FG on Fox: The Game Seven Pitching Plans
For the Royals, Game Six could not have gone any better. Not only did they claim the necessary win to setup a winner-take-all contest tonight, but by blowing the Giants out early, they were able to acquire an extra day of rest for their vaunted bullpen trio of Kelvin Herrera, Wade Davis, and Greg Holland. Meanwhile, while the Giants can’t be too thrilled with their performance, the lopsided loss did allow them to avoid using Madison Bumgarner, and you can be sure that Bruce Bochy will use his ace tonight.
So, with one game to decide the World Series, let’s see if we can plot out usage patterns for both team’s pitching staffs in order to give each side the best chance of winning the championship.
The Royals side of things is somewhat straight forward; Jeremy Guthrie is the de facto starter, but there really is no such thing as a traditional starting pitcher for the Royals, and Guthrie will almost certainly be on a very short leash tonight, because the Royals just don’t need a significant number of innings from their starter.
Since recording the final out of the ALCS on October 15th, Greg Holland has thrown just 24 pitches. 24 pitches in two weeks. He hasn’t taken the mound since last Friday, and even that came in an outing that only took him eight pitches to complete. During the regular season, Holland threw 25 or more pitches in a single game on six different occasions; there’s no reason why he couldn’t be asked to stretch that to 30 or 35 pitches in the final game of the season, especially given his recent workload.
Read the rest on Just a Bit Outside.
Dave is the Managing Editor of FanGraphs.
One inning from Guthrie, one from Finnegan, one from Frasor then two a piece from Herrera, Davis and Holland.
I’m only half joking. 😉
Agreed. Game 4’s loss can largely be attributed by Yost’s failure to bring in Davis during an early inning, high leverage situation. There is no reason that the big 3 shouldn’t pitch 2 innings apiece, which means that in 9 innings, you only have to get the other 3 innings with a combination of Guthrie, Finnegan, and Frasor.
And I’m only half-agreeing!
The trick lies in knowing which half is activated at a given moment.
Is it 8 o’clock yet?
Why would you think that asking guys to do things that they have not done all year is a good plan? The reason the bullpen is successful, is that they face so few hitters – that is where their strength comes from. They are all failed starters who have proven that they can’t sustain success past a few hitters. Furthermore, that bullpen has not had the same success against SF as they did in Baltimore.
This should be more of a “standard” baseball game than it is being made out to be. Having your bullpen pitch 7 innings is a disaster. They should hope to get 5 or 6 innings out of their SP… just like every other game on their way to game 7.
I really hope you’re being sarcastic. Otherwise I feel sorry for everyone you come in contact with.
What an absolutely worthless response.
A number of articles written on this site over the past month have debunked the ‘pitchers are only successful when the pitch in their accustomed roles’ myth. Relievers most certainly can pitch to more than ‘a few batters’ – the point where you get diminishing returns from them is if you’d ask them to go through a lineup multiple times. Having them pitch two innings apiece isn’t asking them to do that.
A game 7 should not be treated as a ‘standard’ game, because it is anything but. During the regular season a manager has to be weary not to overuse his bullpen and make sure that efforts to win today’s game don’t significantly decrease the probability of winning tomorrow’s. There is no tomorrow in a WS game 7 situation – so yes using more effective pitchers for a few innings each, spread over 6-7 innings is a much better strategy than leaving in a 5th starter for 6-7 innings.
I agree with you insofar as Matt’s second sentence; that sort of comment is uttlerly uncalled-for, even in avatar-insulated online territory.
But on Matt’s first sentence, at least as clarified in his second post, I have to say I’m with him: this is DEFINITELY not, definitely not to be played as, and definitely WILL not be played as, a “standard game”.
What’s remarkable here is that, for the first time in MLB WS history, the two teams left standing to play the final “elimination” game each started these playoffs in an elimination game.
Add to that the fact that these two teams are are a lot more similar to each other than either is to any of the teams that didn’t make it to this point. Yes, the KCs are now famous for their defense and speed, but the SFs have shown much of the same quality of defense and much of the same speed, and those two factors have been largely negated in the sense of getting us to this game.
Instead, we’ve seen each team win in a clear blow-out, twice, and the other two games gave off the impression of the winning team never really losing control. That is, despite their similarity in make-up and similarity tho not exactly so in ‘history’ this post-season, we really haven’t seen the high-water mark of baseball excitement: the walk-off, or its cousin the last-at-bats win, or even their progenitor, the late-inning comeback.
It’s obviously no MORE likely to see one of those scenarios in this final game than we saw in any of the others in this WS, but it WOULD be surprising if this entire WS went by without even one of them, given all the attendant similarities.
Closer to Matt’s point (except of course the cheap shot), and to link it to the theme of Dave Cameron’s piece here, BOTH sides werefortunate/wenttopains to preserve their best bullpen options for tonight. We just don’t see this sort of calculation in regular season or “standard” games. Instead, we see managers meting out innings to preserve their pitching staffs over the long haul (or, sometimes, as the Dodgers did at least twice this season past, working their SP order to ensure having their ace and best other two starters available to send up against the one team posing the greatest threat to them winning the division).
To all those ‘non-standard’ markers, I’m inclined to add what I’ll call here the “Oscar Taveras Effect”. As a matter of happenstance, each team tonight has a close (I suspect much closer than typical) connection with Taveras. The Giants have 3 players from DR (Arias, Casillas and Perez), one of whom, Perez sees himself as something of an older brother to Oscar. The Royals have FIVE (!) players form DR, one of whom, Ventura, sees himself as something like Oscar’s best friend.
And both of them have done something extraordinary in this WS that may (MIGHT) be attributable, in part, to that relationship: Ventura’s remarkable display last night, and Perez’ quite surprising triple/nearhomer off the best pitcher the KCs have (and easily arguably the best RP in all of MLB).
But here’s a kicker: Ventura’s likely done for this WS, and only ONE of the Royal’s other DR players is likely to play any part in tonight’s game: RP Herrera. In contrast, the Giants are, I think, extremely likely to start Juan Perez in LF, at some point no doubt will go to Casillas (who’s been resting since October 24!), and it’d only be notable if Arias, being Bruce Bochy’s Mister Versatility (defense at all infield positions, can PH and has successfully on multiple occasions this year, an expert bunter, very fast and able on the past-paths) did NOT make into this game.
So, and as well in the spirit of the Cardinals putting on the RF arc lights in their park, I’m calling this the Oscar Taveras Game.
We will see tonight won’t we? If you are right, then the game will end at 1-0 in the bottom of the 9th. The idea that you are playing a new type of game in the last one of the season is absurd. Not only will all RP be far less effective than stat-heads project, but you have no backup plan if someone falters.
I do agree that backup plans are a consideration, but “We will see tonight won’t we? If you are right, then the game will end at 1-0 in the bottom of the 9th.” is patently false. Because for that to be true, we would have to predict the game with way more accuraccy than we are able.
Vince – It’s absurd that the strategy in a game 7 situation should be different than a random regular season game? Really?
1) Every time through the order starting pitchers are less effective – this probably goes double for a marginal pitcher like Guthrie.
2) Unlike the regular season in which you need to be cognizant of the next day’s game, a game 7 scenario is a ‘do or die’ ‘pull out all the stops’ to win this one game moment. That drastically changes the calculus in regards to pitcher usage.
3) Please explain to me why relievers will be less effective than ‘stat heads’ predict? They are so mentally fragile, that they can’t wrap their minds around going in the game in the 4th, as opposed to the 7th? I’m fairly certain someone that can’t handle that wouldn’t be in the majors in the first place.
4) If someone falters, there are many options on the bench. They have 11 pitchers on their roster, of which only Ventura is unlikely to be available for tonight’s game. I’m pretty sure that if one of their relievers gets into unexpected trouble, the 9 other pitchers will be able to fill the innings.
5) Who is saying that employing a ‘reliever heavy’ strategy relies on a 1-0 game in 9 innings? The pitching strategy for any manager should simply be run prevention. How do you prevent runs from scoring? You pitch your most effective pitchers to their max capacity. If I’m a Royals fan, I would much rather see Herrera, Davis, and Holland for 2 innings each, then Guthrie for 6 innings and the big 3 only pitching a combined 3-4. I’m sure the Giants hitters would love to see Guthrie for more innings than the KC bullpen . . .
I’m not even sure why this suggestion is controversial.
It actually appears that your post IS NOT particularly controversial. Not even in its second sentence, on which I don’t see anyone leaping to your defense.
Every game’s a snowflake, some more flakey than others.
Crazy Idea*: Start Madison Bumgarner in LF and Tim Hudson at P and have them alternate between the first five innings or so, Bumgarner can hit a little so he get’s the AB’s and you can always have the platoon advantage.
Ha, actually not that crazy. Hudson played OF at Auburn when he wasn’t pitching, so he can probably hold his own out there. Although I’m not sure the defensive and offensive drop off is worth the platoon advantage, especially when they can pitch everyone with complete disregard for being ready to pitch again anytime soon.
To be fair, they’d just be replacing Travis Ishikawa’s defense (and offense). Keep Crawford in the 9-hole, bat Bumgarner/LF 8th. Then, when it’s time to make a change, they have both Ishikawa and Perez to choose from.
I also think it’d be smart to start Bumgarner for 2 innings to face Aoki, Hosmer and Gordon, then bring in Hudson for the 3rd and hope he can take you through the 7th. KC doesn’t work counts, so Bumgarner could easily get through 6-7 batters in <30 pitches.
Yeah, and Posey and Morse too were SHORTSTOPS when they first came into pro ball (Even the Duffman was a Dirtbag! Great name for a field position, dirtbag; if the game had been started in Aus, betcha there’d be a position known as “dirtbag”.).
Thus I propose The Prime Directive in Games 7 of WS’ in years where both teams started in WC elimination games: the managers nominate 9 starters, whose names go into a drum of pingpong balls, one for each position they’ve played at since high school, to be assigned whichever of those positions they come out as, then Play Ball!
And I propose that we name this Prime Directive to commemorate its originator: FIFA.
AL rules put a significant damper on a strategy like this, because you can’t swap another fielder to the mound without losing the DH for the rest of the game.
This can be alleviated somewhat by batting Morse in the 3-hole so that he’s at least guaranteed an appearance before anyone has to play the field, but you’ll still have Tim Hudson’s bat stinking up the heart of the order thereafter.
I’m really hoping Butler, Hosmer, and Dyson all pitch tonight.
Bumgarner or lose. Very disappointed with Bochy. Four times he left his starters in too long. Three losses, one pen collapse by the Royals. He even burned Petit last night for no good reason. Can we lose the WS by having two veterans go 0-2? I think the G have a 20-30% chance of winning at this point. For us to win, Madbum has to go at least 6, and the four pen stalwarts be able to navigate the last three. Extra innings, we have Vogelson and Lincecum, neither of whom inspires.
I had a kneejerk response in support of your kicking out at Bochy, but on reflection, I withdraw it. I don’t think you allow enough for the puzzle that’s been confronting Bochy in this series. His typical early-inning fireman, his Dick Radatz, in this season, had been Jean Machi, who performed admirably until mid-summer, then fell off the side of a cliff. Bochy’s not been able to find an adequate replacement for that spot; he tried Kontos, who’s pretty good at it, but then he’d have to forego Lincecum in the post-season. He used Petit there a few times, and Affeldt too, but then he was deprived of them for their more suitable roles in those games and a few more after. He even tried Lincecum, but Timmy’s most vulnerable time occurs in his first few batters, so that’s obviously got flaws.
Point being: Bochy didn’t HAVE any safe alternative to going with Peavy, Hudson and Vogelsong until it was obvious every drop of efficacy was gone from them. Yes, Petit, but the plan, obviously, has been to only bringing in Petit in a tied or near-tied game and to eat up all the innings he can until the bullpen can be activated to preserve a late lead.
This is sort of akin to a TON of criticism I’ve seen on the Giants’ fanblogs about Buster Posey not hitting for power in these playoffs and seemingly getting worse in each AB. Uhm – he’s now caught sixteen (16) straight games, with one small respite in the late innings of last night’s game. The only reason Posey had it in him to make his second-half charge was because Sanchez took a frightful, career-threatening, even career-ending beating in so many first half games. And we see BOTH Posey and Salvi Perez taking blows to the head during these playoffs, which take a horrible toll; yet both soldier on, game after game. I say FOOEY to you if you criticize Buster OR Salvi for supposedly substandard production at this point, as if they have any control over it or can do better. They’re both laboring manfully and deserve our sympathies. It’s not as if Yogi Berra had to go thru a wildcard game, a division series, and a league series, before getting to the World Series.
And I say PHOOEY as well to those who second guess Bochy on trying to keep his Rube Goldberg of a ballclub going and going beyond its comfort zone.
I shouldn’t have given Hector Sanchez ALL the credit to allowing Posey to be and stay mostly fresh thru the second half of the season.
When Sanchez went down one-too-many-times to brain trauma, the Giants were forced to resort to the minor leagues. They started by bringing up Quiroz, who has some experience with the Giants but no bat, and that’s what they got.
Then they took a chance with rookie Andrew Susac. Susac did a terrific job, not just at the plate, where they figured he’d be an improvement over Quiroz (and Sanchez, too, as it turned out), but behind the plate, where he was something of a revelation. This allowed Posey to spend a lot of games at IB (Belt was off on with his own concussion(s) woes, and putting Morse at first proved pretty much a re-arrangment of the deck chairs on the Titanic to the Giants’ defense; they actually resortd to Arias over Morse in several games), and his getting out of the squat and into relatively less stressful first base coincided with his big long run at the plate — and not surprising, the Giants’ recovery from their June swoon.
Is there a difference between the “FOOEY” response inspried by one criticism and the “PHOOEY” response for the other?
Hong Kong Phooey was wondering.
The first is more emphatic, mostly because the idea of criticizing Posey for not being able to do something he’d certainly be a lot more fit to do if he wasn’t in the squat for EVERY game, is a lot more outrageous than criticizing the manager of either one of the teams that made it to the 7th and deciding game of a given WS for being an incompetent boob, because this is America.
All I would really like to have back is Game 2 or Game 3, get Petit into the game in time. Try Lincecum in the other. Yesterday was tough, those high bounces and Belt’s iffy D do not happen often, let alone in the same game. But really, I am not sure I want to see the game if Hudson is pitching. It is going to be the same funeral that it was in Games 7 in 1987 and in 2002. Edit: Holy cow, he is going with Hudson. Not happy.
I don’t blame Belt for that; I blame Peavy. Peavy’s who’s required to cover first base on that play, and he did not, indeed did not even try. Instead, when Belt had made the fielding play and looked up for Peavy, who he naturally and quite properly assumed was headed to first base, Peavy was stopped still and pointing urgently to home plate and yelling at Belt to throw the ball to Posey at home — despite that KC’s runner at third base was their slowest runner of all, Salvi Perez, who had ALREADY DECLINED to head to home.
That left Belt two options: 1. hope that somehow unknown to him Panik, who’s not especially fast, was then in full flight behind his back headed towards first base to receive Belt’s toss, or 2. make a desperate plunge, dive or slide at first base.
Maybe it’s not entirely out of order to criticize Belt for not have the instantaneous perspicacity to commit entirely to option 2, MAYBE; but what Peavy did, or rather did not do and did instead, was against the routine, unexpected, inappropriate, wrong, and the product of faulty thinking under pressure.
None of which is Belt’s fault.
Giants win on a Holland blown save, perhaps Herrera
So what is it, 75% chance Holland, 25% chance Herrera?
0% anything else happens, right?
Do people always write these things on comments sections so they can come back and gloat about how smart they are if they’re right? I promise nobody is going to be impressed if you turn out to be right, absent maybe your mom.
No way Herrera fails tonight in HIS role at least; this is his Oscar Taveras Tribute Game.
Why not just start Bumgarner and ride him as long as he can go? I find it hard to believe that he can give SF only 2-3 relief innings. Why not 4-5-6?
You mean other than that he just pitched 9 innings 3 days ago?
Flags fly forever, but it isn’t worth killing your pitcher to do it.
So he can pitch a couple innings on short rest, but he will die if he throws a few more innings beyond that? Sorry but I don’t buy it.
He’s used to throwing an inning or two’s worth of pitches on his throw day. Anything more than that is uncharted territory. Given the well established history of ineffectiveness of starters going on 3 days rest, trying to get more than that out of Bumgarner seems like a poor strategy. He’s a great pitcher, but that doesn’t mean his arm recovers faster than anyone else’s.
Actually, he’s “used to throwing” 75 pitches on his “throw day”. To me, that seems more like between 3 and 5 innings, possibly 6-7 if things break his way with batter anxiety and wizard defense.
What IS his normal “throw day”, anyway? Tuesday, or today? On a 5 days rest schedule, which was mostly the case during the regular season, it’d be TODAY. In shorter service every 4th day, it’d be EITHER yesterday or today. Did he even do it yesterday?
Not all pitches are the same. There is a pretty big difference between throwing meaningless pitches on an off day in the bullpen and throwing pitches in the highest leverage game imaginable.
75 pitches on the side ? 75 pitches in a game. High stress pitches take a bigger toll on a pitcher.
To be fair the pitches he threw in game 5 didn’t appear to be very stressful at all. Even in a WS game setting.
117 pitches.
This game needs to end with both teams throwing position players on the mound.
Dave, you are one of the brightest guys around, but this is total idiocy. And we’ll never get to find out why because none of this will never happen.
Excellent, completely thorough reasoning behind your opinion.
You do have to admire the detail, especially the vast array of footnoted references.
Yost has improved a great deal over the past several weeks, but there is no way that he will consider using Wade Davis in the early innings of the game and Shields as the set-up man in the 7th.
Agreed. Far more likely that Yost plans on using shields in the 3rd or 4th inning and keeps Davis for later. Even then, Shields coming in will probably only happen if Guthrie falters.
Dave, I’m surprised at you. I thought the poll in last night’s chat clearly showed that you should write about how it sucks that you had a Fox article to write.
Honestly, I would be very surprised if either manager did anything close to this, but we’ll see I guess.