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A Division Won By "Clutch" (And Do You Spell That "Cora"?)
ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Sept 22, 2018 13:24:38 GMT -5
Here's the most remarkable set of stats of the season. The New York Yankees are 95-58 (.621) at being the first team to establish a 75% chance of winning the game. Of course, they are currently 94-59. Down 1 game.
The Red Sox are 86-68 (.558) at being the first team to get to a 75% WP. And they are 105-49. Up 19 games.
Yankee and Red Sox bullpen comparison:
Stat NYY Bos
xFIP- 80 95
FIP- 75 91
ERA- 78 81
BABIP .298 .292
GB% .411 .429
HR/FB .122 .111
WPA 7.84 7.87
Given the disparity in FIP- and the small difference in BABIP, it's hard to explain why the Sox bullpen has gotten essentially the same results in terms of run prevention and Win probability Added. Well, it actually isn't; the Sox bullpen pitchers have been better relative to leverage. They've been more "clutch." Of course, that just passes the puzzle down a level of explanation. Has the manager done a better job at matching relievers to situations?
But on first glance, this is even more remarkable:
The Yankees have squandered their 75% chance of winning and dropped to below 25% in 17 of their 95 leading games (.179). The Red Sox have squandered just 8 of their 86 leads (.093).
(The end result is that each team has 78 games where they got a 75% chance of winning and never looked back (never dropped below 25%). In fact, the Sox are 78-41 in games where the first team to get to 75% won the game without any kind of squander or comeback by either team, and the Yankees are 78-43. But that doesn't capture how large a role clutch has actually played in this race.)
But how much of this is actually the bullpen? Let's get ahead of ourselves and add three games where the Sox squandered a comeback (a "waste"), and 1 of those by the Yankees. That's 18 Yankee games and 11 Sox games. The Yankee starter was bad (had a WPA below -.100) in 11 of their 18 squanders (61%). The Sox starter was bad in 4 of their 11 (36%). That leaves 7 for each team that was pretty much entirely on the bullpen. Here are the 15 performances, ranked by badness. WPA Pitcher
-.677 Porcello
-.559 Eovaldi
-.448 Sabathia
-.448 Happ
-.380 Sabathia
-.366 Tanaka
-.331 Gray
-.314 Porcello
-.310 Lynn
-.271 Porcello
-.176 Gray
-.176 Tanaka
-.143 Tanaka
-.138 Loaisiga
-.124 Sabathia
What was Aaron Boone doing, allowing all those pitchers to stay in and dramatically alter his chances of winning, when he has such a deep and loaded bullpen? Our four slow hooks were all with our 4th and 5th starters (and Cora's undue patience with Porcello is one of the few things you can point at and be puzzled by). The Yankees have seven slow hooks by top of rotation guys.
That's enough for now. I may look at the relievers next, and I definitely am going to look at the comebacks. But the sneak preview there is that the Sox have come back from below 25% to above 75% in 40% of their trailing games while the Yankees have done it in 26%.
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Post by maxwellsdemon on Sept 22, 2018 14:04:23 GMT -5
For those who don't like the term "Clutch"perhaps "Mental Toughness" will substitute,we hear that about the Pats all the time.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Sept 22, 2018 14:48:16 GMT -5
For those who don't like the term "Clutch"perhaps "Mental Toughness" will substitute,we hear that about the Pats all the time. The question I want to look into is whether there exists a persistent mental attitude that facilitates comebacks, and the degree to which the manager sets that tone.
I do think that once you succeed in coming back -- and sometimes that's luck -- it gives you confidence that you can do it again. That's a transient mental attitude. Some tough losses, and the team's feeling that they can do no wrong evaporates.
What the Sox seem to have is a confidence that they'll get the job done in extraordinary fashion, in the long run, that is not shaken by failure.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Sept 28, 2018 15:59:05 GMT -5
The Sox come into the final weekend having won 9.8 games more than what their underlying numbers say they should have. They've passed the Mariners and now have the best "karma" in MLB. Usually, teams with great karma have a great record in one-run and extra-inning games, which is well established to be very luck-driven. The Sox are 29-14 in one-run or extra-inning games (including 4-4 in one-run extra-inning games). A .674 Win %. They are 78-38 in all their other games. A .672 Win %. They've beaten their numbers by 10 wins without any luck in close games. FanGraphs WPA-based "Clutch" measurement, which correlates predictably well to Karma, has them at 8.8 extra wins. When the season ends I may look more into what predicts karma.
In the meantime, they lead all of MLB with +6.48 wins of Offensive Clutch.
Their situational splits are fascinating; they've done tremendously well in situations where pitchers alter their approach and narrow their repertoire. In particular, where every team walks more (unintentionally) with RISP and 1B open, as a general rule they also suffer the expected decline in BA and SA compared to other RISP situations. IOW, the pitch-around strategy works. The Sox not only draw more than the usual share of UBB when being pitched around, they also hit even better. And of course they're crazy good with the bases full.
How about this: OPS+ relative to league, times facing starting pitcher:
103, 123, 134. Sabermetrically smart teams are going to yank their starters early. You're going to need a deep pen to beat this team in the post-season.
A lot of the offensive clutch is smarts. I'll run the full numbers after the season ends.
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Post by jimed14 on Sept 28, 2018 18:14:22 GMT -5
I'd be interested in career numbers for managers to see if any of them consistently have good or bad 'karma'.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Oct 4, 2018 10:42:32 GMT -5
I've discovered a lot of interesting stuff but it's going to have to wait, if it appears at all.
Short version is that the Sox are a lot less dependent on getting ahead in the count than the average team; they hit relatively worse when ahead in the count and better when behind in the count than the average team, to a very marked degree. This ought to mean that they hit good pitchers relatively better than bad ones, which is a good trait to have in the postseason.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Oct 22, 2018 10:11:48 GMT -5
Final, correct situational hitting splits for the post-season. Empty 1st non-RISP RISP
DS BA .237 .241 .238 .400
OBP .326 .241 .304 .489
SA .355 .379 .362 .629
CS BA .214 .167 .201 .342
OBP .280 .231 .267 .500
SA .337 .194 .299 .684
Tot BA .224 .200 .218 .370
OBP .301 .235 .284 .495
SA .345 .277 .326 .658
This is absurd. In both series the team hit poorly with the bases empty and even worse with just a runner on 1B. And insanely great with RISP.
They had 261 PA without RISP and hit .218 / .284 / .326. They had 97 PA with RISP and hit .370 / .495 / .658.
I'll be back later with some thoughts. Teaser trailer: this is just one of two possibly related things that they have going in their favor. The other is that they hit good pitching unusually well.
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Post by incandenza on Oct 22, 2018 10:24:17 GMT -5
Final, correct situational hitting splits for the post-season. Empty 1st non-RISP RISP
DS BA .237 .241 .238 .400
OBP .326 .241 .304 .489
SA .355 .379 .362 .629
CS BA .214 .167 .201 .342
OBP .280 .231 .267 .500
SA .337 .194 .299 .684
Tot BA .224 .200 .218 .370
OBP .301 .235 .284 .495
SA .345 .277 .326 .658
This is absurd. In both series the team hit poorly with the bases empty and even worse with just a runner on 1B. And insanely great with RISP.
They had 261 PA without RISP and hit .218 / .284 / .326. They had 97 PA with RISP and hit .370 / .495 / .658.
I'll be back later with some thoughts. Teaser trailer: this is just one of two possibly related things that they have going in their favor. The other is that they hit good pitching unusually well.
This reminds me of something Brandon McCarthy says around the 11:30 mark of this podcast: he says he'd rather face the Yankees' lineup than the Red Sox' because the Sox' lineup (I'm paraphrasing here) sort of acts like a single unit - they'll adjust their approaches so that one guy's approach would feed into the next. He contrasted this with Giancarlo Stanton's at-bat durring Kimbrel's semi-meltdown in game 4 of the division series - despite Kimbrel's control problems, and what the guys in front of them had done, Stanton went up there trying to hit a 500-foot homer like he always does, and the result was an out that Kimbrel desperately needed in that situation. A lot of people comment on how the Sox lineup is "relentless." I think this is more or less what they mean, and would maybe account for their particular success in RISP situations. |
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ericmvan
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Supposed to be working on something more important
Posts: 8,923
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Post by ericmvan on Oct 22, 2018 11:37:37 GMT -5
Final, correct situational hitting splits for the post-season. Empty 1st non-RISP RISP
DS BA .237 .241 .238 .400
OBP .326 .241 .304 .489
SA .355 .379 .362 .629
CS BA .214 .167 .201 .342
OBP .280 .231 .267 .500
SA .337 .194 .299 .684
Tot BA .224 .200 .218 .370
OBP .301 .235 .284 .495
SA .345 .277 .326 .658
This is absurd. In both series the team hit poorly with the bases empty and even worse with just a runner on 1B. And insanely great with RISP.
They had 261 PA without RISP and hit .218 / .284 / .326. They had 97 PA with RISP and hit .370 / .495 / .658.
I'll be back later with some thoughts. Teaser trailer: this is just one of two possibly related things that they have going in their favor. The other is that they hit good pitching unusually well.
This reminds me of something Brandon McCarthy says around the 11:30 mark of this podcast: he says he'd rather face the Yankees' lineup than the Red Sox' because the Sox' lineup (I'm paraphrasing here) sort of acts like a single unit - they'll adjust their approaches so that one guy's approach would feed into the next. He contrasted this with Giancarlo Stanton's at-bat durring Kimbrel's semi-meltdown in game 4 of the division series - despite Kimbrel's control problems, and what the guys in front of them had done, Stanton went up there trying to hit a 500-foot homer like he always does, and the result was an out that Kimbrel desperately needed in that situation. A lot of people comment on how the Sox lineup is "relentless." I think this is more or less what they mean, and would maybe account for their particular success in RISP situations. It's well-established that the team has a collective approach against each day's starting pitcher, informed by analytics. That's consistent with McCarthy's observation.
When you pitch, you (the pitcher and the coaches) need to decide to what extent you are pitching to your own strengths versus the opponent weaknesses. I think it's true that a lot of hitters try to hit to their own strengths, a la Stanton in that example, and I think it's clear that since the pitcher has the ball, that's not wise.
Oh, boy (sound you make when it all starts to make sense). The opposing pitcher is trying to avoid your hot zones. You as a hitter know that. If you go up looking for a pitch you know you can hammer, you're up there looking for a mistake. The better the opposing pitcher, the less mistakes he makes and well you fare. It's just not an approach that works against the elite pitchers you see in the post-season.
The Sox simply don't do that, and that's a big reason why they hit good pitching so well. Mookie doesn't hunt inside fastballs to pull out of the park. He trusts that if a pitcher happens to make that mistake, he'll be all over it. The whole team is looking for what they think the pitcher will choose to throw given the situation and count. It is indeed precisely a "humble" approach as the players have often said. This guy has the ball, and he's really good. You can exploit the fact that in the highest leverage situations, he will be much more predictable as he favors attacking your cold zones with his best stuff.
BTW, there's nothing wrong with Mookie at all. It's already been reported that he's made a lot of hard outs. But he's also just not getting RISP situations. The rest of the team has come up with RISP 29.0% of the time. Mookie, excluding his 2 IBB (the only two the team has gotten), has come up with RISP 14.3% of the time (in part because the 9 hitter has homered three times). He's 2/6, BB, 2B, and if it weren't for Reddick's catch his RISP numbers would be better than the team average.
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