Seattle Sports Insider

The Problem of Uncomfortable Opponent

or should we say, stRange opponent

Posted by

6/15/16

It's a weird sports psychology cycle that the Soviet grandmasters spent a lot of time on. 1960 World Champion Tal met Viktor Korchnoi in an important tournament, committed an embarrassing blunder against him to lose and "after that, Tal always played against me as if he were doomed," according to Viktor the Terrible.

Bobby Fischer, from 1959-1967, had a way of botching things up against the Russians. He would outplay them for 30 moves, but they'd be slithering around, hanging on to life, seeking the tactical blow that they felt should be rightfully theirs. They usually found it. Fischer had lousy minus scores against Tal, Geller, Spassky, and others.

The solution? Three that we know of:

1) Maintain your own fighting spirit as best you can. Pay special attention to self-belief, optimism, and making THE OPPONENT uncomfortable in any way possible. Do not in any circumstance accept a feeling of melancholy before the contest. Get mean. You might still lose, but ...

2) Hope for THAT MOMENT in which your "bully" shows himself to be as human as you are. One famous game, the "bully" walked in, superciliously took off his jacket and tossed it onto a chair ... and then the jacket slid off and hit the floor. "When that jacket hit the floor, so did his aura of invincibility," said the customer.

3) Get SO MUCH BETTER than your customer that sports pyschology doesn't matter any more. That was the way with Fischer in 1967-1972. A Randy Johnson, or James Paxton, can go a long ways towards making your 25 guys feel just fine about their chances.

That's one reason that aircraft-carrier Starting Pitchers can affect the tone and mood of a pennant race so much. HOF starters are underrated, not overrated. As James says, "the fabric of baseball history is woven in the threads of HOF starting pitchers."

...

The Mariners do appear to me to have played a little tighter against the Rangers than against other teams. Against the Indians and Rays, they would take a tough pitch and then step out of the box, shoulders loose, front hand and bat hanging carelessly, knocking dirt off their shoes ... against the Rangers, after a Ranger lead, they seemed to stand in the box stiff and mechanical.

In any case, in 12 games the Mariners have still outplayed the Rangers base-for-base --- > and had their 6-6, 7-5 game score taken away by BABIP and fielding errors. The Mariners have outplayed the AL by a lot, the Rangers by a little ... the M's "tightness" against Texas (if it exists) has taken a clearly superior team and made it only a little better. Luck has done the rest.

JUST THE FA'AX, MA'AM

After 63 games, here are the Mariners and the Rangers against the entire league and against each other. The Mariners are just better:

Crew	AVG	OBP	SLG	OPS+ or ERA+	K	BB	HR	BABIP
M's bats	.260	.330	.441	113	476	206	95	.290
Tex bats	.266	.332	.429	97	463	170	78	.301
M's arms	.242	.306	.400	107	547	187	80	.286
Tex arms	.258	.325	.418	112	442	207	81	.286

That kind of difference in pitching Three True Outcomes leaves no room for debate. Imagine if it were a single pitcher over two seasons.

....

Here are the stats in the 12 games so far this year between the Mariners and Rangers, mano-a-mano. 461 PA's for the Rangers, 454 for the M's, which for one player is the better part of one full season:

Crew	AVG	OBP	SLG	tOPS+	K	BB	HR	BABIP
Tex bats	.259	.330	.408	110	105	43	14	.312
M's bats	.227	.295	.398	80	78	33	17	.234

Per Three True Outcomes the M's pitchers have struck out more than 4 Rangers for every 3 the Rangers have inflicted. The Rangers return the favor in walk control, so the Rangers' EYE ratio is 2.4 compared to the M's 2.3. Homers are in the M's favor by 20%. So, overall, slightly in the Mariners' favor.

What's not in the M's favor is --- > the luck on batted balls finding grass. So, fly by your instincts, gentlemen. If you believe that a given play with a .200 BABIP will revert to .300 BABIP in his future 500 AB's, you believe the same thing here.

....

For all this BABIP sadness, the M's would still be 7-5 in this series except for three weird games:

Opening Day, Felix and Montgomery held the Rangers to one base hit, and lost the game 3-2 after errors by Marte and Seager in the 5th led to a three-run, one-single rally.
June 5th, Hisashi Iwakuma threw a 7-K "shutout" except that a botched double play by Marte opened the door to 3 runs off an infield bunt hit, a single up the middle and a seeing-eye ground ball. We lost 3-2.
You might remember the 1-0 victory in which Steve Cishek threw a 3-2 fastball waist high to Prince Fielder.

In chess, Dr. D usually loses because --- > he had a positional hammer-lock in place, but the "lucky" opponent tried 20 cheap tactical tricks, and one of them slipped through the cracks to ruin everything. The truth is, it's hard to play that kind of game, the boa constrictor strategy in which you hope the mouse never does find a slit to scamper through. Mice do find lots of cracks. All three of the M's losses were in that mold; the Rangers only needed a little luck or sloppy play, and they got it, every time.

That's not to say it's better to hope for cheap luck than to play for superior base/out ratio ...

If the M's convert on two of those games, the season series is 6-6 ... despite the BABIP travesty. If they convert them all, the series is 7-5 and we're in first place in the division.

So. The M's got a better team, but they do play a little tight against Texas. A dollop of bad luck has added to a 4-8 series start. The thing about a baseball season, is that is is 162 games long. The run differential is +54 so far, and we doubt that James Paxton is going to do much to detract from that.

Enjoy,

Dr D

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Comments

Good article as always.

Good article as always. Thanks Doc.

I wish I was up to an article called "The Uncomfortable Mariners Fan." There's plenty of supporting material available over the last few weeks.

The M's came within an eyelash today of being swept by the Rays after leading in all three games. Thankfully, Benoit mustered the 3-2 pitch with the bases loaded and 2 outs that we couldn't get last night.

I was thinking while watching the game-- a dubious proposition at best, the thinking, not the watching the game-- that one of the reasons baseball is uniquely special is the way you get a real feel for the players' personalities. You have 162 opportunities each season, and you get a sustained good look at each player during at bats and sometimes after fielding plays. There's no helmet as in football to obscure their facial expressions and idiosyncracies. There's not frenetic action like in basketball. During a baseball season you bond with the players on your team (or in some cases are repelled) in a very personal way, even with guys who are just in town for a single season.

BABIP Travesty

Hey all. Longtime lurker, first time poster. You know the deal: massive respect for the community and level of discussion cultivated on this site. SSI has ruined me for the rest of the baseball blogosphere, to the point where I can hardly read anything else. And LL is good! But they've got nothin' on the grandmasters in this little corner of the coffee shop...

So, my attempt to add to the conversation. I hate to be a contrarian (that's a boldfaced lie, I live to be contrarian). But Doc, your take on the Ms vs stRangers talent level left me with some cognitive dissonance. We watched the same couple recent series, but where you saw two evenly matched teams playing in a 2-pawn luck-based handicap match, I saw a good team get consistantly beaten by a better, more complete team.

To back up my intuition, I present some Fangraphs defensive rankings which I do not fully understand, but I believe paint an effective broad strokes picture of the problem. According to the nerds (I'm a huge nerd, so I can say that), the stRangers rank 1st in baseball in total defense. Meanwhile the Ms come in 25th on the strength of a defense hamstrung by some shockingly slow corner outfielders, the only Japanese player to ever take bad routes, a rangeless 2B, and an inconsistant shortstop. Our defense is held together by duct tape and voodoo, and that's just what we used to patch up King Leo's hamstring.

So, where you see an un-possible BABIP differential, I see Texas exercising its superior defensive ability to choke the life out of the boys in blue in what would otherwise be an even matchup. Of course, I'm sure some BABIP regression on both sides should still be expected, because you can only hope to contain the Mariners' offensive juggernaut, and a .234 BABIP is not gonna withstand the off-field line drives of Nelson Cruz and Dae-Ho. But it's a real advantage they've got, respect is due, and we need to find a different edge to even the odds. What that is, besides the mighty left arm of Zeus, only JeDi knows.

My 2.5 cents. Thoughts?

Think we agree on most of that Sherm :- )

When a BABIP differs from .312 to .234, a good part of that might be tighter defense, lower velocity on balls in play, more skyballs, etc.

But bear in mind that the team BABIP's last year ranged only from .280 to .322. The year befor the lowest team BABIP was .277. etc. When hits on balls in play (for any team or pitcher; doesn't apply for individual hitters) dips under the 27% mark, then long-term we can confidently predict them to bounce back.

The ocean covers 70% of the earth, and the 8 fielders out there are going to cover about 30% of that two-three acres, however we slice it. Defenses and batters can adjust and adjust back; there's always going to be about 70% out there that fielders can get to. Less than about 27% of the balls are falling in? Something's skewy, and should revert.

I dunno, maybe 50% of the M's lousy batting average vs Texas was their own fault and 50% was the luck of the draw.

.....

If Texas had been swinging the bats so much better than the M's, we're left with explaining why they fanned so much more, and hit fewer home runs. Put the 1975 Reds against the 1982 Mariners, for 500 at-bats, and the Reds are not going to fan 50% more and hit fewer homers. :- )

.....

Sometimes the D-stats vary from one source to another. Baseball Prospectus gives the M's and Rangers as having exactly the same out conversion rate, 71.5% to 71.6%. Park-adjusted has us a little bit ahead.

To my eye, the Mariners SHOULD HAVE had a dubious defense this year, but that infield has been very crisp with Cano's recovery and Martin has been superb in center. The corner OF's have been kludgy but hasn't cost us that much on visible plays. Hence the M's consistent top-10 ranking on BP.

John Dewan does have the Rangers with a terrific defense, though, +23 runs saved to his count with the Mariners -13 (mostly at pitcher and catcher!) You could well be right that the Rangers' defense is a big overlooked advantage in our games with them.

.....

I know what you're saying, though. The body language, bullpens, aggressiveness at pivotal moments, etc., it's all given (to me, at least) a vibe like the Rangers expect to win.

Swing for swing, base for base, it's been approximately even, but at key moments and over the course of 12 games (4-8) the Rangers have certainly given the appearance of being in control of the rivalry.

Which is my thesis here. The rosters favor the M's (as the team OPS+ and ERA+ currently show), but the M's aren't playing like it in the head-to-head games.

....

Hope you can chime in often Sherm!

Thanks Doc! I'll try to,

Thanks Doc! I'll try to, whenever I feel like I can further the conversation.

As for this particular exchange, I guess my salient point was that it's worth adding defense to the ERA+ and OPS+ comparison, especially when theres a real gap between the teams. It takes three points to triangulate, right? Defense might be the third point that explains why we're the only thing that gets smaller in Texas.

I think we're on the same page about BABIP regression. I just figure that given these two teams, it wouldn't surprise anyone if in a luck-neutral face off, the stRangers settle in at about 310 and the Ms scrabble along at 278. That can be a pretty huge deal in a season series, no?

As for the Mariners' attempts to cover 73% of Safeco, I think they're less like the ocean than like an inland lake. Sure the whole scene is pleasant, and there's a bubbling brook of Leonys and the steady eddy of Seager, but the rest of the water is a little tepid. One thing that struck me a few weeks ago was how many lazy bloops plop down in front of Cruz in the outfield. Cruz and Cano both kind of remind me of the late career Derek Jeter: they field the hell out of their positions, but only if their limited speed allows them to participate in the play. Thus you can have a team whose defense looks aesthetically pleasing and "crisp" as you so aptly put it, but without actually being "good". They aren't costing us on "visible plays", but they might be failing on some invisible ones. Feel me?

"the only Japanese player to

"the only Japanese player to ever take bad routes" -- GREAT LINE Sherminator. It captures something that's been consternating me all season watching Aoki. Clearly he's a bad outfielder with poor instincts, but you hit on something very specific that I think is true. I can't remember another Japanese outfielder that left me with such an impression.

Good post, too. Like Doc, I say chime in more.

Loki's Deception

Much like the Norse God, the Loki we've gotten hasn't really been the one I/we expected. I figured we were getting an Ichiro-level of unselfishness at the plate, and a fielder who tragically lacked the insticts to be a standout defender. Instead, I've gotten the sneaking suspicion that Aoki is a bit of an underachiever. I won't presume to actually know the man or what his work habits are, but he gives me the impression of a player whose innate hitting ability was so impressive (by Japanese standards) that he never needed to develop the rest of his game the way his other contrymen did. Not to say that he consciously slacked off while everyone else shagged fly balls... but on a more subtle level, he may have just never needed to leap a defensive plateau, and so he didn't.

Of course I could be all wrong here. He's rich and handsome, and I'm finishing up a theatre degree while watching him play major league ball. But as a fan, I've found it much harder to enjoy his play than I expected.

Thanks for the warm welcome DaddyO!