But even if those defensive decisions are trivial, the offense doesn’t even get that amount of choice. They’re basically still trying to do the same thing they’re always trying to do. They might be more motivated, but by the time you get to the pro level, everyone is always playing at very near 100% motivation anyway.
Right, so it’s basically impossible to make the wrong strategic choice, which is an advantage. In the same scenario in the top of the inning, the defense doesn’t know whether the runner on third would win the game by scoring, so they might decide to play normal defense to try to avoid a big inning.
I think you have this somewhat backward. The visiting team has the advantage in not using the closer until they gain the lead. That way once they have scored they presumably can rely on their best reliever in the bottom of the inning and turn the lead into a victory. Meanwhile the home team may or may not have used their best relief pitcher already, but if they haven’t they will not have an opportunity to go to him with the lead.
Frankly I agree with what your actual opinion seems to be, that managerial expertise in selecting the right reliever for the right situation is highly overrated and as often as not a function of who played yesterday.
Maybe I’m misunderstanding you, but the home team will never be pitching with the lead in an extra-inning game. So the optimal usage (disregarding fatigue) is to just go down the line from most-effective to least-effective reliever. This is simple and something that all managers can figure out.
However, the road team tends to go from second-most-effective to least-effective, saving the most-effective for a situation that may never come. It seems to me that this is almost certainly sub-optimal.
In the end, like you said, it probably doesn’t make much of a difference. The home-team advantage is more tied up in crowd effects, effects on the umpires, etc, than any huge strategic advantage.
Don’t forget about travel time. Studies have shown that even when neither team is actually the “home team” (as in NCAA tournaments, for instance), the team which had the shorter travel time to the venue still has an advantage. Similarly, when there is a true home team, their advantage is smaller when the visiting team is from nearby.
Especially when west coast NFL teams travel to the EST for 1pm games. MLB teams string together their road trips to optimize travel, though. Not saying the advantage doesn’t exist, just that it might not be as pronounced as in the NFL.
Could we get cites for these studies? This seems to contradict what I recently read in the book mentioned upthread (for example, I’m pretty sure they said HTA remains about the same in MLB even when both teams are from the same city). So I’d be interested in comparing.
This isn’t quite true. Hitting a fly ball consistently into the outfield is easier than getting a base hit - you don’t have to swing for much power, so you can pay more attention to your timing. You can choke up a little. There are a lot of adjustments that can be made by batters that increase the likelihood of contact while decreasing power a bit. If you know that a fly ball into the middle-back of the outfield is enough to win the game, your chances of hitting that are better than if you’re going for a base hit or HR.
You are not misunderstanding me. That is the visitor’s advantage. They can use their closer if they ever get a lead and the home team can only use their closer in the same way as every other pitcher. Maybe this is an advantage for the visitor and maybe it isn’t, but that is the advantage that is being referred to when this subject is discussed.