The Last At Bat

by dannijd on Oct 19, 2010 1:04 AM EDT

After Saturday night's game, phrozen asked in the post game threads whether Shane Victorino had made the last out in a high number of games. I thought that Werth had a lot of these final outs, as I remembered him striking out to end the game a number of times earlier this year. That got me thinking, so I looked through this season to find out who had the most last outs, and whether it was possible that either recent, or more memorable (read close) games somehow skewed perception. So who made the largest number of final outs for the Phillies this year. The answer is not who you think, as you will see after the break

So who made the most final outs? To determine this, I looked at every game the Phillies have played in the 2010 regular and post season to date, both wins and losses. I also broke out two specific circumstances- losses where the Phillies had the tying or go ahead run on base or at the plate at the time of the last out (memorable) and games since September first (recency). The results surprised me:

Player	Final Outs	Close Losses	Since September 1
Raul Ibanez	21	1	2
Shane Victorino	19	5	4
Jayson Werth	16	3	3
Placido Polanco	15	1	7
Ryan Howard	13	2	1
Chase Utley	12	0	4
Carlos Ruiz	10	2	3
Jimmy Rollins	9	1	2
Wilson Valdez	9	0	2
Greg Dobbs	7	1	1
Ross Gload	5	0	2
Juan Castro	5	0	0
Ben Francisco	4	1	0
Dane Sardinha	3	0	0
Domonic Brown	2	2	0
Brian Bocock	2	0	2
Cody Ransom	2	0	0
Roy Oswalt	1	1	0
Cole Hamels	1	0	0
Ryan Madson	1	0	0
Brian Schneider	1	0	0
Mike Sweeney	1	0	0

As you can see, both phrozen and I were wrong, but selection bias, combined with the small difference between memory and actuality (particularly for Victorino) explains the fault in our memory. While Ibanez has the most final outs, he was only the final out in one close game and only a pair of games since September 1, causing his final outs to be far less memorable.

When writing this, I had expected most of the first outs to come from batters in the top half of the order, and was thus a little surprised to see Ibanez with the lead. But upon further review, the presence of Ibanez, Victorino, and Werth at the top of the list makes sense- the three of them had the most starts of anyone on the team this year, thus giving them more opportunities to make the final out.

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Comments

Strange numbers

I appreciate the effort you must have put into this, but I think the final outs number is just the grand totals for most of the games (I added up your numbers in column one twice and came up with 159, but the Phillies have now played 167 games. ) I don’t think it was of any particular interest whether Jayson Werth or Brian Bocock made the last out for the Phillies in some game they won. So, the second column is really where the data lies, and assuming the final out was by a batter who represented at least the tying run then over the course of the season it would appear that Phrozen was right; Shane Victorino made the last out in those situations more often than any other batter.
The column three number, again, doesn’t have much relevance since there have been only eight losses in the 35 games since September 1st, and that column doesn’t tell us whether they were wins or losses.
Final point to ask – is it true that in only 20 games that the Phillies lost this year (out of 66 losses so far) they had the tying run up when the game ended? You might be right, but that seems low to me, especially considering how many one-run games they played this year.

by phillyinportland on Oct 19, 2010 2:31 AM EDT reply actions

The difference between total games and games discussed in the article comes from the fact that walk-off wins were not included in the totals. The Phillies had eight such wins (two each by Jimmy Rollins and Carlos Ruiz, along with one each for Brian Schneider, Jayson Werth, and Wilson Valdez), which adds up to the total number of games.

The reason for including all three numbers goes back to selection bias. I had wanted to see the roles that memorability and recency played in perception and in the differences between memory and reality.

The answer to your final question is yes. Of their 67 losses, the Phillies lost four of them in walk-offs, meaning that their final out did not come with the game on the line. These are thus not counted, just as I did not count walk-off wins above. Of the remaining 63, 17 were by more than four runs, making it impossible for the final batter to change the outcome regardless of how many runners were on. Fourteen more were by one run, automatically putting the tying run at the plate. The remaining thirty losses were by two- five runs (eight by two, twelve by three, and ten by four). Of these, the tying run only came to the plate six times- four times in two run losses and once each in three and four run losses.

by dannijd on Oct 19, 2010 11:42 AM EDT via mobile up reply actions

Thanks for the clarification

I sort of figured walk-off wins might have played a part in there somewhere. Considering it is a fairly small number of times that the Phillies ended up with a memorable/close loss, then Shane Victorino’s being the last out five times out of 20 is quite high – and also noteworthy is the zero for Chase Utley.

by phillyinportland on Oct 19, 2010 1:28 PM EDT up reply actions

I am actually not sure which of those two numbers surprised me more- I had expected Utley to have at least one despite his lengthy absence, and was surprised that Victorino had five. I was also surprised with all of the times Ibanez was the last out that he was not involved in more highly leveraged situations.

by dannijd on Oct 19, 2010 3:05 PM EDT via mobile up reply actions

That's a lot of work

Cool stuff. It figures that Ibanez, Werth and Victorino would feature prominently, as they were #2, #1 and #3 in games played, respectively.

by phatj on Oct 19, 2010 1:36 PM EDT reply actions

kind of where I was thinking

you at least need to adjust it with a denominator of PAs.

by Wet Luzinski on Oct 19, 2010 9:03 PM EDT up reply actions

Verty interesting.

I was close, anyway. How long did all this take?

It’s interesting that Hamels, Oswalt and Madson each had one “last out.” I don’t remember these?

by Phrozen on Oct 19, 2010 10:24 PM EDT reply actions

A couple of hours on my iPhone (I was stuck riding in the car and at a restaurant, so it was either play around with this or video games, and I picked this).

Hamels had the last out (as a pinch hitter) in the 15-9 loss to the Dodgers on August 10th. Kendrick lasted less than four innings, Polanco was out of the game early (I forget if he aggravated the elbow or what, but did not go long), and the Phillies batted around almost five times.

Oswalt had the final hit during his stint as a left fielder in the 16 inning game.

Madson had his last out on April 7 during an 8-4 Phillies win. The Phillies needed him to get the last four outs in a game and wound up going through seven hitters in the ninth, which forced them to choose between getting another reliever and having him bat.

by dannijd on Oct 19, 2010 11:24 PM EDT up reply actions

On an iPhone! Can you get voicemail on those?

I flew to SF for a ~~stalking mission~~ special occasion earlier this year and the fellow next to me had one.
I asked him about it and he ’splained some of its characteristics, at the end of which he decried its supposedly smaller LCD.

He laughed, however, when I produced my Sony MP3 and its stamp – sized display.

Not a member or affiliated with McCOVEY CHRONICLES in ANY way/shape/form.
Despite all my hoarsely screamed threats SBNation cannot delete them from my profile.

by victor frankenstein on Oct 20, 2010 6:04 PM EDT up reply actions

Good work. I think there’s alot of interesting things to find like this but it often requires looking at game logs which is alot of time consuming tedium.

by j reed on Oct 20, 2010 3:24 AM EDT reply actions

Thank-you. As I have become more addicted to baseball (converted football fan), the stats angle (and particularly the difference between perception and reality from a stats perspective) is one of the big things I have become interested in. Having AtBat on the phone this year has been great for much of the research I have done, as it was relatively easy to scroll through and allowed me to work on things while on the run. I have also become a baseball reference junky. I am looking for inspiration for my next dive into the box scores. Suggestions?

by dannijd on Oct 21, 2010 2:09 AM EDT via mobile up reply actions