I’ve been playing a lot of chess over the last two years. Last year, I decided to commit to getting better at the sport, if you want to call it that. It’s not a physical competition, but play a full day of chess and tell me how exhausted mentally you are, and whether you have any physical energy to spare.
I don’t have a rating in chess. My Chess.com “elo” is typically in the 950-1000 range right now (you can add me at TimWilliamsPGH if you play). My actual rating would probably be somewhere in the 1500 range. I play a lot online when I’m tired and bored and my attention is split, which lowers the “elo” rating with a lot of distracted blunders.
As I’ve been learning the game of chess, I’ve been equating it to baseball. That’s especially true in regards to the competitive aspect. I quit playing baseball when I was 13 years old, so I don’t have a lot of experience on that side. Around age 14 or 15, the only sport I played was tennis, so most of my competition is of the solo variety. I won’t say that I’m not competitive. My competitive drive ends only with my physical death. However, I tend to tone down my competitive drive in life, allowing others to win in a lot of cases. I even do that with this site.
This isn’t a great strategy in sports, or really in a Capitalist world, but I’d rather be the person on my death bed knowing I let everyone else win, rather than everyone else knowing that they could never compete with me if I tried.
Chess has allowed me to funnel that competitive drive into one area, allowing me to develop that drive in a healthy way. I still give a lot of games away from apathy and a lack of need to prove myself. Yet, my goal is to become a Grand Master in this lifetime. I guess that would be my drive to being a Major Leaguer.
The game of chess involves three stages. There is the Opening, the Middlegame, and the Endgame. They’re pretty self-explanatory.
Thinking of the game of chess in relation to the game of baseball, I’ve started thinking about the Opening, Middlegame, and Endgame in regards to the sport I write about. My focus isn’t on the actual game, but the moments within. Specifically, each individual at-bat.
Every single battle at the plate between a pitcher and a batter is a game of chess. Both sides make their moves and implement their strategy, with the hopes of achieving checkmate against the opponent. Outside of writing, I call swinging strikes “checks” and strikeouts “checkmate”.
We evaluate players based on large sample sizes of completed plate appearances. If each plate appearance is a chess game, then it takes X amount of games to see the talent level of a player. I think we can also learn more about players by breaking down those chess games into smaller stages.
This week, I want to look at the Opening, Middlegame, and Endgame of an MLB plate appearance.
THE OPENING
The opening move for an MLB plate appearance is simple. It’s the first pitch.
A pitcher has the chess advantage in that he knows what he is going to throw, and where. The batter is merely reacting, trying to turn around the pitcher’s advantage. Thus, for a good Opening move, a pitcher needs to throw a strike, and a batter needs to try to get a hit or draw a ball.
The league average on first pitch strikes this year is 61.5%. Here is a look at the Pirates pitchers who have been above average with their Opening move. All of these numbers run through Friday’s games.
- Colin Holderman – 75.0%
- Marco Gonzales – 72.5%
- Jared Jones – 67.0%
- Jose Hernandez – 66.7%
- Hunter Stratton – 63.0%
- Martin Perez – 62.7%
- Mitch Keller – 61.5%
On the flip side, here are the three who are the worst at getting ahead from the start.
- Aroldis Chapman – 42.5%
- Quinn Priester – 47.6%
- Luis Ortiz – 49.2%
A good Opening move doesn’t guarantee you’re going to win the plate appearance. It does put you at an advantage, increasing odds that you will ultimately win the contest.
Here is a look at the other side of the game, seeing the Pirates hitters who consistently get to a 1-0 count.
