The Baseball Economist: The Real Game Exposed Read Online Free PDF

Pitchers respond to the price of hit batters in a predictable manner. When the “price” of hitting batters changes, pitchers change their actions accordingly.
    Pitchers respond to other incentives, as well. If the batter isn’t much good, why risk hitting him with a harder-to-control pitch? Pitchers are more likely to hit good batters, who are more likely to punish pitchers for leaving balls out over the plate. Additionally, they are less likely to hit pitchers on the opposing team, who represent an extremely poor class of hitter. In these ways we begin to build the best intuition about how a pitcher or any player in any position will behave.
    The law of demand, which is deemed a “law” because its powers of foresight are so great, is something we should never ignore when analyzing human actions in baseball or anywhere else.

2
    The Legendary Power of the On-Deck Hitter
    Nomar Garciaparra has something fundamental in common with the security guard at the ATM, the rent-a-cap patrolling the mall and the bouncer at the dance club. He was hired to provide protection. Pitch around Jeff Kent? Answer to Garciaparra.
    —STEVE HENSON 11
    AS MATT MORRIS toed the rubber during the first inning of the 2004 World Series for the St. Louis Cardinals, his focus should have been on the batter, Manny Ramirez. But how could it be? He’d just given up a double to Johnny Damon and hit Orlando Cabrera with a pitch—two runners on base. There were no outs and he was now facing a man who’d swatted forty-three home runs that season, more than any other player in the American League. As if the pressure weren’t enough, he couldn’t ignore the sight of David “Big Papi” Ortiz—who’d hit forty-one home runs—standing in the on-deck circle. Should he put some more gas on the fastball or go with something off-speed? He had to do something, because it wasn’t going to get any easier. While he certainly wished the situation were better, he must have been thankful that at least there wasn’t anybody on third. . . .
    Baseball fans like statistics in part because the team game can be quantified into many mini-contests between individuals. Batting statistics especially seem to reflect individual achievements that don’t rely on teammates helping one another out, which is different from individual performance in other team sports. A basketball player might score a lot of points, but maybe it’s because other good players on his team freed up the defense. Or in football, a receiver might have a lot of receiving yards, but is it because of his speed and catching ability or the result of an excellent quarterback? In these sports it’s hard to evaluate players independently of other players.
    In baseball, a hitter steps up to the plate to face a team of nine men all alone. The outcome of this event is surely the triumph or failure of the individual who stands against his rivals. And the statistics he puts up over a given time frame, whether it is a season or a career, indicate a certain level of individual skill demonstrated over that span. Therefore, baseball fans feel a degree of comfort in evaluating batters using well-worn statistics such as batting average or slugging percentage or on-base percentage. However, there does seem to be one exception to this view. In fact, it’s a widely held belief that a man who isn’t even participating in the game at a given moment can influence a batter’s success. Many people believe that the hitting prowess of the on-deck hitter—the batter who follows the current batter—influences the performance of the batter. How could that possibly be?
    It’s the pitcher’s job, while facing a series of hitters, to minimize the runs produced by the opposing team. One way to do this, which we looked at in the last chapter, is to avoid giving good batters pitches right over the center of the plate, because they are easier to hit. On a team with very few good players, a pitcher may decide to “pitch