Pitcher's Hitting Performance When NOT Bunting (November 18, 2003)
This is a little study by MGL...
Here is a list of the best hitting pitchers for 2000-2002, by OPS. You may say, "What's so special about that? I can look it up myself. Besides what is that doing on 'Primate Studies'? And such mundane stuff from MGL? Mon dieu!"
Well, here is the kicker! When we look up a pitcher's batting stats (or any player for that matter), it includes his sac bunt attempts right? You say, "No it doesn't. Sac bunts (SH's) are not counted as AB's, so they are essentially ignored, right?" Actually, only the successful sac bunts are ignored. The failures are counted as outs (as are some of the ROE's), and the hits (mostly singles) are counted as hits. Since there are very many more outs as a result of a sac bunt attempt than there are hits, players, like pitchers, who sac bunt a lot, will have their overall stats take an unfair hit, no pun intended. In fact, for every 1 hit when a pitcher attempts a sac bunt, he makes over 30 non-sac outs (either a K, a force or a GDP).
For most position players, this doesn't make that much difference, but for pitchers who bunt a lot AND don't get very many hits when attempting a sac bunt (compared to position players), it can make quite a bit of difference. In fact, pitchers attempt a sac bunt in around 17% of their PA's (and they are "successful" around 2/3 of the time).
Anyway, here are the OPS's of the best and worst pitchers when they are not attempting a bunt and the defense is NOT expecting a bunt (either there are 2 outs or the appropriate baserunner configuration is not present). There are times of course, when the defense is expecting a bunt, but the pitcher does not attempt one. This only happens around 15% of the time, BTW, for one reason or another.
Top 5 (Minimum of 100 PA)
Name PA OPS
Hampton 182 .776
Neagle 115 .671
W. Williams 143 .647
L. Heranandez 181 .615
R. Ortiz 178 .615
...
Bottom 5 (Minimum of 100 PA)
Name PA OPS
M. Clement 160 .199
A. Leiter 143 .223
Astacio 159 .226
Dempster 169 .227
Armas Jr. 113 .277
Quite a disparity between the best and worst hitting pitchers! Of course, these are sample OPS's with very small sample sizes. To translate these into actual hitting ability, we would need to regress them quite a bit towards the mean OPS for all pitchers when not bunting, which is around .380. You would probably regress each of those sample OPS's around 75% towards the .380, since the samples are only 100 some odd PA's, unless you "knew" something else about the hitting prowess of the pitcher, other than that they have hit well or poorly over 3 seasons (2000-2002). In those cases, you can regress more or less, or regress to some other number.
Once you estimate the true OPS (or lwts or whatever) of each pitcher when he is not bunting, you can estimate the value he provides to his team as a hitter. To do this, you have to take his average number of PA's per game, assume that about 83% of these PA's are when not attempting a bunt, AND that these hitting PA's are usually with either 2 outs or no one on base. Finally, you should also probably assume that his average leveraged index when he hits away is farily low, as he will be pinch-hit for in many high leverage situatuons. The result of this last phenomenon is that the poorer hitting pitchers would not have as much value as their runs per PA would suggest and the better hitting pitchers would also have less value than their runs per PA would suggest, but that value would not be depressed quite as much as with the poorer hitting pitchers as I assume that the poorer hitting pitchers get pinch hit for in high leverage situations more often than do the better hitting pitchers.
Anyway, figuring out the relative hitting values (assuming that all pitchers have around the same sac bunting value, which is not true of course - but that is an addtional exercise) of the above pitchers is the exercise for the readers. Does a pitcher like Hampton add, say the equivalent of a 1/4 run in ERA to his team, as compared to, say, Al Leiter? Is this a fairly insignificant, but nonetheless overlooked area in evaluating pitchers? What do you think?
--posted by TangoTiger at 09:49 AM EDT
Posted 10:50 a.m.,
November 19, 2003
(#1) -
FJM
This doesn't tell the full story either. When the pitcher fails in 2 bunt attempts and gets a quick 2-strike count, the manager will frequently remove the bunt sign and let him swing away, apparently thinking he has a better chance of advancing the runner by swinging away than by attempting another sacrifice. I'm not convinced that's the right decision. But one thing it certainly does is put the pitcher deep in a hole. To really assess how good a hitter the pitcher is, you need to remove all AB's where he unsuccessfully attempted to bunt at all, even if that wasn't the end of the at bat.
Posted 11:12 a.m.,
November 19, 2003
(#2) -
tangotiger
Well, since he removed the potential bunt situations (i.e., I suppose man on 1b and 0 or 1 out), then that would remove that potential bias, I 'd guess.
Posted 1:41 p.m.,
November 19, 2003
(#3) -
MGL
To really assess how good a hitter the pitcher is, you need to remove all AB's where he unsuccessfully attempted to bunt at all, even if that wasn't the end of the at bat.
Actually those are grouped as bunt attempts. Since I have pitch by pitch data, most of the time I can tell when a pitcher has attempted a bunt and then switched to swinging away with 2 strikes.
In any case, Tango is right in that the above data is only when there is not a bunt situation, as I did not want to include those times when the infield was playing for a bunt and the pitcher swung away.
I was also able to calculate (not exactly, but pretty close) whether it is correct for a pitcher (or position player) to continue bunting or to swing away with two strikes or not (and what to do at the various counts, in terms of switching from bunting to swinging away or vice versa). Of course, that depends upon how good a hitter the batter is with 2 strikes versus how god a bunter they are. I can give the break even points OR tell you what an average pitcher (and position player) should do, however.
You'll have to wait for the book on that one though! ;) Good critical thinking on your part (questioning whether it is correct for a pitcher to still bunt or not with 2 strikes)! That is one of those (many) things that a manager would rightfully have NO IDEA what is correct or not, and to think that he does is both arrogant and stupid, since somewhere on this earth lies a person or two who could figure it out if they (managers) would only bother to ask!
Posted 1:47 p.m.,
November 19, 2003
(#4) -
tangotiger
and to think that he does is both arrogant and stupid, since somewhere on this earth lies a person or two who could figure it out if they (managers) would only bother to ask!
Anyone want to guess who will do most of the writing, and which person will do most of the sports talk shows?
Posted 6:09 p.m.,
November 19, 2003
(#5) -
MGL
That's a good one! That could be taken either way though, and I'm not sure which way you mean it. Either way, you're (I'm) going to piss people off. I assume you mean that you are going to do most of the writing (which is good, since you write better than I do, except when you get cryptic), since we want people to actually buy the book, and controversy on the radio is often a good thing...
Posted 6:14 p.m.,
November 19, 2003
(#6) -
MGL
One more thing:
and to think that he does is both arrogant and stupid, since somewhere on this earth lies a person or two who could figure it out if they (managers) would only bother to ask!
I thought that was one of my better statements! Actually it is a critcial point that needs to be made public (the folly of people in all walks of life making critcial decisions or offering opinions when they have no idea how to evaluate the merits of the various alternatives vis-a-vis their decision or opinion AND when those merits can and should be procured from someone else. The point can probably be made in not so harsh a fashion I suppose...
Posted 10:20 a.m.,
November 25, 2003
(#7) -
Rally Monkey
So when is this book coming out? I'm looking forward to listening MGL take on Jim Rome.
Posted 10:45 a.m.,
November 25, 2003
(#8) -
tangotiger
I'd say 6-9 months after our website comes up. The website would only come up in 2-6 months.
I hope people aren't too eager for it.... I have a full-time job and family, and I'm spreading the few hundred hours required to do this, here and there.