Poker and Baseball

I think every major league team could learn a lot from poker players. When you break it down the pitcher vs. hitter battle has a ton of similarities to a poker game. Each player is trying to out think the other and the batter must often make a decision on what type of pitch is coming before it leaves his adversaries hand. Many of the great pitchers of our era could probably be monsters at poker if they decided to take it up.

One of the funniest things to watch is a pitcher go on tilt. One hanging pitch or missed close call can set a pitcher into the massive tilt that many of us experience after a bad beat. Maybe it’s just because I am so familiar with the signs of tilt, but I am able to tell the exact moment that the pitcher loses it. It’s not when he is noticeably angry, fiery passion can often get strike over, but when that anger stews long enough to completely numb his brain. It’s at this point the pitcher should be taken out of the game. No matter what the situation is, there are going to be some runs on the board pretty soon.

I’ve never understood why managers are so bad at making timely pitching changes. Even the best of the best seem to leave the pitcher in one or two pitches too long. They always wait until the pitcher completely blows it instead of taking action preemptively. It’s basically the same thing as getting up from the poker table after you tilt away your stack instead of catching the warning signs and saving yourself some money. In both games failing to act before the tilt costs the player/team a lot.

It seems pretty obvious to me that the guy who just game up a hit and two walks on close pitches probably isn’t going to get you that third out. Some MLB team should pay me 10k a game to sit in the dug out with the sole purpose to tell the manager when to take the pitcher out. I seriously think having someone paid to do this could win a team 10-15 extra games a year. Apparently managers are just as stubborn as most poker players and can’t admit that they could improve in this aspect of the game.