Yesterday, TGP’s own Joe Edinger wrote about how the Phillies fared through the first month of the ABS system. You can (and should!) get the big picture from reading his article. But today I’d like to look at the smaller picture. What were the best and worst ABS challenges from Phillies through the first month? The most and least likely challenges? The most valuable? Call it the ABS Awards. The bad news for our winners is that they get no statuettes. The good news is that they don’t have to dress
up and eat bad canapés.
Without further ado.
The Least Likely Challenge by a Batter
Statcast uses a model that incorporates the various aspects of game state to determine how likely each pitch is to be challenged. We can use this to see who filed the least likely challenge, the challenge that few others would dare to make. Call him a maverick. Call him an iconoclast. Call him…
Bryce Harper.
Harper’s challenge doesn’t look terrible. It doesn’t even look bad. The pitch just caught the edge of the zone. You can easily see why it wouldn’t be so easy to see. But the challenge was made in a low-leverage situation, early in the game, with the Phillies leading, and Harper up 3-1 in the count. Statcast gave the pitch just a 3% chance to be challenged. Harper fouled off the next pitch and whiffed on the one after, turning this would-be walk into a strikeout. A pair of bad breaks on that day, but tonight he walks away with the ersatz statuette.
The Least Likely Challenge by a Catcher
Harper’s challenge was an unlikely one, but it was over three times as likely to be challenged as this pitch from Tanner Banks to Ronald Acuña Jr., with Rafael Marchán behind the plate. The pitch, made with the Phillies down by two in the eighth, was over three inches above the strike zone. But Marchán misjudged it, and asked for a review. Statcast gave it less than a 1% chance to be challenged.
The Least Likely Challenge by a Pitcher
The Phillies don’t allow their pitchers to challenge much (that’s not an indictment of Phillies moundsmen, but rather an understanding, based on early league-wide data, that pitchers in general just aren’t much good at it). Groucho Marx once said he’d had a lovely evening, but this wasn’t it. Similarly, Jesús Luzardo has had a successful challenge (no other Phillies pitcher can say so) but this wasn’t it. In the second inning of this past Sunday’s game against the Marlins, Luzardo challenged a 2-0 pitch to Esteury Ruiz, which was over two inches outside the zone, and was given a 2% chance of being challenged. It was also Luzardo’s second challenge of the year. A whole lot of twos; somebody call a numerologist.
The Most Out of Character
Statcast categorizes every challenge as either reasonable or unreasonable. To quote the vaunted repository of data: “A “reasonable” challenge opportunity occurs when at least one of the following is true: The original call was incorrect; the pitch is within 3 inches of the strike zone edge and an overturn would gain at least 0.3 runs; the pitch carries an expected challenge rate of at least 20%.”
Kyle Schwarber is a deeply reasonable man, even as he hits the ball unreasonably hard. Every challenge he’s made this year has been deemed reasonable by the above definition, save for this one:
The pitch was 2 inches off the edge of the zone, and Statcast gave it just a 7% chance of being challenged. Schwarber is usually on the money with challenges. But to quote perhaps cinema’s most legendary final line: well, nobody’s perfect.
The Boldest Challenge
Not every challenge with a low probability is a bad choice. Sometimes a challenge is unlikely because it’s risky, not because it’s wrong. Challenging a pitch on an 0-0 count in the third is risky. If you’re right, you get ahead in the count, sure. But if you’re wrong, you wasted a challenge early on. And you don’t have the excuse of having a strikeout or a walk on the line.
Kyle Schwarber was bold on April 26th, when Statcast gave this pitch just a 7% probability of being challenged.
But Schwarber was right. Was it good strategy to challenge so early, in both the game and the count? Well, you can argue about that. But either way, it made Schwarber our first two-time ABSsy winner. ABScar?
We’re gonna have to workshop that.
And now that we’ve kept you waiting, the grand finale…
MVC (Most Valuable Challenge)
Two outs. Two runners on. A full count for Mauricio Dubón, with Andrew Painter on the mound. A sinker, just below the zone, to walk Dubón and load the bases.
Marchán challenged the call, and the proof was in the pudding. Or rather in MLB’s replay center, which is located in a building which once housed a factory belonging to Nabisco, which makes Nilla wafers, which are often used to make pudding.
At any rate, the ball had clipped the zone, and the walk became a strikeout. That’s the dream.
Well, the dreamiest dream would be an ABS challenge that converts a walk-off bases loaded walk to a strikeout to end the ninth. Someday, maybe.
That concludes this edition of the ABS awards. No goodie bags, no afterparty. Good night!
