A Math Exercise
Posted: July 14th, 2009 | Filed under: Baseball | 74 Comments »
This will be short and to the point because I have a column to write.
You know I despise the intentional walk. You know I think it’s anti-competition. You know I think it is cowardly. You know I think that, very often, it’s a stupid strategy too.
OK. Take all that animosity I feel for the intentional walk. OK? You got it. Now double it. And, now, double it again. Now, multiply that total by pi, add 3X with X being how much I despised the movie “North.” OK, now take that whole total, double it one more time, add 6Y with Y being how much I cannot despise the song “We Didn’t Start The Fire.” OK, you got that in your mind, can you envision that much enmity, that much hostility, that much loathing.
Good. Multiply that by five million.
And that’s how much I hated seeing the intentional walk in the All-Star Game.
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The All Star game was tonight? Crap, I missed it. Where was it this year?
first.
dang. i was merely second, and now third.
It really didn’t seem right to have happen in an All-Star game. Not to mention Jones has speed and probably wouldn’t get doubled up anyway. Baseball gods took care of the rest.
Agreed. It was an epic fail that led to a loss.
Greinke should have started, and then without Halladay getting knocked around, the AL would have been in control throughout, and the intentional walk would have been averted.
That’s okay, it was only the ONLY CLEVELAND INDIAN IN THE ENTIRE GAME. It’s fine: we’ve had so many other great things to root for this season. And now Victor sports a 1.000 OPS for the game! Schweet!
Hey, Charlie!
Phbt!
Seriously??? An intentional walk drove you nuts while Trey Hillman was in uniform and on the bench???
Maybe if they had named Dayton Moore GM of the American League team you might have mentioned something…
You know, I think this many straight losses opens the door for next year’s NL manager to say, “Look – they’re telling us it counts, so I’m going to play it like it counts. My starters play the whole game, unless I think there’s someone better, in which case I won’t hesitate to yank them after the first inning. No more Little League, everyone-plays crap. Oh, and my starter is going one time through the lineup, tops; I’ll have my second-best starter warming up to come in to start the fourth just like he’s starting a game. And after the sixth inning, hell, I might change pitchers every batter to get the matchup I like.”
Amen.
Was at the game. Girlfriend still hasn’t ruled out breaking up with me because of my reaction to it.
Ditto my entire section.
I didn’t watch the game, but looking at the play-by-play — I sort of see it. You introduce the possibility of the DP, and RHBs are all of .098/.179/.098 against Bell this year.
Intentional walks should be banned for the All Star Game. In fact, perhaps an intentional walk should be you have to allow not just one, but the next two batters to reach base, and then it would be used about as often as the quick kick is used in football.
The intentional walk is not good because it is so seldom effective. Someday when I retire I will do a study of exactly how often it does work. I think it is less than 10% of the time. That guess is based on observation. And, of course, tonight it did not work again when Charlie Manuel ordered it. According to Joe and Tim, Manuel was going to do whatever needed to be done to win. If he is that serious about winning, why give an intentional walk? They are ineffective. Why do managers keep ordering it. Joe Maddon did not when he had the opportunity with Ryan Howard. But he did order the pitcher to pitch aballs. Howard struck out swinging at balls.
You know, I think this many straight losses opens the door for next year’s NL manager to say, “Look – they’re telling us it counts, so I’m going to play it like it counts. My starters play the whole game, unless I think there’s someone better, in which case I won’t hesitate to yank them after the first inning. No more Little League, everyone-plays crap. Oh, and my starter is going one time through the lineup, tops; I’ll have my second-best starter warming up to come in to start the fourth just like he’s starting a game. And after the sixth inning, hell, I might change pitchers every batter to get the matchup I like.”
+100
Now how great would that game be as well?
Wait, you do or don’t despise “We Didn’t Start the Fire”?
There was an intentional walk (to Yount? can’t remember) before Lynn’s grand slam in ‘83. So without it, there would be no slams in the 80 or so ASGs played.
Adam Jones needs a nickname. The opposite of Pac-Man.
There was a what!?
See, Selig ruined the All-Star game for me. I watched the end of it tonight, and that was the only bit I’ve watched since he forced ‘02 to end in a tie.
Are you serious? There was an IBB tonight?!
i was waiting for this post the second i saw it happen.
Hey, this game should be about the fans and the players. V-mart wanted to hit. I am sure every Cleveland fan wanted to see their one guy do something with the game on the line.
As much as I hated it, it was not as bad as the Selig tie that started this whole thing. THAT made me throw things.
It is however, somewhere between the tie and having to see another moron with nothing to say post “first” or “circle me, Bert”
Well said sir… My Tribe are 35-54, still employers of Wedgie, reluctant to play a man named Laporta, and hopefully not even comprehending a trade of Cliff Lee or Victor Martinez.
I tune into one of a handful of in market games with an Indian involved and am returned with a former Cleveland manager handing over a free pass. Weak, unbelievably weak.
The manager of both the 2009 NL All-Star Team and the first-place Phillies, who has only a fanciful stake in his first team but quite a reasonable hope of managing the second of those teams in the 2009 World Series, made the Managing 101 strategic call that any random manager in any random game would have made to maximize his chance of winning any game, even an exhibition game, let alone an exhibition game which I have been incessantly assured by Fox Sports now “counts,” with the promise of 1 extra home game dangling above the field like a shiny WWE championship belt in a ladder match, waiting to be plucked on behalf of his real team, the 2009 Phillies.
Or in other words, bull hockey! Charlie Manuel was so right, he’s 90 degrees.
YOU walked Victor Martinez. It’s all your fault. (That is, if you were one of the weepy whiners who boo-hoo-hooed about the tie score, which was just one of the 3 or 4 most interesting things ever to happen in any All-ZZZZZZtar Game.) You got your legitimate game last night. The British philosopher George O’Dowd put it best when he wrote, “Karma karma karma karma karma chameleon.”
Me and my dad both gave each other a look and a laugh when we saw him throw the first intentional ball. Not something you see in an All-Star Game too often I imagine.
Still, Bud Selig brought it upon himself with his stupid “This Time it Counts” B.S. Only MLB could delude themselves into thinking that’s a good idea to determine the home-field advantage for the World Series. Imagine the NBA determining home-court advantage for the finals based on the league of the player who wins the slam dunk contest.
FYI, I believe the current accepted nicknames for Adam Jones are:
Jonesy;
Doctor; and
Adam JONES, Son!!
That’s right, Manuel was just trying to pull out all the stops to win this game. He’s a full-throttle, no-holds-barred, win-at-all-costs, insert-random-superlative-here kind of a manager. He was there to win. Pulling Chase Utley in favor of Orlando Hudson? That was a move aimed solely at winning. Yanking Albert Pujols out of a tied ballgame? Yeah, that’s spelled W-I-N-N-I-N-G, too. Miguel Tejada for David Wright? Winner move. Two at-bats each for Ryan Zimmerman and a Coors-less Brad Hawpe instead of , say, Prince Fielder and Ryan Braun? Now don’t tell me that move doesn’t exude the musky aroma of victory, because it positively reeks of it. I’m telling you, that IBB was Lombardi-esque.
Because winning at all costs is just how Charlie Manuel rolls.
I’m with #20. Sort of. Provided he’s not actually lampooning my side, which was my first thought.
What, exactly, will make everyone happy about the All-Star Game? Every comment in this thread is pissed about the IBB. (And to cut off the inevitable “I hate any IBBs and we’re discussing this one because it’s in such a publicized game,” I point out that the last World Series had a bunch of IBBs and this thread never materialized then.) Yet a ton of comments are also still pissed about the tie game from 2002. So what do you want? A fluffy exhibition or a game that proceeds the way real games proceed?
I find the All-Star Game to be kind of a worthless idea to begin with, but my solution is to just take it for what it’s worth and watch it dispassionately, cracking jokes with my friends. There’s no point in getting mad at the thing for existing. And, for once, there’s actually nothing to pin on Selig here.
Instead of multiplying by pi, can I just multiply by 3? That would make things a whole lot easier.
The intentional wall irked me but it infuriated me in the 8th when Manuel decides to send up Ryan Howard with a runner on 1st and 3rd with 2 outs down by a run you need a single to tie. Don’t get me wrong Howard is a good hitter, but he’s a home run hitter who is hitting .257 and strikes out a lot (103 so) as of the break. You have Freddy Sanchez .316avg and Hunter Pence .298avg still on the bench. Let me repeat a single ties the game (and possibly wins it after Hudson took second) an infield single ties the game, an error on a throw to first ties the game. All 3 have an OPS+ of 123 or 124, but I guess Manuel was either going for the win or wanted to make sure he got all his players in so Philly fans stay off him.
I also agree that Pujols should of stayed in unless the game had already been decided. In the end though I guess it doesn’t matter it’s just the all-star game so who cares, the managers and players certainly don’t.
While the intentional walk in the all-star game is abhorrent, it’s not even close to those guys who work a walk while playing co-ed recreational slow-pitch softball in a beer league.
[...] Victor Martinez took an intentional walk in last night’s All-Star Game. Check out Joe Posnanski’s thoughts on the matter. Bring your abacus. [Joe Posnanski/Joe Blog] [...]
First.
You hate the intentional walk as much as I hated waking up this morning and seeing you wrote an article about Stan Musial. The KC star is not a st. louis paper. I don’t care about Stan Musial. I wanted to read about the only non-depressing member of the Royals who pitched an absolutely brilliant inning last night, Zack Greinke. Instead I get an article about a guy that retired nearly 50 years ago from a team I hate. Kudos.
Rob McQuown at BP disagrees with you, Joe:
http://www.baseballprospectus.com/unfiltered/?p=1342
Dear NHL:
Help yourself to a spot as the third major sport in the US. No, really. Go ahead. Take it.
Sincerely, MLB
The thing that annoyed me about the intentional walk – other than the fact that it was an intentional walk in the All Star Game – was it seemed so much like Charlie Manuel was saying, “See? I’m managing like I care whether I win.”
I’m fine with that idea, but pitching around a guy is the way he chose to do it? It wouldn’t have worked well against the switch-hitting Martinez, but wouldn’t the preferable way of showing you’re “in it to win it” have been doing things like pinch-hitting or going to the bullpen for a platoon advantage?
Joe, i thought you wanted us to care about the all star game. I thought you remembered fondly Pete Rose trying to win it with his “slide”. The manager thought the IBB was the right strategy. He was playing to win. You can’t have it both ways – wanting an exhibition, and wanting a “realish” game.
As for the fairness of deciding home field this way, I’m with Neyer, it is slightly more fair than alternating which league gets home field. There really isn’t a fair way to do it.
What do you mean by “fair” exactly any way? Is the best team a team that can with no home field advantage, wouldn’t that be a more “fair” test than giving the team with the best record 4 home games? Is it more “fair” to reward the team with the best record 4 home games (thereby giving them an advantage in the WS – is that really fair)?
The IBB was absurd. Kudos to Adam Jones for leaving egg on Charlie Manuel’s face.
Charlie also fired the Prince Fielder cannon too early. He’s on a run at the plate right now and needed more than 1 PA.
But you can’t fault him – Freddy Sanchez? Hunter Pence? Ryan Franklin, Heath Bell, and a 40-year-old Trevor Hoffman on the mound? Compare that to the A.L. side w/ Granderson, Crawford, Grienke, and the 7th-9th inning shutdown corps.
The intentional pass didn’t matter one way or the other though. The difference in the game was that the AL’s reserve LF made a terrific defensive play to save a home run and the NL’s reserve LF took the scenic route to a fly ball that allowed the runner to reach third and opened up the possibility of a sac fly.
1. I’m a Tribe fan, and while it kind of made sense strategically, it did piss me off to no end. Is it really asking too much to let our one guy hit, Chuck?
2. @ #2+3…would you please shut up. Did you really have to bother us with TWO comments?
3. @ Shelby…well played sir.
4. @ Spud…Opposite of Pac-man, huh?
How about Sans Suitcase Woman Jones?
Out of all the festivities last night, I am just glad our President has enough time to take out of his schedule to sit down with McCarver and Buck.
Yes, if Grienke starts that game, there is no way the NL would have scored in the 1st or 2nd inning. It was entertaining to watch him make Wright and Victorino look bad.
I didn’t like the intentional walk either, but what really torqued me off was seeing ESPN resurrect the old “NHL on FOX” glo-puck for the Home Run derby. Have home runs and long line drives become so blase that they need a stupid comet’s tail added? How is this more exciting?
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: ESPN is to sports what MTV is/was to music.
Mike in MN @34: “He was playing to win. You can’t have it both ways – wanting an exhibition, and wanting a “realish” game.
On the contrary, I think is was Manuel (or the Fox announcers on behalf of Manuel) who wants it both ways. He can’t claim, on the one hand, that this is a real game that he’s trying hard to win, ergo an IBB is justified, while on the other hand he pulled out a series of starting players in favor of guys who aren’t as good. If he’s trying to win, then Utley, Pujols, et al, play the whole game. But he pulled them anyway, so he lost the right to use the “I’m trying to win” excuse later to justify the IBB.
Paul, good point. However, I ask permission of the chair to revise and extend my remarks….
He was playing to win within the context of the All Star game. He has to play most of the guys. Not playing them would be too upsetting to the system and fans. Within the context of the system that is the All Star game, he was playing to win. It may or may not have been the right decision, but it was a reasonable decision within the context of it being an All Star game.
I know this has been beat to death, but I really do not see why people have a problem with the ASG determining home field advantage. Other than perhaps using the overall interleague record, I have not heard a superior suggestion. Overall record would work I suppose, but teams in the AL, and in a tougher division, such as the AL East, would be at an unfair disadvantage to a team that beats up on a weak division. Regardless, the ASG result is much preferred over the previous alternating system.
I think Manuel, and really any All-Star manager nowadays, is caught in between. He knows it’s his managerial obligation to play most or all of his players, but at the same time there is this Selig-enforced idiocy of the game “counting.” So the only way for him to play to win is to play strategy. I had no problem with the IBB, it made complete strategical sense in any baseball game that “counts.” The issue is the crossed purposes of the All-Star game result being used to determine anything, then having 30+player rosters and requiring players to be included from each team. Can’t have it both ways.
Forty-third!
(sorry)
If I’m correct the equation for how much you hate the intentional walk in the All-Star game is= (10×10^6)(4a?+3x+3y)
a=animosity towards the intentional walk
-someone please check my math
Please. If Pujols or Utley had been hurt late in the game everyone here would be calling Manuel a moron. Plus the intentional walk is often a good strategy. If the next guy homers you were probably going to lose anyway.
So many of us say that the game really doesn’t matter, no matter what they try to tell us.
Then we care what they do doing the game?
Why does anyone care if the game doesn’t matter?
I didn’t watch it so I don’t care.
BTW, your posting times are Mountain time. Or are they Pacific time?
Either way they should be Central Standard Time.
I’m like Tom from Alabamaland (#14)….So, does Joe like “We Didn’t Start The Fire” or not? It wasn’t one of my absolute favorites but I loved the idea behind it. That song probably taught more US/World History to numbskull high school students in the late 1980’s than most braindead high school history teachers ever did.
Oh, about the IBB last night. It’s in the rules as allowable so use it if you wish. Don’t go and do what the NFL has done to their Pro Bowl game by not allowing blitzing the QB (or overall caring, actually).
Some of the younger readers need to realize that the NL’s poor record in recent All-Star games still pales in comparison to the AL’s lack of success in the 1960s and into the 70s. I think the NL putting Mays, Aaron and Clemente together in the outfield and at the plate maybe should have been against the rules of fairness back in that era.
Mark W., I don’t know about “pales” …. the NL never had a 13-game unbeaten streak. The NL’s 19 of 20 is not THAT much better than the AL’s current 18-3-1 run, is it?
I don’t have such a problem with the IBB. It does have the benefit of confusing the argument of whether we want the players and managers to try their hardest or not.
A bigger travesty was seeing the pitcher bat. I hate the DH rule, but it makes plenty of sense in the all-star game. No one in Toronto would be complaining if they didn’t get to see Roy Halladay bat.
I agree with #7. Trey Hillman looked so out place being at the All Star Game. So glad the AL wins yet another!!!!
A = animosity towards the intentional walk
X = despising the movie “North”
Y = cannot(?) dispise “We Didn’t start the fire”
Full equation:
((A x 2 x 2 x pi + 3 x X) x 2 + 6 x Y) x 5×10^6
Reduces to:
(8piA + 6X + 6Y) 5×10^6
That’s a lot of loathing!
@Greg – I think you missed the phrase “OK, now take that whole total, double it one more time”, and you missed the 5 in “5 million”. But then again, maybe you have more of a life than I do.
Alex @21:
“Imagine the NBA determining home-court advantage for the finals based on the league of the player who wins the slam dunk contest.”
Uh, no… imagine the NBA determining home-court advantage for the finals based on the conference that wins… the all-star game.
Unless you’re trying to claim that the NBA All-Star game has more legitimacy as an actual contest…?
Mike in MN @34:
“There really isn’t a fair way to do it.”
Sure there is. Give home-field to the league with the better record in interleague play. Make THAT mean something, however little.
Joe,
How bad is it that the first thing I thought of when Martinez was being walked was that you would have a post on it within 24 hrs? Thanks for not disappointing.
I know this post is about the IBB, which I thought was the right move, but why has no one lampooned Justin Upton for his terrible defense on Curtis Granderson’s triple? It looked more like Chris Duncan was still in left field, twisting and turning only to have the ball hit the bottom of the wall behind him. If Upton plays All-Star defense, there is no need for a subsequent IBB.
Matt- the (?) was the pi symbol but it didn’t convert. We have the exact same formula but I have divided the first equation by 2 and then multiplied it to the 5*10^6.
Other Craig #56: I heard one windbag make the excuse for Justin Upton that “Upton has never played leftfield as a professional before last night”.
My question: Did Upton play leftfield as a professional last night? Apparently not!
At least it wasn’t poor Dan Ugla having another nightmare performance in the mid-summer classic.
@ #54 Jon Morse
“Sure there is. Give home-field to the league with the better record in interleague play. Make THAT mean something, however little.”
I like this idea.
@54 – how is that fair? How does that reward the TEAM that was better in the regular season?
Most people, I think, would say that the team with the best record has earned the right to have home field, and that is most fair.
But, what is fair? If you want to know who the best team is, wouldn’t they play in a neutral site, to eliminate home field bias? Or is it more fair to reward the team that was better during the season?
your solution is no more or less fair to the teams than is the all star game system. There is no fair system, frankly.
giving anyone homefield creates an unfair advantage,
playing in a neutral field negates the effort the team used to get there by building a team that is good at home.
Probably the most fair way is to flip a coin, actually.
Mac @#51: You don’t need a DH. You’ve got 12 backup position players and 13 pitchers. When the pitcher’s spot comes up in the order, pinch-hit for him, and have one of your other SPs come in to start the next inning.
I guess the worst part of being a professional baseball writer would be HAVING to watch the HR Derby and All-Star Game. I agree that it is very gay to intentionally walk someone during the ASG. That’s like bunting Crawford over during the ASG and not letting him use his legs or something equally stupid. It’s an exhibition game. The people don’t want to see an intentional walk.
@#60 Mike in Mn – It is more fair than overall record because of the strength of the leagues. A 95 win NL team is likely inferior to a 93 win AL team.
I agree with your overall point that there is no truly “fair” way to do it, but this suggestion is about as good an idea as I’ve heard so far.
Upton, Uggla … I guess next year’s defensive goat will be Chase Utley.
It’s one night and it is a part of baseball’s tradition.
I’m for anything that prompts discussion about baseball history and honors the greats of the game – however flawed.
Someone mentioned the HR derby. I wanted to watch but just couldnt when I remembered that Chris Berman would be doing play by play, if you can call it that. I freaking hate Chris Berman. If he was never seen on TV again it would be too soon.
If the game is that important, follow the example from the 1970’s – I forget who did this – I feel like it was Martin, or Weaver, or maybe the Oakland A’s. They had a group of good glove second basemen. Start one, when he came up, pinch hit with your power guy on the bench, unless you need to sacrifice. Insert next defense-minded second baseman. Lather, rinse, repeat.
If the game really matters, Teixiera should have gotten 4 ABs for the AL. You could have let Aaron Hill (for example – he was the 8th hitter, so you assume he’s the worst hitting starter – but still an awesome player) get one AB, then pinch hit one of your guys on the bench that you don’t really want to have – say Andruw Jones. Insert Zobrist to play second. Get him one AB. Pinch hit someone else (say, Brandon Inge). Leave Inge in and move Michael Young to second. You’ve gotten four guys in the game without having to pull Teixiera or Young to do it. Notice you also save your big guns to pinch hit in the right spots, etc, and if the game goes in to extra innings, your number 4 hitter is still Teixiera. It’s not like I am being brilliant here – someone did this, and these guys could learn from it.
AIWALG = 107[4?AIW + 3DN + 3F~D]
I would have liked the comet tail better during the HR Derby if it didn’t look like it was having a midair seizure every single time. Oh, and I would have liked the Derby in general better if Berman wasn’t announcing. BACK BACK BACK BACK BACK!
Let each team’s regular season record determine home field advantage. Sure, there may be a team that wins it even though they beat up on weak teams, but as someone above mentioned, a 93 win AL team is probably better than a 95 win NL team. Unfortunately if they both have the same number of wins, then we’d be dealing with some tiebreakers. At least a coin flip wouldn’t be used…
Unless the overall interleague record is being used, I don’t think an individual team’s interleague record should decide HFA. Using only 18 games is too small of a sample size to decide the biggest games of the year, especially when those 18 come against a single division and that team’s “natural rival.”
As bad as I feel for Indians fans for not getting to see their only All Star bat, it could have been much worse if that run hadn’t scored, and if the game had remained tied well into extra innings, and their only All Star would have been forced into the potentially very humiliating experience of trying to catch Tim Wakefield for the first time.
Judy #70: Very well thought out scenario that we did NOT need to witness.
Bryz #69: MLB claims that they can not wait until possibly only a few days before Game 1 of WS to know where that game is to be played. By MLB knowing now that the AL will once again host Games 1&2 and the NL will host 3&4 (and possibly 5) so many of the headaches of hotel rooms, stadium availability, party accomodations etc are whittled down to only 2 cities per league by the start of the LCS of each league.
One could argue that it makes little difference but MLB has been doing this for a very long time and they know that limiting the possibilities of cities, dates, etc is the best way for them to proceed. Consider the scenario where a 95 win Tampa team wins the ALCS on Tues eve and a a 96 win Philly team is playing a 93 win Dodger team in their Game 7of NLCS on Wed eve. We do not know if Tampa is hosting Games 1&2 of WS (Sat & Sun) or Games 3-4 until after the NLCS series is decided. It really becomes a mess in last minute arrangements. It is rough enough as it is but knowing what league is hosting Games 1&2 prior to the playoffs helps considerably.
Amen, Brother.
But as long as this exhibition game ‘counts’ it’s gonna happen.
[...] 6) I’ve already forgotten which number I’m on and am having to look them up. Let’s stay with Joe Poz. On an event at the ASG. [...]
@ spud – The opposite of Pac-Man?
How about Adam “Blinky” Jones?