WPS recap post-mortem:  two plays in Game Two

The World Series is over, a lot sooner than most fans were hoping. We’re now stuck in that twilight zone where we can either look forward to the 2013 season, or backward to the season that was. I don’t have my glasses with me right now, so five months ahead is just a blur. I’m looking backward, thank you.

Firstly, a couple pieces of unfinished business from WPS Recap. Prime among those is to congratulate the San Francisco Giants on their victory. May that flag fly forever.

Next, Game Four was exciting enough to rescue the World Series from being the least interesting Series of all time, as measured by the WPS Index. I failed to mention where it did end up: fifth least-exciting all-time, better than the 2007 Red Sox sweep, but not quite as thrilling as the 1928 Yankees sweep. I could nudge 2012 ahead on the basis of Pablo Sandoval’s three-homer game to begin the Series … except that Babe Ruth had a three-homer game to end the 1928 Series. Fifth place it is.

Now for the post-mortem that the title promised. The crucial game of the Series, if a sweep can be said to have one, was Game Two. Scoreless through the seventh-inning stretch, it was there for either team to take. Had Detroit done so, the complexion and psychology of the series changes markedly, and who knows what happens. That means it’s time for, yep, second-guessing!

(Technically, I did touch on one of these matters in the original WPS Recap. I nearly made a between-game post of the second one, but I thought I had been writing quite enough THT Live articles. There, now you can second-guess me on something: that’s The Circle of Life.)

The first turning point came as the Tigers rallied in the top of the second. With a hit-by-pitch Prince Fielder on first, Delmon Young doubled into the left field corner. When the ball ricocheted away from Gregor Blanco, third base coach Gene Lamont waved Fielder home. Blanco’s long throw sailed over Brandon Crawford, but Marco Scutaro had trailed the play. He reined it in and threw on to Buster Posey, whose quick sweep tag got Fielder a foot short of the plate.

I reported on Thursday night that the break-even mark for sending Fielder in that situation is 87.2 percent (given the 2012 Run Expectancy numbers). Here’s another figure to give you some perspective: The break-even mark this season for stealing third base with two outs was 87.8 percent. One of the archetypal bonehead plays in baseball; something players are coached to avoid and lambasted for forgetting; one of those old saws from the proverbial book that is actually dead-on correct. That play is just a tiny bit worse than sending the runner home on a no-out double.

Now, it is possible to be too hard on Gene Lamont for this snap decision. The factor that made sending Prince Fielder so obviously dubious—that it’s Prince Fielder, lugging Prince Fielder’s weight around the bases—would have worked against him had he halted at third. He would have had a similarly diminished chance of reaching home on a two-hop grounder or a medium fly ball. We could conceivably be lamenting how Lamont clogged up a rally by holding Prince at third, and how three straight teammates failed to bring him home. (Delmon Young got stranded on second, after all.)

It was still a mistake, but it was a mistake of aggressively going for an early run. Given how Detroit’s bats were limp noodles for most of the series, it’s easier to forgive, or at least understand, in retrospect. Of course, most of that power outage was in the future when Lamont windmilled Fielder home. It was a bit early to be acting desperate. On the whole, it was a blunder, but not something so stupid that it should haunt Gene Lamont forever. (Given the sweep, it probably won’t. Had this happened in a Game Seven, though …)

The second pivot point came in the bottom of the seventh inning, the game still scoreless. San Francisco loaded the bases on a single, a walk and a sacrifice bunt that turned into a hit when it rolled to an unmolested halt a few inches inside the third-base line. Bases loaded, no outs, tie game: That’s a jam.

Detroit manager Jim Leyland had two options: He could play the infield in, hoping to cut off the run while risking a greater chance at a big rally, or set the infielders at double-play depth, trading one run for two outs. He did the latter, and got what he was playing for, a 4-6-3 twin killing that still made it 1-0 Giants. He strongly defended his tactical choice after the game. “We were absolutely thrilled to come out of that inning with one run,” he told reporters.

One post-game analysis, by Ben Lindbergh at Baseball Prospectus, supported Leyland’s call. He used Run Expectancy to compare the presumed optimum results of the defensive orientations: two out, man on third, one run scored for double-play depth; one out, bases loaded, no runs scored for playing in. The double play dropped the Giants’ RE from 2.260 to 1.363, while a force at home would have lowered it from 2.260 only to 1.537. Lindbergh thus advised everyone to put away their pitchforks.

I’m going to keep something pointy at hand, myself.

Run Expectancy is an excellent tool for measuring general situations, especially those early in a ballgame. When the game is late and close, however, its general applicability gets overwhelmed by the specific situation. When that happens, analysis is served better by looking at the more complex but more precise Win Expectancy numbers.

Fortunately, there’s an app for that, and it’s right here at The Hardball Times. I fed the situations into Dave Studeman’s Win Probability Inquirer. I assumed a run environment of 4.0 runs per team per game—the average in the majors this year was 4.32, and AT&T Park is a pitcher’s park. These were the results.

Base/Out/Score Situation        SF's Win Probability
Bases loaded, no outs, 0-0             0.830
Man on third, two outs, 1-0            0.796
Bases loaded, one out, 0-0             0.738

Both optimum results improved Detroit’s chances, but the comparison is clear. Getting the force at home gives Detroit a 9.2 percent boost; the run-scoring DP was just 3.4 percent. (I also checked the plays with a 3.5 run environment, and the spread was even wider.) It’s difficult to balance the probabilities of getting these optimum results with the risks that both defenses, especially the infield in, offer. If you are hoping for the best, though, the infield in gives you a much superior best to hope for.

There’s one other factor in play. Leyland was content to play a run down to San Francisco, a team whose bullpen was one of its greatest strengths. Maybe his team’s two-run homer while down seven in the ninth the previous night affected his estimation of the Giants’ pen, but one can argue he should have been working to avoid having any deficit to make up against those relievers. As it unfolded, Detroit did not score against the bullpen Giants, in that game or for the rest of the World Series.

That is how Game Two got away from the Detroit Tigers: a little too aggressive in the second, a little too conservative in the seventh. It’s tough and kind of unfair to argue perfect causality in a contingent game like baseball, but a run here, a run there, and pretty soon that’s the ballgame. And just maybe the whole season.


A writer for The Hardball Times, Shane has been writing about baseball and science fiction since 1997. His stories have been translated into French, Russian and Japanese, and he was nominated for the 2002 Hugo Award.
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Jim G.
11 years ago

RE: the Fielder play – it depends on your philosophy on fate on how bad this decision was. Peralta proceeded to pop up, and then Garcia struck out to end the inning. That would have been the 2nd out if Fielder is still on. Laird led off the next inning with a flyout. That, and the fact that it was clear the Tigers’ bats were struggling even before that play, would make Lamont’s chance taking more acceptable.
But if you believe that 1st and 3rd and no outs creates a different situation for Peralta and those who followed, allowing for a different outcome, then it was a bad call.
I look at it as more of a credit to the solid play by the Giants (this coming from a Tiger fan). Particularly Scutaro for backing up Crawford and Posey’s great tag. If all of that doesn’t happen as perfectly as it did, Fielder scores and Lamont is celebrated for being aggressive, and maybe there’s a different tone to the entire series.

obsessivegiantscompulsive
11 years ago

According to interviews, what the Giants did was practiced all season long, Scutaro was suppose to be there, Blanco did overthrow Crawford, Posey is suppose to do sweep tags.

Regarding the bunt, Blanco acknowledged that 99 out of a 100 times, that ball rolls foul, he was just as amazed as everyone else.  The reporter speculated that the wet grounds made the ball stop enough instead of skittering foul.

FYI, not sure if this is the right way to measure run environment, but in AT&T, if counting both teams, the average run scored was 3.58, and if you go by opponents only, the average opponent scored only 3.36 runs per game.  If this is the right numbers to use, then that bumps up all the numbers you calculated, making your point more strongly.

Lastly, for some reason, I can’t pull up the 2012 data for record when leading after 7 innings, but in 2011, NL teams had an .857 winning percentage when leading after 7 innings, and the Giants were slightly better, .875, as befits their good bullpen.

Oh, also, even by traditional baseball rules, the home team is the one that plays to tie, the road team, as the Tigers were, was suppose to play to get the lead, not give up the lead. 

All in all, there were a lot of reasons, traditional and sabermetric, that suggest that preventing the run was more important than getting the extra out.  His decision also assumed that the offense controls the situation, when it is actually the pitcher who control the situation, and if the pitchers are giving you nothing, you are screwed.

In baseball, pitchers are like the quarterback, very important to winning the game while controlling the action, but I do not think that they get their proper due, particularly in sabermetric circles, because in baseball, they only pitch every 5 days if a starter, less than every other day for most relievers, and thus are considered less than a hitter, who plays every day.  They are in control, and if you don’t believe that, look at what Barry Zito did to the Tigers, or for Giants fans, look at what Bobby Jones did to the mighty Giants offense in 2000 for the Mets.  It may be luck that Zito and Jones dominated, but still, it makes the point that the pitcher is the one in control, not the other way around.  Yet, most media reports generally focus on the hitters failing, or hitters doing this or that, and generally are the MVPs (and understandably so, and yet, overall, they control the action).

The beauty in what the Giants and Sabean did, is that he constructed a pitching staff that is overall very good, in the starting pitching, as well as the bullpen.  Each individual pitcher is not as valuable as a hitter, perhaps, but as a collective, they could act more or less like one and deliver regularly good results.  The Tigers had an equally good starting rotation, but it was in the bullpen where the Giants shined brighter, and Leyland did not realize that when he went for the doubleplay.

Nivra
11 years ago

“It’s difficult to balance the probabilities of getting these optimum results with the risks that both defenses, especially the infield in, offer.”

That’s the key here. DP depth gives fielders more reaction time and more range, and allows them to get to more ground balls. 

Using your numbers of 0.796 and 0.738, or from the Tiger’s perspective, a .204 WE and a .262 WE on a successful conversion of a DP ball into an out at home, the conversion rate would need to be .204/.262 or 77.8%.  That seems like a good bet.

However, that ignores the cost of the actual single that you’d give up in the 22.2% of cases where the ball got through b/c the IF was in. 

The home team WE is .933 with man on first and second with no outs.  That sets up the following formula:  .204 WE = .262*Conv% + .067*(1-Conv%).
Doing the algebra, the Conversion-% needs to be (.204-.067)/(.262-.067) = 70.2%.

That is still a good bet.  Specifically, you would need to convert at least 70% of the double-play balls into an out at home for the Tigers to have an equivalent WE.  Anything more and the Tigers would actually gain WE.

Nivra
11 years ago

Just checked, if this were the bottom of the first, they would need to convert 99.9%, which is clearly sub-optimal.  By looking at this for each inning, we can determine an optimal cut-off where DP depth becomes less optimal than bringing the IF in.  We’d have to actually get the (IF in-out at home)/(DP depth-2 outs) conversion % to determine it, but the graphing it by inning would at least let us ballpark it.

Baseballcoach
11 years ago

One note from a coach.  Scutaro didn’t trail the play, nor did Blanco overthrow Crawford, nor did Scutaro back up Crawford.  The play is a tandem cutoff, like a tandem bicycle.  The SS and 2nd baseman line up so one can take the throw.  The outfielder can make a strong throw knowing if he overthrows the first man the second is in position.  They are both supposed to be there to reduce the margin for error.  It’s basic baseball, executed well.  Which is how the Giants won the Series.