Logic would assume night owls in Major League Baseball have the upper hand over the morning larks as long as they’re not on the daytime heavy schedule of the Chicago Cubs.
Turns out this only partially true, in a league dominated by night games and red-eye charter flights statistics show “morning type” pitchers somehow are at an overall advantage. The statistical boost they get in day games far exceeds the slight advantage their counterparts get in night games.
A new study found a player’s chronotype and time of first pitch play a major role in performance. The will be abstract on display at SLEEP 2010 on Wednesday morning.
18 pitchers from the Los Angeles Dodgers, New York Mets, Philadelphia Phillies, San Francisco Giants and Tampa Bay Rays were included in the study. Researchers analyzed each pitcher’s 2009 statistics. Combined, they played 728 early innings and 845 late innings that season.
Pitchers determined their chronotype through a modified version of the Morningness-Eveningness Questionnaire.
Roughly half the players were morning types. That group had an ERA of 3.06 in day games. Pitchers who were evening types had a relatively higher ERA, at 3.49. All pitchers trended towards higher ERAs in late games. Evening types did have a slight advantage, at 4.07 versus 4.15 ERA.
The author of the study suggests the results could lead to a new way to classify players to optimize team performance in a given game. Baseball managers could consider player chronotypes before a pitching rotation or calling on a reliever out of the bullpen.
Showing posts with label baseball. Show all posts
Showing posts with label baseball. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Aged baseball greats Griffey, Hernandez caught napping at games
Once upon a time Ken Griffey Jr. electrified baseball fans, launching home runs at a record clip, while roaming center field in Seattle’s Kingdome. Fast forward to May 2010, Junior is back in a Mariners uniform, about to nap his way out of baseball.
At 40 years old chronic injuries have stripped him of his gold-glove caliber defensive skills, so the M’s have him penciled in as Designated Hitter most games. You can find him sitting, waiting in the dugout or team clubhouse for his 4-5 at-bats per game.
When it was his turn to bat Saturday, Griffey was nowhere to be found. The News Tribune of Tacoma reports he was sound asleep in his chair in the clubhouse.
An unnamed player told the newspaper, “He’d gone back about the fifth inning to get a jacket and didn’t come back.”
Another Mariner said to the same reporter, "He doesn't sleep well at night, he's away from his family; he's comfortable in the clubhouse."
Some are questioning the credibility of the story’s author, for citing unnamed players in the report. Griffey was in the starting lineup for the Mariners the following game.
Other news outlets are reporting the Mariner’s are preparing to cut Griffey. He may be the organization’s most celebrated player, but he’s no longer productive. He was hitting .208 through Sunday.
The clubhouse nap would be an obvious factor, if it happened.
Griffey isn’t the only big name in Major League Baseball who couldn’t stay awake an entire game Saturday.
The Met’s Keith Hernandez was busted dozing off in the announcer’s booth in extra innings against the Giants.
At 40 years old chronic injuries have stripped him of his gold-glove caliber defensive skills, so the M’s have him penciled in as Designated Hitter most games. You can find him sitting, waiting in the dugout or team clubhouse for his 4-5 at-bats per game.
When it was his turn to bat Saturday, Griffey was nowhere to be found. The News Tribune of Tacoma reports he was sound asleep in his chair in the clubhouse.
An unnamed player told the newspaper, “He’d gone back about the fifth inning to get a jacket and didn’t come back.”
Another Mariner said to the same reporter, "He doesn't sleep well at night, he's away from his family; he's comfortable in the clubhouse."
Some are questioning the credibility of the story’s author, for citing unnamed players in the report. Griffey was in the starting lineup for the Mariners the following game.
Other news outlets are reporting the Mariner’s are preparing to cut Griffey. He may be the organization’s most celebrated player, but he’s no longer productive. He was hitting .208 through Sunday.
The clubhouse nap would be an obvious factor, if it happened.
Griffey isn’t the only big name in Major League Baseball who couldn’t stay awake an entire game Saturday.
The Met’s Keith Hernandez was busted dozing off in the announcer’s booth in extra innings against the Giants.
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Mr. Hernandez has had better days.
It remains to be seen if either Griffey or Hernandez have some kind of sleeping disorder, were out late burning the midnight oil Friday or were simply bored by baseball.
Let’s admit it, neither the Mets nor the Mariners are all that good this year.
It remains to be seen if either Griffey or Hernandez have some kind of sleeping disorder, were out late burning the midnight oil Friday or were simply bored by baseball.
Let’s admit it, neither the Mets nor the Mariners are all that good this year.
Image courtesy ICCSPORTS
Monday, April 19, 2010
Like a dream, Rockies pitcher can’t sleep after no-hitter
On Saturday a revved-up Ubaldo Jimenez made baseball history, on Sunday he was too tired to remember it ever happened.
He slept only about two hours the night he threw the first no-hitter in Colorado Rockies history, during a 3-0 win over the Atlanta Braves.
Jimenez was so groggy the next morning he wasn’t sure if the no-hitter ever happened. He told the associated press, “It was like a wonderful dream I was having.”
After he couldn’t sleep, Jimenez said he got up and ran six miles at about 6:30 in the morning.
He promises he’ll be rested up for his next scheduled start on Thursday.
He slept only about two hours the night he threw the first no-hitter in Colorado Rockies history, during a 3-0 win over the Atlanta Braves.
Jimenez was so groggy the next morning he wasn’t sure if the no-hitter ever happened. He told the associated press, “It was like a wonderful dream I was having.”
After he couldn’t sleep, Jimenez said he got up and ran six miles at about 6:30 in the morning.
He promises he’ll be rested up for his next scheduled start on Thursday.
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Will Jet Lag Affect this Weekend’s NFL Playoffs?
A Bloomberg.com story takes an interesting look at this weekend’s NFL playoff games. West Coast teams Arizona and San Diego both must travel to the East Coast to play. Will jet lag affect their performance? Results from this season suggest it might.
Arizona finished 9-7 to win the NFC West Division. But the Cardinals were 0-5 in games on the East Coast. San Diego finished 8-8 to win the AFC West Division. They faired a little better on the East Coast, going 1- 3. The Chargers kept their playoff hopes alive by flying east to beat Tampa Bay 41-24 on Dec. 21.
Why would jet lag affect sports teams? Quickly crossing time zones disrupts the timing of your body clock. This can upset your sleep patterns and your daytime alertness.
It’s harder to adjust when you fly from west to east. You have to convince your body to go to sleep at night, and to become alert in the morning, hours earlier than normal. This is bad news for the Cardinals and Chargers.
Playing in the Pacific time zone, the Chargers face a three-hour change when flying to the East Coast. Until November Arizona was also three hours behind Eastern Daylight Time since the state does not observe daylight saving time. But until March the state is now on Mountain Standard Time, a two-hour difference.
A study of more than 24,000 Major League Baseball games confirmed a jet-lag trend in sports. Teams with a three-hour time-zone advantage won 60 percent of the time. Teams with only a one-or-two-hour advantage won about 52 percent of the time.
So does the East-Coast advantage make the Panthers and Steelers a lock for this weekend’s games? Not so fast. The Cardinals will play their game at 8:15 p.m. EST. This may give them a slight edge.
Research suggests that athletic performance may peak in the late afternoon. Performance may decline at night as sleepiness increases.
A 1997 study in the journal Sleep analyzed Monday Night Football games from 1970 to 1994. It looked at every one of the games that had a West Coast team playing an East Coast team.
Each of these games began around 9 p.m. Eastern time. This means that games on the West Coast began at 6 p.m. Pacific time. In games played on the East Coast, the West Coast teams played at a 6 p.m. “body-clock time.”
The study found an advantage for the West Coast teams. They won about 64 percent of the games by an average of 14.7 points per game. They even won about 56 percent of the games played on the East Coast. Results remained significant even after controlling for home-field advantage and point spread.
So the “6 p.m.-alert” Cardinals will have a clear advantage over the “8 p.m.-sleepy” Panthers? Well, not quite.
Today teams have a better understanding of jet lag’s effect on performance. It’s common for them to arrive at the host city a couple days early. This gives players time to adjust to the new time zone. In effect the Cardinals may shift their body clocks closer to the East Coast time.
So how will it all pan out? Maybe each game will simply be won by the best team.
Arizona finished 9-7 to win the NFC West Division. But the Cardinals were 0-5 in games on the East Coast. San Diego finished 8-8 to win the AFC West Division. They faired a little better on the East Coast, going 1- 3. The Chargers kept their playoff hopes alive by flying east to beat Tampa Bay 41-24 on Dec. 21.
Why would jet lag affect sports teams? Quickly crossing time zones disrupts the timing of your body clock. This can upset your sleep patterns and your daytime alertness.
It’s harder to adjust when you fly from west to east. You have to convince your body to go to sleep at night, and to become alert in the morning, hours earlier than normal. This is bad news for the Cardinals and Chargers.
Playing in the Pacific time zone, the Chargers face a three-hour change when flying to the East Coast. Until November Arizona was also three hours behind Eastern Daylight Time since the state does not observe daylight saving time. But until March the state is now on Mountain Standard Time, a two-hour difference.
A study of more than 24,000 Major League Baseball games confirmed a jet-lag trend in sports. Teams with a three-hour time-zone advantage won 60 percent of the time. Teams with only a one-or-two-hour advantage won about 52 percent of the time.
So does the East-Coast advantage make the Panthers and Steelers a lock for this weekend’s games? Not so fast. The Cardinals will play their game at 8:15 p.m. EST. This may give them a slight edge.
Research suggests that athletic performance may peak in the late afternoon. Performance may decline at night as sleepiness increases.
A 1997 study in the journal Sleep analyzed Monday Night Football games from 1970 to 1994. It looked at every one of the games that had a West Coast team playing an East Coast team.
Each of these games began around 9 p.m. Eastern time. This means that games on the West Coast began at 6 p.m. Pacific time. In games played on the East Coast, the West Coast teams played at a 6 p.m. “body-clock time.”
The study found an advantage for the West Coast teams. They won about 64 percent of the games by an average of 14.7 points per game. They even won about 56 percent of the games played on the East Coast. Results remained significant even after controlling for home-field advantage and point spread.
So the “6 p.m.-alert” Cardinals will have a clear advantage over the “8 p.m.-sleepy” Panthers? Well, not quite.
Today teams have a better understanding of jet lag’s effect on performance. It’s common for them to arrive at the host city a couple days early. This gives players time to adjust to the new time zone. In effect the Cardinals may shift their body clocks closer to the East Coast time.
So how will it all pan out? Maybe each game will simply be won by the best team.
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