THE GAME IS ABOUT TO CHANGE… ONCE AGAIN!

• Posted on 14 November 2024
• By Carl Lemelin
• 0

A.J. Hinch and his Detroit Tigers have caught all MLB organizations’ attention with a successful new approach to the makeup and usage of their pitching staff.

The 80’s brought us small ball, speed and the advent of the specialized pitcher. In the 90’s, it was the power game, largely driven by the infamous steroids’ era. The 2000’s saw the perfecting of analytics-based scouting, following Michael Lewis’ highly influential masterpiece best-seller, Moneyball.

All the changes we have seen in the great game of baseball over the past decade-and-a-half are the direct result of advanced analytics and the answers it continues to provide MLB front offices as the technology evolves.

MLB, once an organization steeped in tradition and seen as very reticent to embrace new technologies and change in general, has now gone all-in with a new-age, data-driven guardianship of America’s pastime.

A STEADY EVOLUTION

If you watch a lot of baseball, try to remember the last time you last saw a sacrifice bunt, a hit-and-run play, or a squeeze play? That’s right, I can’t recall when that was either.

Thirty years ago, these staples of small ball were an every-game occurrence. They were considered part of a manager’s strategical arsenal, one that could make the difference in close games. They have now almost completely disappeared from the game.

Why? Because the most important lesson Moneyball taught the world of baseball is that an out is a very precious commodity, one that should not be spent lightly. In other words, decades of data have proven that it’s almost never worth trading an out for 90 more feet on the basepaths.

Even the stolen base lost much of its luster, since it was determined that the risk of producing an out generally outweighs the benefit of a base gained.

All this led to a more station-to-station style of baseball that had traditionalists lamenting the lost artistry and strategic nature the sport had always been known for. Now, everybody seems to favor Earl Weaver’s “bloop and a blast” philosophy. Fill up the bases, then trust the boppers to hit for extra bases and clear them.

We didn’t know it even just ten years ago, but the Moneyball era was only the first stage of the advanced analytics revolution in baseball.

THE STATCAST ERA

As mentioned, MLB as an institution was always resistant to change in the past, but that all changed in 2015 when StatCast was first introduced to all baseball fans.

Before StatCast, there was a traditional faction of the pro baseball world that resisted embracing the data tsunami invading their work environment. StatCast’s roaring success however has all but muted cries for a return to “the good old days”, when baseball front office and managerial decisions were guided more by guts, guile and the eye test.

By fully committing to the data revolution, MLB finally legitimized everything that the analytics crowd had always been trying to say: numbers don’t lie, and information is a good thing, when used properly and in combination with astute human insight.

If you are not familiar with StatCast, I would describe it as Moneyball on steroids. Where Moneyball-born research helped us understand the innerworkings of the game by analysing historical data from game boxscores, StatCast uses modern technology to dig into the physical data that baseball produces.

StatCast tells us exactly how hard, how far and how high a ball is hit. It shows us how fast a ball is thrown, as well as the type and degree of spin imparted to it. It reveals how fast a player runs on the basepaths and while playing defense. And the latest? StatCast now even measures bat speed and bat path! (See my previous blog Bat Tracking: A Game Changer! for more on StatCast’s bat tracking applications.)

You can imagine all the new statistical possibilities that this generates, and more stats simply means more learning opportunities about baseball’s seemingly endless intricacies.

STATCAST FALLOUT

The wealth of information that StatCast data has provided MLB players and coaches has already transformed the game in many ways.

Launch angle data revealed that a ball hit at 15 degrees or higher has a much higher probability to produce a hit. That lead to the “Launch Angle” approach to hitting instruction in the pro ranks, where more lift is being taught in swing mechanics than ever before.

Pitch speed tracking has helped in proving just how important velocity really is to throw off a hitter’s timing.

Spin rate data for pitchers revealed the importance of creating high spin rates not only for vertical and horizontal movement on off-speed pitches, but for reducing the pull of gravity on four-seam fastballs by imparting maximum backspin.

StatCast can even decipher the release point of pitches, helping us understand how the hitter’s perception affects how he reacts to each pitch in relation to a pitcher’s mechanics.

It didn’t take too long to gather enough data that confirmed the overwhelming potency of higher launch angles to create more offense, and of higher velocities and spin rates in preventing runs.

This has since created a vicious cycle that baseball is still grappling with. The quasi-obsession with pitch velocity makes it much more difficult for lineups to generate multiple-hit innings, which puts a premium on extra base hits – thus the focus on launch angle for hitters.

With hitters encouraged to lift and slug, pitchers will in turn favor high-velocity four-seamers in the top portion of the zone to increase the swing-and-miss ratio. And nobody on the hitting side makes the proper adjustments, because that would be going against what the analytics suggest.

A DECADE OF ACCELERATED CHANGE

If you remember Bennett Miller’s Oscar-winning movie starring Brad Pitt as A’s GM Billie Bean, the reason the Moneyball craze seeped into baseball the way it did in the early 90’s was because it was perceived as the only way for small market teams to compete in a context of an ever-expanding payroll spending gap between big and small market franchises.

Numbers crunchers were hired all over to develop team scouting and development philosophies that could produce higher returns (win totals) for each dollar spent. Some of these analytics experts have since graduated to GM and assistant GM positions, and even the rich organizations now all have a well staffed analytics department.

StatCast has become this new breed of baseball executives’ shiny new toy. New data is being cross-referenced with conventional results-born statistics to produce new discoveries that can be applied to organizational schematics.

Teams like the Tampa Bay Rays – the modern-day version of the Oakland A’s – have used this evermore detailed information well to come up with concepts like the extreme defensive shifts (including the 4-outfielders defense), an eclectic-style bullpen, and the opener – replacing the fifth starter spot in the rotation.

Although advanced analytics have now been widely embraced by MLB, they have also pushed the brass to be proactive in their role as guardians of the integrity and entertainment value of the game.

These creative new team M.O.’s have resulted in MLB adopting new rules like the 3 hitters faced minimum for relievers (forcing more strategical decisions from managers), outlawing all defensive shifts (to help raise batting averages and create more athletic defensive plays), and larger bases (an incentive that has activated the running game).

That brings us to the topic of the day: what comes next?

At a time where the game is metamorphosizing before our very eyes, what will be the next point of emphasis for creative baseball minds, and how will MLB react to it?

Well, the 2024 Detroit Tigers gave us a clear answer to this burning question.

THE TIGERS AND THE 2-MAN ROTATION

It may well have been accidental, but the 2024 Tigers could go down in history as the team that ended the 5-man rotation.

A mid-season injury to Casey Mize, the ineffectiveness of Kenta Maeda as a starter, and the trade deadline deal that sent Jack Flaherty to the Dodgers forced the Tigers to be very creative.

Manager A.J. Hinch made the decision to try to navigate the second half of the season using a 2-man rotation – Tarik Skubal and Reese Olson – mixing in a very well mapped out reliever sequence that would maximize favorable matchups.

Now, when you have an anchor that was as automatic as Cy Young favorite Skubal, that makes the whole plan easier to execute, but after playing the role of sellers at the deadline, 8 games behind in the Wild Card race (as of June 30^th), all this was simply viewed as an experiment born out of necessity.

The revolutionary rotation even dropped to a one-man crew when Reese Olson sustained a shoulder strain in mid-July that kept him out of action for 6 weeks.

Lo and behold, the experiment way exceeded expectations and carried the Big Cats to a playoff berth, after going 48-30 from July 1^st on, good for a .615 winning clip – compared to a .452 pace in the first half.

The return of Kerry Carpenter from the injured list also helped, but there is no doubt that gold was found in this new pitching playbook.

Its effectiveness was confirmed in Detroit’s improbable playoff run when we saw the Astros’ lineup get baffled by Skubal and his dominant bullpen teammates. The Tigers then almost upset the Central Division champs, Cleveland Guardians, stretching a hotly contested ALDS to a fifth and deciding game before finally bowing out.

A.J. Hinch’s stated game plan – on non-Skubal starts – was to not allow the opposition’s big bats to face the same pitcher twice in the same game. And boy did it work!

Raise your hand if you knew who Will Vest and Beau Brieske were at the start of the 2024 season. We sure know them now, don’t we?

Hinch, much like Rays’ manager Kevin Cash during his tenure in Tampa Bay, has demonstrated that the value of a bullpen can far exceed the sum of its parts if handled judiciously, with a huge assist from the analytics department.

NO GOING BACK

I simply don’t see how the instant success of the Tigers’ shortened rotation can justify any team still employing the conventional five-man rotation going forward.

Sure, rich teams can afford three or four front-line starting pitchers, but we have already seen the erosion of the fifth starter, with many teams now converting to the opener strategy instead.

With most fifth options featuring very comparable stuff and effectiveness as depth bullpen arms, why even bother having these middling starters face a lineup more than once or twice when we know a hitter’s success rate increases significantly with every additional at-bat facing the same hurler?

As for low-to-mid budget franchises, carrying only two or three starters provides a huge financial benefit. Starters are much more expensive than relievers, and many examples of high-return bullpen assets are popping up all over MLB in recent years, as reliever usage has steadily grown.

Then, there’s the shoulder and elbow injury epidemic hitting starting pitchers – and MLB owners’ pocketbooks – like a ton of bricks. (See my previous blog Rash of Injured Pitchers: At A Tipping Point for more on this topic.)

Systematically limiting the number of pitches thrown by starters in this velocity/spin rate-centric era of baseball is clearly seen as the best way to protect the huge investments MLB teams make when signing high-end arms.

To all baseball traditionalists out there, I am sorry to say that the Tigers’ shortened rotation marks just another major shift in the way the game will be played in the future.

It’s just another hard pill to swallow for the “old schoolers” since Moneyball was published, but after 20 years of earth-shattering revelations about the intricacies of the game – and baseball’s subsequent adjustments to them – you should be immune to it by now, no?

The only glimmer of hope in this case is that there have been well-founded rumours that MLB is considering a “minimum innings” rule for starting pitchers.

Stay tuned.