Is it bedtime yet?
In baseball, it is traditional to give aging veteran players the day off when the schedule calls for playing an afternoon game the day after an evening game.
The result is that afternoon games, the ones with the most young children in attendance, often feature each team's "B roster" of scrubs.
As someone with a ticket to this afternoon's Nats-Giants game, I hope Barry Bonds does not have the day off.
Besides, older players probably do better during the day than at night. (I'm sure someone keeps a stat for this. Josh, I'm looking in your direction.) Thus, why not let players rest during the night game and let them play the following afternoon?
3 comments:
Jeez, how the hell can I answer this question without statistical software and zillion data points? I mean, it can be done -- just not by me.
Here's the best daytime hitters this year.
Here's the best nighttime hitters this year.
Looks like old players do just fine during the day, but that's not a definitive answer.
Use this for nighttime. Fewer at bats required to make the list.
dl004d, you are the most capitalist person I know, so I am somewhat puzzled by your logic. More people attend night games than day games, and those people are much more likely to buy beer and hot dogs. Plus, those games are more likely to be shown on television. So which games do you think are more important, from a marquee perspective?
On a more pragmatic level, it makes total sense for managers to give routine days off during day games. Athletes in general, and baseball players in particular, are creatures of habit. They have daily rituals and routines. They are used to playing in night games. More than 2/3 of their games are night games (unless you're a Chicago Cub). It's better to keep a person on the same sort of schedule, especially when you consider the environmental factors inherent in hitting a 95 MPH fastball.
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