Building a book on opposing managers

[Brock Beauchamp]

The left/right conversation about lineups got me thinking... Have teams built books on opposing managers and used the data to exploit tendencies? I've never read about it but it seems like an interesting thing to explore, just one more thing to get a leg up against opposing teams.

 

Let's say you're in the seventh inning with l/r/l hitters coming to the plate. In that situation, maybe Terry Francona is 12% more likely than other managers to call a lefty to get that first out and get out in front of a dangerous situation. Or maybe he's 18% more likely than other managers to let it ride with a righty through the first two batters and hope for the best. Or maybe he'll do something the real Francona would probably do and call out half his bullpen to get those three outs.

 

How would teams exploit this, both in lineup construction (predicting later events and already have a lineup set to react to them) or use their own pinch-hitting/running to counteract these tendencies?

 

And would these situations be frequent and/or consistent enough to matter?

[Willihammer]

I know Girardi was under strict orders last year not to use any reliever 3 days in a row (Molitor definitely was not under any kind of rule). Knowing how rested pitchers are would be relevant info if late inning matchups were a consideration in lineup construction.

[Mike Sixel]

 

The left/right conversation about lineups got me thinking... Have teams built books on opposing managers and used the data to exploit tendencies? I've never read about it but it seems like an interesting thing to explore, just one more thing to get a leg up against opposing teams.

 

Let's say you're in the seventh inning with l/r/l hitters coming to the plate. In that situation, maybe Terry Francona is 12% more likely than other managers to call a lefty to get that first out and get out in front of a dangerous situation. Or maybe he's 18% more likely than other managers to let it ride with a righty through the first two batters and hope for the best. Or maybe he'll do something the real Francona would probably do and call out half his bullpen to get those three outs.

 

How would teams exploit this, both in lineup construction (predicting later events and already have a lineup set to react to them) or use their own pinch-hitting/running to counteract these tendencies?

 

And would these situations be frequent and/or consistent enough to matter?

 

Of course, we know from teh NBA that the Mavericks did this with Refs, and probably coaches, and they play half as many games. I am guessing that the most progressive baseball teams have done this for some time.

 

I'm guessing it probably matters about 3-5 games a year for any one opponent, since most opponents don't play each other that often, decreasing the sample size.

[Brock Beauchamp]

 

Of course, we know from teh NBA that the Mavericks did this with Refs, and probably coaches, and they play half as many games. I am guessing that the most progressive baseball teams have done this for some time.

 

I'm guessing it probably matters about 3-5 games a year for any one opponent, since most opponents don't play each other that often, decreasing the sample size.

Yeah, it'd be a lot of work for not a lot of gain but there could be gains in there and those gains could come at crucial times.

[Mike Sixel]

 

Yeah, it'd be a lot of work for not a lot of gain but there could be gains in there and those gains could come at crucial times.

 

right, every one of those is more likely to be high leverage than the batting order. 

[USAFChief]

I'd be pretty surprised if teams weren't "charting" managers like opposing players.

 

As noted above, you'd also need to take into account the status of his bullpen.