Wed May 22, 2013 2:39 pm
Visick, I agree with you, based on the cards and probabilities in strat. (In real life Marmol would likely pitch to Willingham also). Here is my summary of the probabilities (as a decimal) for each of the next 3 batters, including estimates of the fielding chart readings on Marmol's card, ballpark effects (Kaufman) and after adjusting for clutch hitting (or lack thereof):
"WES*" - means a walk, HBP, one base error or infield single limited to one base (i.e. on the X chart)
"HE**" - means a hit or an error that will score the runner from second. In this case, I have included .75 times batting card singles that are not ** singles, as an estimate of the singles that Desmond would score on from second base. With a one run lead and likely a .75 chance (he's 1-15, minus 2 for the good arms in LF and RF, plus 2 for running with 2 outs), 75% of singles should score Desmond, and you would likely want to send the runner home from second base, in order to build the lead from a one run lead to a 2 run lead.
"Out" - includes straight-forward outs, as well as the residual 25% of singles where the runner goes but gets thrown out.
Willingham - WES* - .27 HE** - .11 Out - .62 (HE** includes .03 HR)
Morneau - WES* - .17 HE** - .12 Out - .71 (HE** includes .04 HR)
Nieves - WES* - .17 HE** - .14 Out .69 (HE** includes .00 HR -negligible)
I started to calculate the probabilities with an intentional walk to Willingham, and without an intentional walk, but I stopped, because the answer is obvious.
Morneau has slightly more chances to hit the runner home, and he has slightly more chances to hit a home run, compared to Willingham. This is even after adjusting for the negative clutch on Morneau. In terms of the breakdown on the cards, Willingham is actually very slightly better than Morneau, in terms of hitting the runner home (after removing hits that are outs in clutch situations), but this advantage for Willingham is more than offset by the slightly larger number of hits and homeruns that Marmol gives up to left handed hitters (i.e. Morneau).
In fact, Willingham's main superiority to Morneau, ironically, is in terms of his ability to draw walks, and Marmol's greater likelihood to issue walks to a right handed batter. But you would never issue an intentional walk to avoid a walk!!!
By issuing an intentional walk, you run the further risk of issuing yet another walk or SI* or error when facing Morneau (odds are .17). In that case, the odds of scoring the runner with Nieves batting shoot up to .31, as any safe play will score the runner with the bases loaded!
This is overkill, of course. The immediate and clear answer is that Willingham has less chance to hit the runner home than Morneau. This arises primarily due to the fewer hits yielded to left handed hitters on Marmol's card (the traditional baseball expectation with a right handed pitcher - in this case confirmed by Marmol's card). Furthemore the liklihood of Morneau hitting a home run (to really put the game away) is slightly greater than the risk of Willingham hitting a homerun. And, if you walk Willingham, the runs scored on a HR by Morneau are higher than a HR hit by Willingham.
Case closed!
There are a few glitchy things in online strat, and this is definitely one of them. I am generally a fan of issuing an intentional walk where the baseball logic and probabilities dicatate it. However, I have (as of about a week ago) changed my team strategy settings for intentional walks to "very conservative", to bring the overall rate of intentional walks down to a level where I feel like it can be managed on a pitcher by pitcher basis. For pitchers like Marmol, who issue a lot of walks anyway, I am continuing to set the pitcher preferences to "IBB less".
This needs to be on the "fix it" list. There is a thread for that. I haven't checked to see if the IBB tendencies are on that list, but I'll be posting a link to this thread on that board. I invite others to post their thoughts and experiences as well, for data for Strat to review for the fix.
