The Hook Part II

In a recent post I provided a list of how frequently teams enjoyed the platoon advantage on defense when changing pitchers. Tangotiger asks...

"Your list for pitchers is 62%. Of course, when a closer is brought in, the manager is not looking at the platoon advantage. As well, in blowouts, the manager is not looking for platoon advantages.

Can you break up your list based on whether the pitcher is the "ace" or not, and whether the score is within 4 runs or not?"

Yes.

Below is the same table but this time only when the team's closer (defined as the player who had the most saves in 2006) is not the pitcher being brought in and when the run differential is 3 or fewers runs.

Team   Changes   Adv     Pct
SEA        259   199   76.8%
DET        219   167   76.3%
CHA        217   163   75.1%
SLN        231   166   71.9%
CLE        202   144   71.3%
PIT        332   235   70.8%
TOR        290   204   70.3%
BAL        260   182   70.0%
NYA        264   184   69.7%
CHN        290   200   69.0%
COL        296   201   67.9%
CIN        256   173   67.6%
KCA        275   183   66.5%
MIN        217   144   66.4%
SFN        274   181   66.1%
HOU        274   180   65.7%
ATL        317   208   65.6%
MIL        255   167   65.5%
TEX        253   164   64.8%
PHI        288   185   64.2%
ANA        186   119   64.0%
OAK        247   156   63.2%
SDN        295   183   62.0%
WAS        280   171   61.1%
FLO        230   139   60.4%
BOS        245   147   60.0%
NYN        246   145   58.9%
ARI        286   164   57.3%
TBA        291   166   57.0%
LAN        237   130   54.9%

Total     7812  5150   65.9%

As you can see it doesn't change the numbers that greatly and lifts the aggregate from 62% to 66%. As Tangotiger points out, the offense takes the platoon advantage 78% of the time when pinch hitting and that disparity is to be expected since the pitcher must actually pitch to one hitter and because these numbers include instances where the offensive team then used a pinch hitter, which in many cases gains they do for the express purpose of gaining the advantage. If non-pinch hitting cases are excluded the overall percentage goes up to 69% with Seattle climbing to 82.3% and the Dodgers still at the bottom at 58.8%.

When the game is tighter managers are also more likely to try and gain the platoon advantage (non closer).

Tied   65.5%
1 Run  67.0%
2 Run  65.9%
3 Run  64.6%
4 Run  64.0%
5 Run  62.1%
6 Run  55.3%
>6     53.3%

Perhaps counterintuitively, managers do not seem to display the same tendency based on the inning of the pitching change (given 3 runs or fewer differential and non-closer).

Inning 4     69.4%
Inning 5     69.0%
Inning 6     69.4%
Inning 7     67.9%
Inning 8     66.6%
Inning 9     58.4%
Inning 10+   58.1%

The reason for this is probably due in large part to the fact that the manager has only so many pitchers at his disposal and so his first reliever (likely used in the 6th or 7th innings) will be the most likely to enjoy the advantage. The manager will then be forced to use the pitchers that remain as the game goes later and so can't be so choosy about the matchup he'll get.