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Q. How much extra time does Hisashi Iwakuma use to prepare himself for a pitch?
A. He uses 3.3 seconds per pitch more than does the average MLB pitcher. The average is 22.0. Iwakuma's average is, you guessed it, 25.3.
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Q. Do any other pitchers have "pace" that is slower than average?
A. Have you augured Dr. D's mood yet? That will happen when our #2 starter wins us our 8th in a row, holding the game to 1-1 late innings, and all they can blinkin' talk about is that he should pitch faster. No, I take that back, not all they could talk about. There was one comment, as they cut to commercial, along the lines of, "with five in the books, Iwakuma ... working a ... shutout?"
Bah humbug. Yes, the most deliberate pitchers in baseball, over the last few years, have been Josh Beckett, Jon Lester, Jeremy Hellickson, Hiroki Kuroda, CC Sabathia, Shaun Marcum and now Yu Darvish and Hisashi Iwakuma. All take 23-27 seconds per pitch.
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Q. At 3.3 seconds extra per pitch, that's how much extra time in a game?
A. It's 330 seconds extra per 100 pitches, that being 5.5 minutes extra to throw 100 pitches. Wait a minute, though: those are good pitchers on that list, meaning effective pitchers, meaning less success by the batters. These deliberate, and excellent, starters allow fewer baserunners per 3-out inning; more time per AB, but fewer AB's per inning.
The game is closer to finished after 100 pitches thrown by Hiroki Kuroda than it is after 100 pitches by Hector Noesi. So you'll be able to escape the waking nightmare that is a baseball park a few minutes sooner, with Sabathia and Iwakuma pitching, because there are mercifully fewer at-bats and therefore mercifully less baseball.
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Q. What could you do with the extra 300+ seconds if Iwakuma pitched at average pace?
A. There's a Zen story about a city denizen hurrying a monk along to the train. "If we make this next train, we'll save six minutes." The monk replied, "And what significant thing will we do with our six minutes?"
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Q. It's a question of empty space in the game, though.
A. How much time between plays in the NFL?
We're not talking about an extra 20 seconds per pitch. We're talking about 3 seconds per pitch. Three seconds. Or, in Josh Beckett's case, five seconds; he takes 26.9 seconds per pitch. I never noticed that Beckett was deliberate. Did you? They don't talk about it twice an inning.
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Q. Does Iwakuma pitch slowly because he is inconsiderate?
A. Jack Nicklaus was, as I recall, the slowest player on the PGA tour. He would stand over the ball and stand over the ball and stand.... "When do you decide to putt, Jack?" "I putt when I FEEL READY to putt."
A few years ago, I ran into an old high school friend who'd become a fringe PGA golfer. I asked him how he did it. He beamed. "It's like any other sport, Jeff. You just make sure you visualize every single shot before you swing."
Jamie Moyer used to do this in a game situation, do you remember? Two on, two out, tie game ... Jamie would stand there and pound the ball into his mitt three times, maybe call Dan Wilson out to the mound... he was visualizing his pitch. He wouldn't throw until he liked the visual that was coming across his antennae.
Jamie Moyer, Josh Beckett, and Hisashi Iwakuma get into a game situation, they are simply going to pitch when they are ready to make the best pitches they are capable of. They do not throw "quit" pitches. They do not throw "hope" pitches. They don't throw wishing for "atom" balls. When Moyer, Beckett, and Iwakuma throw the ball, they are executing to the best of their abilities.
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Q. Does it hurt the fielding, when pitchers are deliberate? Do fielders eat their cereal, dreading a slow pitcher that night?
A. Point A: They woke up in the morning dreading being Mariners, when the starting pitchers had 5.77 ERA's in June. You want to talk slow innings, let's talk six baserunners in the fourth inning.
Point B: Go look up the starters with slow PACE, those being Sabathia, Garza, Beckett, Kuroda, Darvish, Iwakuma ... do you suppose we'll find high BABIP's? Of course we won't.
Even if we did .... (we will not) .... we'll take the tradeoff. With men on base, we need a pitcher's best pitch. Period.
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Q. I notice that Kuroda, Darvish, and Iwakuma are all deliberate workers. Why is that?
A. Maybe in Japan they don't appreciate carelessness. Maybe in Japan it is expected that you perform your job to the maximum of your ability and with a minimum of dumb mistakes. Maybe you should ask Taro or Ice or Dr. Naka and maybe they'll tell you that costing your co-workers money, through negligence, isn't cool in Japan.
Suppose that it were 1950, and there were a group of pitchers out of the old Negro Leagues - Newcombe, Paige, etc - who were used to pitching at a different tempo, 25 seconds instead of 22. And suppose we were insensitive about the diversity in their life experiences. Do you suppose we would be discussing the need to be sensitive to other cultural paradigms then? So why doesn't it apply here?
If Darvish, Kuroda and Iwakuma were doing it wrong, I would still point out that we should respect that they'd been raised in a non-Eurocentric culture. But are they doing it wrong? Is refusing to throw a "quit" pitch doing it wrong? Is standing over your putts 3 seconds longer -- and making more of them! -- doing it wrong?
Or should everybody else be doing it like Iwakuma does?
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If I were captain of the U.S. Golf team - what do they call it, the Ryder Cup? - and coaching Nicklaus, I'd tell him "Jack, you take exactly as much time as you need. If you need to step back off the ball and read the green again, that's exactly what you do. I got your back."
After all of the Noesi's and League's and Snell's and Morrow's the Mariners have gone through, now they get a man -- Hisashi Iwakuma -- who bears down. And all we hear is, hurry it up, can'cha.
No, it's me, I tell Hisashi Iwakuma "You throw that pitch when you are ready my man, and not a moment before. You step off the rubber if you have to. Just give us your best pitch. AND THANK YOU FOR BEARING DOWN OUT THERE."
Your friend,
Dr D
Some Tour-level golfers hated to play will slow players (like Glen "All" Day). It throws them off their own pace and they feel they play worse.
I wonder.....
How many batters dislike facing slow paced pitchers, BECAUSE it throws them off their own accustomed pace.
If every other pithcer in the game thows in 23 seconds, does one coming in at 27 seconds discombobulate them?
Worth wondering about.....
moe
Actually, the Red Sox broadcast booth has been ALLLLL OVER Beckett while he's struggling this year because they think his slow pace is messing up the infielders and causing a lot more seeing eye singles and fielding errors. Blowers was talking about that problem with Beckett during Iwakuma's last start before this one and he said the last time they faced Boston, their staff was trying to fix his timing issue and he was stubbornly refusing to fix it because he believed that taking a longer time caused hitters to tighten up.
And BTW Doc...how is that time recorded (per pitch length)? Does that count all the times the batter and catcher call for time because they're being iced by the pitcher taking a long time to pitch? Or the time spent by the pitcher walking around the mound? Or the time lost due to throws to first or second to hold runners?
As much as baseball TV commentators talk about slow pace, they also go on about breaking up the rhythm of the starter if he's going quickly. Stepping out of the box, making the pitcher wait, getting him out of his "groove".
I've no scientific data or anything for this, but it would seem to me that a pitcher who goes FASTER than the batter is prepared for would throw them off more. When I was drag racing (a LONG time ago) I always wanted to be the first to stage. It didn't bother me to wait an extra moment or two for the other guy, but I when I was second to stage I always felt a little rushed - sometimes the starter began the tree faster than I wanted and I didn't have as good a reaction time.
Like I said, no data, just what worked for (or against) me.
Brent
I hadn't heard that conversation about Beckett, and in fact hadn't noticed Beckett's pace. But that makes sense, that he would get flak for it. So, points to the baseball industry for a consistent code of conduct.
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If Beckett is really pitching more slowly for the purpose of being disruptive, that's a different conversation, although that one is also complex. Bob Gibson, among others, used to try to pitch more quickly than batters wanted. Whether pitchers owe hitters a favorable pace is an interesting question. I would tend to say that it's not cool for a tennis player to stand there bouncing the ball before his serve to try to disrupt his opponent's rhythm, but in baseball it's different.
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I don't know how fangraphs counts "pace" - maybe you can find their definition on their site somewhere? Certainly with respect to Iwakuma, their complaint is that he's okay with bases empty and then takes much more than 25 seconds after runners are on.
Like, you raced at SIR with rail dragsters or what? Sponsored, or you built your own? Win anything, get nationally ranked? How do you get your speed fix these days? ;- ) I heard Arsenal left back Santos led police on a 130 MPH chase and could go to jail for two years...
Right Brent, there are a lot of pitchers who try to rush the batter. Gibson was notorious for this. Sportswriters, who seem to want out of the park at the soonest moment possible, love pitchers who disrupt the enemy THIS way.
Baseball rules forbid "a quick return" pitch that "is made with the obvious intent to catch the hitter off balance." The rules imply that the matchup should be skill against skill, and that Jeet Kune Do style "broken rhythm" -- in baseball -- is a cheap attempt to avoid a fair matchup. In drag racing I'd tend to apply the same thinking. Let's see a race here, your best against his best.
Nicklaus took a long time over the ball but said he tried to make up for it by being ready to play more quickly than average.
How much time are we talking about here? If I'm playing with a guy who stands over his shot 10 extra seconds, I can use the time to visualize my own shot. If he's taking two extra minutes per putt, that's another thing. You could get stale. Of course, on public courses, sometimes you're waiting a LONG time for the group in front of you, anyway.
On tour, do players ever have to wait for the group in front of them, by the way?
BTW...that original post wasn't meant to call you out, Doc...just a careful bit of caution about assuming the annoyance with Iwakuma has anything to do with where he comes from. I've heard pace complaints in the booth for years...and every time a pitcher gets into a long inning and then gets to a grinding pace...and then gives up runs...people assume he'd have done better if he'd thrown faster. There's some logic there...Jarrod Washburn used an 87 mph "fast"ball and ridiculously fast working pace to foil hitters and make them uncomfortable. Same for Mark Buehrle. Then again, if your stuff is so good, they have no chance of hitting it anyway...maybe it's beter they tighten up a smidge overthinking than that they be caught off guard?
Eh...if Iwakuma runs 20 straight PQS gems, the complaints will stop. Most of the time, announcers express these kinds of concerns when they don't know and therefore trust a pitcher enough yet or when they think there's a reason for on-field struggles.
And if the point makes any sense at all, I won't even send my boys out to beat you up in the alley :- )
Agree. I don't think that ANYbody employed by the Mariners, such as the TV guys, dislike ANYbody because of the color of their skin. What I do question, however, is whether Asians receive the same benefit of the doubt, same deference to their cultural shift, etc., that other people receive.
Also stipulated: the tooth-chipping over Iwakuma's PACE, THAT has zero to do with the fact that Johjima, Ichiro and Iwakuma have collectively received less-than-warm welcomes. Those two issues are completely separate, the awkwardness over NPB players generally, and the industry-wide resentment of deliberate pitching.
When we brought up Newcombe, Paige, etc., it was merely to throw out the idea that non-Eurocentric approaches usually receive EXTRA consideration and in this case, 'tis not so.
Good talk man..... (heh)
”A. Maybe in Japan they don't appreciate carelessness. Maybe in Japan it is expected that you perform your job to the maximum of your ability and with a minimum of dumb mistakes. Maybe you should ask Taro or Ice or Dr. Naka and maybe they'll tell you that costing your co-workers money, through negligence, isn't cool in Japan.”
There are 2 things I can comment.
1. IIRC the rules are different.
Without any runner the pitcher has to deliver in 12 seconds for MLB but for NPB the time is 20seconds.
http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/official_info/official_rules/pitcher_8.jsphttp://...
"8.04
When the bases are unoccupied, the pitcher shall deliver the ball to the batter within 12 seconds after he receives the ball. Each time the pitcher delays the game by violating this rule, the umpire shall call Ball. The 12-second timing starts when the pitcher is in possession of the ball and the batter is in the box, alert to the pitcher. The timing stops when the pitcher releases the ball.
The intent of this rule is to avoid unnecessary delays. The umpire shall insist that the catcher return the ball promptly to the pitcher, and that the pitcher take his position on the rubber promptly. Obvious delay by the pitcher should instantly be penalized by the umpire."
走者がいない場合は捕手からの返球を受けた後、20秒以内に投球しないといけない
Google translation:
After receiving a throw-in from the catcher, if there is no runner we Do I have to throw within 20 seconds ^^;
2. The Japanese fans like the ”間” "space" the same as in Kendo, Jujitsu and other Budou "martial arts".
They like the mental or spirit fight between pitcher and batter.
More on "ma". One of the things I enjoy most about an MMA fight is the gauging of space, the feints, mental tactics, etc. You get booed out of the house for that over here.
jemanji, it was over 20 years ago and I only did it for enjoyment. Strictly bracket racing, on an irregular basis. Never won anything, never even got close. Took a '65 Impala with a 283/powerglide and dropped in a .030 over 396/T350. If some guys are considered low-dollar operation, we were no-dollar. Sometimes he drove, sometime I did. I had better reaction times, he had better E.T.'s. Probably had something to do with him wieghing about 160, and me being about 250. Well, that's what my driver's license says I weighed. You wouldn't think that a hundred pounds or so would make that much difference, but it does. My oldest daughter (3 years old at the time) called it Daddy's vroom vroom car. When little sister came along the car went away and I haven't been on a track since.