Baseball pitchers have the option to ‘walk’ a batter, giving the other team a slight advantage but denying them the chance to gain a large advantage. Barry Bonds, a batter who holds the Major League Baseball record for home runs (a home run is a coup for the batter’s team), also holds the record for intentional walks. By walking Barry Bonds, the pitcher denies him a shot at a home run. In other words, Paige is advising other pitchers to walk a batter when it minimizes expected risk to do so.
Since this denies the batter the opportunity to even try to get a hit, some consider it to be unsportsmanlike, and when overused it makes a baseball game less interesting. A culture of good sportsmanship and interesting games are communal goods in baseball—the former keeps a spirit of goodwill, and the latter increases profitability—so at a stretch, you might say Paige advises defecting in Prisoner’s Dilemma type problems.
Since this denies the batter the opportunity to even try to get a hit, some consider it to be unsportsmanlike, and when overused it makes a baseball game less interesting.
… to some. There are others who enjoy watching games being played strategically. I don’t, for example, take basketball seriously unless the teams are using a full court press.
What do you do, for example, if all the bases are loaded and the good hitter comes in? Do you give away the run? It may depend on the score and it would involve some complex mathematical reasoning. That single decision would be more memorable to me than the rest of the entire game of baseball!
A culture of good sportsmanship and interesting games are communal goods in baseball—the former keeps a spirit of goodwill, and the latter increases profitability—so at a stretch, you might say Paige advises defecting in Prisoner’s Dilemma type problems.
The latter wouldn’t be a reasonable claim to make, even taking your premises regarding what sportsmanship is and what is good for the game for granted. For Paige to be claimed to be advising defection in the Prisoner’s Dilemma Paige would have to be asserting or at least believe that the payoffs are PDlike. Since Paige doesn’t give this indication he instead seems to be advocating thinking strategically instead of following your pride.
Curiously, assuming another set of credible beliefs Paige could consider walking the batter to be the cooperation move in the game theoretic situation. Specifically, when there is another pitcher known to walk who cannot be directly influenced. If all the other pitchers publicly declare that the game’s rules should be changed in such a way that free walking is less desirable and then free walk hitters whenever it is is strategic to do so they may force the rule-makers’ hands. If just one pitcher tried this strategy of influence then he would lose utility, sacrificing his ‘good guy’ image without even getting all the benefits that the original free-walker got for being the ‘lone bad boy strategic prick pitcher’. If all the pitchers except one cooperate then the one pitcher who lets himself be hit out of the park cleans up on the approval-by-simplistic-folks stakes by being the ‘boy scout only true sportsman’ guy while everyone else does the hard work of looking bad in order to improve the rules, the game in the long term and the ability of pitchers not to be competitively disadvantaged for being ‘sportsmanlike’. (All of this is again assuming that no-free-walking is intrinsically good.)
I use an analogous strategy when playing the 500. I like to arrange house rules that put a suitable restriction (or incentive modification) for misere calls. If the opponents have their egos particularly attached to standard misere rules I allow their rules to be used and then bid open misere whenever it is rational to do so. Which is a lot.
The above is not exactly a threat simply for the purpose of enforcing my will. It is to a significant extent a simple warning. Some people sulk if they rarely get the kitty when they have the joker and 4 jacks. At least this way they are forewarned.
I’m sorry but I’m not very familiar with baseball. Does walking a batter mean something like intentionally throwing the ball to third or fourth base so he doesn’t get caught out but can’t do a home run?
If this is the case then it seems like the advice is more about knowing when to lose.
Basically, when you throw the pitch, there’s a “strike zone” in front of the batter where any pitch that isn’t hit counts as a strike, but where the batter is most able to hit the ball. If you throw the ball outside the strike zone, it’s harder to hit, but if the batter doesn’t swing, it doesn’t count as a strike—it’s a “ball”. Four balls means the batter goes to first base.
Thus, if you don’t want to risk a home run, just throw the ball where it can’t possibly be hit a few times, and give up one base instead of several points.
It’s sorta about knowing when to lose, but it’s more like the old Sun Tzu chestnut:
“In war, the way is to avoid what is strong and to strike at what is weak.”
It’s a baseball thing, I’d assume. It’s saying, if you’re a pitcher, don’t try to strike out a batter who’s going to hit a home run—just give up a base and strike out the next guy.
I would consider this an anti-rationality quote because he’s refusing to actually Shut Up and Multiply. If a guy can beat you, you give him a free pass?
EDIT: I claimed that it was obvious that the math indicated that there were too many intentional walks in Major League Baseball. This is clearly non-obvious, I have lowered my estimate for its likelihood to .9, and I apologize for the claim. However, I still dislike the quote strongly.
I would consider this an anti-rationality quote because he’s refusing to actually Shut Up and Multiply. If a guy can beat you, you give him a free pass?
And on this you are simply mistaken. Many people refuse to shut up and multiply. They are unable to admit that they do have limits and that sometimes losing is the best thing to do.
It is quite easy for those doing math on the situation to see that intentional walks that aren’t considered automatic are usually a massive error.
Apart from not being math, your “math” is just wrong. You ought to be able to see why if you read the surrounding conversation here. You can potentially save multiple runs if you correctly evaluate your ability with regard to one particular conflict and concede.
This isn’t “anti-rationality”. It is anti conventional wisdom and common enforced exhortation.
I apologize, for I spoke far too strongly. I should not have made such a claim. Nor do I on reflection think this is the place to start actually doing said math, and your belief being so strong made me call up a friend to go over the problem. I would however strongly dispute that this thread makes it clear that this should run the other way, and continue to believe with p~.9 that there are in fact too many intentional walks (I would have said p~.99 before this thread, my friend after consideration said .95).
This thread seems to be saying as evidence for there being too few: There exists a cognitive bias that, all things being equal, will cause managers to be reluctant to walk a batter intentionally.
I agree that this bias exists. However, I think there’s a directly opposite bias that says “don’t lose to their best guy” regardless of whether it’s right to do so and a bias much stronger than either that says “do the thing that won’t get me hammered in the press if I lose.” I would guess there’s also Overconfidence Bias at work here: Managers think that better matchups are more distinct from worse matchups than they actually are. There are a lot of biases surrounding this decision, they run in both directions and only a small (if growing) number of teams are willing to sit down, do math and try and figure out the right answer.
The only way to actually know which way this runs is to observe what managers actually do and compare that to a well developed model that evaluates the chances of each team winning given each potential decision.
My observations over the years is that these are the categories of situations involving possible intentional walks:
1) Conventional wisdom automatic walks. You need to walk him, and you do.
2) Conventional wisdom “free” walks. CV says that the run doesn’t matter so put the guy on. Given the option value of being able to walk a guy, I think managers use this far too often; they essentially use it as long as the next guy is worse.
3) Getting to the pitcher. This is done at least as much as is reasonable given the lineup effects of doing this.
4) Walking the obviously more dangerous guy because there are men on base. This is the situation where it is possible they walk too rarely; I am willing to accept that some managers do this too rarely. Some clearly do it too often.
5) Walking the dangerous guy because you flat out won’t pitch to him. This requires such a strong hitter to be right due to the value of an out. I’d have a very hard time believing this is substantially underused.
6) Walking one guy to get to another somewhat similar guy. This is done way too often, many times in places that boggles the mind.
I suspect that what happened is that the quote comes from a time when the conventional wisdom was different and managers did in fact walk batters too rarely, especially due to issues of sportsmanlike conduct, but such considerations seem to be almost entirely gone.
So what does “can beat you” mean? I still don’t understand this either in the context of baseball or rationality.
If “can beat you” means “could, theoretically, beat you” then you walk everybody.
If “can beat you” means “is p>.5 to beat you” then you never intentionally walk anybody—if a pitcher is so tired he thinks the next batter is p>.5 to get a hit, he should ask to be relieved.
If “can beat you” means “is p>k to beat you” where k is some threshold, then Paige does seem to be saying “walk people more than you do currently”.
Satchel Paige
What does this mean?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intentional_base_on_balls
Baseball pitchers have the option to ‘walk’ a batter, giving the other team a slight advantage but denying them the chance to gain a large advantage. Barry Bonds, a batter who holds the Major League Baseball record for home runs (a home run is a coup for the batter’s team), also holds the record for intentional walks. By walking Barry Bonds, the pitcher denies him a shot at a home run. In other words, Paige is advising other pitchers to walk a batter when it minimizes expected risk to do so.
Since this denies the batter the opportunity to even try to get a hit, some consider it to be unsportsmanlike, and when overused it makes a baseball game less interesting. A culture of good sportsmanship and interesting games are communal goods in baseball—the former keeps a spirit of goodwill, and the latter increases profitability—so at a stretch, you might say Paige advises defecting in Prisoner’s Dilemma type problems.
… to some. There are others who enjoy watching games being played strategically. I don’t, for example, take basketball seriously unless the teams are using a full court press.
What do you do, for example, if all the bases are loaded and the good hitter comes in? Do you give away the run? It may depend on the score and it would involve some complex mathematical reasoning. That single decision would be more memorable to me than the rest of the entire game of baseball!
The latter wouldn’t be a reasonable claim to make, even taking your premises regarding what sportsmanship is and what is good for the game for granted. For Paige to be claimed to be advising defection in the Prisoner’s Dilemma Paige would have to be asserting or at least believe that the payoffs are PDlike. Since Paige doesn’t give this indication he instead seems to be advocating thinking strategically instead of following your pride.
Curiously, assuming another set of credible beliefs Paige could consider walking the batter to be the cooperation move in the game theoretic situation. Specifically, when there is another pitcher known to walk who cannot be directly influenced. If all the other pitchers publicly declare that the game’s rules should be changed in such a way that free walking is less desirable and then free walk hitters whenever it is is strategic to do so they may force the rule-makers’ hands. If just one pitcher tried this strategy of influence then he would lose utility, sacrificing his ‘good guy’ image without even getting all the benefits that the original free-walker got for being the ‘lone bad boy strategic prick pitcher’. If all the pitchers except one cooperate then the one pitcher who lets himself be hit out of the park cleans up on the approval-by-simplistic-folks stakes by being the ‘boy scout only true sportsman’ guy while everyone else does the hard work of looking bad in order to improve the rules, the game in the long term and the ability of pitchers not to be competitively disadvantaged for being ‘sportsmanlike’. (All of this is again assuming that no-free-walking is intrinsically good.)
I use an analogous strategy when playing the 500. I like to arrange house rules that put a suitable restriction (or incentive modification) for misere calls. If the opponents have their egos particularly attached to standard misere rules I allow their rules to be used and then bid open misere whenever it is rational to do so. Which is a lot.
The above is not exactly a threat simply for the purpose of enforcing my will. It is to a significant extent a simple warning. Some people sulk if they rarely get the kitty when they have the joker and 4 jacks. At least this way they are forewarned.
I’m sorry but I’m not very familiar with baseball. Does walking a batter mean something like intentionally throwing the ball to third or fourth base so he doesn’t get caught out but can’t do a home run?
If this is the case then it seems like the advice is more about knowing when to lose.
Basically, when you throw the pitch, there’s a “strike zone” in front of the batter where any pitch that isn’t hit counts as a strike, but where the batter is most able to hit the ball. If you throw the ball outside the strike zone, it’s harder to hit, but if the batter doesn’t swing, it doesn’t count as a strike—it’s a “ball”. Four balls means the batter goes to first base.
Thus, if you don’t want to risk a home run, just throw the ball where it can’t possibly be hit a few times, and give up one base instead of several points.
It’s sorta about knowing when to lose, but it’s more like the old Sun Tzu chestnut: “In war, the way is to avoid what is strong and to strike at what is weak.”
Thanks
You’re welcome :)
It’s a baseball thing, I’d assume. It’s saying, if you’re a pitcher, don’t try to strike out a batter who’s going to hit a home run—just give up a base and strike out the next guy.
I would consider this an anti-rationality quote because he’s refusing to actually Shut Up and Multiply. If a guy can beat you, you give him a free pass?
EDIT: I claimed that it was obvious that the math indicated that there were too many intentional walks in Major League Baseball. This is clearly non-obvious, I have lowered my estimate for its likelihood to .9, and I apologize for the claim. However, I still dislike the quote strongly.
And on this you are simply mistaken. Many people refuse to shut up and multiply. They are unable to admit that they do have limits and that sometimes losing is the best thing to do.
Apart from not being math, your “math” is just wrong. You ought to be able to see why if you read the surrounding conversation here. You can potentially save multiple runs if you correctly evaluate your ability with regard to one particular conflict and concede.
This isn’t “anti-rationality”. It is anti conventional wisdom and common enforced exhortation.
I apologize, for I spoke far too strongly. I should not have made such a claim. Nor do I on reflection think this is the place to start actually doing said math, and your belief being so strong made me call up a friend to go over the problem. I would however strongly dispute that this thread makes it clear that this should run the other way, and continue to believe with p~.9 that there are in fact too many intentional walks (I would have said p~.99 before this thread, my friend after consideration said .95).
This thread seems to be saying as evidence for there being too few: There exists a cognitive bias that, all things being equal, will cause managers to be reluctant to walk a batter intentionally.
I agree that this bias exists. However, I think there’s a directly opposite bias that says “don’t lose to their best guy” regardless of whether it’s right to do so and a bias much stronger than either that says “do the thing that won’t get me hammered in the press if I lose.” I would guess there’s also Overconfidence Bias at work here: Managers think that better matchups are more distinct from worse matchups than they actually are. There are a lot of biases surrounding this decision, they run in both directions and only a small (if growing) number of teams are willing to sit down, do math and try and figure out the right answer.
The only way to actually know which way this runs is to observe what managers actually do and compare that to a well developed model that evaluates the chances of each team winning given each potential decision.
My observations over the years is that these are the categories of situations involving possible intentional walks: 1) Conventional wisdom automatic walks. You need to walk him, and you do. 2) Conventional wisdom “free” walks. CV says that the run doesn’t matter so put the guy on. Given the option value of being able to walk a guy, I think managers use this far too often; they essentially use it as long as the next guy is worse. 3) Getting to the pitcher. This is done at least as much as is reasonable given the lineup effects of doing this. 4) Walking the obviously more dangerous guy because there are men on base. This is the situation where it is possible they walk too rarely; I am willing to accept that some managers do this too rarely. Some clearly do it too often. 5) Walking the dangerous guy because you flat out won’t pitch to him. This requires such a strong hitter to be right due to the value of an out. I’d have a very hard time believing this is substantially underused. 6) Walking one guy to get to another somewhat similar guy. This is done way too often, many times in places that boggles the mind.
I suspect that what happened is that the quote comes from a time when the conventional wisdom was different and managers did in fact walk batters too rarely, especially due to issues of sportsmanlike conduct, but such considerations seem to be almost entirely gone.
“If a man can beat you, walk him” does not mean “walk people more than you do currently”.
So what does “can beat you” mean? I still don’t understand this either in the context of baseball or rationality.
If “can beat you” means “could, theoretically, beat you” then you walk everybody. If “can beat you” means “is p>.5 to beat you” then you never intentionally walk anybody—if a pitcher is so tired he thinks the next batter is p>.5 to get a hit, he should ask to be relieved. If “can beat you” means “is p>k to beat you” where k is some threshold, then Paige does seem to be saying “walk people more than you do currently”.
It isn’t about tiredness or general competence.
The other replies here explain the quote well. I must affirm the rational decision making principle that is illustrated.