Episode 1594: Speed Trap

Summary[]

Ben Lindbergh and Sam Miller banter about whether we need middle names and what it was like not to know what players were worth before WAR and its statistical predecessors existed, then do Stat Blasts about pickoff attempts in a fan-free season, why home-field advantage has persisted without fans in the stands, and the Phillies’ blown leads, and finally conduct a quiz based on surprising Statcast sprint speeds.

Topics[]

Is it more common this season that you have four pickoff throws in a row?
Why is home field advantage even more pronounced this season?
Percentage of losses that were blown leads.
Statcast sprint speed quiz.

Banter[]

How many baseball player middle names do you know? Are middle names even useful?
How did we know what players were worth before WAR?

Email Questions[]

Nathan M: In Episode 1589, you had mentioned a stat about the Phillies's horrendous bullpen. I found two more stats I needed to share with you. As of September 17, the Phillies are 24–25, and in 18 of their 25 losses, the Phillies have blown a lead. So in 72% of the team's losses this year, they were winning the game at some point. I'm wondering if this percentage is some sort of record.

Stat Blast[]

Sam starts to scat-sing the Stat Blast theme before Ben plays the recorded theme.

Four pickoff throws in a row

Sam had a theory that four pickoff throws in a row would be more common this year because pitchers don't feel as much social pressure to keep the crowd entertained, since there are no fans in the stands.
Lucas Apostoleris provided a spreadsheet of every instance of four consecutive pickoff throws since 2003. It supports Sam's theory.
In the first decade of the 2000's, there were around 18 per year. In the 2010's, there were around 14 per year. They were a rare occurrence.
This season, we are on pace to have 50, if extrapolated to a full season, triple to quadruple the historic rate. Only Kyle Ryan did it more than once (three times so far).
Sam noticed that there was no difference in rate between home and away teams, which suggests that the partisan disapproval of the crowd is not a factor, but rather the non-partisan effect of simply being annoying.
R.J. Anderson wrote an article (linked below) on Zac Gallen having almost three times as many pickoff attempts as any other pitcher this season. Sam knew about this and was relieved that this year's anomaly was not due to Gallen.

Home field advantage in 2020

Home field advantage is typically 53.5%, but it is 55.3% this year, the third highest in Sam's lifetime.
This fails to support various theories about home field advantage, such as emotional support from the crowd, or crowd influence over umpire calls.
Sam tells Ben to assume that this change is statistically significant and challenges him to come up with explanations for the increase. Ben's theories:
- There is an instinctive psychology to defend your home territory from invasion.
- Being away from home is stressful because you are in an unfamiliar environment, and 2020 makes it even more stressful because you're stuck in your hotel room and cannot employ typical stress-relief tactics.
- Ben notes that the additional runner in extra innings lowered the home field advantage in the minor leagues.
Sam believes that the change is not statistically significant, but he forces himself to explain it anyway:
- Travel is tiring. Let's say it lowers your efficiency to 92%. But being in front of a huge crowd (even one rooting against you) boosts your energy, and you go up to 95%. On the other hand, the home team is already at 100% efficiency; they don't need the boost from the fans. Ironically, fans help the visiting team by their mere presence. Without fans, visiting teams don't get the caffeine-like adrenaline boost that they used to get from the crowd.
- This year, players aren't allowed to review their plate appearances on video during the game. But in a locked-down stadium, it's far easier for home teams to get information via side channels than visiting teams.

Blown leads

Ben investigates blown leads, inspired by Nathan M's email.
Since Nathan's message, the Phillies have lost four more games, only one of which was a blown lead, bringing their ratio to 19/29 = 65.5%.
Listener Adam Ott looked this up. Among games in the Retrosheet database for which play-by-play information is available, the average is 44%. Spreadsheet linked below.
If you assume that all unknown losses were not blown leads, then the worst blown-lead rate is the 2017 Brewers at 65.8%, the only team ahead of the Phillies's current rate.
If you ignore unknown losses, then the worst is the 1932 Tigers at 69.1%. Three additional teams are at a rate higher than the current Phillies.
Conclusion: The Phillies are currently among the worst teams in this statistic, around 20 points higher than the typical team.
Even though it is probably better from an entertainment point of view that your team at least had the lead at some point, it is more demoralizing that your team (especially a team on the bubble like the Phillies) has blown so many opportunities.

Sprint Speed Quiz[]

Sam is always surprised when he looks at the Statcast sprint speed leaderboard. Most players (70%) are between 26.0 and 28.9 feet per second. Sam warms up Ben by giving some examples:

26 ft/s: Luis Torrens, Yan Gomes: slow catchers.
27 ft/s: David Peralto, Gregory Polanco: Competent outfielders.
28 ft/s: Christian Yelich, Jazz Chisholm: Players known for being fast.
29 ft/s: Only 21 players are 29 or higher.

Sam names a player, and Ben tries to guess whether their sprint speed is in the 26's, 27's, or 28's. Sam provides a hint in the form of the value after the decimal point.

Player	Ben's guess	Actual
Orlando Arcia	28	26.1
Evan White	27	28.3
Ozzie Albies	28	27.0
Avisail Garcia	27	28.0
Teoscar Hernandez	28	28.2
Jorge Alfaro	27	28.1
Joan Moncada	27	27.3
Ender Inciarte	27	26.1

Ben rated Orlando Arcia 28 because "he's a shortstop and he's not old."
Sam says, "Evan White is the same speed as Whit Merrifield and Starling Marte." Ben mutters, "That's not possible!" Sam exclaims, "Those guys are fast!"
Ben tries to out-think Sam by figuring that Sam chose only the surprising players, but Sam claims that it's random.
Ben is confident that Ozzie Albies is not slow. "If he's 26, then I give up on knowing anything about baseball."
Sam can't believe that Avisail Garcia is as fast as Christian Yelich.
Ben guesses that Teoscar Hernandez is 28 because "I'm sick of not guessing that anyone is fast and being wrong every time." After learning he was correct, Ben notes, "Would I have guessed that 15 minutes ago? No."
Ben thinks that Jorge Alfaro is fast for a catcher, but he can't imagine that catchers can be fast.
Joan Moncada as a prospect was considered blazingly fast. Sam admits that he doesn't revise his assessment of player speed until something dramatic happens, like hip surgery.
Ben says that he thinks that Ender Inciarte is fast, but "I clearly don't know anything any more." After learning that Inciarte has the same sprint speed as Stephen Vogt, Ben says, "That's not possible!"
Sam admits that he lied. He didn't pick the players randomly. They were hand-picked as the ones that surprised him.
Ben says "It's a hard game." Sam adds, "Especially when someone is trying to trick you."

Notes[]

Sam convinces Ben to play a game instead of answering emails as originally planned.

Middle names

Sam gave himself ten minutes to think of as many baseball player middle names as he could (not counting players who go by their middle names), and he got only 12, none of whom were pitchers.
The podcast previously discussed whether the first name is the adjective and the last name is the noun, or vice versa. But the middle name never enters into it.
Despite being obsessed with minute details of baseball players as a child, he learned none of their middle names. "If baseball fans can't be bothered to learn the middle names of baseball players, then to me that really says that there's no point to middle names."
Sam thinks the only uses of middle names are nefarious: To assist in committing identity theft or doxing.

Player evaluation before WAR

Sam has an MVP award vote this year. Ben hasn't had the opportunity because he's in the crowded New York chapter.
Ben notes that the short season means that MVP voting may not track WAR as closely as it has in recent years.
Bill James recalls back in the mid 1970's he tried to figure out player value. He was inspired by the advent of free agency, as well as the Royals loss of Steve Busby to injury.
Bill's methodology was to look at teams who gained or lost a star player and try to isolate the effect of that one player.
He found that that a star player was worth about 5 to 10 games over a season, which is roughly in alignment with modern thinking. Bill was surprised that it was much lower than conventional wisdom at the time.

Links[]