With the baseball action at the 2008 Olympic games now underway, featuring Cardinal-related players like Rheal Cormier, Stubby Clapp, John Gall and Brian Barden, we felt a patriotic duty to comment on the ridiculous rules concocted for what can only be called "Beijing ball."

The International Baseball Federation (IBAF) announced shortly before the Olympics began that it would use an extra-inning tie-breaker format for all contests that are tied after 10 innings:

Beginning with the 11th inning and each inning needed thereafter, base runners will be placed on first and second base with no outs … To begin the 11th inning, representatives from each team will meet at home plate and will indicate (at the same time) to the home plate umpire where the team wishes to begin the batting order. That is, the teams have the option of beginning the 11th inning anywhere in the existing batting order that was in effect when the 10th inning ended. Note that this is not a new lineup (just potentially a different order), and it may very well be the same lineup that ended the 10th inning. The rationale for doing so is to ensure that both teams have an equal chance at having what theyconsider to be their best hitters and base runners in a position to score in the 11th inning.

Yeah. IBAF president Harvey Schiller rationalized the move by saying that "We must demonstrate to the international Olympic Committee … our sport is manageable from a television and operational standpoint." So that’s it, is it? We’d be tempted to believe Dr. Schiller if extra-inning games were a problem, but at the 2004 Olympics, no baseball match even went more than nine innings. The reality is that much of the European representation on the Olympic committee simply doesn’t want baseball (hat tip: BaseballGB), and therefore no amount of appeasement is going to work. That’s fine, as far as it goes: No need to throw pearls to swine.

But the Olympics have already dropped baseball for the 2012 games in London, so the IBAF could at least have gone out with some dignity. Perhaps Schiller was an unwitting dupe and that he truly believes that "Extra-inning contests … make it difficult in the context of the Olympic program. Delays cause scheduling and logistical nightmares. Planned security, transportation, drug testing, broadcasts, and entertainment are just a few of the activities that may be seriously affected." We’ll play along for the sake of argument. Presumably, the purpose of the new rule is to end games as quickly as possible after 10 innings have been played. In that case, though, why choose to have runners at first and second? The best way to ensure a change in game state — that is, the score — would be to begin the half-innings with the bases loaded (all states assume no outs and a tie score). Let’s look at win expectancy:

It would take more complicated math (which we have neither the time nor brain for) to "double-compute" win expectancy given two varying states — the visiting team and the home team. And it’s not an insignificant consideration that, as one BTF commenter observes, "the away team cannot play for just one run since that is not guaranteed to win and their optimal strategy is to play for somewhat more than one run. The home team has the advantage of knowing how many runs they need to score and can tailor their strategy accordingly so should have an advantage. Usually this will be to play for just one run." Still, the win-expectancy data should take this into account. It seems reasonable to assume that the higher the possibility of one team scoring runs, the higher "volatility" the game has in terms of ending within one inning. As it stands today, the decision to have runners on first and second seems rather arbitrary, given that the bases-loaded option would give the best results, from a quick-end perspective, anyway.

An additional concern would be to make sure that whatever concocted game state is chosen does not unfairly yield an advantage to one team (namely, the home team). Interestingly enough, that might be the best argument for manipulating the extra-innings endgame, since the real rules of baseball tend to confer an "extra-inning advantage" to the home team, as calcuated by the difference between the visitor’s win expectancy in the top of the inning and the home team’s expectancy in the bottom:

In that case, the most equitable scenario would be to begin with the bases loaded, since the difference between the visting team’s WE and the home team’s is most minimal (84.9% for the visitors, 90.4% for the home team).

So in the final analysis, the IBAF didn’t even mess up the rules right (it sounds like the perfect fit for a Bug Selig career move). Then again, if it gives Stubby Clapp a chance to play some more, well, it may not be baseball, but who can complain, right?

Work/travel preparations/the life of a rock star got the best of me the last few days, so I don’t have any hardcore analysis that’s gonna rock your world. What I do have is a fistful of links.

Leading off is this piece from Joe Posnanski’s blog, in which he argues that Albert is the mang if you’re planning on building a club.

Next up, my good friend and insideSTL contributor HMW travels all the way to Davenport, IA, to ask first-round draft pick Brett “the Hitman” Wallace what it’s like to already be owned in a fantasy league. 

And then there’s little ol’ me over at BertFlex.com, peppering StLCardinals.com beat writer Matthew Leach with hard-hitting questions such as, “You know that <i>Major League</i> is the best baseball movie ever, right?”

And if that ain’t enough, here’s a quick one while Pip’s away.

Obviously, I know the situation and I’m just going to continue to do my thing. I have no control over it, absolutely no control over it.

– Todd Wellemeyer

Wellemeyer continues to "do his thing," and do it well. Contrary to some claims that it was the Colonel’s longest outing of his career, Wellemeyer actually fell a batter short of equalling his best mark of 27 batters faced, set twice already this season (4/23, 4/28). To give an idea of how well he’s pitched this year, last night’s start (63 FIGS) was "only" his third-best of the season.

There’s a lot that goes into it. I would always want to be more efficient. But I’m going to stick with the basics. Just go out there and play the game. I’m not going to look too much into it and try to turn into a Greg Maddux.

– Wellemeyer

We’re not sure if by turning into "a Greg Maddux," the Colonel means becoming "a cerebral, thinking-man’s pitcher," or simply "a finesse" pitcher. We’re only able to comment on the latter, and it’s fairly evident that Wellemeyer is the bizzarro Maddux: Here’s a look at Wellemeyer’s career Power-Finesse Ratio (PFR) compared with Maddux’s, along with the 2008 numbers for the NL and the Cardinals (as a reminder, above 1.00 is considered a "power" pitcher):

A little Jim Edmonds-esque out there. I thought I timed it perfect.

– Rick Ankiel

Ankiel would seem to have both Edmonds’s skill behind the pitcher and the erstwhile Cardinal centerfielder’s cockiness behind the microphone. As many accolades as Ankiel has gotten for his hitting, his defense may be the best part of his game. He’s getting a lot of play for his throws, a few of which aren’t merely sophomoric, gaudy shows of strength, and his catch last night will surely earn him some cred with fellow ballplayers. With a major-league leading .963 RZR and the requisite highlight-film plays to go with it, is it too hard to imagine that Ankiel would win a Gold Glove?

If a guy gets on I’m not really worried about it because I know I can get a sinker and get a weak pop-up. There were probably three or four hits that didn’t even make it out of the infield and a couple that just blooped over … If I’d come out and not thrown really well, then I’d try and figure out what was going on. But I felt confident that I was going to get every pitch over for strikes. For me, it was a positive, but I’d much rather have the win and the team have the win.

— Paul Maholm

Extra points for Maholm for tacking on the "rather have the team win," but this guy has the right idea about pitching. Many of the Cardinals’ 11 hits off the Pirate starter were clunkers that happened to fall (with all due respect to Rick Ankiel, Yadier Molina and Cesar Izturis, they weren’t exactly knocking the cover off the ball). Maholm sensed what the stats show: Behind him, the Pirate defense converted only .522 of the Cardinals’ balls in play into outs. Partly it was due to some shoddy fielding (shortstop Luis Rivas comes to mind), but bad "luck" had something to do with it, too.

Compare Maholm’s DER of .522 to Wellemeyer’s above-average .833 and their respective hit totals lose their impact. Indeed, Maholm actually outpitched Wellemeyer, with a 67 FIGS to the Colonel’s 63. Oh, and speaking of DER, Jason Isringhausen finally got some breaks last night, as three fly outs all stayed in the park.

By the way, kudos to home-plate ump Eric Cooper, whose animated pre-inning signals to the press box to indicate lineup changes are worthy of Marcel Marceau. For people in the ballpark keeping score (for whom it’s important to know where each player in a double switch is batting in the lineup), the umpire is the only way to know. In our book, Cooper is the Ronald Reagan ("The Great Communicator") of umpires.

The Cardinals couldn’t continue their winning ways Wednesday night in Colorado, but it wasn’t the starting pitching’s fault: Adam Wainwright accounted for .396 WPA, while the rest of the team had -.896.

The Cardinal ace is successful largely because he throws a killer yakker (not unlike his doppelganger, Matt Morris, once did). But coming into Coors Field, where the thin air is to curveball pitchers what kryptonite is to Superman, how would Wainwright fare? Would he change his game plan and throw fewer breaking balls? Would the air even have that much effect on his curveballs in the first place?

To find out, we parsed the data from that fabulous service known as MLB Gameday (and no, we don’t get paid extra for the mention). First, let’s look at Wainwright’s pitch distribution at Busch Stadium so far this season (in four starts), then his distribution at Coors Field Wednesday:

Interestingly, Wainwright didn’t exactly pull the curveball from his arsenal; he threw it about as often as he has at home. Actually, if one considers the slider to be a breaking pitch (the average break on Wainwright’s home slider is about eight inches), Wainwright threw a lot more breaking pitches against the Rockies (46%, compared to 38% at home). Why wasn’t he featuring the fastball more? Let’s see just how fast it was compared to what he throws it at home:

So for whatever reason (altitude or some latent hangover from his 125-pitch game on April 26), Wainwright’s fastball was a tad slower than usual, and he threw it less often. Okay, so what about the curveball — was it breaking as much?

The air must’ve affected it a little, shaving as much as an inch and a half off Wainwright’s Uncle Charlie. But in the absence of his fast fastball and his arcing curveball, Wainwright went with the pitch that was working: his slider. He threw it slower than usual (intentionally or unintentionally?) and as a result got some more break out of it:

So whether it was out of necessity or some kind of reworked game plan for the unique weaknesses of the Rockies’ batters, Wainwright adapted — and succeeded. It should be interesting to see what kind of repertoire he breaks out in his followup start. Too bad he won’t get to pitch in Coors again this season; the thinner air might’ve shortchanged his curveball, but it didn’t affect his overall game.

For all of his conservative ways, Tony La Russa has also been an innovator. He has institutionalized the LOOGy, recast career relief pitchers into starters and, most recently, begun a trend (well, a trend of one) of batting the pitcher eighth in his lineup. While not all of his decisions are sound (see Cesar Izturis, leadoff man) and his rationale isn’t always spot-on, La Russa has at least shown that he can try something new occasionally.

We noted recently that one of the Cardinals’ competitive advantages is that they have a relative hoarde of middling starting pitchers, half of whom are due to return from injury at various points this season in a kind of planned continual rollout. That gives La Runcan the following options:

1. Pick the best five starters and trade one or more of the others.
2. Pick the best five starters and move one or more of the others to the bullpen.
3. Optimize on the best set of pitchers in some other way.

We’ve championed the radical idea of a 10-man rotation in the past, though it may more flexibly be called a "six-plus rotation." At any rate, we thought we’d attempt to quantify some of the advantages. Today, we’ll look at the proposed gain in offense from reducing pitcher plate appearances. One of the theoretical benefits of our plan is that a team will realize a gain in offense because, by changing pitchers earlier in the game — such as before the pitcher faces a batter more than once (or, at most, twice) — the team’s pinch hitters will produce more offense than the pitchers would have. So is that true?

Over the last five years, NL pitchers have averaged about 2.3 plate appearances per game. Those at-bats aren’t automatic outs, but they’re pretty close to it, given that the pitchers offer around a .126 Gross Production Average (NL average to-date this season is .251. Using GPA, we’ve calculated the Runs total using the formula R=PA*1.356*(GPA^1.77):

Over the last five seasons, then, the average yearly amount of runs that pitchers as batters contributed to their teams (batting around 2.3 times per game) was 13, or about 1.3 wins.

So could a team improve upon that 13 runs/season by having its pitchers bat less often? Granted, 2.3 plate appearances per game doesn’t sound like much, but over the course of a season it translates to around 377 plate appearances per team. What if a team decided to simply reduce the number of times per game that its pitcher bats, say, to once per game? The other roughly 1.3 plate appearances would be taken by a pinch hitter. Assuming that pinch hitters are better hitters than pitchers, how many runs would such a strategy gain the team?

We’ll run the same numbers from 2003-2007, reducing the pitcher’s plate appearances to 1.0 and giving the remainder 1.3 to pinch hitters, whose actual OBP/SLG/GPA numbers are used:

So splitting the normal pitcher plate appearances between the pitcher and pinch hitters, teams would’ve realized a total on average of 26.5 runs over the season, or 13.5 more runs than they actually did by giving those at-bats only to pitchers. Converting to wins, that’s an extra 1.3 wins — essentially for "free."

Implementing such a strategy would of course curtail the number of innings a starting pitcher (or any pitcher, for that matter) could go. Assuming that the pitcher bats eighth or ninth, the starting pitcher could at most pitch five innings. Taking into consideration the fact that hitters are increasingly lethal in their second and third at-bats against the same pitcher, that’s not exactly a bad thing.It would, however, force teams to rethink their bullpens; relievers would need to be able to throw more than one inning at a time, for instance.

But say that a team did try the strategy of limiting pitcher at-bats. Once the team got a feel for the right roster composition, might it not take the next natural step? That is, why not go all the way and eliminate pitcher plate appearances altogether? If teams could realize an extra win and a half from limiting the pitcher to one at-bat per game, let’s see how much they could benefit from pinch-hitting and/or double-switching every time the pitcher’s spot came up; we’ll substitute the pinch-hitting stats for all of those 2.3 PA/G:

Over the last five years, such a strategy would’ve resulted in a net 23.7 runs per season, or about two and a half wins.

So whether a team decides to eliminate the pitcher’s at-bats altogether or merely reduce them to one per game, that team stands to gain between 1.3 and 2.4 wins per year. That’s not chump change. Considering the fact that the Cardinals (and now the Brewers) have implemented a somewhat radical strategy that promises less — batting a pitcher eighth can yield around 15 extra runs per season, or 1.5 wins — it seems like an easy decision. We’re not going to hold our breath that the Cardinals (or anyone) will cop to it anytime soon, but it certainly makes the six-plus rotation more appealing from an objective, quantifiable perspective.