The Cheater’s Guide to Baseball Blog

Yesterday, Mark Stacy wrote:

There’s a play I see sometimes that probably doesn’t strictly fall into the category of cheating, but … I call it “out on general principles.” Such a play occurred in last night’s Pirates-Marlins game.

Dan Uggla was on second with less than two outs, no runner on first, when the batter grounded to short. Uggla tried for third anyway and Jack Wilson threw to Jose Castillo at third for the tag out. Well … it was hard to tell from the replay, but let’s just say it appeared possible that Uggla beat the tag. But the out call stood and Uggla didn’t argue.

My take on this is that if you do something that strikes the umpire as dumb, such as try to advance on a ball right in front of you, you have to be really, REALLY safe (like the third baseman drops the ball or the throw goes into the dugout) or you’ll get called out whether you’re safe or not. “General principles” because the principle is, if you do something dumb you deserve to get called out.

I write about this in the book a bit, and it’s worth expanding on a little.

Umpires get a lot of calls wrong. They’re human, and perception’s a funny thing. There are two ways you’ll frequently see outs go the wrong way:
- as Mark notes, on many plays, there’s almost a default call, and you have to clearly be on the other side of it to be called out
- the umpire seemingly makes a decision based as much on the aesthetics of the play as what actually happened

It’s also true (as I point out in the book) that there are wide variances between umpires in how often they call out runners stealing second, for instance. But generally speaking, on close plays at first, the runner’s out. If you have a Tivo or similar DVR, watch how many plays the runner actually does get there in time: a couple years ago, when I was just starting the book, I couldn’t believe how severe the prejudice is. To be safe consistently, you really have to be over the base as the ball arrives, and even that doesn’t guarantee you’ll get the call.

Generally, this is accepted. In practice, umpires as a group enforce it on each play, so there’s no particular bias against any team or player.

More interesting is the “good-looking” play. I jokingly complain in the book about Derek Jeter’s sweep tags (because when he pulls it off against my home team it’s hard to appreciate his artistry), which sometimes don’t even touch the runner but still get him the call, but it’s true in many other cases. It’s much the same way umpires really are to some extent vulnerable to pitch framing, where a pitch may be called a strike if it goes where the catcher set up and they catch it cleanly but a ball if they have to reach across to snag it as it almost gets by them.

If a third baseman receives a throw from the outfield early, fields it cleanly, and applies a smooth tag, they’re far more likely to get the call even if the runner gets a hand in, and if the throw comes in off the base and requires the fielder to dive to make the tag, they don’t get the benefit of the prejudice to call an out.

It’s an interesting phenomenon, and as long as umpires are human (and that’s a whole other subject) it’ll be another area where players can find ways to take advantage of them, and why sometimes, the smoothness of the tag matters just as much as whether or not the tag is actually made.

After yesterday’s bit on protective gear and how it can encourage hitters to get plunked with potentially dangerous consequences, I did some more reading on it, and there’s another issue I hadn’t considered: batters wearing protective padding may encourage pitchers to act more dangerously.

For example, see this:

Bicyclists who wear protective helmets are more likely to be struck by passing vehicles, new research suggests. Drivers pass closer when overtaking cyclists wearing helmets than when overtaking bare-headed cyclists, increasing the risk of a collision, the research has found.

While I’m not sure how much stock to put in it, it does raise a point: if you assume that pitchers generally don’t want to injure the hitters, but elbow protection and other protective gear makes hitters more aggressive about being in the zone, that may be compounded when pitchers now feel freed from any responsibility to not bean a batter — because armored, they can take it. More balls in and off the plate, even more plunkings — and the strategy evolves.

One of the things cut from the book was a discussion of equipment: uniforms and uniform code violations (which are common and largely trivial, unless they spark brawls).

The only thing I really miss is the elbow pad. One of the issues baseball’s had to deal with is the Biggio Problem: players who armor up and then take a ball off the padding for a free trip to first. Baseball’s struggled with how to regulate the issue, as it has with many similar problems, because there are several issues:
- Players being hit intentionally clearly is not what the rules intended to be a productive strategy for hitters
- Player safety is, rightly, one of baseball’s most important priorities
- Umpires traditionally have rarely enforced the rule that states being hit by a pitch that is in the strike zone does not result in a free base

Biggio, essentially, by hanging his elbow into the zone, is exploiting a rule designed to protect him. So far, baseball’s only real action is to require players to have a valid medical reason to wear armor up to the plate, but really, when Jeff Weaver can have one of the worst six-game starts to a season in baseball history and then go on the DL with an almost transparent excuse, we can admit it’s not hard for a player to get the team doctor to sign off on protective gear.

Other proposed solutions include not awarding a free base if the ball strikes the protective gear, which raises a whole other set of enforcement questions, and banning pads entirely, which would put players at greater risk of injury.

This last issue, though, is more complicated than it first seems. A player wearing padding may intentionally hang in on pitches trying to get hit, putting himself at far greater risk of being hit in an unprotected location.

For a good parallel, check out this article on NASCAR, where it appears that safety improvements result in more dangerous behavior and more accidents.

If allowing players to have pads has a similar effect, and the net result is more injuries, then the solution of banning protective padding entirely may actually end up reducing the number of hit batters and reduce the number of resulting injuries, by forcing players to act more safely.

Apologies for missing a few days there, I’m developing a couple fairly long posts and debating the double-play rules via email (I’ll write more about this later this week).

In any event – I came across a set of notes on something that never made it into the book that I found interesting. In the late 1980s, the game saw a huge surge of home runs that resulted in fairly wide speculation on what the causes were, from a juiced ball (which was investigated) to alternate theories like strike zone enforcement, a pitching drought, and so on.

I came across a fine example in a USA Today article at the Hall of Fame (undated, but it looks like it’s from a 1988 season preview) by Tom Barnidge, titled “Ball Didn’t Change, Did It? Naah”. He discussed what the possible causes were, how likely they seemed, including bat corking. Here’s what John Schuerholz (then with KC – he’d take over in Atlanta in 1990, where he’s done incredible work) said

“Sure, there are some corked bats. When I see bats explode, I believe they’re corked. But I really don’t think it’s all that pervasive. That’s not why we had all the home runs.”

The article ran a table, “Improved Outputs” listing “hitters who increased their home run totals by at least 10 from 1986 to 1987 (minimum of 400 at-bats each season)”. It runs, in part:

Andre Dawson, Cubs, 20 to 49
Will Clark, Giants, 11 to 35
Wade Boggs, Red Sox, 8 to 24
George Bell, Blue Jays, 31 to 47
Keith Moreland, Cubs, 12 to 27
[...]
Eric Davis, Reds, 27 to 37

The kicker is that there’s no one on that list – no one – who’s been tied into steroid use since. There are no Oakland players, though we now know that Oakland was, essentially, the infection vector for major league baseball, led by Jose Canseco (86 to 87? -2 HR, from 33 to 31).

I have a couple of observations on this:
- there was a home run surge at the same time as steroids started to come into the game, but the surge in large part was not due to steroids
- it’s possible that the huge surge in home runs actually drew attention away from the spread of steroids: after all, if the most prominent players having power surges were clean (and not at all the classic bulky muscle-bound guy we think of as suspects), then it’s hard to look at any specific cases, or team, and see a new factor
- because baseball had seen corked bats, rabbit balls, and the other causes before, those were the causes they speculated about. Now, we look to drugs for explanations of weirdness in baseball – but if there’s a new and widespread scourge, it’s quite likely it’ll be what no one expects, or even speculates is possible.

In light of the Phelps-Johjima collision and the conversation that followed, I wanted to quote umpire Zack Rebackoff, from his book “Tough Calls: An Illustrated Book of Official Baseball Rules” (which I highly enjoyed and recommend if you’re interested in the subject). In it, he talks about the history of the home plate collision, and how it affects enforcement:

Catchers have been getting away with little tricks since the game originated. After all, when the play is at the plate, anything goes…including blocking, hooking, neighborhood tags (tagging someone in the neighborhood of the base or body) and even so much as appearing to control loose balls after collisions. Let’s not forget that the steamrolling runner is capable of his own tactics, such as, but not limited to, bulldozing and kicking the ball loose. Therefore, the umpire must be a trifle more lenient when calling plays at home plate. The “dish” is the ultimate fortress for maximum defense, while the offense strives to break through and claim a run. To say anything goes would really not be absolutely correct, but may the feistiest man win.
In view of this slight leniency, it would be safe to assume that most umpires working home plate are not looking for obstruction to occur at the plate.

p. 125, emphasis in the original text

Rebackoff goes on to say that a large part of the problem is that umpires are focused on the sweep tag and the plate, and can’t watch for where a catcher can legally be positioned, and so on.

He also relates seeing one incident in a Midwest League game as a spectator. The catcher blocked entirely the runner coming home from third instead of fielding a late and wide throw, stopping the runner’s progress. That achieved, he went up the line and left to get the throw, and then tagged the (probably concussed) runner out.

No obstruction was called.

In The Cheater’s Guide to Baseball, in the steroids chapter I put some stats together to test a theory. In Game of Shadows, Bonds complained that when he was “on” (actively taking steroids) he hit better those weeks, and when he was “off” (not taking them, so the body continues to naturally produce testosterone) he felt weak and ineffective (relatively). Using game stats, I tested that hypothesis (“Bonds will hit better for three weeks and then worse for a week, continuing through a whole season”) and the result’s in the book.

A reader wrote to take issue with its completeness, arguing that the benefits of steroids would come not just from having them actively coursing through the veins, but also in the training and muscle-building that would last all season. That off week is padded, so to speak, by the extra bulk built up and maintained by all the time on.

This is entirely true: the work in the book only attempts to measure whether the complaint in Game of Shadows can be turned into a theory and tested.

What about the other question, though – what’s the overall effect? Ignore whether he went up and down in a regular pattern during a season. How far did it get him? From what we know, it was the McGwire-Sosa home run chase of 1998 that so annoyed Bonds that he decided to begin using steroids the next season.

Here’s a quick-and-dirty napkin calculation. It doesn’t take into account how he should have aged or anything else. It’s really quick, though. From 1986-1998, age 21-33, Bonds hit a home run 21% of the time he made any hit. Then for 1999-2007, it lept to 35%. His lowest HR/H rate in that period, 2006, is 26.3% (only two are higher in the prior run).

If you use the 86-98 rate, he’d have hit 202 over 99-07 so far. Use a generous 26% rate, and you get up to about 250. In real life, he hit 333. Or, -131 in the first case, -83 in the second case.

Which on the career mark would put him at 602 to 660 – a season behind or possibly just having passed Willie Mays.

Obviously, that doesn’t do the topic justice, and it makes an unfortunate assumption that every year after 1998 is included, even after the collapse of BALCO. It doesn’t look at the intentional walks, and it also assumes that Bonds from age 34-42 hit home runs as well or better than his 21-33 selves. Still, it’s interesting to make a rough calculation like that and realize how quickly these things add up, and also how great a player Bonds was before 1999.

Bart Giamatti is once referred to as the AL President, but was the NL President from 1986-89 (this is correct elsewhere in the book)

I submitted a bunch of additional entries for the index which didn’t make it in. For your book reference amusement:

Animal House, 175
Bluto, 175
bums, bleacher 93
Caddyshack, 173
Catie the ballgirl, 174
Choose Your Own Adventure books, 35
Denver, John, 179
ginger snaps 103
ground rule double see rulebook double
Human Rain Delay see Hargrove, Mike
intestinal parasites, 228
InnerSpace, 228
Kant, Immanuel, 247
Katie the ballgirl, 174
McDuck, Scrooge 221
McMaster-Carr catalog, 162, 163
Quaid, Dennis 228
produce 103, 104
Schilling, Curt 231
toothbrushing, 156
secret of life, the universe, and everything 237
rulebook double 101
Village People, 179
WNBA, 232

On of the common and unnoticed ways that rule breaking affects the game is how selective enforcement of the interference rules results in dangerous and frequent cheating. In double plays, where the runner to second is allowed a free shot at the fielder and the fielder isn’t required to touch second to get the force out, and at home, catchers are allowed to block the progress of the runner and runners are allowed to run full-tilt into the catcher, either to try and knock the ball loose or to even stop them from fielding the ball.

I saw a particularly violent example of this today, in the Seattle-New York game. The play starts at about 1:20:30 in the feed. Josh Phelps, coming in to score from second on a single by Jeter, runs home. Johjima sets up in front of the plate and a little to the first base side to receive the throw. Phelps has a wide open shot at the plate and, even if he couldn’t see that the ball was late coming in, could have run through or slid, forcing Johjima to come all the way around and make a sweeping tag, but pretty much he’s home free.

Phelps takes Jojima out. Here’s a still to show how far he went to make this hit.

Phelps has to go so far off the plate that after driving into Johjima, he goes back to touch home. Johjima, as a possibly revelant aside, is the only Mariner really hitting well so far this year. If the umps are going to let you take a shot and possibly get him out of the game, why not go for it?

From the Seattle Times blog:
Phelps said “When I saw him starting to crouch down, for me, it tells me he’s getting ready to receive the ball. I can’t just let himn tag me real quick.”

Johjima said he “was kind of surprised because I had left the plate open.”

Washburn then plunked Phelps in the sixth. Skipping the subject of whether headhunting’s ethical or not (it’s certainly against the rules to hit the batter on purpose), under baseball’s code, that’s entirely acceptable for a pitcher to throw a pitch at a batter on purpose. I don’t think I need to go into how dangerous it can be to get hit.

Actually, there were two: he throws inside, low, and misses Phelps, and then goes up and in to get him on the arm.

The ump warns both benches, which is a whole other dynamic in how these things escalate (short version: there’s a huge incentive for you to be the guy who does the plunking that results in the warning, because it prevents retaliation).

The total:
- Josh Phelps makes a strictly speaking illegal but allowed hit on Johjima, which even the Yes! Network announcers said was unnecessary. Considering that Johjima was looking away, this is even more dangerous than it seems.
- Jarrod Washburn makes a strictly speaking illegal but allowed pitch at Phelps, an intentional throw designed to hurt Phelps, if not injure him.
- with two outs in the 7th and no one on, Scott Proctor throws a pitch clocked at 96 behind Mariner shortstop Yuniesky Betancourt, Proctor’s ejected.
- An angry exchange of words, dugouts empty. The throw’s bad enough, but people get hurt (and suspended) in brawls too.

The history of allowing catchers to block the plate and runners to try and bury them resulted in an opportunity for Phelps. Phelps took his chance. The Mariners then resort to their own allowed but tolerated opportunity to get revenge, and then Proctor takes revenge for the revenge. One dangerous play created by the selective enforcement of the rules would up creating three different dangerous incidents in the game.

These kind of openings exist as vestiges of baseball’s early days, when collisions and rough play were much more common, and hitting the opposing batter routine (this is in The Cheater’s Guide to Baseball‘s coverage of the McGraw Orioles and those times), and games like today’s provide an interesting snapshot of how far the game has come since those days, and how opportunities that remain are exploited.

Commentor Ashley:

I saw an interesting piece of cheating today – I’m not sure if it’s actually cheating or not, which tells me even more that it is. It was during Friday’s Cubs-Nationals game. In the bottom of the fourth inning, Mark DeRosa walked. During the next batter’s (Cesar Izturis) at-bat, DeRosa attempted to steal second. The catcher made the throw, the tag was applied at second, and DeRosa was called out.

I didn’t realize what happened until they showed the replay. To make a long story short (too late), during the play, the umpire was below the baseline between first and second, giving him a more diagonal point of view, rather than a straight on one. When the second baseman caught the ball he lowered his glove between DeRosa’s arms in order to make it look like he applied the tag before DeRosa reached base (because the way DeRosa slid in, his body blocked the umpire’s point of view of the second baseman’s glove). DeRosa was called out, but not only did the second baseman not tag DeRosa before he reached second, he never tagged him at all!

I talk about this in the book – it’s part of the larger tradition of trying to influence umpires. From framing pitches to the open intimidation of umpires in the early days, this kind of thing is quite common.