MLB Newbie and Theory Thread: Rick and Tony take your calls

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Sports Argument Stadium > MLB Newbie and Theory Thread: Rick and Tony take your calls

Twenty Four: Dec 21, 2008

3DHouseofBeef posted:

That's a pretty good point. To add to that, I think it's important to keep in mind that the value of each skill (that is if you are concerned with RBIs) is still dependent on runners on base. So it may be easy to look at Tony's homeruns and say "Wow, that guys is going to drive in a lot of runners" but that may not be true depending on the situations he comes up to hit in. If the bases are always empty when Tony hits, the maximum value of a home run is one run. If Rick always hits in a bases loaded situation, his double is worth 2-3 runs per double. Obviously then Rick will create more runs as he has more opportunity to do so.

And opportunity is the key term here as well. With 150 XBHs, Rick has more opportunity to drive runners in. He quite literally has double the opportunities Tony does to do so. Think of in terms of dice, if you roll a 4 (with numbers 1-4) sided dice 75 times and another four sided dice (numbered 0-3) 150 times, which dice will roll the greatest sum of the rolls? Again, it's possible one always rolls to highest and the other to the lowest, but probabilistically speaking, the 0-3 dice should have a higher average generally speaking.

To put it another way, the average dice roll on a 1-4 dice is 2.5 (sum value of the face of the dice divide by sides, (1+2+3+4)/4=2.5). So Tony's homerun will roughly speaking drive in about 2.5 runners per homerun. On a 0-3 dice, the average dice roll will be 1.5 ((0+1+2+3)/4=1.5) so Rick will drive in about 1.5 runners per double. But, Tony does this 75 times and Rick does this 150 times. So for Tony, he will generate 187.5 RBIs (2.5 * 75) and Rick will generate 225 RBIs (1.5 * 150).

Of course that's just looking at simple averages and not using true weighted values.

Also to think about is not just runs generated but outs generated. Like a dinger = no outs, but you could get a double and hit into a double play every time (unlikely) or even just one out.

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Unrelated, not a newbie question but a newbie rule question. Since the new intentional walk rule was brought up, it got me thinking. Can a manager signal for an intentional walk part way through the count? Like when a Mike Trout or Paul Goldschmidt is at bat and the pitcher gets behind in the count say 3-0 and they have an open base. Sometimes they decide to just say screw it and throw the last ball on purpose and let them take their base rather then risk them hitting for extra bases or a homer, especially if they think it's time to pull the pitcher.

Do they still throw the last ball or do they just say "I give up go to first" now? Has this happened yet? It obviously wouldn't really save any time (not that this whole thing saves much anyhow) but it could prevent a wild pitch or a hittable miss from a pitcher who is out of gas.

Edit - After some digging around it seems that managers can issue an intentional walk on any count. On the other hand, intentional walks can apparantly still be done the old way, if say you wanted to buy a reliever some more warmup time. Huh. Still not sure if it has happened yet mid count.

Twenty Four fucked around with this message at 11:54 on Apr 6, 2017

# ¿ Apr 6, 2017 10:15

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 12:49

Twenty Four: Dec 21, 2008

exploded mummy posted:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mE54ld69x9M

That poor kid I hope they gave him another ball or something.

# ¿ Sep 14, 2017 19:38

Twenty Four: Dec 21, 2008

Elizabeth Mills posted:

Home plate, as laid out by the rules, cannot physically exist.

Counterpoint: as someone who has scored runs and stepped on home plate, it exists.

# ¿ Jan 4, 2018 12:55

Twenty Four: Dec 21, 2008

Popete posted:

Yeah but atoms never actually touch, so technically you've never touched home base. Likewise you can never be put out.

Baseball is a sham!

# ¿ Jan 4, 2018 19:12

Twenty Four: Dec 21, 2008

In regards to pitchers getting an extra out or not allowing steals, it reminds me of deciding on if you would rather have a better then average pitcher who can't throw to first or an average pitcher who can.

It is a dumb cheap John Lester joke.

But to be fair and without doing any real math, I think the meta game of "you can never steal on this guy ever and the other team knows it" might make a bigger impact, sort of a reverse Lester effect.

Just because Tony doesn't get one guaranteed out doesn't mean he can't throw baserunners out, and knowing you can never steal off of him would limit leadoffs a bunch I would think.

So, players who were running from first to second or whatever might get out more often on a non pickoff situation say from a throw from a grounder to third because they have further to run more often. This is on top of never allowing steals which can limit scoring position in addition to creating outs if anyone was foolish enough to try.

It's an interesting question either way and I'm still not completely sure, but I was trying to think about it on something more then just crunching numbers.

# ¿ Jan 12, 2018 11:11

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