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The Sunday Read: ‘How Analytics Marginalized Baseball’s Superstar Pitchers’

The Sunday Read: ‘How Analytics Marginalized Baseball’s Superstar Pitchers’

The Daily vor 1 Jahr

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31:49

One day at Wrigley Field in Chicago last May, Paul Skenes was
pitching for the Pittsburgh Pirates, carving out a small piece of
baseball history in his second big-league game. He struck out the
first seven batters he faced. By the end of the fifth inning, he
had increased his strikeout total to 10. More impressive, he
hadn’t allowed a hit.

Over the past two decades, analysts have identified a treasure
trove of competitive advantages for teams willing to question
baseball’s established practices.

Perhaps the most significant of competitive advantages was hidden
in plain sight, at the center of the diamond. Starting pitchers
were traditionally taught to conserve strength so they could last
deep into games. Throwing 300 innings in a season was once
commonplace; in 1969 alone, nine pitchers did it. But at some
definable point in each game, the data came to reveal, a relief
pitcher becomes a more effective option than the starter, even if
that starter is Sandy Koufax or Tom Seaver — or Paul Skenes.

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