Do the LA Kings deserve to be playing for the Stanley Cup?

My biggest pet peeve about the NHL is how they count Over-Time Losses (OTL) as points in the standings. No other major North American sport does this - baseball doesn't award points for going to extra-innings, basketball doesn't for over-time. (It might actually make some sense in the NFL, considering how flukey their over-time can be and how much your chances hinge on the coin-toss, even considering the rule changes that they made last year.) I prefer the simplicity and honesty of just counting wins and losses, and have never really understood arguments to the contrary. If the game only ever resolves in a win or a loss, then that's all you should count.

The 2006 St. Louis Cardinals won the World Series. But if extra-inning losses
counted for a half-win, they wouldn't have even made the playoffs. Photo by Elsa/Getty.

(Some sport leagues - I think that the IIHF does this - count extra-time losses as a single point but deduct those points from a regulation win - which is worth three - so the extra-time win is worth two points, which addresses another one of my pet peeves. Namely, that the NHL has some 2 point games and some 3 point games, and so you need to do some serious math to determine whether a team is even .500. [Note: after looking it up, the break-even point was 91 points, this year.] But while I'm not particularly fond of the standardized 3 point game approach, it's definitely an improvement.)

Whether you like the extra point or not, Tyler Dellow points out that the OTL point produces some really annoying effects, most of which you would think the NHL would not be too keen to encourage:

• This past season, 29 of 30 teams played more defensively (as defined by their share of total shots taken, known as a Fenwick score) when staked to a one or two goal lead to start the 3rd period. And the defensive-shell is a terribly boring strategy to witness.
• In those games, the 3rd period ended tied more than 50% more often than random distribution would normally predict. This time, we see that both teams play more defensively in the final 10 minutes of a tie-game, which, again, is boring.
• Bad teams benefit disproportionately from the extra OTL point. So, it increases the chances that a poor team will make the playoffs or win their division over a stronger team.

That said, amazingly, the OTL rarely factors in to the process of determining who makes the playoffs. It often affects where teams are seeded, but somehow the 8 teams with the most wins in the conference nearly always manage to be the 8 teams that make the playoffs. And considering that it would usually only affect the last seed, who is usually eliminated in the first round, again, it's not a big deal. But this year, it factored in a big way.

Sure, this guy has a lot to do with why the L.A. Kings are in the Finals.
But so do the NHL's rules. Photo by Stephen Dunn/Getty.

Not only were the L.A. Kings the 8th seed in the standings, but there were two teams with better win-loss records that didn't make the playoffs because L.A. had more Over-Time Losses.

Rank

Team

Div

G  W

L OTL GF GA PTS

8	Los Angeles Kings	PA	82	40	27	15		194	179	95
8.5
9	Calgary Flames	NW	82	37	29	16		202	226	90
10	Dallas Stars	PA	82	42	35	5		211	222	89
11	Colorado Avalanche	NW	82	41	35	6		208	220	88

Both Dallas and Colorado won more games than L.A. So, by my reckoning of "fairness", the team that currently leads the Stanley Cup Finals two games to none - the team that is likely to win the Stanley Cup - shouldn't have even qualified for the playoffs! (There's a caveat, here, though. Dellow's research indicates that teams play for the tie, presumably because of the promise of that guaranteed point. If that guarantee were removed, then many fewer games would have gone to overtime, and it's possible that L.A. would have won some of them in regulation, as a result.)

There's a kooky twist to this story, though, which is that, somehow, the NHL playoff format managed to make a mistake that - by chance, not design - produced a better result. You can see from that tiny selection of the final standings that, based on goal-differential, the Kings probably are a better team than either the Stars or Avalanche - they outscored their opponents by 30 more goals than Dallas or Colorado. As I recall, a Win (in terms of Wins Above Replacement) is equivalent to five goals or so, so that means that L.A. is "actually" six wins better than those teams - a huge margin, especially considering that they posted more wins than L.A. So, the win-loss record might not show that, but it's pretty clear - L.A. was definitely an above-average team and the other two were not.

In fact, if you look at the full standings you can see that the Kings' success is not quite as surprising at might have initially seemed. They had the 6th best goal differential in the West (only a couple of goals behind San Jose) and 11th best in the NHL. (New Jersey, their Cup Final opponents? 9th best.) Not a great team - and it's still a huge surprise that they bumped off both Vancouver and St. Louis, who had much better teams - but not a bad team either.

Ironically, then, the L.A. Kings probably weren't good enough to make the playoffs, but they're certainly good enough to play in them.

The logic of baseball suspension length, or lack thereof

First, a disclaimer: This blog is not going to turn into the Brett Lawrie Blog, Sometimes Covering Other Topics. (Even though, right now, it might seem that is!)

Second, an additional disclaimer: I have been harshly critical of Lawrie in the two posts that I've devoted almost entirely to him. I'm not certain that I would like him much in conversation, but I actually do really enjoy watching him play. He's exciting to watch, in part because he's already a good player and in part because he's always putting in maximum effort. The enthusiasm he displays in every moment is, I think, unparalleled in baseball, and you can feel it rubbing off on the rest of the team. And the series of handshakes that he's designed with each of his teammates are ridiculous, but in a good way.

But, the guy who seems to pull off something like every second game...

...is the same guy who did this a couple days ago.

Understandably, he was suspended. Because as much as we all want, to put it euphemistically, to lose our shit when a call doesn't go our way - and, in fact, it was two consecutive blown calls that led to Lawrie's "Hulk Smash!" explosion - it was a terrible idea. (I know that the Pitch F/X data that's been circulating suggests that the pitch barely missed an inch high, but their range makes no sense. I can't imagine any umpire calling a pitch that's more than 3 and a half feet high a strike, much less against a 6 foot tall hitter who's a half foot shorter in his stance.)

The culture of the game is to blame, too, of course. Players and umpires are all but encouraged to get in each other's faces and scream. The system by which umpires are evaluated and made accountable for their mistakes are entirely opaque. And it should be very easy to develop a program that can call balls and strikes with better accuracy. Baseball has made no effort to address any of those things.

So, what I wanted to look at is where the punishment - four games - fits in relation to other suspensions, across various sports. In part, I want to see whether there's a consistent logic applied within baseball and across various sports; in part, and assuming that there is some consistency, I want to see if Lawrie's punishment fits it. Following from this starting point, then, I pulled together this list.

• 1 game (<1% of season) - Bobby Bonilla, 2001 (slapping another player)
• 2 games (1%) - Milton Bradley, 2009 (bumping an umpire)
• 2 games (1%) - Marlon Anderson, 2007 (throwing helmet toward home plate)
• 2 games (1%) - Lance Berkamn, 2007 (throwing equipment on field)
• 2 games (1%) - Roberto Alomar, 2005 (throwing glove in direction of umpire)
• 3 games (2%) - Jonathan Papelbon, 2011 (bumping an umpire)
• 3 games (2%) - Burke Badenhop, 2009 (hitting Orlando Hudson with a pitch, after a warning)
• 3 games (2%) - Albert Belle, 1993 (charging the mound after being hit by pitch)
• 4 games (2.5%) - Brett Lawrie, 2012
• 4 games (2.5%) - Moises Alou, 1995 (participating in bench-clearing brawl)
• 5 games (3%) - Cole Hamels, 2012 (hitting Bryce Harper with a pitch)
• 5 games (3%) - Yadier Molina, 2011 (bumping an umpire, with incidental spit)
• 5 games (3%) - Josh Beckett, 2009 (intentionally throwing near Bobby Abreu's head)
• 5 games (3% ) - Roberto Alomar, 1996 (intentionally spitting on umpire) 
• 50 games (35%) - Delmon Young [International League], 2006 (throwing bat at umpire)
• Banned for life - Jose Offerman [Dominican Winter League], 2010 (punching umpire in face)

The first thing that's made clear, here, is that baseball treats violence (and the threat of violence) against players and umpires differently. Charging the mound with your fist cocked is given the same punishment as bumping the beak of your hat against the umpires forehead. The distinction makes sense, though; you need to allow for the possibility that things will get heated between opponents, but you can't allow players to think they can intimidate the officials. (I've also heard the legal argument - of "assumed risk" - that says baseball players concede implicitly that the job is potentially violent and injurious, while umpires do not.)

Jose Offerman charging the mound in a AAA game. He hit the catcher
in the head and give him a career-ending concussion. Is that "assumed risk"?
No photo credit available.

Second, baseball has been all over the place with the lengths of its suspensions. There are three different suspension lengths for three different umpire-bumping incidents, and Yadier Molina's bump-and-spit combo (where I'm probably being generous with "incidental" spit) got the exact same length as Alomar's unmistakably intentional spit 15 years ago. There should probably be some sort of standard here, but there clearly isn't. About the only thing that they can agree on is that pitchers should get about five games if they admit, or are proven, to have hit a batter intentionally. But this has less to do with how the infraction compares to other forms of violence than it does to the fact that starting pitchers only play once every five days.

And here are the comparisons to some recent rulings in other sports leagues.

• 20 games (24% of the season) - rulebook suspension for intentionally tripping a referee [NHL]
• 25 games (30% of the season*) - Raffi Torres [NHL], 2012 (blindside check to Marian Hossa w/head contact)
• 15 games (39% of the season) - Dani Benitez [La Liga], 2012 (throwing water bottle at referee)

* the NHL's playoffs, like the NBA's, are so long and include so many teams that it's probably not fair to assign a percentage

The soccer suspension is completely out of whack with anything else that I've ever seen. It's actually maybe the nearest to the Lawrie incident, insofar as both throws seemed to be expressive of frustration and not an intent to injure. On the other hand, Benitez was trying to hit a referee, while Lawrie threw his helmet with such force that the possibility of accidental injury was greater (though still small). But that length is just nutty. And I've included the Raffi Torres incident in order to illustrate, again, the difference in punishments when we're talking players vs. officials. And while the NHL isn't anywhere near La Liga, when it comes to punishing players who lash out at referees, I think it's fair to say that they both take is a lot more serious than baseball does.

I don't have any solid conclusion to end with. Even though baseball's punishments appear to have no strict system of application, they're all so short (mostly between two and five games) that it's difficult to argue that Lawrie's suspension is surprising or inconsistent with past practice. The real question, though, might be whether baseball's practice is a good one, because Lawrie's actions would certainly earn him a longer suspension in either the NHL or La Liga. But that's something that all of baseball would need to start thinking about.

Solving the beanball problem

Okay, so my title is begging the question: is there actually a "beanball problem" in baseball? I'm taking it for granted that there is, and that you agree with me. (This is inspired, of course, by the Cole Hamels-Bryce Harper controversy from less than a week ago.)

Hamels explained that he threw at Harper because the latter is a rookie, and because
Hamels' plays "old school". Reportedly, Hamels also kicks opponents in the groin and grabs
runners by the belt, just like Ty Cobb did. Old school! Photo from The Washington Post.

The hit-by-pitch in baseball is, to some extent, unavoidable. In the last 60 years or so, Major League Baseball has averaged a bit less than 0.5 hit batters per game. (And that 0.5 includes both teams - so individual teams' pitchers hit one batter every four games, and one of their own batters is hit by opposing pitchers once every four games. And that includes intentionally hit batters, which surely inflates the number a bit.) Even pitchers who have a reputation for being particularly wild or willing to throw inside only hit one batter every 20 innings - and normally, 20 innings would be spread over three starts.

So, what I'd like to suggest (y'know, for all those baseball executives who read this blog) is a yellow-card/red-card system for pitchers who hit batters. It would look something like this:

• if you hit 2 batters in the same inning, you earn a red-card and are immediately ejected
• if you hit 2 batters in different innings of the same game, you earn a yellow-card
• [assuming that you don't later earn a red-card, that yellow-card stays with you for the next 7 days]
• if you hit a 3rd batter in the same game, you earn a red-card and are immediately ejected
• if you enter a game while having a yellow-card from a previous appearance, your 1st hit batter  extends it for another 7 days
• if you hit a 2nd batter in the same game, you earn a red-card and are immediately ejected
• every red-card is subject to automatic review to determine whether an additional suspension is warranted
• after your first red-card of the season, every additional red-card carries an automatic 7 day suspension, plus a review to determine whether an additional suspension is warranted

I think that covers the ground that it should cover, but I might be missing something. The idea, though, is to provide enough of a penalty that pitchers might try a little harder to avoid hit batsmen, while at the same time not doing so much that pitchers would be afraid to throw inside. (Unless, of course, they have a yellow-card against them. In which case, they probably should be a bit afraid to throw inside. But that's just how penalties are supposed to work.)

There's one obvious gap in my logic, though, which is that it might actually incentivize batters to lean into a pitch, or simply not get out of the way. I'd like to think that most batters aren't that dumb - letting an 85-95 mph ball hit you, in any part of your body, is probably a bad idea. At the same time, we know that happens, and some batters - I'm thinking of Larry Walker - were particularly good at "turning away" from the ball in such a way that they actually increased the likelihood that they would be hit.

For that reason, any beanball that resulted in a yellow or red-card would be subject to video-review after the fact - and the card would be rescinded if the reviewer found that the batter didn't actually make an effort to get out of the way. (Also? Let's starting calling batters out when they don't actually try to get out of the way. Because I'm not sure that I've ever seen an umpire do that.)