Sunday, July 15, 2007

Pitcher Revenge, Team Revenge and Pitcher Redemption

I have been wondering, for several years, what it means, if anything, to see that a pitcher is facing a team that he has 1) recently done well against or 2) recently done poorly against. And also, what does it mean when a pitcher, who usually does pretty well, is pitching immediately after having done poorly? This year, I've been keeping track as much as possible.
In "Team Revenge" situations, where a particular pitcher is facing a team THAT HE HAS RECENTLY DONE WELL AGAINST, the stats are:

48 Good 22 Bad 16 Neutral (56% chance of Good) (74% chance of Not Bad)

In "Pitcher Revenge" situations, where a particular pitcher is facing a team THAT HE HAS RECENTLY DONE POORLY AGAINST, the stats are:

20 Good 23 Bad 13 Neutral (36% chance of Good) (59% chance of Not Bad)

In "Redemption" situations, where a pitcher has done poorly his last start, the stats are:

63 Good 48 Bad 18 Neutral (48% chance of Good) (62% chance of Not Bad)

Certainly, I havent tabulated every single one of these situations, but I did get enough to form an important picture. My theory, which was that, considering how in football it is a common occurrence to see a team do terrible one week and then come back the next to win or at least cover, perhaps it was the case that pitchers and offenses could make adjustments after failure as football teams do. However, the stats above state that, if all other things are equal(of course they're not but...), it is worth assuming that if a team has rocked a pitcher once, they are more likely to do it again. And if a pitcher has shut down a team once, he's more likely to do it again. And however much a pitcher WANTS to redeem himself after a bad outing, he only has about a 48% chance of doing good in his next start.
So it seems that I havent discovered that much. But maybe I have.....
If you look at the entry below, where BCLI took Oakland against Silva and the Twins, you'll see how I mentioned that the A's were a left hand hitting team, and left handers were hitting .330 off Silva. And, in fact, Silva is one of the most hittable pitchers in all of baseball having given up about 133 hits in 116 innings.
True, the A's had been scoring poorly, but the fact remained: Silva was a hittable pitcher and especially by lhb's. So what happened?
The A's got only 2 hits off Silva. ONLY 2 HITS!
Silva has allowed 7 or more hits in 11 of his 19 starts. He has never, until this game against the A's, allowed as few as 2 hits in a start. He's never allowed as few AS 3 HITS in a start! But the point is that, on June 2nd, Silva HAD SHUT DOWN THE A'S. He pitched 8 innings, gave up 5 hits and allowed only 1 run. It was 1 of only 2 starts this year in which he had lasted as many as 8 innnings. Evidence that if a pitcher beats a team once, there is probably some characteristic about that pitcher which will allow him to beat that team again, DESPITE the fact that the team wants revenge.

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