Don’t Intentionally Walk Anyone With the Bases Loaded
You had to know this one was coming. The moment needs no introduction; let’s just start with a clip:
The B?a?r?r?y? ?B?o?n?d?s? Corey Seager treatment. pic.twitter.com/Nfs1RHAiR2
— Texas Rangers (@Rangers) April 16, 2022
Intentional walk. Bases loaded. Mike Trout staring homeward in disbelief:
Was this a solid baseball decision by the numbers? No. No, it was not. I don’t really have to do the math to tell you that. But doing the math is what we do here at FanGraphs, so just to be certain, and also just for the sake of doing it, I ran through the details. You don’t have to read this article to learn whether it was a good choice or not. I’m telling you that part right up front – it wasn’t.
But if you want to know just how bad it was, or to get an idea of how to quantify things like this, read on. If nothing else, it’s fun to laugh at the Angels for having done this, and going over the specifics in exacting detail is more time you can spend thinking about how absurd and funny it is to walk someone with the bases loaded.
To set the scene: the Rangers got to Reid Detmers in the fourth, putting four straight runners on base with one out. Joe Maddon went to the bullpen and summoned Austin Warren, who proceeded to walk Marcus Semien. The next batter, Corey Seager, came to the plate up a run with the bases loaded.
This was a bad spot for the Angels, regardless of what they did next. Seager is an excellent hitter, and he had the platoon advantage against a rookie reliever. To give you a sense of how big of an advantage, I calculated the Rangers’ run and win expectancy in two ways. In the first, I found that a generic lineup against a generic pitcher would score an average of 1.5 runs from Seager’s at-bat to the end of the inning. Texas would hold on to win the game 77.5% of the time.
Next, I plugged in our projections for Warren and the Rangers batters who were due up next (Seager, Mitch Garver, and Adolis García were the first three up). I used those to simulate the inning a million times, then used the score at the end of the frame to estimate a win probability using our WPA Inquirer. The simulation is a simple one: it compares pitcher and batter lines to each other and to league average to estimate the probability of any outcome in a given at-bat, then generates a random number to simulate the inning one batter at a time. Taking the specifics into account, I estimate that the Rangers stood to score 1.75 runs on average and win the game 79.6% of the time.
The point is, things were bad. There was no wand to wave to get out of this situation; bases loaded and one out is a recipe for runs to score. It’s hard to get that second out without allowing a run, but even if you do, another batter gets to come up with a chance to score multiple runs with a hit. The only reliable way to limit scoring there is with a pitcher who induces piles of strikeouts, or a batter who strikes out a ton, but neither was the case here: Seager has a career 18.5% strikeout rate and Warren projects for a 22.4% mark.
That matchup wasn’t good. Facing Garver would have been better for the Angels. He’s not as good of a hitter as Seager, he strikes out more frequently (26.2% career rate), and he didn’t have the platoon advantage against Warren. If Seager magically disappeared from the universe, leaving Garver to come to the plate instead of him with no intentional walk necessary, I estimate that they would have scored 1.52 runs on average, roughly the same as a generic lineup against a generic pitcher. Garver is a good hitter, but he strikes out a lot, just what the Angels needed.
Of course, Seager didn’t magically disappear from the universe. To secure a matchup with Garver, Maddon walked Seager intentionally. You can tell right away that the math here doesn’t make sense. The difference between Texas’ run expectancy with Seager and Garver up is substantial; it works out to roughly 0.2 runs in just this one plate appearance. That’s a big deal; over the course of his career, Mike Trout has been less than 0.1 runs better than a league average hitter per plate appearance.
So yes, in this huge spot, it would have been extremely valuable for the Angels to face Garver instead of Seager. But, uh, 0.2 runs is less than one run. The Angels paid one run to face Garver; that’s what intentionally walking someone with the bases loaded comes down to. Sure, they were more likely to get from one out to two outs via strikeout, but who cares? The reason you want a strikeout so badly in this situation is so that one run doesn’t score. If you’re forcing that run to score, well… the math doesn’t work.
Put another way, the identity of the batters is small potatoes relative to the score differential. Teams in Texas’ situation before the walk – up a run in the bottom of the fourth with the bases loaded and one out – win around 77% of the time. Teams in the same situation, but up two runs instead of one, win around 85% of the time. If you’ll remember from earlier, the upgrade from a generic hitter to Seager in this situation is worth something like 2% of a win (and Garver is better than a generic hitter). You don’t need a team of analysts to tell you that two is less than eight.
After the game, Maddon said he was trying to “avoid the big blow” by walking Seager, and so long as you don’t stop to think about what he paid in runs to do that, he succeeded. Garver was a better matchup for Warren than Seager would have been. Maddon also said he did it “just to stir the group up, quite frankly,” which is outside the purview of my analysis. I don’t have any Trout Stir Units to compare from before and after Seager’s walks, no dugout-buzz-o-meter to use. But sure, maybe?
I was hungry for a more interesting question, because by the numbers, walking Seager with the bases loaded here wasn’t even close to being a good idea. So I decided to cheat. Would it make sense to walk Seager if he were suddenly channeling the skills of Barry Bonds, in his peak 2002 form? Now that sounds like something worth considering.
Plug Bonds’ statistics into Seager’s spot (excluding his intentional walks, naturally), and the Rangers’ run expectancy surges. Bonds hardly ever struck out, and he cracked a ton of extra base hits. Plus, even if you pitched to him, he might walk. In total, I estimate that the Rangers stood to score a whopping 2.15 runs in the rest of the inning on average with Bonds batting. If you’ll recall from above, Seager checked in at 1.75. Barry Bonds: better than Corey Seager, and miles better than an average hitter.
But the intentional walk still wouldn’t make sense! In win expectancy terms, the Bonds Rangers projected to win 83.5% of the time if Bonds batted. After Seager was intentionally walked, my method gave the Rangers an 85.5% chance of winning. Corey Seager could have been literally peak Barry Bonds, and walking him would still have been a bad idea. You’d have to body swap Mitch Garver with, say, Jeff Mathis to make the whole endeavor make sense. And hey, maybe this whole exercise was worth it just to imagine a lineup where Jeff Mathis bats after Barry Bonds.
Back in the real world, the Angels’ gambit didn’t work. Garver flied out to center, scoring a run and advancing the runners. Warren balked in another run before retiring García to end the inning. From the time Seager stepped to the plate to the end of the fourth, the Rangers scored three runs, roughly double their pre-walk expectancy.
Or hey, maybe the Angels’ gambit worked perfectly. Down 6-2, they staged a furious comeback. In the top of the fifth, they scored five runs to take a 7-6 lead they never relinquished. They won the game 9-6. Those slivers of expected runs they sacrificed didn’t matter; their offense was simply too good.
If you’d like, you can credit that to Maddon lighting a fire under his players. That’s not how I’d look at it, though. Maddon made a decision that cost his team some fraction of a win. His players bailed him out by being extremely good at baseball. It’s hard to win baseball games! Both teams are full of well-compensated professional athletes who work year-round to improve their craft. And yet, one team wins every night, often by more than a few runs. Maddon made things a little harder for his team on Friday. The team was simply up to the challenge.
Ben is a writer at FanGraphs. He can be found on Bluesky @benclemens.
Has the sheen finally worn off of Maddon and his low-percentage plays?
This being a no- or negative-percentage play, it doesn’t seem relevant to ascribe this to Maddon being “different” vs a manager making a bad decision even he can’t explain.
Personally, I think intentional walks are usually self-harming, in the sense of stipulating the batter won’t strike himself out if you pitch to him and only offer bad pitches. I have yet to see evidence most batters have great self-control. Maybe Corey Seager does, I don’t know.
I think he’s overall a smart guy who gets a little bored sometimes over the course of 162 and does stuff like this or hitting the pitcher 8th just for variety and to see what happens. It’s probably not his best quality as a manager.
He’d have to be really bored this year to have the pitcher bat 8th.
(And granted, he manages the only team where there is a sliver of a chance he does this)
I don’t remember him being this bad with the Rays. Near the end of his time with the Cubs he seemed really burned out. Now he’s beyond burnout and he’s just doing random stuff to shock everyone. He even has a quote about how he did it to mix things up. This might be what happens when you have an innate desire to shock people but not an innate desire to keep up with the cutting edge.
Maddon called for a bases-loaded IBB to peak Josh Hamilton in 2008. They won that game too. Obviously he’s a genius. Look at the score..
Of course he’s a genius … just ask him.
Alternate take… he doesn’t know what is going on and people tell him what to do. Not knowing any better he goes along with it.
Anything, literally anything at all (some diner gossip or a note scribbled on a napkin?), to back this up?
He wears hipster glasses, therefore he is extremely smart. QED.
So you went “WHOOSH” over at least 3 downvoters here, maguro. 🙂
The sheen was off in Chicago. In Anaheim the paint is starting to chip.
So what was Maddon’s desired reaction by “stirring the group up?” I can’t think of a reasonably positive way someone would react to that.
Unless he’s hoping that they all turn on him and rally around their mutual contempt. Perhaps by placing a cardboard cutout of him in the locker room. Maybe one that would have peel-off pieces of clothing, which they could take off each time they win until they clinch the playoffs.
The cutout is of him in a speedo (you’re welcome for that mental image), and every time they win a game they put a piece of clothing on.
Not kind of you putting that mental image out there at lunch time. Folks with weaker stomachs might not be too happy with you.
Says shirtless Bartolo.
This is best idea
I had to read this a second time to catch the reference. Did you know that the original ending to that movie actually showed that she rallied them against her it intentionally? But it screen tested terribly.
I mean why would anyone want the “horrible baseball-ruining woman” to be a hero? Not in the same decade that provided us Porky’s, Revenge of the Nerds and Mr. Mom.
There’s a lot of stuff from the late 20th century (over 20 years ago now!) that we laughed at then and we see now and it’s not even funny in a subversive, ironic way. Because it’s not subversive or ironic. Or funny.
They can’t all be This is Spinal Tap but so many comedies are so intrinsically tied to the cultural moment that when it’s gone, there’s no reason to watch it again.
Oh I’m not even talking about the “this didn’t age well” thing. (I haven’t rewatched Major League recently, and while I’m sure I could still enjoy it, I would imagine the whole witch doctor character would be…something)
My point was just that the era that produced those movies and those gender roles wouldn’t find a “bitchy” female character taking a face turn in the 3rd act fun.
These days, Ted Lasso is a runaway hit and (from what I’m told) basically a blatant ripoff of ML but everyone is more likable?
The only logical conclusion is that the Angels should intentionally walk in a run to start EVERY game.
If I recall correctly, teams that have issued intentional walks that forced runs in are now 3-0 all-time. It is clearly a 100% win percentage sure-fire play!
Thats right. Do the math, nerd’s!!! Thats why John Madden is a Hall of Fame manger.
I really need to hear from Ruben Amaro on this to be sure…
Reuben’s gonna be unavailable. Gonna hire him to be our
fall guyGM for May.Next CBA, put a runner on 2nd in the FIRST inning, to save time.
What about intentionally walking a batter with no one on base? Does that ever make sense?
I don’t think it would be too hard to specify stats for the batter at the plate and the next batter that makes this a positive win-value strategy. Particularly if we can make it two outs, tie game, bottom of the 9th, and assign the guy at the plate Mark McGwire’s home run rate.
This game I went to in 2001 Manny was intentionally walked a few times. In the 16th inning he was intentionally walked with the bases empty. Given the wet newspaper Darren Lewis was swinging in the on deck circle it made plenty of sense to the 1000 people left at the park. Manny nearly ended the game earlier with a single that went about 35’ up the 37’ wall.
https://www.fangraphs.com/plays.aspx?date=2001-06-05&team=Red%20Sox&dh=0
Depends who is behind them, I would think? For example, if you had, say, 2017 Giancarlo Stanton at the plate and the next guy up was a pitcher (or even Mike Aviles), you would at least think about it.
But normally, probably not. I seem to recall someone did an analysis of that back in the days of Full-Roided Bonds whether it made sense to issue intentional walks. And the analysis came back with something like “it’s close.” If it’s close for that case, it’s probably not close for any case you’ll see in the future.
Prior to this year, you would see the “unintentional intentional” walk to hitters in the 8-hole before the pitcher’s spot early in NL games with some regularity. They weren’t intentionally throwing it 5 feet outside, but they sure weren’t trying very hard to get the out, either (especially if they fell behind in the count early).
Thank you for Full-Roided Bonds. I was thinking about something like that earlier but failed to name it.
I feel that the term “Full-Roided Bonds” accurately captures both the extreme nature and grotesqueness of the experience.
There are other things that can approximate it outside of known steroid users (or other known cheaters, like Albert Belle). Say, Larry Walker in Colorado. Or Frank Thomas on a hot streak. But if Full-Roided Bonds doesn’t do it, then it’s probably not worth investigating the rest.
Hideki Matsui was famously issued 5 intentional walks in high school, the 4th time with 2 outs and the bases empty.
I would be pretty sure that that with 2 outs and the pitcher on deck, that play would have made sense about 95% of the time prior to the universal DH.
Not that often, considering the opposing team would just pinch-hit for their pitcher a good percentage of the time.
Maddon intentionally walked a guy with the bases loaded! Now, how smart was that? It’s genius, let me tell you, very savvy. No other manager has the strength to do that. He makes all the others look weak, like losers I tell you.
This analysis focused on the conventional perspective (at least the conventional analytics-based perspective), from which Joe Maddon was clearly wrong from the start. I would have liked for a portion of the analysis to consider the manager’s claim.
Maddon said he wanted to avoid the big inning. Did he increase his team’s chance of avoiding a big inning? It seems he was telling his offense (and relief corps) that he trusted them to come back from a couple of runs behind, but wanted to avoid the kind of deficit Corey Seager might cause with an extra-base hit. Maybe he liked his team’s chances of coming back from a situation with a modestly low win percentage (15% or 17%), but not of making an extraordinary comeback.
Maddon may even have considered elements that this article did not cover, such as that the Rangers have an absolutely terrible bullpen – maybe the worst in MLB – and were already 3 pitchers deep when this happened. Given the situation, it seems to me the Angels were very likely to score 3 or 4 more runs in the next 5 innings, and strategizing for a more certain but potentially smaller increase in their deficit over a less certain but potentially larger increase may have made perfect sense.
No. It does not. It makes no sense. No matter how many mental contortions you make.
I get your thought process, but it doesn’t work. The Texas bullpen might have been weak, but are they one full run worse than the Angels bullpen over a handful of innings? Also, in terms of a big inning, Seager at 3-2 isn’t much different from Garver at 4-2. Garver is a solid hitter with big power. He’s only slightly less likely to hit a salami, and he only needed a fly ball to make it 5-2, which is a big lead when there’s only a handful of innings left. Plus, that’s only two outs. The hitter behind him can add more without needing an extra base hit.
Seager has a career 42% grounder rate against righties. There’s a solid chance you can get a DP and keep the game 3-2. A sac fly is also a better outcome than an IBB. When you factor in just how many Seager outcomes would be better than a walk, it doesn’t make sense to walk him.
By giving them a free run you’re automatically increasing the probability of a big inning.
It shouldn’t be news that if you complete Step 1 in an ordered chain, then it raises the probability of completing Step 2.
Maddon was always overrated. Early on we credited him for all the productive innovations the Tampa Bay front office was coming up with. But in retrospect it was clearly all the front office. Maddon in his eagerness to change this and that and this and that just for the sake of changing all those thisses and thats was useful to them at the time. But the man is actually a moron, in that he has no intellectual discipline. He just does the weirdest things, that are so obviously counterproductive. Like issuing an intentional walk so as to avoid a big inning. Say Whattt?!?!?
With Matheny actually/finally showing some signs of growth, I think Joe Maddon is now the worst manager in baseball.
He completely changed the culture in Chicago.
He had one hell of a team, he didn´t change anything. Theo even brought him the best closer available and even then he almost blew it
The worst manager in baseball? No. But he sure seems bent on getting there.
Is there a point where it would have been a good idea to walk in the run. With the 3 batter min rule now, the pitcher had to face the hitter. Can a pitcher be so bad vs lefties and the lefty that is hitting be so good vs right handed pitchers that this would have made sense? Last year Anthony Bass had a .300 .630 .374 line vs lefties while Soto hit .333 .573 .502 vs righties. Is this closer?
If you’re talking about the particular game situation the Angels were in here, I can’t think of a matchup where the change in run expectancy from skipping the guy you’re afraid of would offset the run you’re automatically giving up. Maybe peak Barry Bonds facing an extreme ROOGY might get you there, but I’m still doubtful.
Speaking of which, IIRC the situation where Arizona walked Bonds with the bases full was a totally different game situation – the D-Backs were protecting a 2 run lead in the bottom of the 9th, and Bonds was homering roughly once every dozen swings of the bat. In that type of situation, you throw out run expectancy and go straight to win expectancy, and the chance of Bonds ending the game right there was probably close to, or greater than, the chance of the Giants coming back to win after getting one run back on Arizona.
How good would a team of 4 peak Bonds and 5 trough Mathis be?
Clean up Bonds would be smash the all time IBB record.
That team would probably set an all-time record for most PA per season, because peak Bonds’ OBP was so much further above average than trough Mathis was below average. And with the team’s average Base Runs/27 outs likewise being well above average, this team would be a threat to break the all-time record for runs/game.
And with one of the trough Mathises catching, your staff ERA would probably be below average (assuming your pitching talent was league average). So this team would be a perennial playoff team, probably winning about 60% of their games.
The real question is do you go Bonds, Bonds, Bonds, Bonds, Mathis, Mathis, Mathis, Mathis, Mathis or do you alternate them?
My instinct is the former, but maybe that’s wrong.
Cue the whole bullpen running to the restroom and becoming suddenly unavailable when Bonds the first is coming up in the order…
There is an apocryphal story which I don’t remember all that well anymore along these lines. If someone can verify where it comes from, I’d love to know. (I would also love to know the veracity of it, but I assume it’s just made up)
The current pitcher isn’t looking too sharp and the manager sends Satchel Paige–now in his 40s–and a rookie to warm up in the bullpen. The rookie is nervous, because Ted Williams is only a few bats away from being up, and the rookie doesn’t know how to face him. Satchel Paige tries to calm him down. “Just stick to your routine. Slow and steady.”
The pitcher walks the batter. Now there’s a guy on first. Ted Williams is now in the hole.
Paige and the rookie keep warming up. The rookie still looks nervous. Paige keeps trying to calm him down. “You have to trust in what you got. You got to the big leagues, so you need to just stick with your plan.”
The pitcher walks the batter. Now there’s a guy on first and second. Ted Williams is now on-deck.
Paige and the rookie keep warming up. Paige says, “Ted Williams is a great ballplayer, but he’s not invincible. He gets out half the time he goes up there. You’re probably not going to strike him out, but you can’t let him beat you before you even get out there.”
The pitcher walks the batter. Now the bases are loaded, and Ted Williams is up. Paige continues to finally talk to the rookie, and finally has him calmed down when the manager signals for…Satchel Paige to come in the game.
Paige turns to the rookie and says “Forget everything I just said. Wish me luck.”
I get that this was likely apocryphal, but I wanted to see if there was anything close to this in the game logs. Paige actually did face Williams 11 times and held him to 2 singles and 2 walks for a pedestrian .222/.364/.222 line.
He never came in and faced Williams as the first (or even second) batter in relief with anyone on base.
However, on July 30, 1949, Paige entered in the 8th inning against the Red Sox with his Indians up 6-2 with the bases loaded and no outs.
Paige struck out Birdie Tebbetts but then allowed a run-scoring single to Matt Batts. Dom Dimaggio popped out and then Johnny Pesky tripled home 3 runs to tie it 6-6. Paige intentionally walked Williams with Pesky on third and two outs, and then struck out Vern Stephens to “preserve” a 6-6 tie.
The Indians went on to win in the 10th and Paige got a blown save and the win.
There is a very, very famous Paige vs. Williams showdown. Paige fanned him and Williams was so mad he nearly split the bat in two.
Ted Williams, FWIW, also thought the world of Paige. I believe he really liked Paige growing up in San Diego. I believe he actually lobbied pretty hard to get Paige in the Hall of Fame, too.
Satchel Paige also had probably the most dominant blown save ever on June 20, 1952. https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/SLA/SLA195206200.shtml
He came on in the 8th with runners on first and second, no outs, and his Browns up two. After two outs he gave up an RBI single and the other runner scored on a fielding error, tying the game. He then pitched nine more shutout innings, giving up four more hits and two walks, until they brought in another pitcher for the 18th after which the game was called a tie for curfew. In a blown save he had a WPA of 1.091.
You’d go Bonds, Mathis, Bonds, Mathis, … to alternate handedness.
Otherwise those four Bonds in a row are a sitting duck for a LOOGY…
Genuine question: do you think 57 year old Bonds could do better than Mathis’ career 45 wRC+?
Peak Bonds, by wRC+ was 2002, when Bonds hit .384/.556/.976 vs lefties. He was actually slightly worse vs righties that year.
Trough Mathis was 2019, when he hit .149/.208/.224 vs lefties and .161/.209/.224 vs righties (at least he’s consistent!).
But even the best righties who got lefties out (Nenn, Gagne, Smoltz) weren’t as good vs lefties as the best LOOGYs (Rhodes, Hammond, etc.).
Actually, 2002 Billy Wagner would be the best option, since he’s a lefty who is awesome vs. lefties, and very good vs. righties, not that it would matter with Mathis.
So this is tough, but in a vacuum, here’s how it might look:
2002 Bonds batting 1-4 (244 wRC+)
2018 Mathis 5-9 (46 wRC+).
Plate appearance distributed like so:
1 Bonds – 773
2 Bonds – 752
3 Bonds – 732
4 Bonds – 708
5 Mathis – 696
6 Mathis – 685
7 Mathis – 664
8 Mathis – 647
9 Mathis – 633
This team would hit .267/.418/.481 good for an .899 OPS, a .385 wOBA, and a 139 wRC+.
Defense is basically impossible to figure, but let’s say Bonds plays scratch defense at first and then we’ll use his -2.5 DEF for LF and CF. It’s arguable that the 4th Bonds should play RF because he’s likely better than Mathis, but I’ll use him at DH.
Catcher Mathis getting all the innings would be a huge defensive boost, but let’s say he plays -10 runs on top of the positional adjustments at 2B, 3B, SS, and RF.
The WAR for this team would be 46.7.
“What is this nonsense?”
–Dee P. Gordon
Great stuff.
I wonder what would happen if you used each of the 2001-2004 Bonds seasons based on increasing OBP. so:
1 2001 Bonds
2 2003 Bonds
3 2002 Bonds
4 2004 Bonds
5-9 2018 Mathis
I’d actually bet cleanup Bonds gets an intentional pass more than half the time, if this were actually a real-life thing.
Bonds already did that in 2004 with decent hitters behind him.
What happens if we run the numbers on the bases-loaded IBB given to Bonds in 1998? The funny thing is that the batter after Bonds was a backup catcher, Brent Mayne (Bonds had entered as a pinch-hitter for the number 7 hitter), though Mayne wasn’t a terrible hitter.
Yes this is what I wanted to know as well. Rather different situation, as I recall: the team issuing the IBB was several runs ahead, and it was the ninth inning (though I could be wrong).
I think I remember someone (Ben Lindbergh) had run the numbers before, like sadtrombone mentioned in a comment above, and I think it was a close call, even though Bonds was having a ridiculously good year.
I really wish I could find that analysis. But it was something like 20 years ago.
There’s a blog post that originally went with this, but Tangotiger’s website isn’t really searchable. Anyway, here’s the actual decision matrix for peak Bonds:
http://tangotiger.net/walkbondschart2.html
So 2002 Bonds should be walked in that exact situation.
Edit: never mind
OK, I can’t do any fancy Monte Carlo but hurricanexyz is right that it was in the ninth–in fact two outs in the bottom of the ninth with the D-backs up three runs. So I can do some inaccurate calculations myself. There will be a twist ending!
RHP Gregg Olson was facing Bonds with Brent Mayne on deck and Rey Sanchez in the hole. Sanchez was having a bad year against RHP, .295 OBP. Since I’m tired I’m just going to pretend that if Sanchez comes up and gets on base the Giants win. Also, I’m going to pretend that runners take an extra base on a hit, so if there’s a double it clears the bases (maybe not safe with JT Snow on first).
Excluding IBBs, against RHP that year Bonds’s results were:
6.1% HR
9.2% 2B/3B
11.2% 1B/ROE
21.1% BB/HBP
52.4% out
Excluding IBBs, against RHP that year Mayne’s results were:
1.1% HR
4.0% 2B/3B
19.2% 1B/ROE
13.4% BB/HBP
62.3% out
There’s little difference between Bonds getting a single or walking; the runner on first is the tying run and it doesn’t matter if the runner on second scores, and I’m assuming that the runner would score whether he was on first or second.
So if they pitch to Bonds, Giants win if he homers; if he gets a 2B/3B the game is tied and Mayne has a chance to drive him in; if he gets a 1B/BB/etc. we fall through to the next case; if he’s out Giants lose.
If Bonds gets a 1B/BB/etc., an XBH from Mayne wins outright, a 1B from Mayne ties it up and gives Sanchez a chance, a BB from Mayne leaves Sanchez to do or die (here’s where I should pay attention to the fact that if Mayne and Sanchez both walk the game is tied with Darryl Hamilton coming up).
If Bonds gets an XBH, the game is tied already, any hit from Mayne wins it, a BB from Mayne brings Sanchez up with a chance to win or tie.
Not to belabor it any more, I got an 18.9% chance to win if they pitch to Bonds, and a 21.5% chance to win if they walk him. So they should’ve pitched to him–but they should’ve walked 2002 Bonds, and I’d also bet it would’ve been a good idea to walk him if they’d been up four runs, when there would’ve been a big risk of Bonds tying it with a grand slam, and Mayne (who wasn’t hitting for much power) couldn’t have tied it with a single.
OK, here’s the twist: I treated Gregg Olson as a generic RHP. What if his splits were especially pronounced? So I looked up his splits and they were pronounced–pronounced reverse splits. RHB hit for an .815 OPS against him that year and LHB only hit for a .471 OPS. For his career, RHB hit .735 against him and LHB hit .597.
So it seems like they should definitely have let Olson pitch to Bonds, since his platoon advantage against Mayne wasn’t really one. But that raises the question: Why did Gregg Olson have such huge reverse splits?
I should say: I got the splits from Baseball Reference, since FG doesn’t have splits that far back.
Olson had a phenomenal curveball, which doesn’t usually have reverse splits, but that must have been the reason.
This is great, but I’m pretty sure there was only a 2-run lead.
Wow, you’re completely right. I looked at the score at the beginning of the inning. How embarrassing! Well, at least this time I can be sure that the Giants win if Sanchez comes up and reaches base. Sanchez can only come up with the bases loaded and the game tied, so if that happens there’s a 29.5% chance he wins it and a 70.5% of extra innings, so 64.8% total chance of Giants winning.
If Bonds is walked or HBP, there’s a 24.3% chance of Mayne winning it with a hit, a 13.4% chance of a walk or HBP sending it to Sanchez (at 64.8% chance of victory), and a 62.3% chance of the D-backs winning. That adds up to a 33.0% chance of Giants winning.
If Bonds singles or reaches on error, the chances are the same except the game goes to extra innings if Mayne makes an out, so that adds 62.3%*.5 chance of the Giants winning, so 64.2% chance of the Giants winning.
If Bonds gets an XBH, game over.
So the total chances if Bonds bats are 15.3% (XBH) + 11.2% * 64.2% (1B) + 21.1% * 33.0% (BB/HBP). That adds up to a 29.5% chance of the Giants winning, as opposed to the 33% chance after the IBB; which is a bigger gap than my sloppy calculation for a three-run deficit.
Thanks for pointing that out!
yeah somebody here ran the nunmbers and i think i remember the ibb being ever so slightly the correct decision. like the ev of ibb was 1 run and bonds at the plate in that spot was worth like 1.16 runs or something.
Mike Trout got the memo that this moment called for a meme-able facial reaction. Seager almost got it but needed to push it 50% more.
The reactions would be so much better if the pitcher had to go through the motions of 4 wide pitches. I am not a fan of the pitchless IBB.
I am opposed to the pitchless intentional walk.
Intentional walks can be boring: IBB to the #8 hitter to get to the pitcher, which doesn’t happen anymore.
They can also be very dramatic. With 4 wide pitches, we can see the embarrassment on the pitcher’s face, the resolve on his manager’s face, the disgust on the batter’s face, and the indignation on the face of the guy on deck.
With this IBB, I would have loved to see more of the reactions to the various players on the field. But no.
The other thing is that you can always have the pitcher throw a pitch or two like an intentional walk, then suddenly throw one over the plate to steal a strike. Not that that’s a great strategy on its own, but if you want to “stir the group up” this might be something.
Booing an opposing pitcher when they’re intentionally walking a guy on your team was so much fun and I miss it. The automatic walk is mostly confusing in person, and when else do you see an act of cowardice in person take a whole minute?
Of course the most frustrating part of this were the moronic talking heads that used this as an example of analytics ruining baseball.
They didn’t hear? We settled that the other day! It was decreed that any starter throwing fewer than 500 innings a season had ruined our fair game
Barry Bonds was the only time where it was even up for discussion. You may as well just visit the mound and tell your pitcher that you don’t trust him. I have never seen any indication that Joe Madden knows anything about baseball – I am sure he gets his ideas from the analytics department. Do a search for images and try to find one where Joe Madden is doing anything that looks like a baseball-related activity other than standing on a baseball field of wearing a uniform. I suspect that Maddon is a front-man for the analytics department.
What analytics department would tell you that a bases loaded IBB is a good idea?
Oh, that would be the Wichita Glue-Huffers. They’re not so bright there.
Showalter’s walk of Bonds was defensible. Data looks at the aggregate or totality of situations, not the specific situation. How the batter is hitting at the moment, the pitching match up, and who is up next all get factored. It was Brent Mayne. It was a one-run lead in the bottom of the 9th with two outs and an otherworldly hitter at the plate. That’s the type of situation the manager gets paid to think. I’ll defend Showalter. Not Maddon walking Seager.
Best line on the internet today is: “Is Joe Maddon a genius or does he just wear glasses? SEASON 28”
Hey, Joe, your team had already given up two runs and the lead. Walking Seager, while already down a run, was the third run, making the score 4-2. What big inning were you avoiding? Also, you walked Josh Hamilton, then with the Rangers, with the bases loaded in 2008. Was this really the same situation? Were you having a flashback?
. . . And tonight, in the seventh inning against Houston, after the first two batters get on base with singles, down by two runs, you call for two consecutive bunts.
With the DH now in the NL the use of the intentional BB will certainly diminish dramatically. Maybe Maddon was just nostalgic and wanted to see one again.
Great, fun article, as usual! My take, Maddon has some type of weak and sick need to show off. Maybe he has a poor endowment problem??? Tony LaRussa disease…
So how much better than peak Bonds would you have to be for these situations to actually warrant an intentional walk?
And how much of it is mental for the pitcher, knowing he gets to face ‘not peak-Bonds’?
Makes me wonder if he bristled playing according to Tampa’s sabermetric ways and was happy to be released from the tyranny of smart strategy where “gut instincts”, “Playing the game the right way,” and “heart” are banished to the gulag or something. He has been a mediocre to bad manager ever since he left the Rays, and frankly Mr. Magoo’d his way to a World Series w/ the Cubs.
Let me preface this by saying I understand and agree with the math, but managers who intentionally walked batters in with the bases loaded are 7-0, or 8-0, from what I can find digging up information. A 100% percent win rate for a cowardly play is obviously influenced by teams LEADING deploying this strategy (which taints the data), but that’s still worth noting. The beauty and stupidity of professional sports in practice should always serve as a basis of comparison for actions in theory.
Intentional IBB source: https://baseballroundtable.com/a-walk-in-the-park-ranking-mlbs-bases-loaded-intentional-passes/
Sometimes being a coward works against all logic and reason. This video on the “search for the most cowardly punt” confirms similar strategies being successful at surprising rates. (Spoiler) In the NFL, teams that made cowardly punts won at alarming rates that go against math or general logic.
https://youtu.be/F9H9LwGmc-0