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Message: [QUOTE="jncuse, post: 3989891, member: 1969"] I want to like this post ONE MILLION TIMES!!! I spent the good part of an hour on a Blue Jays message board arguing that the Rays did the right thing in going after Judge. The main part of my argument was that in walking Judge, you make Stanton inherently much more effective in the upcoming at bat. Load the bases with the winning run at third, and the batter (Stanton) becomes much more comfortable because he knows the type of pitches and the location of pitches will be much more limited throughout his at bat. Yes there are advantages to creating the force / DP, but these have to be weighed against the probabilities of walking in the winning run & how much more effective you have made Stanton because of his advantageous situation. Part of the argument that I got was that Judge is one of the best hitters in baseball and he should be walked for that reason. And he absolutely is one of the best hitters in baseball. But you don't have to be one of the best hitters to be effective in that situation. Much of Judge's value is derived from his extra base power which really has no extra benefit in the situation. In fact the best hitters in that situation (guys who make more contact but with less power) might be the best in that situation -- they would be the guys you should automatically walk.. You don't automatically walk Judge who still has a relatively high K rate (although almost everybody does nowdays). You go for the K which is the best possible out in that situation (other then a DP from a walk). And then you take on Stanton with the base open, and he is weakened a lot merely by the situation. Anyway I think it's close to 50/50 in terms of what to do in certain situations (depends on batters). You are in a bad situation either way. The higher K rates in modern times encourage pitchers to not do what was once automatic. It used to be automatic to walk the batter in that situation. But I am not sure if analytically it is that strong a case either way anymore, especially with a better who has a K rate of over 25% ... which many players do today. [/QUOTE]

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