Rob Mains over at Baseball Prospectus gave a very good graphical breakdown of the Rays pitching usage. It’s not behind the paywall, and it’s worth your time. Basically, he goes through comparisons of innings for starts, and innings for relief experiences to show exactly where the Rays are and aren’t unusual as a result of their bullpen days and their opener-headliner strategy.
It’s most interesting to me to see where the Rays are not leading—relief pitchers per game (that’s Toronto) and starts between three and four innings (that’s Miami).
I do have to pick a little bit of a bone with the conclusion, because this is an excellent piece ruined (maybe that’s the wrong word because I’m still telling you to read it) by some faux-analysis that got tagged on at the end.
All told, Tampa Bay opener starts have yielded an 18-17 record, for a .514 winning percentage. The team in its other games is 42-41, for a .506 winning percentage. That doesn’t strike me as the type of difference—it works out to 1.3 wins over the course of a season—that drives imitation, although certainly there are other factors.
In what world is this how we would evaluate whether a strategy works?
What is the sample? It’s a bunch of games, weighted toward the appearances of pitchers in a long relief role that we’ve taken to generally calling “headliners.” The plurality appearances in this role are given to Ryan Yarbrough (9) and Austin Pruitt (6).
Now what is the control? It’s a bunch of games, weighted toward the appearances of Blake Snell (23), Chris Archer (17), and Nathan Eovaldi (10).
Now, you tell me, quick withouot looking it up, which of those groups you would expect to be better?
To evaluate a strategy, you need to come up with a baseline expectation. In science, often, this is done with a control group, but because baseball isn’t played in a lab, true control groups aren’t always possible. In no case is Snell the right control for Yarbrough. The better way, in this case, has something to do with projections, and it’s harder. Baseball Prospectus knows this.
Rays Links
- The Rays hadn’t won a series in Yankee Stadium since 2014, and according to Marc Topkin, they knew it.
- Adam Kolarek was the man of the hour, and he can’t stop grinning.
#Rays Kolarek, on closing out win over #Yankees for 1st career save: pic.twitter.com/yiAZuuzUbp
— Marc Topkin (@TBTimes_Rays) August 16, 2018
- To make room for Tommy Pham, the Rays optioned Jake Faria, and from Bill Chastain’s article this sounds like a difficult conversation.
- Fly balls are totally not going to hit the roof in the new ballpark, the engineers say. Not again. For what it’s worth, I believe them. We know a lot more about the path of fly balls now than we did when The Trop was being built.
- Speaking of fly balls, here’s the stadium that didn’t get built. This was in yesterday’s catwalk too, but now with 100% more high-definition picture.
- The BP Prospect team watched Wander Franco play, and were impressed.
- Devan Fink wrote about former-Ray Wilson Ramos’s debut with the Phillies.
- Keith Law wrote about Shane Baz, the ptbnl in the Chris Archer deal, and in his eyes the most important part of the deal overall.
Other Links
- Nate Frieman’s FanGraphs residency is off to a great start. His second article goes into how much height affects a player’s strikezone.
- Meg Rowley wrote about the best ways to lose a baseball game.
- Russell Carleton continued to poke at the numbers on defensive fungibility.
- David Kagan broke down how that weird wall in Fenway’s left field changes what is and isn’t a homer.
- Merritt Rohlfing noticed that the Oakland A’s don’t strike people out, and that that’s weird for a good team.
- Nicholas Castellanos flipped his bat and home plate umpire Manny Gonzalez caught it.
- The Rangers turned an unusual triple play, that happened because the runner on third thought third baseman Jurickson Profar had caught the ball, when he had actually taken it off a short hop
- Jose Urena received a six game suspension for the pitch that hit Ronald Acuna Jr.