a question about wild pitches

[milezd]

note before reading: YES, I have too much time on my hands

I was looking at some box scores when I noticed that my closer, Brad Lidge, has 5 wild pitches after 33 games. This seems abnormal to me. Looking at Lidge's MLB stats for 2005 he had 8 wild pitches while facing 291 batters. So he had a wild pitch 2.7% of the time (8/291) during his 2005 MLB season.

After searching online I found a reference to the advanced rules online and it states you determine the occurence of a wild pitch by rolling a 20-sided dice everytime you roll to determine the result of a player's at bat. A roll of 1 on the 20-sided die indicates that a wild pitch may occur. Roll the 20-sided die again and refer to the pitcher's wild pitch rating. If the number rolled is less than or equal to the pitcher's wild pitch rating then a wild pitch occurs and all base runners advance 1 base.

So Lidge (wp-20) [b:5adf56ac3d]ALWAYS[/b:5adf56ac3d] gets a wild pitch when ever the chance for a wild pitch occurs. According to strat-o-matic Lidge should have a wild pitch 5% of the time (1/20).

Does this sound correct? It doesn't to me, it sounds like the system is skewed to give more wild pitches than the players actual results. So I checked a few more players.

[u:5adf56ac3d]strat rating and percentage followed by MLB actual percentage[/u:5adf56ac3d]
Brad Lidge, wp-20(5.0%), had 8 wild pitches versus 291 batters face (2.7%)
Fransisco Rodriquez, wp-20(5.0%), had 8 wild pitches versus 279 batters faced (2.8%)
Joe Nathan, wp-6(1.5%), had 2 wild pitches versus 276 batters faced (0.72%)
Billy Wagner, wp-9(2.25%), had 3 wild pitches versus 297 batters faced (1%)

am I missing something here or does it look like SOM just about doubles the possibility of wild pitches to occur? Is my math incorrect here?

[u:5adf56ac3d]my math to determine % chance of WP to occur according to SOM ratings[/u:5adf56ac3d]
(1/20 per at bat) * (pitchers rating / 20 ) = % chance for WP to occur
Lidge has a wp-20 rating, so that is (1/20) * (20/20) = 0.05 = 5.0%
Nathan has a wp-6 rating, so that is (1/20) * (6/20) = 0.015 = 1.5%

advanced rules online
http://www.baseballthinkfactory.org/btf/pages/basesim/somrules.htm

Brad Lidge stats
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/players/stats?playerId=5102
F-Rod stats
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/players/stats?playerId=5357
Joe Nathan
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/players/stats?playerId=4044
Billy Wagner
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/players/stats?playerId=5536

[rgimbel]

just a guess but maybe the wp only occurs on pitchers roles which would cut the stats in half and be correct

[milezd]

yeah, I thought of that, and after reading the rules I am not sure if that is what it means, the rules are stated as

Whenever there is at least one runner on base you should use the following rule: [b:a9f1e11872]When rolling the three dice to read the results off of the players cards[/b:a9f1e11872] (or when using the hit and run chart) you should roll a 20-sided die along with the three dice. If a 3 to 20 is rolled , continue on with the normal reading of the three dice (if a split reading occurs you MUST re-roll the 20-sided die) If a 1 or 2 is rolled then the normal reading of the other dice is canceled and a wild pitch, balk or passed ball may occur.

now when I first read this to me player meant hitter OR pitcher, but it could possibily mean one card or the other. hmmm....

[Mean Dean]

I think you understood the board game mechanics correctly. The wild pitch chance overrules whatever else you rolled; if you roll that 1 on the d20, you ignore all the other dice. So there is, in fact, a 5% chance in every PA Lidge has with men on base that there will be a WP. What you've forgotten is that, in order for there to be a wild pitch, there must be a player on base :) [url=http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/players/6913/situational;_ylt=Akg3j7oHWEGfB0jgQB8jhmOFCLcF?year=2005&type=Pitching]Yahoo[/url] lists him as having pitched 35.2 IP with runners on base, 35.0 IP without runners on -- in other words, runners were only on base in about half of his plate appearances against. So it makes perfect sense that you're coming up with a number twice what it should be.

[tersignf]

that's interesting--thanks for bringing it up and thanks for answering.