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Dusty, Please Don't Use Jake Odorizzi the Third Time Through the Order

 One of the major analytic developments of my lifetime as a baseball fan has been the third time through the order penalty. First discussed in The Book: Playing the Percentages in Baseball by Tom Tango, Mitchell Lichtman, and Andrew Dolphin, the penalty is faced by pitchers who pitch against batters for the third time in a game. Starting pitchers do significantly worse their third time facing a hitter.

This season, major league starters give up an OPS of .701 their first time facing a hitter, then .743 the second time and .774 the third time. Batters are 6% worse than average their first time facing a pitcher, but 13% better the third time they face a starter.

This season, Jake Odorizzi has been hit particularly hard by the third time through the order penalty. His first time facing a batter, Odorizzi is giving up a slash line of .218/.293/.387 for an OPS of .680. His second time through the order, Odorizzi allows a slash line of .235/.307/.452, which is an OPS of .759.

But his third time through the order, it goes badly, very badly. Odorizzi allows opposing hitters to slash .387/.406/.903 for an OPS of 1.309. Over the course of the game, the average batter against Odorizzi goes from Jose Iglesias (.673 OPS this season) to Ramon Laureano (.760 OPS this season) to peak Barry Bonds. 

To give some context on Odorizzi's struggles the third time through the order, I created the table at the right. It shows this OPS against for all six of the Astros starters in the 2nd through 4th columns. 

You can see that each of the Astro starters this season have suffered from their own third time through the order issue. This is not surprising, as basically all pitchers receive this penalty over the course of their career. The surprise is Framber Valdez, who is defying the third time through the order this season, as his OPS against improves with each plate appearance. 

I also include columns at the right for tOPS and sOPS.  These are split numbers. tOPS compares each pitchers OPS the third time through the order to their own average.  As you can see, the other Astro starters give up an OPS 22% to 48% higher than their personal average when facing a batter for the third time. Again, Framber is the exception. 

sOPS compares an individual pitcher's split to the league average, which would be 100. This shows that most of the Astro starters perform better the third time through the order than the average MLB starters. Luis Garcia performs worse (114 means he's 14% worse than league average) and Framber's numbers the third time through the order stand out (45% better than league average). 

Odorizzi's numbers are really bad here. He gives up an OPS 132% worse than his own average and 126% worse than the average major league starter this season. When Odorizzi faces a batter for the 3rd time, it goes poorly. 

We saw this in his last start in Kansas City. And Odorizzi actually started out well in his 3rd time through the order, retiring Whit Merrifield and Nicky Lopez on pop ups in the bottom of the 4th, But in the bottom of the fifth, it started to get wobbly, as Salvador Perez lined out sharply for first and Carlos Santana blistered a ball 417 feet. Fortunately for Odorizzi, Santana hit the ball to straightaway centerfield and it only went for a double. An Andrew Benintendi ground out and a Ryan O'Hearn fly out kept the Royals at bay. Carlos Correa then hit a go-ahead home run to lead off the top of the 6th, and it looked like Jake Odorizzi might be credited with a win. 

But Dusty Baker decided to press his luck and sent Odorizzi out to start this 6th. Some noted observers first-guessed this decision.

And the decision blew up on Dusty, as the 8th place hitter Hunter Dozier not only hit the ball a long way like Santana, but managed to pull it over the bullpen for a long game tying home run.  Only then did Dusty pull Odorizzi.

Odorizzi's poor performance the third time through the order is partly a result of bad luck, and partly an issue of small sample size (he's faced only 32 batters the third time through in 10 starts where he's has faced a batter for the third time).  But mostly it is a talent issue. Odorizzi has fallen off as a pitcher this season. He's more vulnerable to hitters in general, but particularly when they have an advantage over him. 

The best strategy for Dusty Baker and the Astros to deal with the third time through the order penalty for Jake Odorizzi is to not accept the penalty. Today, Odorizzi will start for the Astros against the Mariners. The best strategy for the Astros is to remove Odorizzi before Mariners leadoff man J.P. Crawford bats for the third time today. 

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