Part I: The Elements of Frustration
What is it that makes a loss a Frustrating loss?
My team earlier this season (2007) endured a series of exceptionally frustrating losses, in which the same things would happen over and over. We started calling them the Groundhog Day games. We would be facing some pitcher of very modest accomplishments, and we would have many opportunities to score in the early innings. We’d score a run but leave the bases loaded in the second, ground into a double play in the third, get a leadoff double and leave him on second in the fourth, add a run but then run ourselves out of the inning in the fifth, ground into another double play in the sixth, take a 2-0 lead into the sixth and wind up losing the game 4-3. This happened three times a week for six weeks.
At least, I thought it did at the time. When I actually developed the Frustration Meter and went back and scored the games, I realized that the series of frustrating losses was actually more limited and more clearly defined than I had imagined. Anyway, this string of extremely frustrating games eventually forced me to ask: what is it that makes one loss more frustrating than another? What are the elements of a frustrating loss?
There are four general elements that make a loss frustrating:
1) A loss is more frustrating when you feel that you should have won the game,
2) A loss is more frustrating when you need to win the game,
3) A loss is more frustrating when you almost win but don’t, and
4) A loss is more frustrating when you make simple mistakes.
These four general elements are the basis of a longer list of specific elements.
1) A loss is more frustrating when you feel that you should have won the game, but what makes you feel that you should have won the game? There appear to be three things that cause a person to feel that his team should have won the game:
1A) You feel that you should have won the game when you had the lead at some point in the game.
1B) You feel that you should have won the game when you waste scoring chances (in a close game),
1C) You feel that you should have won the game when you are facing a pitcher that you should be able to beat,
2) A loss is more frustrating when you need to win the game. You need to win the game when
2A) You haven’t been playing well,
2B) You are playing a team that you particularly need to beat, or
2C) It’s the pennant race.
3) A loss is more frustrating when you almost win but don’t. A loss is more frustrating when
3A) You lose by a close score, particularly when you lose by one run.
3B) You lose in the late innings.
4) A loss is more frustrating when you make simple mistakes. Walks, errors, hit batsmen, runners thrown out on the bases, defensive misplays not charged as errors. If you get beat on a double, a single and a home run, you take your hat off to them. If you get beat on three walks, an error and a ball the second baseman should have caught, that drives you crazy. .
Part II: The Frustration Meter
To “score” exactly how frustrating a particular loss is, then, is simply a matter of placing numeric values on each of the events which is an element of a frustrating loss. These values are, of course, somewhat arbitrary, yet they follow a set of rules:
1) No one element should dominate the system, since no one thing makes a loss frustrating,
2) The importance of each element is inversely related to its commonness,
3) Whole runs are more important than parts of runs.
I assigned values to these events as follows. . .understanding that we are now well into the area where God never intended for these things to be measured. I came up with 18 rules to measure the specific elements outlined above:
Rule 1. For each run that the team was ahead before losing the game, add 10 points. If you were four runs ahead and lost, 40 points. If you were one run ahead three different times, 30 points. If you blow a three-run lead and also a one-run lead, that’s 40 points.
Rule 2. For each runner left in scoring position during the game, add 8 points.
Runners Left in Scoring Position is actually the number one cause of frustration in a loss, according to this system. Nothing drives you crazy like losing a game when you leave eight runners in scoring position.
Rule 3. For a runner left on first base, add 4 points.
Rule 4. For each double play grounded into, add 10 points.
Rule 5. Take the pitcher’s ERA at the end of the game, square that, round it off to the nearest integer, and add that to the total (but not more than 40 points).
This is added, obviously, in pursuit of observation 1C, that a loss is especially frustrating when you are facing a pitcher you should beat. I looked at different ways to factor this in, and settled on this because the pitcher’s end-game ERA is very easy to find. This will be misleading once in a while, particularly early in the season. Maybe it’s a guy who just got called up, has given up 4 runs in 5 innings going into the game (7.20 ERA) and is throwing crap, but he shuts you out for six innings and his post-game ERA is 3.27. But it’s going to be a reasonable value 19 times in 20, and I think we’ll live with it.
Rule 6. For each loss in the team’s previous 10 games (before this game), add five points. If you’re 7-3 in the previous 10 games, 15 points; if you’re 3-7, 35 points.
For early-season games, before you have played 10 games, just count the losses so far this season. (Early-season losses are usually not all that frustrating, because you’re just feeling your way, and haven’t had time for the frustration to build up.)
Rule 7. (April Rule). If you are playing a team within your own division which finished within ten games of first in the division last year, add 15 points.
Rule 8. (After April). If you are playing a team within your own division which is within ten games of first in the division (at the end of the game), add 20 points.
Rule 9. (August Rule). If it is August and your team is in first place or within ten games of first place, add 20 points.
Rule 8 is NOT mutually exclusive with Rules 9 and 10. You can get both the 20 points for playing a competitive team in your division (Rule 8) AND the 30 points for being in the pennant race (Rule 10).
Rule 10. (September Rule). If it is after September 1 and your team is in first place or within ten games of first, add 30 points.
No points can be awarded under Rules 8 or 10 after the pennant race is over for the relevant team. In other words, no points under Rule 8 if the team you are playing has been eliminated or virtually eliminated from the pennant race, no points under Rule 10 if your team has clinched the division, virtually clinched the division, has been eliminated or has been virtually eliminated.
Rule 11. If you lose the game by one run or in extra innings, add 40 points.
Rule 12. If you lose the game by two runs, add 20 points.
Rule 13. If you lose the game by three runs, add 10 points.
Rule 14. If the other team takes the lead for the final time in the ninth inning or later, 40 points. If the 8th innings, 30 points; 7th inning, 20 points; 6th inning, 10 points. If the other team takes the lead in the fifth inning or earlier, no points.
Rule 15. For each walk (or hit batsmen) by your pitchers, add 3 points.
Rule 16. For each error committed by your fielders, add 5 points.
Rule 17. For each caught stealing or other runner thrown out on the bases (not a forceout), add 5 points.
Rule 18. If you have more hits in the game but lose anyway, add 5 points for each hit that you have more than the winning team had.
That’s the system. There are other things that are frustrating. It is frustrating when you try to use a sac bunt and fail, but I don’t want to go on a witch hunt for failed bunts. It is frustrating when you walk batters, but sometimes it is more frustrating when you are given walks by the other team and can’t do anything with them. It is frustrating when you hit the ball hard but right at people. I would like to add three points for a Defensive Misplay/Not an error, but the data isn’t public, so we’ll have to hold off on that.
Part III: A Few Notes about the Red Sox
Understanding that a great many people could care less about the Red Sox, but using them to illustrate the concept. . .
I try to use numbers to clarify thought, and this exercise, silly as it may be, certainly clarified for me what had actually happened to the Red Sox this year. An average loss scores at approximately 150 points on the Frustration Meter. Through the 2007 Red Sox’ first 75 games, which included 27 losses, the Red Sox had not a single loss which scored over 200.
And then, suddenly, we slammed into a Frustration Cloud. On June 26 in Seattle we walked eight batters, hit two, grounded into two double plays, left five runners in scoring position and five more on first, made an error, and out-hit Seattle 14-12. We lost the game 8-7 (Frustration Index: 219).
The next day, facing Ryan Feierabend, who I am sure is a fine pitcher but happens to be a fine pitcher with a very high ERA, Daisuke Matsuzaka pitched eight innings of three-hit baseball, striking out eight and walking only one. This time we left six runners in scoring position, five more on first, and outhit Seattle 7-6. But we lost the game in eleven innings, 2-1 (Frustration Index: 234).
We won one game then, but on Saturday night in Fenway we ran into the immortal Robinson Tejeda of Texas (post-game ERA: 6.69), going against Josh Beckett, who went into the game 11-1. The Red Sox scored two in the first and two more in the second, but we also left two men on base in the first and left the bases loaded in the second. We had a double and a single in the third, but failed to stretch the lead when Pedroia grounded into a double play. We carried a 4-0 lead into the fourth, but it could easily have been 8-0 or 10-0.
With one out in the fourth Sammy Sosa hit a clean single to right. With Youkilis holding the runner on and Pedroia cheating slightly toward second Frank Catalanotto fouled off four pitches and then grounded the ball softly toward right. Pedroia knocked it down but boxed it toward the line, allowing Sosa to move to third. Marlon Byrd rolled the ball slowly through the same hole, making it 4-1 and sending Catalanotto to third. Brad Wilkerson crushed the ball to center, making it 4-3, Wilkerson on second.
Ramon Vazquez grounded to deep short. Cora knocked it down but no play, runners on first and third. Kenny Lofton rifles a single into right; tie game.
Bottom of the fourth, Kevin Youkilis draws a leadoff walk, but a hit-and-run effort becomes a strike ‘em out/throw ‘em out double play. In the top of the fifth Sosa homered to make it 5-4, Rangers—and the Red Sox never could get the run back. A leadoff double in the fifth leads to nothing. A two-out walk in the sixth brings David Ortiz to the plate as the lead run, but Ortiz strikes out. Manny Ramirez crushes the ball to center to lead off the seventh, but the ball dies. Mike Lowell hits a two-out single, but dies at first. Dustin Pedroia hits a two-out double in the eighth, but Julio Lugo, pinch running for Pedroia, tries to steal third and is thrown out. We go 1-2-3 in the ninth (for the first time all game), and lose the game 5-4. Frustration score: 220.
The next day Texas beats us again, 2-1, as Kameron Loe (post-game ERA: 5.79) shuts us down through six—our fourth straight loss with a frustration index over 200.
All this is mere prelude to July 7th at Detroit, the Saturday before the All Star break. In between we won a few games, and we had a humdrum loss to Detroit, breaking the streak. But on July 7, facing one of the league’s best pitchers in Jeremy Bonderman, we had 11 hits including three doubles, a triple and a homer, supplemented by six walks. We grounded into three double plays, ran into another one, had a runner caught stealing, failed twice to get down bunts.
We got David Ortiz to third with one out in the fifth, couldn’t score him. We had first and second, one out in the eighth, didn’t score. Coco Crisp doubled leading of the tenth, didn’t score. Jason Varitek singled with two out in the eleventh, didn’t score. We loaded the bases in the 12th, didn’t score. We out-hit Detroit 11-7, but lost the game 3-2 in thirteen innings. Frustration score: a season-high 281.
We didn’t have another game with a frustration score over 200 for almost a month after that, and then we had three more in ten days. So actually, we didn’t have six weeks of frustrating losses; we had two clusters of frustrating losses, separated by a month of baseball, during the first half of which we just didn’t play well.
I will propose to the guys at BJOL that we automate the calculation of frustration scores, and add that to our box scores. Ultimately, the success of the method depends on two things:
1) Whether you accept that the method does in fact measure how frustrating a loss is with some accuracy, and
2) Whether you are interested anyway.
If you don’t care, we’ll just let it drop. I thought it was worth a shot.