The Lie of Analytics

The Lie of Analytics

This is how analytics shapes, and some like me would say, twists, baseball thinking.  Consider the stolen base.

According to the numbers-crunching crowd, the stolen base risks outs and injuries (the latter as opposed to the proliferation of oblique injuries suffered by players swinging for the fences).  Moreover, reading the statistics with one eye close and your head bent to the left (or right, as different sabermetricians favor different formulas, it becomes clear that a hitter is more likely to score on a homerun as on a single.  Plus you get two runs, not just one.

Hence, the rise of pitch-framing.  The dumber the umpire and the sneakier the catcher, the more strikes called.  The thing is, for the life of me I can’t recall Johnny Bench or Carlton Fisk or Bob Boone even being hailed as great pitch framers; no, they were more interested in keeping runners at first base.  It’s interesting to note that the Cubs’ Willson Contreras, who stands out among catchers for trying to shut down the opponent’s running game, is rated below-average as a pitch framer.

If base runners don’t run, catchers have the free time to fool umpires on borderline pitches.  If and when the next Rickey Henderson comes along, watch how pitch framing disappears, at least when Henderson II gets on base.