Examining the Impact of MLB’s Potential Ban on Short-Burst Relievers

Image credit: Matt Kartozian-USA Today Sports

Translated by Jose M. Hernandez Lagunes

First part

So how could teams hack a rule that said their relievers have to stay a while? Well, the closer idea probably wouldn’t go away. A reliever in the ninth inning can come in and simply hope to close a small lead and take advantage of the “game over” clause, although that closer would have to be careful because if the other team tied the game, he might be forced to pitch the game as well. tenth inning

That said, managers will still face the same basic question with their pitching staff. How do I get 27 outs as efficiently as possible? The story of how that decision was made (and how it has changed over time) can be summarized in this graph.

The blue line represents starting pitchers looking third in the order, and the graph is denominated in OBP, which is also known as how often a pitcher misses an out. Throughout the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, the blue line falls below, or at least coincides with, the yellow line, which represents that year’s relievers. This means that the manager, trying to get through the next three innings, would have been better served—on average—by sticking with a tired starter. In the 1980s, we started to see relievers move away to where they made the most sense.

The green line on that graph will be more important in a moment. I need a way to model how I would pitch our new set of relievers. Because we require them to pitch two innings or flip the lineup once, they’re going to have to pitch more in line with the starters. The green line represents the “replacement” starters. I defined them as players who were outside the top (5* number of teams in the League that year) in innings pitched in their starting role, but I focused only on their first time in the lineup. Looking at the right side of that graph, we can see that this group has never been as good as the relievers. It may not be the same group that ends up being the main reliever, but it is a good approximation of their performance.

And that would have some effects on the strikeout rate.

If we could transfer more plate appearances from current max-effort/short-duration relievers to starters and longer-duration relievers, the strikeout rate would decrease.

But the effects would go further. Teams would no longer be able to load their rosters with short-term relievers, and would likely use fewer pitchers per game, especially since the rules wouldn’t give them as many opportunities to make changes. We would probably see a restructuring of pitching roles.

Like the previous two graphs, the next two show the OBP and strikeout rates of three groups of pitchers. This time, the starters I’m focusing on are the first and second (again, sorting everyone by innings pitched, and looking at the first (2 * number of teams in the League that year)).

The blue OBP line shows that aces, even on their third attempt, were more likely to get outs than relievers, until very recently, when the two lines converged. The green line (our new relievers?) is much worse. And so, while the decision to take out an ace starter is now a “could go either way” proposition, under this new rule, it would be pretty obvious to drop the starter. That means that, like the old days, teams could rely on their aces to go deep into matches. It means the starters can’t count on being out in the sixth inning and will have to ration their energy a little more.

But let’s look at the other side of the rotation. The next two charts have the blue line looking at the 4th and 5th starters of each year, as they go through the order for the third time.

Here we see little distinction between a tired fourth and fifth starter and our “new” relievers. With fewer spots needed for short relievers, we could see models like tandem starters emerge. Teams will still know that their starters are a liability when they enter the third order and will act accordingly. But if a fresh pitcher is better, and there’s room on the roster to allow you to have a few days where your early to mid-innings are served by two pitchers, then you don’t have to be dogmatic about switching to one when you get down to 18 batters.

Thus, it is clear that new types of pitchers would be (re)introduced to the MLB. By decree, the idea of ​​OTTO pitchers (One Time Through the Order, or pitchers who only see one at-bat) would gain ground. We would probably continue to see the bifurcation of starter types in the MLB. Now there are pitchers who can be trusted to see three times and others who can’t. How teams compensate for that would change, but this would probably give it a boost.

Strikeouts would probably go down. At least a little. We can see that as the game has moved toward the short-burst relief format, relievers have moved away in their strikeout style. The new relievers would have to be a little less bursty, and we would get at least some reduction in strikeouts. But, we have to be optimistic about how much. We’re really talking about transferring some plate appearances that are currently handled by short-burst relievers to relievers who basically aren’t allowed to do that short-burst thing. And if the whole problem were short-burst relievers, that would probably solve the problem. But in reality, we’re talking about a certain subset of plate appearances, transferred to pitchers who we can project could have a strikeout rate that was a few percentage points lower.

I want to show you one more graph. This is the strikeout rate over the years in the first, sixth and ninth innings of the game. We can see that as the short burst format took off, particularly in the ninth inning, strikeout rates went up. So the short burst is part of the problem. But what should we make of the jump from 2000 in the first entry. Whatever it is, it’s not the relievers.

So we are at a stalemate. MLB would like to do something about the strikeout rate. Here is an option. It wouldn’t solve the whole problem and may only move the needle a little. However, it would something. It would create a pretty big change to the game’s operations, although it would make box scores seem a little more familiar to those who stopped reading them 40 years ago. And hey, the average baseball fan [en los EE.UU.] He is about 60 years old. She would undo one of the game’s most significant evolutions in the development of the short reliever. In the 1970s, we did things that way because no one had really thought about short relief. You can ban it in the 2020s, but that knowledge isn’t going anywhere. And if our reflex action when faced with any innovation that makes the game different is to prohibit it (for example, changing the field), what is the purpose of the innovation? Do we want a game stuck in time, and not only that, but stuck in a very specific time?

Thank you for reading

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2023-12-22 14:06:13
#Lets #ban #shortterm #relieverspart