Comments on: Unexpected At-Bats

By: Pinches Batting around - OOTP Developments Forums

Pinches Batting around - OOTP Developments Forums — Thu, 29 May 2008 14:48:12 +0000

[...] article on BB Ref about this very thing. Not that it helps about what you call them necessarily. Stat of the Day Unexpected At-Bats [...]

By: Stat of the Day » Do Me a Favor … Nevermind

Stat of the Day » Do Me a Favor … Nevermind — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 19:29:06 +0000

[...] recent comment by fabio in my “Unexpected At-Bats” post got me thinking about pinch hitters who were [...]

By: John C

John C — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 15:23:40 +0000

on comment 11. right that is wierd. an error obviously would have to go in the books but no official at bat is recorded. i would guess. but question now. Say that happened. A batter hit a foul ball that was dropped for an error then the baserunner got caught stealind during the at bat. Will that batter still be available for the rest of the game. I would think he is still available in the game. Ya I am pretty sure he is. But if someone can clarify.

By: fabio

fabio — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 04:10:52 +0000

I was thinking this might be about situations where a PH is announced and then pulled for another PH. Has it ever happened more than once in a single PA?

Also there is the bizarre instance of a PH appearing at the plate (with 2 outs) and maybe hitting a few long very foul balls that come close to being HRs and even popping up a foul ball and having it dropped for an error (to give the “PA” a legitimate ‘event’), and then the runner at 1B is caught stealing to end the inning/game, making the appearance a statistical non-event.

By: admin

admin — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 19:10:41 +0000

2007 is different because I was compiling the season as it went from a different set of files. Essentially, I created my own retrosheet files and then built them. There was a bug that caused this issue. I’ve cleaned it up and should have all of these fixed before the season starts.

By: Raphy

Raphy — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 21:02:08 +0000

Re: 8. I’m confused to your comments regarding 7. All the games on those dates are NL games. Why would there be a DH?

Also, I’m confused as to why the NL games that are included in the link from the addendum are not returned in the searches from the original post. Was the record keeping for 2007 different in some way?

Thanks.

By: admin

admin — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 20:41:28 +0000

Regarding Murrell and McCarver. These are errors in the retrosheet files, they are listed as PR and Dave Smith said they should be PR’s.

Re: 7. I think the likely issue is that they are PR’s for the DH and then stayed on as DH. They should have DH marked as a position played, but don’t in the DB.

By: mmayes

mmayes — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 20:36:56 +0000

I didn’t comb in detail through these, but the 2007 results showed something interesting. It’s not like these games are terribly common, although I suppose as offense has increased the incidence of batting around has increased making it more possible to have an inning like this. In 2007 there were 2 days (May 25 and August 16)where there were 3 of these innings.

And about all you can say is….huh.

By: Raphy

Raphy — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 19:11:31 +0000

This seems to be the key to finding these at bats for games with DHs. I will modify the original post to reflect this.

By: admin

admin — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 19:11:08 +0000

I’ve actually been working on this very exact thing in preparation for the 2008 season, and what a pain it is.

It appears that the convention is that PH or PR for the DH results in a dual counting. It is both a PA or a Game played as a PH (or PR) and as a DH. Notice these are double-counted for Curtis Thigpen on ESPN’s stats. I asked Tom Ruane at RetroSheet about it and they intend to double-count these, but appear to have a bug.

A non-dh ph coming up the second time would have position ‘As Other’. Kind of a twilight zone of positional appearances.

I’m cleaning this up and the DH issue as well in the next release (with the 1956 data).