Risk Aversion

Finding The Balance

Few games this, or any, season were stranger than Tuesday’s extra inning affair against the Astros. The game featured several wild moments including a player ejected for taking his shoe and sock off to show the umpire his bare foot, a phantom hit by pitch, and as close of a finish as it gets. Rather than recap the chaos there were two aspects of the game that may be areas the Padres can apply a bit of extra polish.

Petco’d

A strange phenomenon early in 2024 was that Petco Park, the traditionally extreme pitchers park, was ranking near the top of MLB in home run park factor. There was speculation that the architectural changes to Gallagher Square may have altered the atmospherics of the outfield facilitating further travel from fly balls. But Petco’s home run park factor has quietly drifted downward, significantly:

A park factor of 103 is still above average, but a far cry from the 140’s we saw in the early part of the season. Petco has long had a reputation as a graveyard for fly balls. Statcast data is allowing us to see that this is not just a reputation, it’s a fact that fly balls sometimes don’t travel as far in Petco. This was prominently on display Tuesday. You can tell a lot from the body language of the pitcher:

Hunter Brown can’t even bring himself to look, he was sure he’d just given up a home run. If you watch to the end of the clip you can see Jackson Merrill’s disbelief that he hadn’t.

It’s easy to understand the pitcher’s reaction and Merrill’s disbelief. Merrill hit that ball 106 MPH off the bat. And just the night before Merrill had also hit a ball to centerfield 106 MPH off the bat:

Tuesday’s blast had a slightly steeper launch angle of 34 degrees, and that was probably the difference. Here is the spray chart of balls hit 106 MPH at a 34 degree launch angle in 2024:

These are home runs 75% of the time, including plenty to center field. Yet Statcast noted that Merrill’s hit Tuesday would have been a home run in zero of the 30 MLB parks. That’s because despite being crushed off the bat, the ball only traveled 396 feet:

Balls hit 106 MPH with a 34 degree launch angle usually travel farther. This is the Petco Park atmospherics. Perhaps it’s because it’s later in the season and the temperatures are cooler, in the 60’s during most of the game. Perhaps it’s Petco’s proximity to the bay and resulting marine layer. Whatever it is the effect is real.

There are undoubtedly teams that have begun factoring their park’s night-to-night atmospherics into the margins of their game plan. It’s not clear the Padres are one of those teams, but a deep understanding of how balls are likely to travel on a given night can incrementally help make better decisions. On a night when fly balls are likely to die it suggests the team can exercise a little more risk tolerance in pitching up in the zone, or opting for Jeremiah Estrada (fly ball prone) over Adrian Morejon if the decision were otherwise extremely close. These decisions are deep in the margins. But the Padres have gotten a lot of the big picture stuff right, and there just isn’t a lot of low hanging fruit. That’s a credit to the team. But it doesn’t mean the work is done.

Risk Aversion

Perhaps the most scrutinized play of the game came in the 10th inning with the Padres trailing 4-3 and runners on first and third with no outs. Luis Arraez was up. This is exactly the hitter you would want up in this situation. Arraez is the hitter most likely to deliver a base hit which would guarantee the tying run would score from third. Pinch runner Tyler Wade was on third base. This was a very good situation for the Padres. But we’re going to get nit-picky here. Take a look at Tyler Wade’s lead at third:

The infield is in which means the third baseman is much closer to the bag than normal. And a pick off would be a calamity. It’s definitely true that a runner should take a shorter lead than usual to prevent the possibility of a pickoff or a back pick from the catcher. But taking a lead this short is putting all your eggs in the Arraez base hit basket. That is not the only way to score. With no force out at the plate a runner could score on a ground ball. Indeed Arraez produced a ground ball, but as you’ll see it’s not one Wade was likely to score on:

The main dereliction of Tyler Wade’s shockingly short lead off of third base was not that it cost him a chance to score on this precise play, but that it would have compromised his ability to score on a more advantageous ground ball or a wild pitch, something that was certainly a possibility as he was electing to take such a risk averse lead.

Wade’s pinch running appearance last week ended with a pickoff in a late and close situation which must have been devastating psychologically. There can be no doubt it was on his mind. But if you watch the replay of Arraez’ at bat you’ll see Elias Diaz also has a preposterously short lead off of first. This implies that it was a team strategy to be extremely risk averse with its leads.

Now maybe this is the right balance of risk with a hitter as likely to get a base hit as Arraez. But Wade was taking this same extreme risk aversion strategy with the much-less-likely-to-get-a-hit Elias Diaz one batter earlier, and this was the final pitch of that at bat:

The second angle shows how risk averse Wade’s secondary lead was:

A runner can score on that play with a healthy secondary lead. Especially since the pitcher was a little late to cover home plate. Wade’s risk aversion foreclosed on that possibility. To be clear we’re not saying Wade definitely made a mistake by being so very risk averse here. The pickoff risk was real too, and some degree of a shorter lead was appropriate. We are saying that these decisions deserve scrutiny from the team analytics department which is resourced to get a granular understanding of whether Wade’s lead was appropriately short or was overly cautious. If you’ve watched the team all season you’ve seen dozens of plays decided by inches. The team has agency in how much risk to tolerate in these situations, how many extra inches Wade should take. The time for rigorous situational analysis of the minutiae is now.

The Padres were ultimately unable to score the run from third and would go on to lose after a terrific defensive play by Grae Kessinger robbed Manny Machado of a bases loaded hit that would have likely led to a walk-off win:

Incidentally Kessinger was in the game as a replacement for Jose Altuve who was the one thrown out of the game for taking his shoes and socks off at home plate. Incredible. This was as close as a game can possibly be.

Playoff Atmosphere

AJ Cassavell captured some telling quotes after the game:

"It kind of feels like a playoff game,” said Astros manager Joe Espada. “It's a playoff atmosphere out there.”

Said Padres third baseman Manny Machado: “That's what October is. It was a nice little taste.”

Not every team can say this. Not even those in enormous markets in the middle of important playoff races. Monday’s Mets broadcast featured this surreal moment:

Usually “Baseball’s best fans” and “Shockingly small crowd for a pennant race game” aren’t invoked consecutively. The Mets equivalent of Erik Greupner can’t be happy about this clip, especially since it’s just unfettered honesty from the announcers. Peter Seidler created something special in San Diego. The juxtaposition with New York the night before almost beggars belief. The Padres have a unique home field advantage in that there is a playoff atmosphere every night. It’s impossible to know the effect size of that advantage. It’s probably on the margins. But it’s real. They are getting playoff-like experience as the regular season winds down. And with that needs to be a “no stone unturned” approach to finding slivers of win probability wherever they can. That perfect risk pH balance. Any way to tilt the scales. Because the postseason is coming.