Up 5-4 against the Tigers in Game 163 last night, I thought Twins manager, Ron Gardenhire, should have used Joe Nathan to begin the top of the 8th inning. The Twins ended up winning the game anyway, so this may all be moot. But by using Nathan in the eighth from the outset, the Twins could have prevented blowing the lead in the eighth, had an easier path to victory and avoided extra innings.
First of all, Nathan ended up coming in with one out in the eighth and pitched 1.2 innings in the game, so Gardenhire clearly had no problem using Nathan in the eighth or having him go more than one inning. But even if Gardenhire only wanted to use Nathan for one inning, I think that the eighth, with Ordonez, Cabrera, and Guillen – arguably the best part of Detroit’s lineup – due up, would have made more sense than the ninth.
This isn’t a new argument – I even think I’ve heard Joe Morgan make it. I’m more interested in why the fans, media and baseball community as a whole think that a team’s best reliever needs to be saved for the ninth inning (and I’m sure we can all agree that Joe Nathan is the Twins’ best reliever).
About two years ago, I found myself making this argument to my uncle, who’s a more casual, conventional baseball fan. I gave him the hypothetical, “What if the Yankees have a one-run lead on the Red Sox with Manny and Ortiz due up in the eighth inning? Wouldn’t you rather have Mariano Rivera pitch to them in the eighth than pitch to the bottom of the Red Sox order in the ninth?” (my uncle is a Yankee fan, btw). He responded, “Yeah, but there’s just something about pitching in the ninth to finish a game”. By “something”, he most likely meant that the ninth inning is a “pressure” situation, and only a certain type of reliever, like Mariano Rivera, can overcome that “pressure”. What I’m trying to figure out is whether this hypothetical ninth should present more “pressure” than the hypothetical eighth, and why we don’t think an eighth inning like this deserves a feeling of “pressure”.
First, lets examine the situations presented in the eighth and ninth innings of last night’s Twins-Tigers game. According to The Book, a team leading by one run in the top of the eighth with nobody on and nobody out ends up winning the game with a probability of .734. Other relevant win probabilities:
Bot 8, up by 1, nobody on, nobody out: .861
Top 9, up by 1, nobody on, nobody out: .825
Bot 9, up by 1, nobody on, nobody out: 1.00 (obviously)
All win probabilities assume average pitchers and batters in every situation. So, a player pitching a scoreless eighth inning in last night’s game could have increased the Twins’ win probability by .127 (.861 – .734). Similarly, a player pitching a scoreless ninth up by one run, presumably the situation Gardenhire was saving Nathan for, could have increased the Twins’ win probability by .175 (1.00 – .825). The ninth, in this case, is a more important situation by .048 (.175 – .127). But do the hitters faced in the eighth make up for the difference of .048 in win probability added? I think it does, but let’s take a closer look.
In the eighth, the Twins were set to face Ordonez, Cabrera, Guillen, and, if anyone got on, Raburn. Here are the AVG/OBP/SLG/wOBA stats for those players:
Ordonez .310/.376/.428/.356
Cabrera .324/.396/.547/.402
Guillen .242/.339/.419/.328
Raburn .291/.359/.533/.378
Due up in the ninth were Raburn, if no one reached in the eight, followed by Inge, Laird and Santiago. Here are their slash stats:
Raburn .291/.359/.533/.378
Inge .230/.314/.406/.315
Laird .225/.306/.320/.287
Santiago .267/.318/.385/.307
The first group of hitters are clearly superior to the second group. To be honest, I don’t know how to calculate the exact difference in win probability between the two groups, but I assume that the superior level of talent of the first group is enough to overcome the win probability of .048. Even if it is not, and I am incorrect about using Nathan in the eighth, one can easily conceive of situations in which one group of hitters is enough to overcome such a difference, and this discussion would be of relevance.
If we make the assumption that the hitters due up in the top of the eighth made that half inning a higher leverage situation than the top of the ninth, it begs the question, “Why would managers save their best relief pitcher for a lower leverage ninth inning?”. One obvious reason is MLB’s official save statistic. Pitchers only receive a SV when they record the last out in the game, and closers have come to be judged, evaluated and paid through incentives based on the save statistic. In some ways, MLB managers have become a slave to the SV statistic.
Another possible reason for the false sense of “pressure” in the ninth comes from familiar dramatic structures seen in television, film, and literature where the entire plot line builds towards a climax at the end. We tend to project this structure onto other aspects of life, including baseball games. We therefore assume that the climax, or most important moment, happens in the last inning, even when this is not mathematically the case.
I present to you now, an alternate universe in which relief pitchers, fans, the media, and baseball managers feel the appropriate amount of “pressure” at appropriate times within the course of a baseball game. This alternate universe differs from our own universe in only two ways: the SV statistic does not exist, and announcers consistently discuss things like leverage index and win probability (in a way that’s not too nerdy for casual fans) while announcing baseball games.
Without a SV stat, relief pitchers would feel less pressure to record a save or accumulate a badge of honor or notch on their belt when pitching the ninth. These pitchers would also be more willing to pitch the eighth or seventh inning without feeling like they were depreciating their own value or leverage for future contract negotiations.
To explain the effect of announcers discussing things like win probability, I turn to a discussion within Richard Dawkins’, The God Delusion. In explaining how evolution and experience shapes our understanding of our world, Dawkins writes:
“Unaided human intuition, evolved and schooled in [our world], even finds it hard to believe Galileo when he tells us that a cannonball and a feather, given no air friction, would hit the ground at the same instant when dropped from a leaning tower. That is because, in [our world], air friction is always there. If we had evolved in a vacuum, we would expect a feather and a cannonball to hit the ground simultaneously. We are evolved denizens of [this world] and that limits what we are capable of imagining.”
Just how living in a world with no air friction would allow us to understand a feather and cannonball falling at the same speed without any stretch of the imagination, growing up in a world where announcers regularly discuss the implications of win probability would allow us to accept using a team’s best relief pitcher in a high leverage situation in the seventh or eighth inning. In this alternate universe, relievers and managers would feel more “pressure” in high leverage situations in middle innings than they would feel in low leverage ninth innings that we consider “save situations”. In such a universe, Joe Nathan may have pitched the eighth last night and held the lead heading into the ninth. In such a universe, the Twins may have avoided extra innings. In such a universe, the Twins may have been more well-rested heading into tonight’s game against the Yankees. And in such a universe, the Twins may have had a better chance of beating the Yankees in the ALDS.
Closers, Saves, and Alternate Realities
Up 5-4 against the Tigers in Game 163 last night, I thought Twins manager, Ron Gardenhire, should have used Joe Nathan to begin the top of the 8th inning. The Twins ended up winning the game anyway, so this may all be moot. But by using Nathan in the eighth from the outset, the Twins could have prevented blowing the lead in the eighth, had an easier path to victory and avoided extra innings.
First of all, Nathan ended up coming in with one out in the eighth and pitched 1.2 innings in the game, so Gardenhire clearly had no problem using Nathan in the eighth or having him go more than one inning. But even if Gardenhire only wanted to use Nathan for one inning, I think that the eighth, with Ordonez, Cabrera, and Guillen – arguably the best part of Detroit’s lineup – due up, would have made more sense than the ninth.
This isn’t a new argument – I even think I’ve heard Joe Morgan make it. I’m more interested in why the fans, media and baseball community as a whole think that a team’s best reliever needs to be saved for the ninth inning (and I’m sure we can all agree that Joe Nathan is the Twins’ best reliever).
About two years ago, I found myself making this argument to my uncle, who’s a more casual, conventional baseball fan. I gave him the hypothetical, “What if the Yankees have a one-run lead on the Red Sox with Manny and Ortiz due up in the eighth inning? Wouldn’t you rather have Mariano Rivera pitch to them in the eighth than pitch to the bottom of the Red Sox order in the ninth?” (my uncle is a Yankee fan, btw). He responded, “Yeah, but there’s just something about pitching in the ninth to finish a game”. By “something”, he most likely meant that the ninth inning is a “pressure” situation, and only a certain type of reliever, like Mariano Rivera, can overcome that “pressure”. What I’m trying to figure out is whether this hypothetical ninth should present more “pressure” than the hypothetical eighth, and why we don’t think an eighth inning like this deserves a feeling of “pressure”.
First, lets examine the situations presented in the eighth and ninth innings of last night’s Twins-Tigers game. According to The Book, a team leading by one run in the top of the eighth with nobody on and nobody out ends up winning the game with a probability of .734. Other relevant win probabilities:
All win probabilities assume average pitchers and batters in every situation. So, a player pitching a scoreless eighth inning in last night’s game could have increased the Twins’ win probability by .127 (.861 – .734). Similarly, a player pitching a scoreless ninth up by one run, presumably the situation Gardenhire was saving Nathan for, could have increased the Twins’ win probability by .175 (1.00 – .825). The ninth, in this case, is a more important situation by .048 (.175 – .127). But do the hitters faced in the eighth make up for the difference of .048 in win probability added? I think it does, but let’s take a closer look.
In the eighth, the Twins were set to face Ordonez, Cabrera, Guillen, and, if anyone got on, Raburn. Here are the AVG/OBP/SLG/wOBA stats for those players:
Due up in the ninth were Raburn, if no one reached in the eight, followed by Inge, Laird and Santiago. Here are their slash stats:
The first group of hitters are clearly superior to the second group. To be honest, I don’t know how to calculate the exact difference in win probability between the two groups, but I assume that the superior level of talent of the first group is enough to overcome the win probability of .048. Even if it is not, and I am incorrect about using Nathan in the eighth, one can easily conceive of situations in which one group of hitters is enough to overcome such a difference, and this discussion would be of relevance.
If we make the assumption that the hitters due up in the top of the eighth made that half inning a higher leverage situation than the top of the ninth, it begs the question, “Why would managers save their best relief pitcher for a lower leverage ninth inning?”. One obvious reason is MLB’s official save statistic. Pitchers only receive a SV when they record the last out in the game, and closers have come to be judged, evaluated and paid through incentives based on the save statistic. In some ways, MLB managers have become a slave to the SV statistic.
Another possible reason for the false sense of “pressure” in the ninth comes from familiar dramatic structures seen in television, film, and literature where the entire plot line builds towards a climax at the end. We tend to project this structure onto other aspects of life, including baseball games. We therefore assume that the climax, or most important moment, happens in the last inning, even when this is not mathematically the case.
I present to you now, an alternate universe in which relief pitchers, fans, the media, and baseball managers feel the appropriate amount of “pressure” at appropriate times within the course of a baseball game. This alternate universe differs from our own universe in only two ways: the SV statistic does not exist, and announcers consistently discuss things like leverage index and win probability (in a way that’s not too nerdy for casual fans) while announcing baseball games.
Without a SV stat, relief pitchers would feel less pressure to record a save or accumulate a badge of honor or notch on their belt when pitching the ninth. These pitchers would also be more willing to pitch the eighth or seventh inning without feeling like they were depreciating their own value or leverage for future contract negotiations.
To explain the effect of announcers discussing things like win probability, I turn to a discussion within Richard Dawkins’, The God Delusion. In explaining how evolution and experience shapes our understanding of our world, Dawkins writes:
Just how living in a world with no air friction would allow us to understand a feather and cannonball falling at the same speed without any stretch of the imagination, growing up in a world where announcers regularly discuss the implications of win probability would allow us to accept using a team’s best relief pitcher in a high leverage situation in the seventh or eighth inning. In this alternate universe, relievers and managers would feel more “pressure” in high leverage situations in middle innings than they would feel in low leverage ninth innings that we consider “save situations”. In such a universe, Joe Nathan may have pitched the eighth last night and held the lead heading into the ninth. In such a universe, the Twins may have avoided extra innings. In such a universe, the Twins may have been more well-rested heading into tonight’s game against the Yankees. And in such a universe, the Twins may have had a better chance of beating the Yankees in the ALDS.