Pitch Count Contest
I haven’t done a contest in a while, and I’ve got a copy of Stumbling on Wins by David Berri and Martin Schmidt to give away. If you’d like to win a copy, answer the following question correctly.
From 1988 to 2009, by how many pitches did the median number of pitches thrown in a game by starters change?
Put your answer in the comments. One entry per person. First commenter with the right answer wins a free copy of the book. As with all contests here, I reserve the right to arbitrate unforeseen circumstances as I see fit.
Ummmm: Zero?
-10
Drats. Millsy beat me to it. Now I have to work through whether instinct is correct.
First: itt’s median, not mean. And Dusty Baker wasn’t managing in 1988. (He didn’t actually manage in any real sense of the word in 2009 either, but he was employed.)
So a few middling pitchers threw several more pitches. And keeping starting pitchers to a 90- or 100-count doesn’t affect that much from the Goose/Quiz/Sutter/LeeSmith/Hrabosky era.
Otoh, the skew of having 16 NL teams and only 14 AL teams implies a slight DECLINE in pitches thrown, since the proportion of DH games went DOWN. (If you assume the conventional wisdom that having the DH enables pitchers to pitch more/longer.)
So the MEDIAN 2009 pitcher is 16/30ths of a NL pitcher and 14/30ths of an AL pitcher.
Best assumption: SP median went up about 5 pitches (ca. 1/2 inning).
Oops. Got my sign backwards. Since the Baker factor will be smaller than the More Teams without DH factor, SP medisn should have gone DOWN about 5 pitches.
I’ll say… 11.
Down 15
Down 7
Down 1
2
I’m assuming we need not guess direction of change.
No, you need to pick the direction.
I don’t know, but since I want the book, I’ll guess 3 less in 09 than in 88.
Down 5
In that case, I’d like to change mine to up 1.
Down 3
down 2.
Up 3
up 2
Down 12
Down 6
Down 8
Down 20
Down 6
Plus 5
up 8
7 less pitches now?
Oops . . . I meant 9.
My guess: +13 pithces.
down 16
Down 10
So what was the correct answer?