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Lorenzo Cain and a Brief History of Mad Dashes Home

October 29, 2015

The World Series is delivering its thrills, but one can still feel a residual tingle from Lorenzo Cain‘s first-to-home dash on Eric Hosmer’s single in the deciding game of the ALCS. Part of that thrill is due to this being a repeat performance by Cain. In the fifth and deciding game of Kansas City’s ALDS, he went first-to-home on a Hosmer single, chipping away at Houston’s 2-0 lead on the way to a 7-2 triumph. Not as dramatic as plating the go-ahead run in the eighth, but it loomed pretty large at the time.

What hasn’t gotten so much attention is the parallel to one of the most fabled plays in baseball history: Enos Slaughter’s Mad Dash Home. In Game Seven of the 1946 World Series, the Red Sox scored two in the top of the eighth to tie the Cardinals 3-3. (Sound familiar?) In the home half, Slaughter got on first for St. Louis, and when Harry “The Hat” Walker laced a two-out hit, Slaughter never slowed down, racing home ahead of the throw to score the decisive run.

The similarities, and differences, between the plays are enlightening. The greatest apparent difference is that Walker was credited with a double. This is widely regarded as a scorekeeper’s mistake. Walker took second on the throw home, and should have had a single, thus making Slaughter’s basepath aggression much clearer. Hosmer left no room for doubt both of his times by staying at first base.

For other matters, it will probably help to look at the plays in question. First, Slaughter in 1946. The quality of the footage is not at all great — you can hear the rattle of the film projector from which it’s taken — but given the age of the play, we are probably a little fortunate to have something this good.

The footage shows Slaughter running with the pitch. We see a close angle on him breaking from first, then cut to a shot behind the plate for Walker’s hit, so it’s not seamless, but it’s clear from how fast Slaughter enters the second shot that he was indeed going.

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Effectively Wild Episode 754: The Royals Are Reading Your Mind

by Ben Lindbergh

October 29, 2015

Ben and Sam banter about the brilliance of Roger Angell, then discuss the latest Ned Yost news, Jacob deGrom’s supposed pitch-tipping, and more.

Podcast (effectively-wild): Play in new window | Download

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The Royals Run Prevention Deserves More Praise

by Dave Cameron

October 29, 2015

After two games, the runaway narrative of the 2015 World Series is the success of the Royals contact offense; they just keep swinging at and hitting everything in sight, even against pitchers who are used to blowing opponents away. From the fifth inning on last night, most of Fox’s broadcast consisted of heaping praise on the Royals “relentless” offense, and pleading with baseball to build line-ups more like this one.

The Royals line-up is fun to watch, and it is nice to see a team put the ball in play as often as the Royals do, but I’d like to point out the following set of facts. Note that we’re using R/PA instead of R/G in the runs column to account for the extra inning contests that make per plate appearance a better denominator than per game.

Royals Offense and Defense

KC Offense	BA	OBP	SLG	R/PA
Regular Season	0.269	0.322	0.412	0.12
Postseason	0.269	0.327	0.440	0.15
World Series	0.253	0.323	0.398	0.12
KC Opponents	BA	OBP	SLG	R/PA
Regular Season	0.249	0.314	0.396	0.10
Postseason	0.220	0.299	0.368	0.11
World Series	0.165	0.230	0.203	0.06

During the postseason, the Royals offense has hit a little bit better than they did during the regular season, which is a remarkable achievement given the quality of pitching they’ve faced. October is a low run-scoring environment, so for them to basically sustain their regular season levels of hitting is a notable achievement.

But look at what the Royals pitchers and defenders have done to opposing offenses, especially in this series. The Mets have a .433 OPS after the first two games in Kansas City. They’ve scored five runs in 23 innings. They have one extra one base hit. Even the rallies they have managed were based on walks and bloopers, as the Royals pitching staff has rarely had to work out of jams.

The contact-hitting-versus-dominating-pitching narrative is an easy one, especially when Jacob deGrom and Matt Harvey combine for four strikeouts between them. But the Royals are up 2-0 more because of their run prevention, which has been remarkably good in the first two games. If the Royals were striking out left and right, they’d probably still be up 2-0, given how effectively KC has shut down New York’s offense.

There’s nothing wrong with giving credit to the Royals hitters; guys like Alcides Escobar really are having remarkable Octobers. But let’s not overlook the job the Royals run prevention unit is doing; they’re the ones really dominating the Mets so far.

Job Posting: Houston Astros Baseball Research and Development Analyst

by Paul Swydan

October 29, 2015

Position: Houston Astros, Analyst, Baseball Research and Development

Location: Houston

Description:
The Houston Astros are seeking an Analyst for the team’s Baseball Research and Development group. The Analyst will work closely with the Director of R&D and the analytics team to conduct research and develop methods that encourage the effective understanding and application of information throughout Baseball Operations. If you are passionate about understanding the game of baseball, enjoy the challenge of solving a diverse array of problems and want to work in a collaborative team environment where your contribution will make a difference, this is the position for you.

Responsibilities:

Research, develop and test mathematical, statistical and predictive models to support Baseball Operations in player evaluation, roster construction and game tactics.
Conduct research to improve the organization’s understanding of the game of baseball.
Prepare and explore a variety of baseball data sets and construct workflows to utilize this data.
Communicate closely with front office, coaching and scouting personnel in the gathering and application of baseball information.
Build information systems to support Baseball Operations efforts to improve player health and performance.
Evaluate and lead implementation of advanced technologies.

Qualifications:

Bachelor’s degree or higher in statistics, engineering, applied math, physics, quantitative social sciences, computer science, operations research or similar field.
Strong analytical and problem-solving skills.
Strong interpersonal and communication skills (written and verbal).
Proficiency with SQL and relational databases.
Ability to communicate technical ideas to non-technical audiences using data visualization.
Experience with baseball data and understanding of sabermetric concepts.
Experience with statistical software, programming languages and machine learning techniques is strongly preferred.

Compensation:
This position is compensated.

To Apply:
If interested, apply here.

(Un)necessary Analysis of Johnny Cueto’s Different Deliveries

by August Fagerstrom

October 29, 2015

This being primarily a numbers site and all, we tend to try our hardest to deal with objective truths around these parts. If it’s not backed by, y’know, evidence, why say it? That’s one of the primary reasons this whole sabermetrics thing got off the ground in the first place. But, hey. We’re human beings. We’ve all got a little hot take in us, whether we care to admit it or not. Inside all of us, there’s a little pool of hot take magma, bubbling up over time until we can’t hold it down anymore and we’ve got no choice but to let it spew out and suffer the consequences. Anyway, it’s been a while since I fired one off, and I can’t hold it down anymore. Here it comes!

Johnny Cueto Is the Most Entertaining Player in Baseball.

Whew! That felt good. Johnny Cueto, yep. Most entertaining player in baseball. Try and stop me. I’ve even got a list of four subjective reasons as to why Johnny Cueto is the Most Entertaining Player in baseball, and, yes, I’d put them in a slideshow if I could.

Reason number one: dreadlocks. They’re awesome and baseball needs more of them. Let Cueto’s brothers play too. Number two: he yells on the mound a lot. Yells at himself, yells at the umpire, yells at opposing batters after he strikes them out. If I can go against the hot take grain for a second, I’d like to put forth that the more emotion in baseball, the better. Number three: the unpredictability of his performance. Never know what you’re gonna get from Cueto! All-time postseason clunker, or all-time World Series great? How about both, in back-to-back starts? I’ll tell you who the most boring pitcher in baseball is — that Clayton Kershaw. Yawn. Where’s the fun in watching a guy who’s just awesome every time out? (Crosses “Call Clayton Kershaw boring” off outline.) Last, but certainly not least: he has four different deliveries! Four! And one of them is called “The Rocking Chair”! If anybody else strays from their typical mechanics by even a hair, they have to sit down with their pitching coach the next day to fix it and someone on the internet writes 1,000 words on how that pitcher is now broken. Cueto does this on purpose!

And it’s awesome. So, of course it needs to be broken down. It’s something I’ve been meaning to look at for a while, and I figure there’s no better time than now, after Cueto just threw the first World Series complete game by an AL pitcher since Jack Morris in ’91, and might not even pitch again this year, what with the Royals already being up 2-0 in the series.

So, after the conclusion of last night’s game, I went back and charted all of Cueto’s deliveries in a spreadsheet alongside the PITCHf/x data provided by BrooksBaseball. Jeff Passan has named the deliveries: the Tiant, the Quick Pitch, the Rocking Chair and the Traditional (this essentially just means he’s in the stretch).

First, the most basic numbers. Usage:

Quick Pitch: 48%
Tiant: 25%
Rocking Chair: 7%
Traditional: 20%

The Johnny Cueto motion you’re used to is the Tiant. That’s the one he came up using in Cincinnati, where he turns his back to the hitter before delivering. Seems that’s been usurped as the go-to delivery by the Quick Pitch. The pitches, themselves, don’t seem to change much, between the two. The fastball went 93.4 with the Quick Pitch, and 93.7 with the Tiant. With the Quick Pitch, the four-seam had a bit more rise, and the sinker a bit more sink. The changeup was more fade-heavy out of the Quick Pitch, and more drop-heavy out of the Tiant. Surely, in such small samples, the differences could be a product of noise. It’s also not hard to imagine the different deliveries resulting in differently shaped pitches.

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What Sets the Royals Apart?

by Tony Blengino

October 29, 2015

The last week of October is here; the clocks are about to be turned back, autumn is in full swing, and there are two teams left standing in pursuit of the World Series title. This week, we’re taking a look at the defining characteristics that have delivered the New York Mets and Kansas City Royals to the brink of the game’s ultimate goals. Earlier this week, we discussed the Mets. Today, it’s the American League champion Royals.

In 2014, the Royals snuck up on a lot of people, including myself. This year, not so much. They have once again ridden their own unique formula — a combination of contact hitting, speed, defense and a deep, flame-throwing bullpen — to the Fall Classic. While the Mets were a second-half phenomenon, the Royals sat at the front of the AL Central pack all season. The only doubt was whether they would earn home-field advantage throughout the AL playoffs, which they did with a productive final weekend of the regular season.

The postseason has been a little dicier. The Astros appeared to have them pinned in the ALDS, only to watch the Royals escape with a late Game Four rally. The ALCS versus the Blue Jays wasn’t quite as eventful, though the Royals needed to survive a classic Game Six at home to finally put away the Blue Jays. They unleashed a bit more of their blue magic in Game One of the World Series, winning an instant classic that featured everything from leadoff inside-the-park homers to Bartolo Colon–Chris Young relief pitching duels, to you name it. What are some of the distinguishing characteristics that have the delivered the Royals to this moment?

Their Position Players Show Up for Work
About a year ago, in this space, and a couple months back at ESPN Insider, I examined the continuity and dependability of the Royals’ position player corps. In 2014, they became only the sixth AL playoff team in the divisional era to return eight or nine of their position player regulars from the previous season. Last season, 84.9% of the Royals’ total plate appearances were recorded by their nine regulars, fourth highest among that group of six clubs.

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Eno Sarris Baseball Chat — 10/29/15

by Eno Sarris

October 29, 2015