Terry Francona’s Astute Adjustment of Strategy

Terry Francona is one of my favourite managers in major league baseball. He spent the 2004 – 2011 seasons in the Boston dugout, collecting two World Series championships along the way. He is funny with the media, and it was always great when he would get terse with a media member if they asked him a silly question. ‘Tito’, as he is nicknamed (a reference to his father), is well-liked just about everywhere he goes. Unfortunately, after the Red Sox’s collapse in September of 2011 (they went 7 – 20 and missed the playoffs by one game), Tito wasunceremoniously ousted by Red Sox management. To go with his firing, a horrible smear campaign was published in the local newspapers in which it was suggested that an addiction to pain medication affected his decision-making. The whole thing was ridiculous and a sad end to a wonderful period for the organization. He took a year off from managing, but then got back in the dugout in 2013 as the leader of the Cleveland Indians.

Since joining Cleveland, Francona has adjusted his managerial style from what it was during his time in Boston. Over his last three seasons he has incorporated many more small-ball tactics (e.g., sacrifice bunting) than he ever did in Boston. This is perplexing. He is certainly aware of the sabermetric research showing that such tactics are poor, so why would he change so abruptly? I explored this change in strategy at Beyond the Box Score this week and found that it looks like Francona is appropriately adjusting his style to the run environment and his team’s offensive capabilities. The run environment (runs per game; R/G) is an important piece of context for assessing the game. Two weeks ago I wrote about how low run environments can lead to more no-hitters. The run environment also has an effect of how bad small ball strategies are. While things like sacrifice bunts are generally bad for run production, the extent to which they are bad is actually smaller in lower run environments. Because Francona has managed Cleveland teams with much weaker offenses than he had in Boston, and managed them during a period of lower run scoring, his increased use of the sacrifice bunt actually makes some sense.

Head over to Beyond the Box Score to read the whole article: Terry Francona: Small-ball using, run environment chameleon.

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Update: Alex Speier, the excellent Red Sox beat writer for The Boston Globe, included my article in the Friday, September 18th edition of his 108 Stitches newsletter. That link may not take you to the relevant edition, so here is the cool part for me:

TITO CHANGES TACTICS: Interim Red Sox manager Torey Lovullo recently articulated his preference to limit the use of the sacrifice bunt. While Terry Francona used to express similar sentiments, his approach to the strategy has changed with a new franchise and an altered run-scoring environment, writes Chris Teeter for Beyond the Box Score.

So many No-Nos of late. What is going on?

On Sunday night Jake Arrieta threw the sixth no-hitter of the 2015 season. In case you missed it, I wrote a retro-recap of the game. Six no-hitters is a lot. There were five in 2014. A no-hitter is supposed to be an almost impossible event, but they seem to be happening more often than they did 10 or 15 years ago. This week at Beyond the Box Score I wrote an article examining the frequency of no-hitters over the last few seasons, and what is leading to the increased frequency. Using data from the last 55 years, which included other high-frequency no-hitter periods, I assessed the extent to which run environment (average runs scored per game) is a predictor of a no-hitter happening.

From my work, it turns out that run environment does a good job explaining when we are more likely to see no-hitters, specifically low run environments lead to more no-hitters. This makes sense. When things are good for pitchers (i.e., low run environment), things are bad for batters, and that combination can be coordinated (often through randomness) to produce hitless nights more often than when the opposite is true. While the average fan probably prefers more runs being scored, in these times of low offensive output at least they can enjoy the higher possibility of a remarkable pitching outing happening.

Head over to the site to read the full analysis: What’s the deal with all these no-hitters?

The State of Declining Power

This week at Beyond the Box Score I looked into players that have seen their home run totals decline in each of the last two seasons. As you may know, power (specifically home runs) has been trending down for the last 10-15 years, leading us into a low run environment (on average teams are only scoring ~4.1 runs per game). For those of us that enjoy a 2-1 pitcher’s duel, this is great news. But for those that enjoy a 9-8 slugfest, this is terrible news. For my article, I looked at the decline in home runs and six players who have seen their home run totals slip by at least 5 from 2012 to 2013, and again from 2013 to 2014.

In some cases the HR total change comes as a result of a change in home ballpark (e.g., Robinson Cano), while in others there is a slight change in batted ball outcomes (i.e., more groundballs, fewer flyballs). But in all cases there was a drop in home run to flyball (HR/FB) rate. A reduction in HR/FB rate can be indicative of an aging slugger, which fits with the players that are identified in my article.

You can read the whole thing here:  Consecutive Seasons of a Power Decline.

Global Warming and Run Scoring

Earlier this week a science-minded friend of mine asked about the potential effect of global warming on baseball. Specifically, he thought that with the increasing global temperature run scoring should be increasing across major league baseball; a perfectly reasonable hypothesis. There is strong evidence for the effect of temperature on the flight of a ball. Google ‘temperature and baseball’ and you will find all sorts of interesting articles on the subject. For example, noted physicist and baseball researcher Alan Nathan has shown that an increase in 1 degree Fahrenheit would result in an increase in home runs by a factor of 0.6%. This is largely due to the fact that with each 10F increase the ball should travel 2.5ft farther. You can (and should) read his work here.