2022 MLB General Season Chatter: Ghost Runners On The Half-Billion Dollar Infield

I farmed the question out to a, ah, higher authority...don't give me grief!

apart from the fact that very few of today's pitchers can hit at all, imagine the chaos that would result from making one of them play catcher

The higher authority answered immediately:

Bill -- Question someone on my message board passed along from Twitter this morning:

Which team would win a seven-game series?

A. 26-man roster of only MLB pitchers
B. 26-man roster of only MLB position players

(for these purposes Madison Bumgarner and Shohei Ohtani are ineligible)

Does the answer seem obvious to you, or do you find it as intriguing as I do? I wonder if defense--the team of pitchers also has to man the other eight positions in the field--would tip the scales towards the position players?
Asked by: Phil Dellio
Answered: 8/7/2022

That could be a good point. An infield of four relief pitchers could be ugly.

Your query excluded Shohei Ohtani and Madison Bumgarner, but there are a lot of good-hitting pithers in every era--Zack Greinke, whose career OPS is 75 points higher than Bumgarner's, Jacob deGrom Grom, Noah Syndergaard, Adam Wainwright. It might come down to which pitchers you chose. On the other hand, there are also a lot of position players who were pitchers (and good pitchers) in college--ie Bobby Dalbec, Jon Papelbon, Mark McGwire. So I don't know.

In re your argument...baseball is not 50% pitching; it is less than that. It is 50% offense, 50% defense, but defense includes fielding, so the pitching is just 40-42%. So the batters/fielders might win, 58-42.

(Why does he include Jonathan Papelbon as one of the position players who was a good pitcher in college?)

Stroman was also a pretty solid middle infield in college. He’d definitely be an exception to the terrible defence assumption.

when hunter greene was drafted, there was some question of whether the reds would let him also play short

unfortunately (for us) if you can consistently throw triple-digit fastballs you get that choice taken away from you

I think the position players would win. I know pitchers maybe aren’t horrible at fielding but I suspect every grounder to 3rd would be a base hit. Plus a team of pitchers would probably be the slowest guys on the field.

The more I think about this, the players win in no more than five games. Maybe the pitchers get one lights-out start, scratch out a run, and manage to win one.

As KM says, half the game proceeds as normal, except a) the pitchers' side has a surplus of fresh arms (an advantage, but probably not a huge one), and b) they've got a defense that's sub-Bad New Bears. If you think about how many good pitchers don't succeed because they're stuck on a team with lousy defense, and then compare what "lousy defense" means for even the worst defensive teams and what it might mean for a defense solely consisting of pitchers, I suspect the pitchers would be hard-pressed to hold the everyday players to single digits.

On the other side, you'd have a) a normal defense, b) position players who can probably at least throw mediocre fastballs for strikes, and c) a lineup of mostly terrible hitters trying to hit those mediocre fastballs. Maybe they get a run or two a game, but I think that'd be it.

I suppose I could plug this into OOTP baseball and get a good idea of how this might play out.

Ok. So someone did think of this back in 2015.

https://baseballcontinuum.com/2015/09/19/breaking-ootp-episode-1-pitchers-vs-hitters/"> https://baseballcontinuum.com/2015/09/19/breaking-ootp-episode-1-pitchers-vs-hitters/

A lot of the post is dealing with bugs caused by this weird set up.
But. Played out to 162 game season, the position player team would come out on too 97-65

Interesting! If you put any credence in that, James was almost dead on (.599 vs. .580).

i think every single pitcher would become injured. the last half of the season would all be losses via forfeit for the pitchers. Dr. James Andrews would be cackling maniacally

I haven't read the accompanying text, so maybe this is explained--otherwise, looking at the box score, there's the very obviously unrealistic simulation of both teams making exactly one error.

He notes after the full season that Greinke was a god awful shortstop

i've mentioned this before and i will surely keep on mentioning it, but -- while there are obvious exceptions -- major league ballplayers are *incredible* fielders

for the most part we fixate on how they're hitting, because in most cases that is what makes them stars. and over the course of an endless season it's not like they get too much time to practice defense. but they are so fucking good and we largely take it for granted

also: tremendous work by jordan montgomery and the cardinals this weekend

Mets and Yankees now have identical records of 70-39. Going to be a fun stretch run.

I was certain that 26 pitchers was the clear answer, but there are a lot of good posts here and now I'm on the fence. I'm still leaning toward the pitchers because 1) most pitchers are great athletes were were also great hitters in high school and perhaps also college. Most of the hitters that will be pitching to them won't be better than high school/college level. 2) Pitchers take a lot of fielding drills, not only related to their position but also e.g. shagging fly balls, making long throws. Whereas I don't think hitters don't do any pitching drills. 3) Even the hitters with pitching experience from HS/college, or who can simply throw hard, aren't conditioned (or are no longer conditioned) to do it for multiple innings or on a daily basis without getting hurt.

Matt Carpenter left tonight's game with a left foot fracture.

— New York Yankees (@Yankees) August 9, 2022

That makes me sad more than most baseball injuries.

they are so fucking good and we largely take it for granted

yeah. any given ground-ball play would, if you yourself had made it, be one of the most memorable ahletic achievements of your life

Chris Sale broke his wrist riding his bike and had surgery. He will miss the rest of the season.

— Chris Cotillo (@ChrisCotillo) August 9, 2022

um

chris u all right dawg

the pitching staff of the Nationals is under replacement value (via fWAR, -0.4) so far this season. i did some very unscientific research (clicking) and found that other than the 2020 red sox (-0.2), no team's pitching has been under replacement value as far back as...2006. in that year, the royals came close (0.5)

at that point i got tired of clicking and loading up new years, so that's kind of the big terra incognita part of this research task, the part with sea serpents

the nationals/scherzer deal was a lovely example of a huge contract working out for everyone

the corbin deal much less so. but hey, they tried

KM you can sort by lowest staff WAR in a season: https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=pit&lg=all&qual=0&type=8&season=2022&month=0&season1=1871&ind=1&team=0,ts&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=0&startdate=1871-01-01&enddate=2022-12-31&sort=21,a

oh cool! i didn't realize how "split seasons" worked until just now! thanks!

also, when it's august and you've already thrown 130+ innings, it's hard to go from a 2.92 ERA to a 3.50 ERA in a single outing. But Miles Mikolas did it tonight

xp and wow, the only other teams to have below replacement pitching in a season are from the 1800s! so 2022 nationals and 2020 red sox, a tip of the cap

Yankees-Mariners going to the 12th with a score of 0-0. The free runner has done nothing to help.

and now to the 13th, still 0-0

Finally a hit with RISP and Mariners win 1-0 in 13th. Quite a feat to have 7 half innings start with a runner on second and have all of 7 of them end with no runs.

who's fired up for a big Field of Dreams showdown between the cubs and reds tonight

really sums things up perfectly: two tanking teams playing a meaningless game to honor a 30-year-old fantasy featuring players from 100 years ago

the chicago white sox should have to play it every year. winning a world series would grant them 5 years off of playing the field of dreams game, to be used on any years that they would prefer not to have to play it

that's the penalty for cheating for the 1919 white sox, delivered through the distorted lens of film and local economies, 100 years later

who's fired up for a big Field of Dreams showdown between the cubs and reds tonight

really sums things up perfectly: two tanking teams playing a meaningless game to honor a 30-year-old fantasy featuring players from 100 years ago

I'm still pissed they don't let the reds game start before any other game on opening day to honor the reds being the oldest franchise, that actually meant something

al avila (GM of Tigers) is gone. that was not a good rebuild

Hey, the only value of these things is the opportunity to complain:

https://www.mlb.com/brackets/mlb-greatest-play-ever?affiliateId=gpe-trending-mlb-2022

How could they leave out Dwight Evans' catch in Game 6 of the '75 Series?

https://i.imgur.com/oPlEKjw.jpg

the sports broadcasting of the bo jackson throw in that bracket is so awful. they blew it

this is rude of me but i feel like the willie mays over the shoulder catch is overrated. it was a great moment, but it also seems like something that would happen about once a season nowadays

I'd also include Devon White's really-was-a-triple-play catch in the '92 WS, but a little homerism there.

I love the Mays catch, and I think context matters...but you might be right. Jim Edmonds made a few of those.

context matters for sure. i mean, i'm not trying to downplay it's significance. it was the world series, it was a rare televised game. part of the reason i think i can see a catch like that every year is because every single game is captured from a million angles and a catch like that will not be missed. but, especially with players 70 years in the future being even better, amazing things happen pretty regularly.

i don't know, i think the selection of 8 plays to choose from are kind of weird. but it's hard to choose a "best" fielding moment. so much of it is just about which one you saw happen as it happened

This is you, right?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htZNlCZ6uqE

i object to the methology of using 2018 outfielder positioning as the comparison to willie mays' positioning in the polo grounds. but i don't have a better idea

i refuse to even look at this because i assume that jeter tagging giambi will win

I like the reds’ silly helmets and i think more helmets should be like them

Also no machado “dont throw it away” or mookie “not gettin to this one boys” no cred