League Superiority 2007 - Interleague Predictive Bias

Oh I agree that there is strategy involved with the designated hitter rule. First, you have to get a guy who can hit the ball really well. Second, you have to put his name down on the lineup card. Third, you have to bitch about how your great hitter deserves the MVP award but it keeps going to a damn position player.

I don't really give a rat's ass about strategy in this case; I just think baseball players should play both offense and defense. IS THAT SO WRONG? </harveyfierstein>

<i>Deciding which batters (pitcher) faces which pitcher (batter) based purely on the most favourable matchup for your team, how long to leave a pitcher in the game based solely on how well that guy is throwing or who he needs to face (and independent of what future inning in which he might have to bat) = strategy.</i>

But all those decisions become more frequent/complicated when you don't have a DH.

I think the strategy end is if your team is pitching, and whether to leave your pitcher (normally a groundball guy, but showing signs of weakness) in a 2 guys on, 1 out situation when he's turn at bat is coming up in the next inning.

he's = his

Didn't Bill James say that the DH actually increased the use of strategy? I can only find a secondary source over here: http://www.straightdope.com/columns/030905.html

http://mikesrants.baseballtoaster.com/archives/6509.html

This contains a better summary actually.

(feel free to fix my inferior NL italics tags, mr. moderator)

So the argument for MORE strategy is that there are now FEWER opportunities for "rote" play? Boo. Is a DH ever yanked or moved around (except when he sucks)? Would an AL manager ever actually change anything he does based on the DH? No and no. Color me unconvinced. (It's a darker forest green.)

The only argument FOR it is 'yay more hits and runs yay, that's what America and Fox wants!', just not enough for me.

Or if you want to see more pitchers pitch 10 innings!

...or your team is down 2-1 with runners at the corners and the pitcher's spot comes up. do you lift the pitcher for a pinch-hitter and then risk bullpen collapse or let your pitcher take a swing and see what happens:

http://mlb.mlb.com/news/wrap.jsp?ymd=20060825&content_id=1629287&vkey=wrapup2005&fext=.jsp&

hstencil and I were discussing the (de)merits of the DH rule last night as Wakefield and Wang each had thrown over 100 pitches before finishing five innings.

woah, are you in NYC now boldbury?

he's home in texas, flew back this morning. i miss him already.

I was there from Saturday through this morning, and I gotta say: Brent O. and hstencil at Yankee Stadium ranks right up there as one of the all-time great FMBB meet-ups, along with the gygax/Brent O. outing to Chuy's/Double Wide/Ships of a few years ago. (Although I'm sure it falls short of the legendary Chicago Hooters convo.)

Other highlights of the trip:

MoMA (Architect: Yoshio Taniguchi) - The Architecture and Design exhibits were amazing, especially the models of the Schoeder House and Villa Savoy and the hand-drawn perspectives by Le Corbusier and Frank Lloyd Wright. There was even a small exhibit on the font Helvetica. Plus, two Richard Serra sculptures were installed in the sculpture garden as part of the upcoming retrospective.

American Folk Art Museum (Billie Tsein and Tod Williams) - I had built a quarter-scale model of the bronze facade panels my first semester in architecture school.

Seagram's Building (Ludwig Mies van der Rohe) and Lever House (Gordon Bunshaft for Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill) - God bless Mies for his generous plaza in front of Seagram's. It gives you a great vantage point for photos of Lever House.

Disappointments:

The Guggenheim (Frank Lloyd Wright) - Only because the exterior was being restored. Both times I've been to Frank Lloyd Wright buildings in my life, they've been under some type of repair and were obscured by tarps and/or scaffolding. Being in the rotunda almost makes up for it.

Central Park (Frederick Law Olmstead and Calvert Vaux) - Other than walking along either side of it to see Planetarium, the Dakota, Columbus Circle, the Met, the Guggenheim, and the Whitney, I didn't really didn't get to spend any time there or even see much of it. Oh well, I'll get there next time.

Sorry for off-topic post.

Dom from NY: Any chance MLB decides to dump interleague play in the future? The unfairness of the schedule , the number of meaningless uninspiring matchups, etc. Your thoughts?

Rob Neyer: (12:09 PM ET ) We'll have interleague play, in essentially its current form, as long as we have Bud Selig. Eventually, though, sense will prevail.

After 2 rounds of interleague play, the AL has a 51-35 advantage (.593)

Note: the NL East is the only NL division to have a winning record against their AL opponents: 15-13.

Strongest division: AL West = 18-6 (.750)
Weakest division: NL West = 9-19 (.321)

"Rob Neyer: (12:09 PM ET ) We'll have interleague play, in essentially its current form, as long as we have Bud Selig. Eventually, though, sense will prevail."

I seriously doubt this is true.

since the Lords like to shake things up every 2 or 3 decades, I imagine they'll rejigger the schedule eventually, and keeping Colorado-Tampa Bay games is not going to be a priority.

All they'd have to do is shitcan the bullshit "rivalries" nonsense & just rotate through the divisions (24-30 games / season) every 3 years. How hard is that, BUD? I mean, fuck you already for giving AL teams as many games against their "natural rival" as they have against non-divisional opponents that could be fighting them for a Wild Card slot, but you could try to fix the problem.

Having Scott Spiezio pitch to the A's is the best thing about interleague play?

Actually that's wrong:

Having Scott Spiezio pitch to the A's is the best thing about interleague play!!!!

from John Perrotto in BP:

On the field, interleague play further strengthened the argument that the AL is the superior league, as it had a solid 137-115 record against the NL. AL teams averaged 5.4 runs a game and had a 4.37 ERA, while NL teams scored 4.7 runs a game and posted a 5.01 ERA. Not surprisingly, three of the AL’s top teams feasted on the weaker NL. The Detroit Tigers and Los Angeles Angels were both 14-4, while the Boston Red Sox went 12-6.

When it was pointed out last weekend that the AL pitchers were hitting better than the NL pitchers in interleague games this year, McCarver interjected with "THAT'S AN ABERRATION" (phrased as "WHATTA LOADA HOOEY").

The AL has been better than the NL in interleague play every year since 2004. why?

http://i.imgur.com/rSml5by.jpg

DH prob

yeah, but the interleague games are split half/half between AL and NL hosts, so the DH is in effect only half the time, right?

it'd be interesting to see the splits for interleague games with AL hosts (DH) vs NL hosts (no DH). maybe AL teams playing in AL stadiums have a slight advantage because NL rosters aren't designed with DH in mind so you end up with a relatively weak bench bat as DH?

maybe it has something to do with the NL having more pitcher-friendly ballparks, by far, than the AL?

"by far" might be an exaggeration but of the top 12 pitcher-friendly parks, 7 are NL parks - nationals park, mccovey/AT&T, petco, busch, citi field, dodger stadium and PNC park

but how would that lead to AL teams having a competitive advantage?

i'm admittedly spitballing here - in theory, you have a chance at developing better offense in a park more conducive to hits, right? although i'm sure it also doesn't work out that way in practice. 'twas just a thought

yeah nvm if you go by top 10 run differentials last year 6 out of 10 are AL teams, and out of those 6 only 2 (detroit and baltimore) played in what park factors identified as notably hitter-friendly parks.

welp, looks like renowned sports journalism outfit the Wall Street Journal has an article about this:

http://www.wsj.com/articles/why-the-al-batters-the-nl-at-home-the-dh-1405704990

it's a he said she said - some people say it's because of the DH thing that i mentioned above, while obscure people like Bill James argue that it's just because the AL teams are better, flat out.

yeah, and it can't just be a money thing bc teams like the cubs, phillies, mets and cards are in the top 10 richest teams as of march 2014 alongside the yankees and los dodgers, and the former four except the recent cubs aren't regularly attracting valuable FAs like the yanks and dodgers are

AL teams are definitely better. One theory was that the AL is more attractive for free agents because of the DH -- hitters know they can extend their careers by getting days off from playing in the field, and pitchers don't have to worry about working on their hitting. It all leads to a steady drift of top talent from the NL to the AL. I think Fielder and Pujols were used as examples, but those guys aren't exactly tearing it up in the AL, so I'm not sure if there's anything to this idea.

xp Mets don't spend like richest team, Phillies run by morons basically (although they did attract Lee and Halladay in the past), and Cardinals are content to play with a MOR payroll...

but for every Fielder and Pujols you also get a Thomas or Ortiz.

Arguably, there is more focus on sabrmetrics in the AL.

per the MLB section of this http://espn.go.com/espn/feature/story/_/id/12331388/the-great-analytics-rankings# that is indeed the case - 6 out of the top 10 analytics-using clubs are AL, and 6 of the least analytics-heavy teams are NL

NL > AL! Maybe?

https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/death-of-a-14-year-streak/

The evidence (and explanation) looks totally convincing to me.