The Rays Used a Catcher To Protect a Late Lead
No one ever wants to play 16 innings. Pretty much no one ever wants to watch 16 innings, but, certainly, no one ever wants to play them. Even Ernie Banks would want those 16 innings spread over two games, instead of just one. At a certain point, baseball breaks down. The rosters get warped and everyone’s tired, and while you could say it becomes more of a psychological battle than a physical one, the baseball at the end of a marathon resembles only slightly the baseball at the start. There’s a reason Rob Manfred has talked about changing the rules in extra innings, and it’s not because he hates baseball. It’s because, when a game goes too long, the players hate baseball. And based on how few people remain in the stadium, many of the fans do, too.
The Rays and Marlins played 16 innings on Tuesday. The Marlins are out of it, and the Rays might as well be, but there’s no giving up, not in the regular season. Definitely not in early July. The game took place in the NL ballpark, and things inevitably got weird. The Rays, of course, don’t have a conventional pitching staff, so they quickly ran low on pitchers. Meanwhile, over the past three years, no one with at least 150 plate appearances has a lower wRC+ than Dan Straily, but the Marlins were forced into using him as a pinch-hitter. A game that goes 10 feels like it’ll end after 11. A game that goes 15 feels like it’ll end after the heat death of the universe. At any moment, a team might score a run. But after it’s been long enough, scoring feels impossible.
At last, in the 16th, things broke the Rays’ way. The game had been tied at four since the fifth. Then the Rays put up a five-spot. The rally featured an RBI single by long reliever Vidal Nuno, and the hit was his second in as many innings. As Nuno batted in the 16th, he’d thrown only 26 pitches. It looked as if Nuno would be fine to close the game out. Then he ran down the line after contact.
Vidal Nuno strained his hamstring. He was replaced. Though the Rays wound up ahead 9-4, they’d need someone to record three outs. They didn’t turn to their bullpen. They turned to their bench.
Realistically, going into the bottom of the 16th, three pitchers were available. But Matt Andriese had just thrown two innings the day before, and he was supposed to throw two innings the day following. Diego Castillo had already thrown two days in a row. That left Jose Alvarado, but Kevin Cash wanted to try as hard as he could to save Alvarado for the next game. He figured that one was going to be desperate. Besides, he had a five-run lead, and he had a backup catcher.
On Tuesday, June 26, Cash played Jose Alvarado at first base. And on Tuesday, July 3, Cash played Jesus Sucre at pitcher. There’s nothing too terribly uncommon about a position player taking the mound. But almost literally all of the time, that happens when the team is losing by quite a lot. The Rays were winning. Sucre was supposed to protect the 16th-inning lead. According to the Rays’ own TV broadcasters, they’d never seen such a maneuver before.
Obviously, there were what you might call extenuating circumstances. The game had gone very long, and Nuno had gotten hurt. It’s not the first time we’ve seen something like this. In 2016, in a 19-inning contest, the Blue Jays handed a tie to Ryan Goins, and then Darwin Barney. In 2014, John Baker wound up the Cubs’ winning pitcher in a 16-inning game against the Rockies. And there was that 17-inning game in 2012 between the Orioles and Red Sox, where Chris Davis got the win and Darnell McDonald got the loss. Extra innings make box scores crazy. But as a quick factoid, I identified 369 position-player pitching appearances since 1950. I deleted the appearances made by actual two-way players, or position-changers. In those games, the teams using the position players won nine times. Sucre’s appearance was very unusual. Especially since Alvarado was good to go.
What was the thought process? As strange as the situation was, I think this is actually fairly simple to understand. Sucre is a catcher, so he has a strong arm. As he prepared to face his first batter, the leverage index was just 0.19. All Sucre had to do was get three outs before allowing five runs. Sucre had actually pitched three times before. The first time, he wound up with a scoreless inning. The second time, he allowed three runs in an inning. The third time, he allowed three runs in an inning. That’s not comfortable, but that’s also not five. Remember those 369 position-player pitching appearances since 1950? They’ve totaled 385 innings. The group’s runs per nine comes out to 7.75. Not good. Not good! But not so bad. It’s hard to allow five runs in an inning, when you have an arm good enough to be a big-league catcher. So was the idea. And Sucre seemed into it, given his smiles, and his wink at a teammate:
Sucre’s first batter was Lewis Brinson. In a hurry, Brinson found himself behind in the count 0-and-2. And then Brinson stayed on a low-away fastball:
According to Baseball Savant, the hit probability was 47%. The leverage index increased from 0.19 to 0.43. Up came Derek Dietrich, and almost before a replay of Brinson’s hit was over, Dietrich had one of his own:
The hit probability was 39%. The leverage index increased from 0.43 to 0.92. It was at this point the Marlins’ TV broadcasters started murmuring about the laughable possibility of a comeback. Dietrich’s single just barely eluded a glove, but a hit is a hit, and that brought up Starlin Castro. The first pitch was a reminder of how difficult it can be to get obliterated:
That’s 71 miles per hour, just hanging there, middle-middle, and Castro — who is a fine major-league hitter, all things considered — fouled it off. There might be no more hittable pitch thrown in a baseball game this year. Hitting the ball is hard, even when the pitcher makes a mistake. Even when the pitcher isn’t a pitcher at all. I’m sure Castro was upset with himself. But, well, he found his own way on base shortly thereafter:
The hit probability was 26%. With just the slightest difference, it might’ve turned into a double play. But Castro singled, and the bases were loaded with nobody out. The leverage index increased from 0.92 to 2.08. The combined probability of all those balls in play becoming hits works out to just under 5%. So it goes. Jose Alvarado got up and started throwing, because, all of a sudden, it didn’t make sense to use a position player anymore. To buy time, the Rays’ catcher had a mound meeting with the Rays’ other catcher:
When that had gone on long enough, out came the Rays’ pitching coach, to buy even more time:
And when that had gone on long enough, out came the Rays’ manager, to sub in Alvarado:
He was denied. He was denied the opportunity to make a substitution, because the catcher and pitching coach had already been out there, and they didn’t try to make a substitution themselves. Sucre would have to face another batter before Cash could do anything. Sucre chose a good time to get his first whiff:
…and his first out:
The loudest contact Sucre allowed also turned into the only out he recorded. It was a run-scoring sac fly, but that didn’t matter; only the fifth run of the inning would matter. And for whatever it’s worth, the hit probability there was 39%. Sucre didn’t allow a single ball in play that had even a 50% chance of going for a knock. You might argue that Sucre did just fine. Got unlucky. But Cash didn’t want to push his luck any further, so in came Alvarado. Sucre departed just as smiley as he’d entered:
Alvarado successfully recorded the last two outs, although not before somehow finding a way to walk Straily. The Rays beat the Marlins, 9-6, in 16 innings. Jesus Sucre did not get credit for a hold. It wasn’t a save situation.
I don’t know how the Marlins felt about what the Rays did. It could be the main reason why we don’t see this more often, in lopsided wins — even if it seems safe enough to bring in a position player to pitch, it might not sit very well with the opponent. You can see how it might be considered insulting. Given that this particular game was in the 16th, and given that the Rays’ long reliever had just gotten hurt, the Marlins could probably understand. At least as much as you can ever understand anything as late as the 16th inning. Jesus Sucre still might not believe he got a chance to do what he did. After a sufficient number of innings, it all just feels like a weird dream.
Jeff made Lookout Landing a thing, but he does not still write there about the Mariners. He does write here, sometimes about the Mariners, but usually not.
I was at that 2016 Jays game. I remember Goins skating by the skin of his teeth, but apart from giving up the game winning HR, Darwin Barney got a K and an infield pop up I think. Once his HR/FB rate settles down he’ll be ok.
Yup, Barney was definitely a better pitcher than Goins, but got unlucky there with the HR.
i vote yes
Now we need the Twins to get into a similar situation so you can write your dream article about Willians Astudillo.
I’m glad things like this happen occasionally. They help answer the question, how good are major league pitchers, really? We normally evaluate them relative to their peers, and it’s easy to forget what a rarefied atmosphere that is. Comparing them to a position player with a strong arm is way of controlling for some of the natural attributes that many young men have, like power and athleticism, and judging the importance of other factors that presumably only the best arms, with the help of training have, like movement and location.
I thought the most interesting part of the article was that 7.75 ERA in 385 IP. That’s not a small sample size, so I think it’s somewhat meaningful. As Jeff says, not good, but not out of the range of what even the best pitchers do on a bad day, and what barely above replacement level pitchers do from time to time. And what if, hypothetically, those position players had all trained just to pitch? Surely that ERA would have been somewhat lower, if still not good enough for a regular job.
I’d bet that 7.75 ERA is buoyed significantly by the lack of meaningful innings in that sample. Aside from a batter’s desire not to strikeout against a position player, you’d figure those innings are largely extreme-low leverage situations.
My favorite use of a position player to pitch was the Jose Oquendo game on May 14, 1988. Oquendo threw four innings for the Cardinals — the 16th through the 19th — against the Braves, with the first three being scoreless. He gave up two in the 19th, on a double by Ken Griffey Sr. (It was Griffey’s second double off Oquendo in the game.)
Oquendo pitched a total of six innings in his career, allowing eight runs. His four innings against Atlanta in 1988 was by far the best of his career and shows something about the quality of the Braves’ offense. (Then again, Oquendo gave up four hits and six walks, striking out one, so he was lucky. On the other hand, he wasn’t a pitcher.)
The game also featured Jose DeLeon, a starting pitcher, playing the outfield for the Cardinals for the last four innings. He switched back and forth with right fielder Tom Brunansky, depending on where the Cardinals thought the ball would be hit. DeLeon and Brunansky switched positions eleven times in four innings, which meant DeLeon’s position was listed as “LF-RF-LF-RF-LF-RF-LF-RF-LF-RF-LF-RF.” John Tudor, a starting pitcher with a career OPS+ of 4, pinch hit for DeLeon in the bottom of the 19th. (DeLeon’s career OPS+ was -35, although it was just -9 for 1988.)
Ozzie Smith came to bat 10 times, although that’s barely a footnote.
The box and play-by-play is here: https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/SLN/SLN198805140.shtml
This was fascinating to read. I’ve been waiting for teams to start switching their OF around like that. It makes so much sense and is so simple. The Phillies halfheartedly did it this year and then stopped. I never realized someone had done it before.
The White Sox and Reds depleted their entire benches and bullpens on the same day playing a game that “only” went 12 innings and the Reds had to extend their final pitcher beyond what they wanted. This is a function of how rosters are constructed and how pitching staffs are managed in 2018. A huge number of starters are not expected to get more than 15 or 18 outs on a regular basis and almost every team carries at least one pitcher that is not even expected to get three outs regularly. So especially in a national league park, teams are very ill equipped to go more than 9 innings, an event which happens roughly once every 2 weeks for every team.
Especially with most relievers limited to about an inning each as well, and not wanting to pitch a guy more than 2 days in a row, bullpens get very thin right now when the starter gets pulled early.
This would not have been a problem had Mitch Moreland been playing for them at first base.
I wonder if the next Market Inefficiency is indeed true two-way players. Not Ohtani-style ace-starter/great DH, that’s a high bar, so much as regular or semi-regular position player/competent reliever. That might be Brendan McKay’s future, of course, but there are current big leaguers who I think could probably do this. There are no doubt many former two-way players in the majors right now– some who converted while in the minors, like Robert Stock for example, or some who were only developed one way after being drafted.
Matt Davidson was a recent “position player pitching” and he looked quite good, hitting 92mph and throwing four(!) off-speed pitchers. Apparently he was an excellent pitcher in high school in Southern California, going 27-5 with a 1.05 ERA for his high school career. He too is mostly a DH; I can’t help but wonder if he could be a backup reliever, even if only a mop-up guy to save more valuable arms some wear and tear.
Teams could definitely do worse than to identify fringe starters/bench players who have pitching experience to go to as a mop-up guy. At worst you reduce the risk of injury when you have to use a position player, and once in a while it’s going to give you an edge in those 15+ inning games when you know that you have an extra arm you can use.
The Tigers had a UT guy Danny Worth I think who had a really decent knuckleball. He pitched a couple times and batters did not look so comfortable against him as you would expect. If he could’ve just hit his weight I thought they should have used him as a super utility guy.
As one of the few fans who enjoys watching extra innings, a/k/a bonus baseball, I really hate the proposed rule change for extra innings. I think expanding the size of active rosters–which may be inevitable anyway in light of lighter workloads for starting pitchers–is the right cure, as opposed to this starting a man on second nonsense.
The roster is too large and too flexible already, that’s actually the source of the problem. Lots of starters going only 5, so they throw harder, lots of relievers who rarely go more than 1, so they throw harder. That’s only POSSIBLE because there’s so much roster flexibility.
If you burn too many pitchers, call up two more for tomorrow; between the 10-day DL and the ability to send someone down for 10 days (or less if someone goes on the DL and you’re replacing him, that’s the 10-day DL now so you’re almost always replacing people for injuries).
With less roster flexibility pitchers would have to let up a little rather than going all out all the time, and the result would be more hits and more balls in play (which MLB also claims to want). Fewer pitching changes means faster games (which MLB also claims to want).
The excessive roster flexibility doesn’t work for extra innings, because you can’t change the roster during play, but the roster only needs to be changed in play because you’re using a 10 man bullpen with 2-3 guys not on the active roster at any given time and taking full advantage of having such an overlarge bullpen by ROUTINELY using 4 relievers in 9 inning games.
“Lots of starters going only 5, so they throw harder, lots of relievers who rarely go more than 1, so they throw harder.”
I think you have the cause and effect backwards here. They only go 5 because they have to throw hard on every pitch, because major league hitters are so good and even shortstops hit for power now, and hitters are in general more patient (more pitches per PA) than in the past.
Strikeouts are up, balls in play are down, scoring is down. They are throwing harder because they can and they can because of the roster flexibility.
Even if hitters were so good that they “have to” throw that hard, they wouldn’t throw that hard if they didn’t have the roster flexibility, they’d simply accept more scoring because they’d have no choice.
The current pitching style is entirely dependent on unprecedented roster flexibility.
At one point with the backup catcher batting and Realmuto on deck, the Marlins broadcast pointed out there was a catcher pitching, a catcher catching, a catcher batting, and a catcher on deck!
“Pretty much no one ever wants to watch 16 innings…”
Until Game 5 of the 2017 WS this is, by far, the most exciting baseball game I’d ever watched.
https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/HOU/HOU200510090.shtml
Roger Clemens: Pinch Hitter
Julio Franco getting meaningful playing time at age 46
Brian McCann striking out with the bases loaded.
An entire second game occurring between the trying run and the winning run.
The main flaw with the above situation is that while Sucre very well might have gotten through the inning with less than 5 runs allowed, as you saw, once he lets about 3 guys on-base, you need to change to another pitcher anyways. It’s maybe worth a try – if he can get to 2 outs you can maybe stretch him until the tying run is at the plate. But I most of the time, you’re going to have to use the next reliever anyways.
Maybe the real inefficiency is having a reliever come on and actually pitch hard for his time. I wonder if there was a way you could tell Alvarado to come in and just lob BP-level meatballs to the first few hitters in hopes that they pop them up or bounce out, and maybe that would be less stress on his arm.