Baseball
More information please
With the baseball playoffs upon us, I was chatting with my friend Chris and he is beyond angry at the stupidity of baseball announcers. What they pass off as wisdom leaves a lot to be desired. Not only do they rely on clichés, but they basically lie. “That pitch was high and inside” (actually, it was low and outside) or “
And the onscreen graphics aren’t making up for them. Being able to see the game in the first place is fantastic, but beyond that, there’s really not much being offered in the way of information. The broadcast is so devoid of intelligent analysis that I find that I watch the game with my laptop pointed to ESPN or Baseball Reference for my statistics needs. For commentary I rely on a site like Baseball Primer. Of course, you have a bunch of idiots there too, but at least you sometimes get something valuable.
It seems like the real opportunity is onscreen information design. A great first step was showing the status of the game at the times. Every broadcast of baseball now shows the score, runners on base, number of outs, inning, count, and the speed of the last pitch, all on the top of each screen. Some are better than others (Fox’s is best), but at least the information is there. Unfortunately, it means that where the old announcers had to relay that information to you, now that don’t, so instead of dead air they instead spout nonsense. Oh well, such is the price of progress.
Getting status is great, but what we really need is insight.
For instance, Chris pointed me to a bit of analysis about the Red Sox/Yankees series (go Yanks!) and wanted this level of insight from the broadcasters. I don’t see that happening anytime soon, broadcasters being what they are. I want this information onscreen, so I can get my own insight. Let the broadcasters continue to tell their “jokes”, my TV will be on mute.
The real advance is when top-notch information design, like this example from the Boston Globe, can be incorporated into broadcasts. Actually, as a first step, I’d be thrilled with this level of information design in newspapers and on ESPN.com. For a sport absolutely drowning in statistics and numbers, no one presents them well.
Of course, long term, being able to interact with the broadcast itself will be even better. For example, mute the broadcasters, listen to the crowd, and be able to selectively call up information for the current batter. For example, how has he hit on the road? What is the scouting report on him? Has he faced this pitcher?
But you have to walk before you can run. Announcers? Shut up.
The Art of Failure
With the baseball playoffs upon us and my beloved Yankees in the thick of things, I thought it appropriate to dig up Malcolm Gladwell’s story The Art of Failure where he outlines the difference between choking and panicking. It is a great read.
Plenty of people are choking in the postseason and I found Gladwell’s explanation interesting—choking is thinking too much. And of course, Yogi Berra was there first when he said “You can’t think and hit at the same time.”
Going against conventional thinking
First a quick recap. The Boston Red Sox publicly announced their attention to not go with a “traditional” closer, instead they will use their best relief pitchers in high leverage situations. In essence, they are saying that running your bullpen based on a statistic (the save) is folly.
This, of course, sent the baseball media world in a tizzy.
The thinking, which I agree with, is that bringing in your closer to protect a three run lead against the 7-8-9 hitters (a save situation) instead of a tie score in the 8th against the heart of the lineup (not a save situation) is crazy. The former situation can be handled by almost any pitcher, but the latter assignment should not be given to anybody other than your best.
What has been lost in all this is that the Sox have done two things. One is that they have decided to use a different strategy the bullpen usage (good idea). The other is electing to not have a top-tier reliever (not a good idea). While I like Embree and Mendoza, neither of them (or anyone else in their bullpen for that matter is great.
Ideally, you want to have great relief pitchers and use them in highest leverage situations as possible. Boston doesn’t have a great pitcher for those high leverage situations—and they will regret that.
I’m still hopeful that bullpen management will stop revolving around the damn Save statistic, but Boston’s approach solves only half of the problem.
My own personal opening day
My buddy Nick and I went to Shea for a 1:10pm start between the Mets and the Cubs. Despite it being a game between two teams I could care less about, it was great to be at a baseball game for the first time in six months. The grass was green, the beer was flowing, and the hot dogs were expensive. Play ball!
The game itself was ok. Mark Prior was very sharp through seven innings. The Mets were pretty poor. The Cubs knocked Steve Trachel around, but interestingly, got picked off of first twice, consecutively (which has to be some sort of record) and got called out at the plate twice in the same inning (which probably isn’t a record, but amusing nonetheless).
Also, unfortunately, Sosa didn’t connect for his 500 home run. That would’ve been cool.
Opening day and Jeter is out
Not that I have many readers, but of my small audience, the number of people that care about baseball is approximately zero. That said, I like it and I’m going to write about it here—at least until Chris D and I start our dedicated baseball site.
The good news? Today is opening day for the Yankees and the score is 8-0 after six and a half.
The bad news? Jeter had a nasty collision at third base and early reports indicate that it is a separated shoulder. That can’t be good. We’re probably looking at him being out for several months or the full season.
I’ve always liked Jeter, even if he has fallen to a distant 3rd or 4th in the AL shortstop standings. It is for the simple reason that he 15 days younger than me and he come up for the Yankees when I got back into baseball for real.
The Yankees have nothing as a backup—Enrique Wilson is no option. Andy Phillips at AAA looks pretty good, but he definitely needs another year in the minors. Let’s see what Cashman can do.
Billy Beane, genius
Wow, two baseball entries in one day. This must be some sort of record.
Chris D just passed on this link to The Trading Text, an excerpt from Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game.
It is a great piece about the behind-the-scenes maneuvering of Billy Beane, the general manager of the Oakland A’s. Fascinating stuff.
I wonder if articles like these will make it impossible for him to do trades in the future. I sure as hell hope the Yankees never pick up the phone when he calls.
Baseball, 26 years ago
So I’m watching a replay of Game 5 of the 1977 ALCS and it is funny to see how the game has changed in little ways.
The most blatant, of course, is the fist fight between George Brett and Graig Nettles. A hard slide into third by Brett, a slight kick by Nettles that looked incidental, Brett comes up swinging, and benches cleared. It seems that in today’s game any bench clearing is always the result of the batter getting pissed at the pitcher for coming inside. Some others, in no particular order:
- Oh the hair. My god the hair.
- Lots of bunting.
- The batting boxes were still present after a few innings and, not surprisingly, batters didn’t seem to crowd the plate. And once a batter stepped into the box, they tended to stay there.
- The broadcast didn’t have any onscreen graphics during the broadcast. Unless ESPN Classic did some magic in removing them.
- Ah, the bullpen car. I only got a glimpse of it, but they had an actual car (not a golf cart) deliver the relief pitcher. The bullpen car phenomenon in the 70s wasn’t good for anyone. I mean, baseball players are scorned as not being “real” atheletes, getting driven 300 feet only lends credence to the notion. Good riddance.
- There were generous periods where the broadcasters didn’t say a damn word. I pray history repeats itself.
I want my HDTV
ESPN is launching a High Definition network. Now the question is whether Time Warner is going to carry it.
I’m part of the 4% that has HDTV and it is fantastic. Right now, I have all the regular networks, HBO, and Showtime. It looks beautiful, but without good programming it is still more of novelty. I don’t think we’ll see the Daily Show in Hi-Def anytime soon. Also the lack of HDTV in TiVo keeps me from watching more.
The business of baseball
Since this site is so new, I haven’t really decided just what this blog is going to cover so, but mixing baseball and design seems perfectly reasonable to me, so you’ll just have to bear with me.
This is a great article on the effects of baseball’s anti-trust exemption. Meaning congress and the supreme court have said that is is OK for MLB to be a monopoly.
