Brewers and Yost

The Brewers are not a championship team, and they do not have a championship manager. Today, after Sheets pitched well enough and the Brewers blew the lead, the Brewers' owner gave Yost a vote of confidence. Why?

Surely the two misplays in the outfield (Gross and Hall) were not Yost's fault. Nor was the poor baserunning by Johnny Estrada, who appears to be eyeing the "slowest man in MLB" title from Bengie Molina. Watching Estrada huff it to third today, I thought "He is the fattest man I've ever seen play baseball." Fatter than Kruk, Joey Meyer, Terry Forster and Sid Fernandez.

Where Yost should be castigated is managing the bullpen, because he is playing by some stupid rule that developed with the save stat, which says you only use your closer in the 9th. He brings in Turnbow in the 8th, which is fine, since he is the setup guy. But when Turnbow can't get the job done, Yost looks first to Brian Shouse, who gets the lefty, and then to journeymen Greg Aquino and Chris Spurling, who proceed to lose the game for Milwaukee.

Ned, aren't you trying to WIN? This is a pennant race. Are you going to miss the playoffs because you pitched Aquino and Spurling, when Cordero -- your bona fide closer with 39 saves -- sits on his ass? Maybe Frankie wouldn't have gotten the necessary outs, but you'd be going down with your best, not a couple of retread middle relievers.

Sac Flies: Smart Play?

Assume for a moment that players are trying to hit sac flies and they are not mere accidents or failures at the plate. John Walsh at The Hardball Times took a crack at this question in 2005, in this article. (Note, it does not address the question raised in my early post about why batters would be trying harder to hit sac flies with fewer strikes).

If the batters are trying to hit sac flies, is that smart?

We can use the average run expectation charts for 2007 to determine whether trying a sac fly makes sense.

Situation: 1 out, man on third. The RE for this is .975. If the sac fly succeeds, a run will score (1.0) and there will be two outs. Two outs and noone on base is .107. So if it succeeds, the RE is 1.107. If it fails, either because it doesn't result in a fly ball, or not a fly ball deep enough, there are two outs and a man on third, for an RE of .405.

The breakeven point is (.975-.405)/(1.107-.405) or 81.2%. The hitter has to succeed at least 81.2% of the time for this to be a smart play.

What if the hitter was trying to get a one base hit instead of trying for the sac fly? Assume failure is a strikeout and success is a single. That would be (.975-.405)/(1.528-.405) or 50.8%. Of course, no hitter can be expected to hit a single nearly 51% of the time.

Is it better to try for an 81% success rate on a sac fly, or a 51% success rate on a single? I don't know, but it seems like we'd judge in favor of a sac fly as the number of strikes on the hitter increases, since very few hitters are better with two strikes. Yet the data indicates far less success at sac flies as the strikes pile up.

The analysis is more complex when you factor in that walks, doubles, triples and homers are also safe possibilities for the hitter. Their break even points are: 69.9%, 43.2%, 36.3% and 30.4%. The probability of achieving those depends heavily on the hitter.

And of course, that's just one scenario. If it were men on second and third with no outs, the sac fly break even point would be (2.101-1.467)/(1.724-1.467) or essentially impossible to come out ahead.

Here are the breakeven points for sac flies in all the various base-out states (using 2007 RE):

Runners    Outs     Break Pt.
003          0        Never
003          1        81.2%
023          0        Never
023          1        Never
103          0        Never
103          1        98.9%
123          0        Never
123          1        Never

Even without factoring in the benefits of trying to get a base hit, the sac fly seems to be something you wouldn't attempt as a hitter except with a runner on third and one out. And then, you'd have to be 81% sure that you could do it, as opposed, to say, striking out.

By the way, Tim Kurkjian at ESPN was either bored, or he really likes the sac fly.

Sac Flies

After Chipper's two sac flies yesterday, I got to thinking about them. Really, who gives any real thought to sac flies. Is there a more boring way to score a run? I'm not sure. I think passed balls, wild pitches and errors are more exciting, because they are a surprise. They upset expectations. They make you say "Oh my god."

Sac flies make you frown and switch to another game on MLBtv.com.

I started to wonder if players actually try to hit sac flies to score runs, or if they really represent a failed plate appearance. I find it difficult to believe that a hitter, early in the count, is concentrating on a fly out instead of trying to get a base hit. I would think that players, once they get 2 strikes and the probabilities of a base hit have dwindled, look for a pitch they can get in the air to score the run. It's like saying, "I'm in a hole. I may get a hit, but probably not. How can I salvage this plate appearance? Maybe I can get it in the air deep enough to score the run."

I took a quick look at the 2007 splits so far this year. Here is the list of how many sac flies occurred with 0 strikes, 1 strike and 2 strikes on the hitter, and the plate appearances:

Strikes     SF        PA        Pct.
  0         353      28,753     1.2%
  1         301      34,957     0.8%
  2         272      56,673     0.4%

That's weird. The fewer strikes on the hitter, the better chance of a sac fly. Sac flies may be totally random, or hitters may be trying early in the count to hit a sac fly. Maybe as the number of strikes increase, hitters feel less ability to control the outcome. That is certainly true with respect to getting on base. Perhaps the same phenomenon occurs with sac flies.

Let's try 2006, in case 2007 is an anomaly:

Strikes     SF        PA        Pct.
  0         520      40,653     1.2%
  1         460      53,498     0.8%
  2         416      87,743     0.4%

Exactly the same. This tends to negate the thought that sac flies are random.

Out of curiosity, let's look at Chipper's career sac flies (split data is incomplete before 2000):

Strikes     SF        PA        Pct.
  0          36       2,612     1.4%
  1          24       2,141     1.1%
  2          13       2,954     0.4%

I'm going to have to think about this some more.