Come shed a tear

[Snowman]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

Maybe over 162 games that pays off. In a shot series no thank you. If Max Scherzer is in total command after 4 innings, every computer on earth could tell me to pull him in in favor of the no name middle reliever, and I would absolutely ignore that. A computer can't see command.

Originally Posted by G1911

I have no doubt that, on average, after 6 innings putting in a fresh pitcher is more likely to help your team win over the course of a season with a large sample size.

I have serious doubts that, after 6 innings, pulling a star pitcher who is still doing well and putting in a rando will help your team win over the course of a season with a large sample size.

On a game by game basis, it is a stupid thing to do without factoring in the specifics of that day and how the pitchers 'feel' as teams keep finding in the playoffs.

It's not really a question anymore though. We have the data to be able to answer that now. Every arm eventually tires out. And a tired arm from even an elite pitcher is still outperformed by a fresh arm from a good reliever. And you can't really know when that elite SP's arm is going to tire out. It typically happens very quickly. They're throwing fire until all of a sudden they're getting shelled. And the SP can't tell you either. They always think they're fine. Egos get involved too. So you go to the data. You look at things like xFIP rates and WHIP rates and K/BB rate curves by pitch count and some of the more advanced sabermetrics for each guy over the course of a season, and you pull him when that curve shows he's most likely about to drop.

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

If the NFL season was 162 games, would the best team still win 90 percent, or is there something going on here with sample size?

Yes, they'd still win 90%. Or rather there's an underlying "true" team win% that each team converges to over the course of a season. It happens very quickly in football and basketball, and it takes a very long time in baseball. Fivethirtyeight.com did study on this a few years back where they calculated the amount of information gain about team strength across various sports. They used a methodology developed by Tom Tango that examines variance of outcomes. The Cliff Notes are that a 17-game NFL season provides as much information about team strength as would 104 MLB games, and as much information as 19 NBA games.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features...e-nfl-and-nba/