SPECIAL EDITION: Some Midsummer Thoughts on Baseball and Life
It's a tie game in the bottom of the seventh, there are two outs, and the other team has runners on the corners. What's a manager to do?
This is a special edition of Reason to Believe. Feel free to share this article with others. And please consider subscribing if you haven’t yet—it’s free!
Thanks!
Garbage Time: When Should a Manager Pull Their Starting Pitcher from the Game?
(Garbage Time theme song here)
Baseball is an imponderable game. You can lose one day by a score of 9-8 and then win the next day by only scoring once. A batter can absolutely crush a pitch but hit it right at a fielder for an out. A team can put runners on base all game but fail to score and lose to an opponent whose few hits happen to be home runs. Baseball players relearn hard lessons about agency and fate every day. It is a game about both skill and luck, playing the odds and following your gut, sticking to a strategy and seizing opportunities. It’s why I think it’s appropriate they call a baseball coach a “manager”: Coaches are about control, while managers must work with and try to make the most of whatever circumstances provide them with.
Baseball is kind of like life that way.
I was watching a baseball game a few weeks ago between, oh, I can’t even remember anymore—Philadelphia and Detroit, or Milwaukee maybe? I’m pretty sure a team from Pennsylvania was involved, although it could have even been Minnesota—anyway, that’s beside the point. What matters is it was around the seventh inning and one of the team’s starting pitchers—the team’s ace, in fact—was still in the game. He’d had an OK to above-average outing: Didn’t have his best stuff, gave up more hits than usual, but he’d gotten out of jams, struck out quite a few batters, and had his team in position to win the game. Unfortunately, the pitcher surrendered a game-tying home run to lead-off the 7th, but, after walking a batter, managed to get the next hitter to ground into a double-play. Looked like he might contain the damage. But then he gave up a two-strike bloop single and then hung a curveball to the next batter that turned into a line drive down the right field line. Having thrown a little over 80 pitches, he had runners on the corners and was suddenly in trouble.
As the team’s manager walked to the mound, the announcers got into an argument about whether it was time to pull the pitcher from the game. The analyst wanted to let him finish the inning and even send him back out for the eighth; he was the team’s ace, after all, a fighter and a winner, and given his record and the results that day, he’d earned the right to stay on the mound. The play-by-play guy thought it was best to pull him; his pitch count was close to his limit and he had started to lose velocity on his fastball. With the game on the line, it was better to hand the ball over to the bullpen.
Professional baseball these days is dominated by analytics. Players are judged by obscure advanced statistics like expected weighted on-base average, batting average on balls in play, weighted runs created plus, fielding-independent pitching, and wins above replacement. Technological developments have allowed teams to evaluate factors like spin rate (how many times a pitched ball spins on the way to the plate), launch angle (the angle at which the ball leaves the bat), and exit velocity (the speed at which the ball leaves the bat). These stats can be used to assess a player’s productivity or show a player how they can increase their productivity.
Analytics tell us starting pitchers tend to lose their effectiveness after throwing 90-100 pitches. At that point, they grow tired and lose some speed on their fastball, which suddenly doesn’t look that much different from their changeup. Teams also want to limit the number of pitches a starter throws over the course of a season so they remain strong in September and (hopefully) October. As a result, pitchers are often removed as soon as they enter that range regardless the score, inning, situation, or how well they’ve pitched.
Old school sports reporters often express disgust at teams’ reliance on analytics, arguing it takes the human element out of the game by turning baseball into an elaborate computer simulation. They lament the passing of the day when starters would frequently throw complete games and labor hard for shutouts. (In 1974, for instance, pitchers threw 1,089 complete games; in 2023, they threw only 34.) If a pitcher is throwing well (or at least well enough) that pitcher should stay in the game regardless of their pitch count. (Nolan Ryan, at the age of 42 in 1989, averaged 127 pitches per start.) Starters are a team’s best, most reliable, most experienced pitchers. Teams should want the ball in their hands.
There’s another side to this equation, too. It’s not just whether a manager should take a pitcher out of game, but who they would replace that pitcher with. Why arbitrarily take a chance on a pitcher who hasn’t demonstrated they have what it takes that day when you can continue to roll with a known quantity? Old school sports reporters would tell you bullpen pitchers aren’t as good as starters. Opposing teams want to knock starters out of the game so they can beat up a team’s corps of relievers. But contemporary baseball analysts would point out today’s relief pitchers are much better than in the past and can be relied upon to ferry a team through the latter innings of a game.
A prudent baseball mind might tell you there are no hard and fast rules when it comes to replacing a pitcher because it’s all dependent on the particular circumstances of a game. You might leave a pitcher in to eat up innings in a blowout or bring in a specialist in a close game. There may be less urgency to replace a pitcher who gives up a bunch of runs in the first inning since they might then settle in and the offense has a lot of time to catch up. A manager might consider what part of the lineup a pitcher is facing and how well he’s fared against those batters both today and in the past.
And yes, in any given circumstance, a manager should also take their pitchers’ performance into account. Is the pitcher still throwing well? Does his fastball still have zip? Are his breaking balls still fooling batters? Is he crafty enough to find ways to get hitters out even when he doesn’t have his best stuff? Is the pitcher used to pitching deep into games? Is he in his prime? Is he past his prime? And what’s the state of the bullpen if the manager does decide to swap out the starter? Has it been overworked? What pitcher should the team call upon: The lefty with the knee-buckling slider? The long reliever? The flamethrower with the blazing fastball?
What’s on the line?
What’s your team’s best option?
And you know what: Who knows what will happen over the next few innings. Maybe your team’s bats will come alive and blow the game wide open. Or maybe the opponent’s pitching will collapse. Perhaps it won’t matter in the end that the change was made.
The thing is, you can’t know. Your starter may seem fine and insist he’s fine when he’s actually gassed and can’t keep the ball in the park. Or maybe he digs deep and pulls the team through. Perhaps he throws a mistake that the clean-up batter crushes, only for the centerfielder to rob it at the fence. Maybe the reliever you bring in to lock the opposition down gives the game away. Or maybe he strikes out every batter he faces.
History and statistics can tell you a lot, but in any given circumstance, they can’t definitively say what will happen next. You can’t coach the situation, you can only manage it. You can only try to honestly make sense of what your eyes and your brain and your gut are advising you to do.
So I guess what I’m saying is this: Joe Biden’s lost command of his fastball. With the score tied and runners on base, a W isn’t only unlikely, but he’s on track to lose the game. The Democrats have a deep bullpen. Biden has brought the team far enough. With the game on the line, it’s time to pull him and call in the closer.