I say leave the starter in. I want to see Paul Skenes face Aaron Judge in the bottom of eighth with the bases loaded and a tie game. Analytics be damned, I want to be entertained.
Good and interesting thought Daniel about stadium shadows impacting hitter performance in older ballparks. Tiring pitchers may have seen an offset there.
The relatively easy part: I'm sure the 90 games with a reliever pitching into the order for a third time were mostly "traditional" (c.2015 or so) opener situations, where the "bulk" pitcher who followed the opener's one inning was expected to get the team to the sixth inning or so. I'm a little surprised there were that many, though -- 89 out of 157 games where the starter didn't get through the order -- since it seems to me they've been almost completely replaced by "bullpen games" where nobody goes through the lineup twice.
One thing that might be worth considering is that since players were more accustomed to shadows back then they might have been better at it. I recall reading that Phil Rizzuto once complained after a World Series game that the Yankee Stadium shadows were different than usual and had given him trouble, and the media thought he was delusional or making excuses. But Daylight Savings Time had ended (New York's didn't get far into fall, if it got there at all -- I know all the network TV shows came on an hour earlier here in California for a week or two because of that) so the shadow patterns had indeed advanced by a hour.
I say leave the starter in. I want to see Paul Skenes face Aaron Judge in the bottom of eighth with the bases loaded and a tie game. Analytics be damned, I want to be entertained.
Good and interesting thought Daniel about stadium shadows impacting hitter performance in older ballparks. Tiring pitchers may have seen an offset there.
Inspired by the data you captured, I whipped up a graph:
https://substack.com/profile/195807185-wyrd-smythe/note/c-119042292
The relatively easy part: I'm sure the 90 games with a reliever pitching into the order for a third time were mostly "traditional" (c.2015 or so) opener situations, where the "bulk" pitcher who followed the opener's one inning was expected to get the team to the sixth inning or so. I'm a little surprised there were that many, though -- 89 out of 157 games where the starter didn't get through the order -- since it seems to me they've been almost completely replaced by "bullpen games" where nobody goes through the lineup twice.
One thing that might be worth considering is that since players were more accustomed to shadows back then they might have been better at it. I recall reading that Phil Rizzuto once complained after a World Series game that the Yankee Stadium shadows were different than usual and had given him trouble, and the media thought he was delusional or making excuses. But Daylight Savings Time had ended (New York's didn't get far into fall, if it got there at all -- I know all the network TV shows came on an hour earlier here in California for a week or two because of that) so the shadow patterns had indeed advanced by a hour.