Vasgersian.