Sciossia (sp?) pitching to Votto....

[bigfunguy]

Notice on opening day in a similar spot they pitch around Joey to get to Ludwick. With BP there yesterday (and adimittedly a lefty pitching) they went ahead and pitched to Joey and got burned...gotta wonder if that's Ludwick if they'd have done the same...

[REDREAD]

I missed the game, but in the game summary, they mentioned that the Angels had no RH pitcher ready.
I think the Angel's manager said something to the effect of "pick your poison" in that situation. I remember him saying the Reds had a strong middle of the lineup.
I doubt they would've walked Votto to pitch to Ludwick.. I think they were going lefty-lefty and hoping for the best.

[bigredmechanism]

If you pitch to Joey Votto, it's going to be bad.

[Sea Ray]

This is where the lefty/lefty thing gets a little crazy. If the pitcher was RH they would have surely walked Votto but since he throws with his southern arm they pitch to the best hitter in our lineup when all we need is a single. 9 out of 10 managers handle this the way Scioscia did, including our own, but I still disagree. I walk Votto and work on getting a DP out of Phillips

[redsrule2500]

I think Brandon may in fact be a better option for 4th. I would have preferred Bruce/Phillips 4th or 5th, and then Ludwick 6th.

[LoganBuck]

Scott Downs generally eats lefty hitters for breakfast. If you have one of the best lefty relievers in the league, at some point you have to put some faith in him.

[westofyou]

Scott Downs generally eats lefty hitters for breakfast. If you have one of the best lefty relievers in the league, at some point you have to put some faith in him.

Exactly, many forget that the pitcher is just as competitive as the batter, the other team is just as competitive as your team. It's not always chess, sometimes it's two goats running at each other full speed to see who prevails.

Folks can talk about how bad the bunt is and then completely forget that from the defensive side of the game an IB can be just as ill timed, the batter (in this case Votto has a RISP BA of .370 something over the past couple of seasons, that's still an out 2/3rds of the time.) Alan Craig is right behind Votto in the aforementioned stat, last night the Dbacks elected to pitch to him instead of around him and he struck out. Announcer Bob Brenley stressed that he was more likely to make an out than succeed.

[smixsell]

Exactly, many forget that the pitcher is just as competitive as the batter, the other team is just as competitive as your team. It's not always chess, sometimes it's two goats running at each other full speed to see who prevails.

No it IS always chess.

Unfortunately if you don't understand the strategic/tactical "chess" aspect of the game, you've got nothing left but the "two goats" strategy.

[westofyou]

No it IS always chess.

Unfortunately if you don't understand the strategic/tactical "chess" aspect of the game, you've got nothing left but the "two goats" strategy.

If you say so

[Sea Ray]

If you say so

You know, it's posts like this that make me wish for another box next to the "like" one...

A box that says "worthless"

Have some substance before wasting bandwidth please

[Brisco]

No it IS always chess.

Unfortunately if you don't understand the strategic/tactical "chess" aspect of the game, you've got nothing left but the "two goats" strategy.

I totally disagree. In chess the outcome of a given matchup between pieces is 100 percent certain. If two pieces occupy the same square, the moving piece takes the non moving piece. That is chess. Even the most diehard statistician in the world would not claim that baseball management is chess.

In the real world the variables are always infinite. Therefore there is no such thing as certainty, only differing levels of probability.

That said, looking purely statistically, taking into account the back of both the pitchers and the hitters baseball cards, I think both managers made the right decision.

Downs was a phenomenon last year. He gave up a total of 16 hits to left handed batters all of last year and a double was the only extra base hit. Also, the argument that Joey is just so good does not help unless you think he is two or three levels of goodness better than the very best left handed hitters in the AL.

The top ten left handed batters in the AL went a combined 2 for 19 against Downs last year. 2 for fricking 19 and these were the best left handed hitters in the American league. If Joey is twice as good as those guys against Downs, he is still only barely beating the Medoza line. Sluggers like Bruce were totally helpless against him. ( side note, oddly, Downs never faced Choo last year)

So, based on that, Scoscia has to love the idea of Downs vs Bruce and feel pretty darn good about Downs v. Votto. Downs v. Phillips? Not so much. If he walks Votto, he has to replace Downs with a RHP and he totally loses the Downs v Bruce automatic out. Btw, Downs vs LHB was n anomaly for the Angels last year... Their bullpen was a weakness.

Pitching to Votto, even if we say he is twice as good as the top ten AL left handed hitters, still means that there is only a 1 in 5 chance he gets a hit... followed by a walk to Phillips and then all that is left is about a 1 in 15 chance for Bruce,if that. Walk Votto and BP has about a 1 in 4 chance to come through and Bruce would then face a righty and also be about 1 in 4. Yes, there is a 1 in 35 chance BP does a DP, but that is no where near enough to close the delta in the two probabilities.

Joey showed it wasn't Chess though... He should not have gotten a hit... But he did.

[smixsell]

I totally disagree. In chess the outcome of a given matchup between pieces is 100 percent certain. If two pieces occupy the same square, the moving piece takes the non moving piece. That is chess. Even the most diehard statistician in the world would not claim that baseball management is chess.

In the real world the variables are always infinite. Therefore there is no such thing as certainty, only differing levels of probability.

That said, looking purely statistically, taking into account the back of both the pitchers and the hitters baseball cards, I think both managers made the right decision.

Downs was a phenomenon last year. He gave up a total of 16 hits to left handed batters all of last year and a double was the only extra base hit. Also, the argument that Joey is just so good does not help unless you think he is two or three levels of goodness better than the very best left handed hitters in the AL.

The top ten left handed batters in the AL went a combined 2 for 19 against Downs last year. 2 for fricking 19 and these were the best left handed hitters in the American league. If Joey is twice as good as those guys against Downs, he is still only barely beating the Medoza line. Sluggers like Bruce were totally helpless against him. ( side note, oddly, Downs never faced Choo last year)

So, based on that, Scoscia has to love the idea of Downs vs Bruce and feel pretty darn good about Downs v. Votto. Downs v. Phillips? Not so much. If he walks Votto, he has to replace Downs with a RHP and he totally loses the Downs v Bruce automatic out. Btw, Downs vs LHB was n anomaly for the Angels last year... Their bullpen was a weakness.

Pitching to Votto, even if we say he is twice as good as the top ten AL left handed hitters, still means that there is only a 1 in 5 chance he gets a hit... followed by a walk to Phillips and then all that is left is about a 1 in 15 chance for Bruce,if that. Walk Votto and BP has about a 1 in 4 chance to come through and Bruce would then face a righty and also be about 1 in 4. Yes, there is a 1 in 35 chance BP does a DP, but that is no where near enough to close the delta in the two probabilities.

Joey showed it wasn't Chess though... He should not have gotten a hit... But he did.

As usual there are some who don't even understand the comment/quip.

And no, I won't explain the comment and document it with advanced stats.

If you don't get the quip, I ain't explaining it.

[Sea Ray]

I totally disagree. In chess the outcome of a given matchup between pieces is 100 percent certain. If two pieces occupy the same square, the moving piece takes the non moving piece. That is chess. Even the most diehard statistician in the world would not claim that baseball management is chess.

In the real world the variables are always infinite. Therefore there is no such thing as certainty, only differing levels of probability.

That said, looking purely statistically, taking into account the back of both the pitchers and the hitters baseball cards, I think both managers made the right decision.

Downs was a phenomenon last year. He gave up a total of 16 hits to left handed batters all of last year and a double was the only extra base hit. Also, the argument that Joey is just so good does not help unless you think he is two or three levels of goodness better than the very best left handed hitters in the AL.

The top ten left handed batters in the AL went a combined 2 for 19 against Downs last year. 2 for fricking 19 and these were the best left handed hitters in the American league. If Joey is twice as good as those guys against Downs, he is still only barely beating the Medoza line. Sluggers like Bruce were totally helpless against him. ( side note, oddly, Downs never faced Choo last year)

So, based on that, Scoscia has to love the idea of Downs vs Bruce and feel pretty darn good about Downs v. Votto. Downs v. Phillips? Not so much. If he walks Votto, he has to replace Downs with a RHP and he totally loses the Downs v Bruce automatic out. Btw, Downs vs LHB was n anomaly for the Angels last year... Their bullpen was a weakness.

Pitching to Votto, even if we say he is twice as good as the top ten AL left handed hitters, still means that there is only a 1 in 5 chance he gets a hit... followed by a walk to Phillips and then all that is left is about a 1 in 15 chance for Bruce,if that. Walk Votto and BP has about a 1 in 4 chance to come through and Bruce would then face a righty and also be about 1 in 4. Yes, there is a 1 in 35 chance BP does a DP, but that is no where near enough to close the delta in the two probabilities.

Joey showed it wasn't Chess though... He should not have gotten a hit... But he did.

Stats are funny things. They can be manipulated to show whatever you'd like. If the top ten LHBs went 2 for 19 against Downs then the rest of the LHBs hit .215 against him. If you're willing to consider that Votto is 2x better than the top 10 in the AL then let's say he's 3x better than the rest of them. So that'd mean that he's a .600 hitter against Downs...

Or we might notice that his BABip vs LHBs last year was 65 pts lower than vs RHBs so he must have been "lucky" vs LHBs...

[PuffyPig]

I totally disagree. In chess the outcome of a given matchup between pieces is 100 percent certain. If two pieces occupy the same square, the moving piece takes the non moving piece. That is chess. Even the most diehard statistician in the world would not claim that baseball management is chess.

The reference to chess is that in baseball (like chess) you need to think 2 and 3 and 4 moves ahead.

Walking Votto and bringing in the RH pitcher to face Phillips means the manager would have had to have the RH pitcher warming up when Choo was at bat.

Walking Votto and bringing in the RH pitcher to face Philips means you need to bring in a LH pitcher to face Bruce otherwise you've lost the advantage of bringing in the RH to face Phillips.

That's why it is similar to chess.

At the end of the day, I think the Angels' manager decided to go with one pitcher in the 9th, and not play the matchups. His choice was defensible, even if you don't agree with it.

[jhiller21]

I would have walked Votto but I understand why Sciossa didn't. Lefty/lefty matchup with Phillips on deck.

I would have had a righty in the bullpen warming up, and faced BP instead, the double play king.