Finding Market Inefficiencies (cont.) - AAApril

If you are here you likely read yesterday’s post and you want to see what happens when 13 relievers try to pitch as one collective stat. If you missed yesterday’s post you can read it here.

There are a couple rules that I have to point out before we can continue. Due to ths April’s post will be a bit longer than the other months but if you’ve come this far I don’t need to ask you to bare with me, because you already are.

-                    I only simulate games. I do not partake in any part of the on field action. I only look at the box score.

-                   At any time I may adjust my pitching rotation, the 5 guys in position as starters, the guy who is called the closer and anything else for that matter.

-                   The lineup, position on the field and in the batting order is entirely decided by a computer version of Bud Black

-                   With the exception of who starts a game Computer Bud Black (CBB) has control of pitching decision.

-                   If 5 or more of my pitchers have a fatigue rating under 10% I may call up a starter from Triple A for one game, I have to send down a hitter and keep all pitchers active.

-                   I can make trades as I see fit, however I may not acquire a starting pitcher in any trade. And I can’t force any trades.

-                   The game forces me to stay under budget, unlike real baseball I can’t take Alfonso Soriano’s contract onto my team with a goofy prospect trade in July, unless I have the money to do so.

-                   I am writing these notes immediately following the end of a month. So there is no hindsight only looking forward and developing ideas to change our progress.

And now for the results. And this guy just because he looks cool. 

April saw my staff pitch to a 3.11 ERA; 5^th best in the Majors, and the 2^nd best K/9 in the league.  Despite one of the best pitching staffs in the league the lineup has been no better than a Triple A team of replacement players. Scoring 93 runs in 26 games with a team batting average of .227, the crap offense has been sparked by Jay Bruce, AJ Pierzynski and Edwin Encarnacion combining to hit .194 with 8 home runs. . Through April the “new-look” Padres are 14-12. Knowing that my pitchers are going to fatigue and be more susceptible to injury in August and September, I felt we needed to be better in April. The hitting will come around, my focus is on the pitching.

The Golden Sombrero; 4 k's in one game.
It's almost like a promotional night throughout April,
how many can this offense complete.

My real baseball theory isn’t working nearly as well as I had hoped. Computer Bud Black isn’t playing match-ups he’s just using guys until they are exhausted and then changing them. My theory was that the starter would pitch the first two innings and it’s matchups the rest of the way. So I have to many instances of 3 guys pitching 3 innings rather than 2 guys pitching 2 and 5 guys pitching 1. In the Season Opener Charlie Furbush pitched 2.1 perfect innings and then gave up 5 runs before recording another out. Jake McGee came in and gave up 6 more in 1 inning of work.

Despite my ineffectiveness as a GM the pitching staff did record 4 shutouts, which is pretty darn good. My ineffectiveness comes from my 13 man staff having 8 lefties and 5 righties. Which would likely explain why Jake McGee (8.59 ERA, 2.20 WHIP) Tim Collins (6.06 ERA, 1.90 WHIP) and Sean Doolittle (5.06 ERA, 1.75 WHIP) all had rough April’s. In fact the five worst April ERAs were all lefties. They were forced to pitch in situations they shouldn’t have been because they are perceived by the video game as LOOGYs (lefty one out guys). I have since traded Jake McGee and a prospect for Drew Storen and Tim Collins and a prospect for Bobby Parnell. We now sit at 6 lefties and 7 righties, which should make things much easier for Computer Bud Black.

I can't put WILTON Lopez into a game without thinking
he might have a MELTdown.

With 26 games you may be wondering who started what games. It was entirely random and I wouldn’t have been able to answer you in game. It was not until I looked at stats that I knew. My theory entering each game was that the guy in the closer role should not have a fatigue under 90. And the four most tired guys would be in the starting rotation as the “next four starters.” Typically I took the guy who was not tired with the hopes he could get me three innings (since CBB isn’t managing the way I had envisioned). However, I realized this would then leave him tired for three days and essentially make him unavailable untilt the next time he would arguably start. So I fixed that. But Nate Jones started 4 games and came out with an ERA of 1.45, he’s thrown 18.2 innings. Ryan Cook and Robbie Ross didn’t start any games, so we’ll make sure they have a few in May. Wilton Lopez pitched 16 innings of .56 ERA ball, leading to the awful pun in the caption above and Tony Watson picked up 2 saves. As a team we were 7 of 8 in save chances, and I don’t know if that was a 9^th inning blown save or a middle relief blown save (and in this strategy middle relief is the 4^th-8^th inning. 


We’ll see what May has in store for us.

Moneyball and Finding Market Inefficiencies

I asked myself the question last week after reading about relievers being the new money ball. Could a team win enough games to make the playoffs, let and possibly win a World Series and not spend anymoney on a Starting Pitcher; in theory, a 13 man bullpen that played match-ups on a game-to-game basis. The whole point of “moneyball” was/is to find market inefficiencies and do things nobody else was doing. The concept is surely something nobody else is doing.

The average wins needed to win a division, not the number that the team won but just one game better than the 2^nd place team in baseball over the past 5 seasons is 89.56. Is 90 wins doable without a starting pitcher. Baseball strategy would tell you absolutely not, however market inefficiencies might say otherwise.

Take the NL West for example, the average wins needed to win the division over the past 5 years is 88, and using current baseball strategy a team like the Padres is never going to get to 88 wins when LA has a payroll nearly 300% of theirs. 

The Padres $66 million payroll makes signing star players very tough. Anyone who signs a deal worth more than $10 million is making at least 15% of their total budget. Good luck finding an Ace for that kind of money, heck could luck finding a decent #3 starter for $10 million. So when they invested almost $14 million on Josh Johnson, they were essentially saying we are happy with an outfield of Alexei Amarista, Mark Kotsay, Kyle Blanks and maybe 50 games of Carlos Quentin. 

In a system of 13 relievers all playing the part of a “pitching staff, “ Josh Johnson doesn’t do you any good. In fact spending more than $3 million on any pitcher doesn’t do much good. The Padres have close to $36 million dollars locked up on 5 pitchers. If that $36 million were to be spread amongst 5 relievers at $2.5 million dollars each, they would have had $23.5 million to spend on Shin Soo Choo.

I know what you’re thinking where are they going to find 13 good relievers to make this work. Well, I took it into my own hands and set up a Franchise with the San Diego Padres on MLB2K13. My starting budget was 70.14 million dollars. I identified 13 relief pitchers that were NOT the current closer of their team (based on 2012 season, remember) and traded for all of them. For the record every trade was accepted there were no forced trades.

I entered the fictional 2013 season with a pitching staff of Charlie Furbush, Nate Jones, Aaron Crow, Tony Watson, Kelvin Herrera, Robbie Ross, Wilton Lopez, Tom Collins, Jake McGee, Ryan Cook, Sean Doolittle, Antonio Bastardo and Johnny Venters. My pitching staff cost me $6,264,000. Leaving me with $63,876,000 to assemble this lineup, and still have 8 million left.

CF: Norichikai Aoki

2B: Dustin Pedroia

LF: Alex Gordon

1B: Edwin Encarnacion

RF: Jay Bruce

SS: Ben Zobrist

C: AJ Pierzynski

3B: Brett Lawrie

BENCH: Omar Infante, Adam Eaton, Will Nieves, Cody Ransom

Each day for the next week I’ll release what happened during the month.

Tuesday – April

Wednesday – May

Thursday – June

Friday- July

Saturday – August

Sunday – September, October and a season wrap-up.