Mr. Clutch is sorry for the late delivery of this week’s
blog. Most likely everyone waits patiently in front of their device of choice
for the voice “You’ve got mail” or hitting F9 until finally Inbox(1) is
visually stated on the screen. The topic of this blog and most of the content
was stashed away a while back. It was just a matter of typing it up, with this
little thing called trying to change the world getting in the way and causing
the delay.
It’s all good as we’re here now. The topic is a slight segue
from an earlier e-mail thread about three glorious years of stolen bases by
Vince Coleman. It brought up some other great names like Brock, LeFlore,
Henderson and Raines. That got the wheels turning into the subject matter of
statistics that are not dead, actually still alive, just flat out wrong. It’s
an opinion backed here that certain maintained stats should be altered or
removed from the archives.
First off is the “Sacrifice fly”, which off the top
doesn’t seem to be an issue of controversy. Let’s start with the fact that
nobody hits a sac fly on purpose. Hitters step into the box with the intention
of getting a hit, not flying out to left. This is to not be confused with the
“Sacrifice bunt” where there is clear intent. The fact that the at bat was not
executed in the mindset of creating an out while moving runners should be
enough to stop it right there. But wait there’s more. No hitter, unless facing
the BP pitcher before a game, can purposely fly out deep into the outfield.
There are more factors than we can count to say why that’s so. That’s even more
reason that the player is not actually sacrificing anything.
The other part of this skewed and wrong stat is that the
fly out in question requires a player to be on base and in position to advance.
That runner also needs to have speed and the coordination to leave the base at
the best time. It’s just another thing not controlled by the hitter. What’s the
difference between player X flying out to deep left with a runner on third and
player Y doing it with no ducks on the pond? The answer is luck and
circumstance. A perfect real example is back in ‘81 when Mr. Clutch was the
cleanup hitter for the St. Helen’s CYO team. A deep drive was hit to center
field with his best friend on third prepping to tag. The putz trips halfway
down the line and an obvious run scored just turned into a double play. Waive
bye-bye to an RBI and hello to an AB to reduce the batting average. Thanks Ned.
Next up is a combination of questionable plays. It’s
either the passed ball or the wild pitch, both of which are classified as an
“Error”. We won’t address the obvious issue which is how it’s decided which is
which. Sometimes it’s clear but other times it’s not. Anyway, the reason why
this is another wrong set of stats is that both the wild pitch and passed ball
are not done intentionally. Wait a minute; no errors are done intentionally,
right? What’s the difference here? It’s clear as mud.
Here it is, and yes now it will sound obvious. If a WP or
PB happens with nobody on base then it’s not a WP or PB. It’s nothing, and
that’s because it didn’t cause any harm. It’s like the old adage of does a tree
in the woods make noise when it falls absent of a witness, or something like that.
The battery-mates error is only just that if a runner is on base and happens to
advance as a result of the play. It’s a situational use of a rule. Hopefully
you are thinking ahead and curious about a dropped fly ball in foul territory.
That is an error because it prolongs the at bat. One can argue that if the
WP/BP rule is valid, then the foul ball error should only be issued if the
prolonged at bat ends up in a positive result for the hitter! The point on the
willy-nilly use of the WP/PB rule is that Ed Lynch and Ron Hodges could have
zero, fifty or five hundred wild balls, but nobody will ever really know.
There are a bunch of smaller issues with stats throughout
the game that we can quickly touch on. A swinging strike, for example, is also
a strike, even though the pitcher only throws that ball in the strike-zone some
of the time. Same drill for balls hit in play, which are all considered
“Strikes”, though many are not. It’s understood that it is a strike per the
rules, but the pitcher still didn’t deliver a ball within the strike zone. If
they wanted to perfect the stat, then they would use the computerized rectangle
seen on the idiot box to determine if every pitch is a literal strike or ball.
The stolen base, referenced earlier, is a good stat but
not without its flaws and is certainly far from pure. Mainly, part of the
credit of the stolen base unofficially goes to the pitcher and catcher. All
sorts of items factor in here like ability to keep the player on base, speed of
delivery, catcher being in position, being able to make a fast accurate throw
and finally the infielders ability to catch the throw and make the tag. Of
course even if all that goes according to plan, the runner still needs to make
it to the base.
Listen, no stats are perfect, and it’s understood that
many of them come out in the wash. Meaning that over the course of time the
stats will “Work themselves out” and every player “Does what he’s supposed to
do”, based on the longer the past performance is. As a “Probability and Statistics”
minor in college, Mr. Clutch is passionate about the accuracy and proper
keeping of stats. Unfortunately MLB doesn’t feel the same way.
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