Subject:
quantify Baseball to other sports; Optimal Strategy for
Baseball
Date:
Sun, 26 Oct 2003 09:38:15 -0600
From:
Archimedes Plutonium <a_plutonium@dtgnet.com>
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Organization:
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Newsgroups:
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A friend asked me to watch this years World Series to render my
opinion.
I sketchedly watched and here is my opinion, as I usually do not have
time for such recreation.

I watched only parts of game 2 & 3 where the Florida Marlins were
being
overpowered, and missed game 1. And from game 3 I decided it was a
waste
of time to watch games 4 or 5 in that the New York Yanks would
probably
overpower the Marlins and so only watched a few innings of pitching. I
watched nearly the full game of 6.

I had seen some clips of Baseball sluggers such as B. Bonds and S.
Sosa
(excuse me if name is incorrect spelling) from the sports section of
the
local TV news when getting the weather report so I have some awareness
of the best hitters of Baseball.

I am not interested in sports only to the extent in which my
analytical
mind can
recast the sport as to Optimal Strategies.

Baseball Optimal Strategy: after watching this last game of World
Series
2003 I have concluded that there is a easily attained OS for Baseball
which includes these threads.

(1) The pitcher in Baseball, unlike many other sports, is the dominate
feature of baseball when you consider that of 9 players, the pitcher
has
a say in every offensive action.

(2) We can math quantify the dominance of Baseball pitcher with other
sports such as Football. Where the quarterback has a big control of
the
offense but not as much of control of the overall game as the Baseball
pitcher for defense. The quarterback if he ran every play would have
as
much control as the Baseball pitcher. But he does not and has a
handoff
to a running back or a receiver. So we can say mathwise that the
Baseball pitcher has 100% control of defense Say-of-Action whereas in
Football the quarterback at most has 25% to 33% Say-of-Action concept.
Because in each offensive play in Football, the quarterback either
runs
himself or hands to a runningback or throws to a receiver. But in
Baseball, every offensive play has a Say by the pitcher with his
pitch.

(3) So, unlike every other sport, the pitcher in Baseball is the
dominate feature because the Say-of-Action is 100% the pitcher.

So, the OS of Baseball in order to assemble a team that will win the
World Series for that year, is key in having as many pitchers that are
ace pitchers such as Beckett and Pavano of Marlins. Beckett pitching
was
superior to that of Pettite and Pavano to that of Clemens.

For 2004, if a team had 2 pitchers of the quality of Beckett, they
would
have the highest chances of reaching the World Series.

By the way, I did not see the pitchers batting, so I guess the game of
Baseball has made some progressive rule change where it is optional
for
the pitchers to go to bat; and in the old days I remember the pitcher
was usually the 9th spot hitter and usually an easy out. I guess the
new
rule is that when the option is picked that the team rotates the 8
hitters and leaves out the pitchers as hitters.

Getting back to this idea that pitching is the key to baseball
winning.
What does it matter for a team to have great hitting such as a Bonds
or
Sosa if they choke on pitching in that the other team with average
hitters but with great pitching. By the way, did Beckett pitch to
Bonds
and Sosa in the 2003 season and what was the result???

Now suppose the Yankees had both Bonds and Sosa in their lineup.
Facing
a Beckett. Would the Yankees have won the 2003 Series? If the Marlins
had 3 pitchers of the quality of Beckett then I would guess that the
Marlins would have still won the game.

I did see clips of the Boston game versus the Yankees and the Boston
ace
pitcher of Martinez (forgive the spelling). So I am guessing that
teams
that have at least one or two good pitchers make it to the playoffs.
Pitching is number one key.

So, these concepts would then ask for a Baseball historian to look at
the winning teams and to see whether every World Series champ had 2
excellent pitchers such as Beckett and Pavano for Florida in 2003.

So, the above should guide all club owners who aspire to win the World
Series that if your team has at least 2 excellent pitchers, is the
basic
prerequisite. And to concentrate the effort more in getting great
pitching than in getting great batting.
The batting of the Marlins was often frustrating and it seemed as
though
homeruns were a rarity for the Marlins so it goes to show that teams
that focus on hitting are not really the Optimal Strategy thread.

And finally a discussion of Pitching itself. I would hate to be a
pitcher personally because throwing a ball at 95 mph for many hours
has
a toll on the arm and is a job that does not last too long. I think
there is a Optimal-Strategy-Subset for pitching itself in baseball.
The
key is to get the batter out in fast quick time. That means it is no
good to strike out a batter rather than to get him to fly out. If a
pitcher is so good at devising a pitch that is popped up for a fly
out,
then that is better than going for 3 strikes because if you pitch a
ball
with a great spin on it such that the probability when hit popps up
then
conceivably 3 pitches for the inning can retire the side whereas
strikeouts require at least 9 pitches. By the way is there any
statistic
where a pitcher retires a complete side with only 3 pitches in all???

So, the pitcher that can devise a pitch that is prone to pop up is
superior to the pitcher that relies on fastballs and strikes. I am
guessing that some pitch has such a spin on it that the batter is
likely
to pop up or ground out.

The perfect pitched Baseball game would have 9 innings and only 9 X 3
=
27
pitches where all batters swung and hit the first pitch and popped out
or grounded out. Not the game where the pitcher made 9 X 9 = 81
pitches
and all strikes and all strikeouts.

Archimedes Plutonium,