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[bryant]

Stupid baseball.

OK, so you have a man on third, two outs, it's the top of the 11th inning. The score is tied. Your pitcher runs up three balls on the batter, no strikes. You have two choices; you can either pitch to the batter, who knows you're in a hole, or you can shrug and walk him and go for the next batter.

I dunno, it's not like I've run the numbers, but I can't see how the second choice isn't better. You run the risk of additional runs, sure. On the other hand, there is no possible scenario for the third out which does not stay the same or improve if you have the man on first, since you now have the force out at second, removing a possible throwing error from the outcome matrix.

Lots of people know baseball better than me. I've never seen a manager turn a three-ball zero-strike situation into an intentional walk. Do they ever? Should they? Is there a remote chance that Coco Crisp, Jason Varitek, and Alex Gonzalez will squeeze out a run and make us suffer through more of this?

Crisp hit a double. That's something. Varitek flew out. That's not something. Gonzales fouled out. That's not something either. Eh, it's the bottom of the order, we don't expect miracles. Youkilis has an RBI! I'm still peeved at Francona for not walking Rollins; this coulda ended with that. Loretta walked. Go ahead, make Ortiz a hero again. Yep, Ortiz whacks a single, Youkilis wanders on home, game over.

Nonetheless, I wanna know why you don't walk the batter with two outs, tie game, extra innings, one man on third.

Comments

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

> So in the top of the 11th, there's two outs and a man on 3rd
> and Delcarmen has gone 3-0 on Rollins. Now, i think we know
> that walking Rollins to get to Utley is crazy; but a friend
> asks if it's better to just walk Rollins at that point due to
> the serious advantage that the batter has at 3-0, and go
> after Utley with a clean slate. Or, to put it another way,
> do Expected Runs change with the batter's count?

We originally started looking at count, but cut it out.

The reason: ES [Expected Scoring] goes up as the count gets in the hitter's
favor and down in the Pitcher's favor. But when we talk about allocating
the play value, the intra-count up/down does not change what the pitcher or
hitter would ultimately receive. (so while it matters, it does not matter
from an allocation stand point since it washes out once the ball is play).

[bryant]

Eh. It's not about what he ultimately receives; in this case, the batter ultimately received a run. I think they're measuring something slightly different than what I'm interested in.

What you really wanna know is the probability of Rollins getting an RBI in that situation and the probability of Utley getting an RBI with the men on first and third. If the second is higher than the first, you don't walk him.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

I agree; i wasn't too happy with the answer.