The Bringer of Rain: GB/FB Ratio Revisited

Further musings on why baseball finds itself where it does...

The population of the United States has roughly doubled in my lifetime. Wrigley Field added a few seats along the way, but it’s basically the same ballpark it always was, except for the fact that twice as many people now vie for the finite number of seats (and even more if you take into account the “growth of the game” along the way). I have to remind myself of this when I recall my dad taking my brother and me to the game a couple of hours before the first pitch for $5.00 seats and (outrageous!) $1 hot dogs. My kids will never get to have that experience, although they do know what a Jumbotron, StubHub and $10 nachos are like.

Anyway, somewhere along the way the pitching coaches noticed that MLB hitters bat .180 against a 95+ mph fastball and the arms race was on. With twice the size of the 1960s pool of talent to draw on, major league teams are now flush with flamethrowers. How do you counter this offensively? Three True Outcomes. Because you can no longer string together consecutive hits to produce runs, the statistically better approach is to work the count and swing from the heels.

What will baseball be like when in every at bat you’re facing Aroldis Chapman-like heat, even from the long relief chump?

Can the hitters ever catch up? Change the baseball? The park dimensions?

Going back to the GB/FB thing, here's a high run diff team that missed the playoffs in a tiebreaker after losing the last series of the season:

http://365.strat-o-matic.com/team/1490992

The pitchers on this team were selected because they were gbA-type pitchers, most of them being 12-12 if memory serves me correctly. The hitters were selected for NOT hitting into double plays, in addition to having decent GB/FB ratios (SLG). Unfortunately for me, the 1600 team whiffs was something I didn't consider ahead of time. Having less than 500 walks also did not help.

However...

4th in offense and 2nd in pitching (in a hitters park) is a pretty decent final outcome:

http://365.strat-o-matic.com/team/misc/1490992

The end result:

Nearly 200 double plays for my pitchers, and a staggering +92 net.
1.54 GB/FB ratio for pitching.
1.27 GB/FB ratio for my hitters.

The GB/FB ratios for the four playoff teams:

Monsters 1.27 for pitching, 1.31 for hitting (Citizens Bank), 4th in pitching, 5th in hitting overall.
Saints 1.10 for pitching, 1.48 for hitting (Yankee), 8th in pitching, 7th in hitting
Reds 1.35 for pitching, 1.31 for hitting (Miller), 7th in pitching, 3rd in hitting.
Kitty 1.29 for pitching, 1.26 for hitting (Miller), 10th in pitching, 1st in hitting.

Notice how all four playoff teams were below average in having their pitching produce ground balls, and three of the four teams finished in the lower half of runs allowed. However, these were four hitters park teams and three of the four teams had their offense produce fly balls at an above average rate.

HAL simply loved the Saints (31-14 in one run games, 11-4 in extra innings, winning record at home AND on the road with a negative run diff).

Some fun with the numbers:

http://365.strat-o-matic.com/league/stats/teams/437402

In this league, the average runs scored by each team is 741. The average Three True Outcomes by each team is 2127 (walks plus homers plus strike outs). The average Beane Count (net walks plus home runs) is of course zero.

No one advocates striking out more, however, offensively the strike outs are simply a necessary evil in order to enhance walks and home runs.

The top teams on offense:

1. Kitty, 915 runs scored, 2641 in Three True Outcomes, +290 Beane Count.
2. Goats, 849 runs scored, 2332 in 3TO, +119 Beane Count.

The bottom teams on offense:

11. Finish 2nd, 579 runs scored, 1747 in 3TO, -201 in Beane Count.
12. Ganders, 525 runs scored, 1859 in 3TO, -56 in Beane Count.

The ballparks and type of team you construct all play a role in this too, but there's definitely some food for thought in here...

Losing by winning.

https://365.strat-o-matic.com/team/1495507

This experiment goes in the books with a Thanks For Playing - Sorry, but you didn't quite make the Playoffs... we hope you still had fun!

Having four teams finish with 90+ win seasons made this league very competitive.

What did I do right?

First in offense with 772 runs.
An insane +360 Beane Count.
Over 1000 walks plus homers.
A 1.27 GB/FB ratio.
Three True Outcomes: 2804 (I led the league in strike outs without nearly enough HRs to offset it).

FWIW, that is just a ludicrous number of balls NOT in play.

The league average in walks (not incl my team) was 495. Hits was 1300. So although I was minus 115 in hits (versus the league average) I was plus 327 in walks. With the goals stated at the outset of the season achieved, and the first place finish in offense, I think this turned out about as well as one might expect.

What did I do wrong?

While my team was really geared for the Big Fly, there were only a few additional big ballparks in the league. Lots of pitcher friendly ballparks probably did not help my cause. However, in HAL’s funhouse of irony, I actually played better on the road, with a terrible 39-42 record at home. #WTF.

Most obvious, the 70% x chances result was less than optimal. Domingo Santana literally missed more fly balls than he caught. 8th place in pitching will not get it done. Those 50 extra runs from the defense were most likely the difference here, although REALLY subpar seasons from Claudio, Peacock, Avila and Beltre certainly contributed.

In the end, the most likely diagnosis I think comes back to the Too Much of a Good Thing thing. I accomplished what I set out to do, only to prove to myself for the umpteenth time that finishing fourth in offense and fourth in pitching is where you want to be.

Going back to the observation that hitters cannot hit 95+ fastballs...hitters have adjusted. Their OPS against 95+ fastballs is now almost the same as overall ops.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/fivethirty ... ymore/amp/

The Astros are leading the way in a further adjustment by focusing on high spin rates, which produces more swing and miss. You'll note that Verlander and Cole went from good to great pitchers after going to the Astros and pretty much everyone they touch seems to get better. I think part of the theory is that elevated launch angle swings have more difficulty against high fastballs with high spin rates

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.crawfi ... spin-rates

But high-spin is good for breaking pitches, too. (EG, McCullers, Pressy)

Apparently, JD Martinez has found a way to deal with these high-spin pitches...and perhaps communicated his ideas to his teammates as they throttled Astro pitching.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/fivethirty ... ahead/amp/

Nate Silver, eh?

Anyway, interesting if true.

What strikes me as interesting right now, is the relationship between real baseball and our online game here. I am working on the disconnect between half of the results coming off the pitcher card and half the results coming off the hitter card, no matter who the pitcher is and no matter who the hitter is. Fly ball hitters seem to enjoy a premium that is not afforded to ground ball pitchers. Why is that? And better yet, how might I exploit that into wins...?

I hear the complaints about baseball today and I don't get it. What was so great about baseball 30-40 years ago when pitchers threw 90, fielders were not as good, hitters were not as good, and there was much less strategy? The skill it takes to survive in today's game is far higher than it used it to be. The skill to be able to deal with a 98 mph fastball AND not overcommit so you are susceptible to the breaking ball is enormous. Any defect in that area and you are not going to survive as a major league hitter. It used to be a bad hitter would hit .230 or .240, now guys whose reflexes slow down start hitting well under .200. Conversely, pitchers have to deal with the fact that even if they throw 97 if they don't have some combination of movement on their fastball, good command and a plus breaking ball they are going to get hit. Starting pitchers typically need 3-4 pitches to keep hitters off-balance enough to survive. The reason starting pitchers are only pitching five innings is that hitters are so good that the performance of most starting pitchers drops precipitously their third time through the line-up. The battle between the pitcher and batter has never been better, because the margin of error for them to succeed has never been smaller. As defensive metrics have gotten better poor fielders have been ruthlessly culled from the game. Of course you have the shifts which make it harder on the hitter. Managers are experimenting with the fact that relievers pitching only a few innings and only facing batters once are able to be more dominant.

I have some concern that all the pitching changes and review are slowing down the game. But the skill level of the players is fantastic and should be appreciated.

What was so great about baseball 30-40 years ago?

Well, 30-40 years ago, kids played baseball because baseball was fun. And like most career trajectories, the best just kept moving up. The very best made the pros.

I can’t tell you the last time I saw 10 kids just playing baseball.

Today, 10 year olds have strength coaches, motivational trainers and personal assistants in addition to private baseball instructors. They watch video of themselves and sharpen their launch angles on the Trackman. They have access to all manner of gadgets and gizmos. As a parent I have to suffer through the “my 9 year old plays on the 11-12 travel team” stories.

No question, today’s “athletes” are superior in every way. Just like life, today, is superior in every way.

That’s why it is so disconcerting that no one seems any happier for it.

What was so great about baseball 30-40 years ago? See below.

https://youtu.be/U2aDoXcepoo

You can't really contradict freeman's thoughts. Today's players are exceptional and they are aided by deep stat reading rather than the eye test that ruled baseball for so long. That said, jpav's video link tells us a lot about the joy that we have lost (and not just in baseball). For most of baseball history, the game was a working class game, played by underpaid serfs for the benefit of fans who were similarly entrenched in the labor market. The shift to baseball player as elite (almost executive) status took away much of that goodwill. Don't get me wrong...baseball players -- just like all workers -- deserve to get what they can in terms of income. But just compare the stats of average salary and you begin to see a correlation with the perceived disaffection of fans.

In 1967, the average baseball player made $19,000, the average family income was a little over $10,500
In 1978, the average player made just about $100,000, the average family income was just about $20,000
In 1989, the average player made just about $500,000, the average family income was somewhere about $41,500
In 2000, the average player made around $1,800,000, the average family income was $65,773
In 2011, the average player made just over $3,000,000, the average family income was just over $81,000.

(sources: https://www3.nd.edu/~lawlib/baseball_salary_arbitration/minavgsalaries/Minimum-AverageSalaries.pdf, https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MAFAINUSA646N)

You get the drift, we have moved from a ratio of a little under 2 to 1 to a little over 37 to 1, and that is comparing individual salaries to family income (on purpose to show the financial pressures that many of us operate under). Ticket prices have gone up, games are often only shown on cable (thus a further outgo of income), etc., etc. Great players, yes, but somehow we (well, I...) feel more admiration for them than camaraderie.

I know that this has little to do with the original thread and I am sorry if I have hijacked it. Having been to a few minor league games these past couple of years, I think that the original feeling can be found in those games with a couple of thousand fans hoping that one of "their boys" will make it, where your voice can literally be heard exhorting a young shortstop to get a base hit in a crucial 7th inning rally. But jpav is unfortunately correct...where do you find a bunch of kids playing baseball spontaneously?

Bill