What topics are fair game?
Talking with my coworkers today I realized that not too many people are ever going to understand where I'm coming from. That's okay I suppose. In any event that's the way its going to have to be. You see I'm a certifiable math and statistics geek. This genetic defect rears its ugly head in my favorite hobby, following baseball. Due to my obsession with numbers I tend to analyze baseball in a statistical way. When I look at a situation in baseball I'm not really concerned with what a manager should do based on what everyone else does. That's too easy. It doesn't take any guts to bunt with your number 9 hitter when there is nobody out and a runner on second base in the last inning of a tie game. No one will ever criticize you as a manager if you make that call. However, is it truly the correct call? Or should you let him and the subsequent hitters all swing away? I'm not convinced that you should bunt and, at the very least, I think it is a draw. For example, suppose your nine hitter is a career .262 hitter and your leadoff man is .292 followed by a .263 number two guy. If you let all three hitters swing away the probability that one of them will get a hit is 61.5% If you take into account that one or more of them could also walk or be hit by a pitch, I measure your chance of winning the game to be about 70%. If you give up the nine hitter and put the winning on third with one out, it gets a little more complicated. Say your leadoff guy has a career .328 on base percentage and your two guy has .297. Then the chance that they both will make an out is about 53 percent. But will the first out be a fly ball deep enough to score the run? It's hard to measure this. You would need to know the tendency of your leadoff man to hit a fly ball deep enough. It would also depend if the pitcher was a fly ball or a ground ball pitcher. I don't have all the answers, however, I think its pretty close either way. What this does tell me is: a) letting the hitters swing away gives me about a 70% chance of success and b)there are definitely SOME situations where it would be of benefit to let your players swing away.
Important Links
Baseball Reference
Good political satire
