Backseat manages the bottom of the 10th inning in World Series Game 1

What a game. This series was so hyped that a scoreless tie through four innings seemed like a disappointment. But then the party started. In the end, we got everything we wanted: stars, steals, defensive gems and gaffes, and even a Kirk Gibson-esque walk-off home run. But my main focus is writing about management decisions, so let’s quickly write about 1,100 words on that before it’s time for Game 2. I’m particularly interested in the bottom half of the 10th inning in Game 1 of the World Series. and the decisions that led to Freddie Freeman’s colossal walk-off grand slam, giving the Dodgers a 6-3 victory over the Yankees.

With Nestor

I hated it. The question of why it’s a bad decision is pretty simple, right? Nestor Cortes hadn’t pitched in a month, a trusty lefty was also warm, and the scariest guy in existence was due. It’s hard to imagine a scenario where this would be the least risky move. I can’t say much about the pitch level data since he only threw two pitches, but there are countless reasons to choose a reliever over a starter in this situation.

A large part of Cortes’ brilliance lies in his diversity. He throws a lot of different pitches. He’s got a wicked wind-up – even several wacky wind-ups. He changes speeds and locations. This is how a guy who hits 91-92 mph with his fastball continues to have success in the big leagues. But many of these advantages are negated if you don’t have a feel for the game.

Both pitches Cortes threw were fastballs in the strike zone. What did you expect? He hasn’t played in a game in a month, and starters have trained to launch fastballs their entire lives. This makes sense because the game starts in a low leverage state. Cortes came into the game with the game-winning run at second base and the winning run at first base.

This is ultimately an emotional decision, and Aaron Boone obviously has a lot more feel for his team than I do. But I can’t shake the memories of Michael Wacha coming out of the Cardinals’ bullpen in Game 5 of the 2014 NLCS — and I’m not the only one who saw shades of that fateful decision in that game. After missing most of the second half of the season with a stress fracture in his right shoulder blade, Wacha made his first appearance of the postseason when the score was 3-3 at the bottom of the ninth and his team was on the brink of elimination. He looked away, Travis Ishikawa walked away and the rest was history. I think Cortes will be an important contributor for the Yankees in this World Series – but I wouldn’t have chosen this spot for his return to the mound.

Walking Mookie

I don’t hate it. To remedy the situation, the Dodgers had runners on second and third with two outs and a deficit of one. Mookie Betts was supposed to come and Freeman was on deck. Boone accompanied Betts to address Freeman, setting history in motion. But should he have accompanied Betts?

In general, it’s not a good idea to run across the loaded bases. It makes it far too easy to drive in a run with a walk or a hit with a pitch. Our WPA model estimates that this decision cost the Yankees about three percentage points of win probability. That’s a really big swing for a management decision; Most of the values ​​I look at here are in the sub-1% range.

That is the general case. However, in this case we have to consider the players involved and that goes a long way in making Boone’s decision look better. First I modeled Betts versus Cortes. Betts has achieved league-average platoon distribution throughout his career. Cortes is also pretty close to average. But “league average” is a bad deal for a left-handed hitter facing a right-handed hitter because right-handed batters do well against left-handed pitchers. When I incorporate their projections and the regressed platoon splits into a model, I get a projected WOBA of .395, which is pretty close to Betts’ career numbers against lefties.

What does this mean in terms of winning the game? If I put Betts in a normal lineup and tell my model that the Yankees pitched to him, there is a 26.2% chance that the Dodgers will win the game. Our win probability model, which has no information about the identity of the batter and pitcher and instead uses only the league average, gave the Dodgers a 23.7% chance of winning at that point. Betting against a left-hander: good matchup!

That’s not entirely true because there’s no such thing as an average lineup after Betts, but let’s go ahead and see how the Freeman/Cortes matchup plays out with the bases loaded. Freeman has large turn splits in a huge sample; In his career, he has been 14.1% better against right-handed pitchers (.397 wOBA) than against left-handed pitchers (.348). Even after returning his splits somewhat to the mean, he’s a great hitter against righties and significantly worse – though still great – against lefties.

When I include the Freeman/Cortes confrontation in my model, I get a significantly lower predicted WOBA – .373 – than the Betts/Cortes confrontation. Adding in the game status, I had the Dodgers with a 28.8% chance of winning when Freeman stepped to the plate with the bases loaded.

Just one last step in our calculation: we need to change Betts’ odds to reflect the fact that Freeman was batting behind him and not some idiot. This increases the probability to 26.7%. As my math advisor Count Von Count would tell you, 28.8 is larger than 26.7. But there’s one confounding variable: Freeman is injured. He posted a wRC+ of 37 in his 33 plate appearances before the World Series and had missed four of his team’s 11 playoff games due to an ankle injury.

Our forecasters know nothing about Freeman’s health. If he were actually the hitter he looked like in the NLDS and NLCS, it would completely change the matchup. Then we’re talking about league-average protection for Betts. That would tell you that the Dodgers had a 26.7% chance of winning the game when Freeman struggled, assuming he was the diminished model of himself.

In other words: The decision is too close to be made. Now that Tim Hill was there, as I would have liked, everything would have been different. Hill is a left-handed specialist with wide platoon splits. I wouldn’t let him near Betts with a 10-foot pole. But Cortes is far less specialized; He’s pretty good against everyone. That’s the difference in situations like this.

Finally, I wouldn’t have used Cortes at the end of the 10th. However, if I had, I probably would have pitched to Betts, but I think the decision is so close that both decisions are defensible. If the Yankees had chosen Hill instead and still ended up with runners on second and third and two outs, I definitely would have taken Betts to play Freeman. And of course, it’s always worth noting that all of these decisions had little overall impact on the outcome of the game. Boone’s maneuver could have increased the Yankees’ probability of victory by a few percentage points. Freeman improved it by about 72 percentage points in one fell swoop. The players always determine the outcome, no matter how much we like to rehash managerial decisions.