Fundamentals - the joker
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| Jukka-Pekka Vainionpää wearing the Joker’s vest next to his teammates |
What is a joker?
If you are coming from a cricket background, the joker can seem like a very strange concept indeed; in baseball, the joker is much more familiar than you may think. A joker is like a designated hitter in baseball, like you see in American League rules, but the role is much more tactical and has more scope than simply substituting a place in the lineup for a pitcher.
There is no equivalent in cricket, so it is worth explaining what a joker is in pesis in some detail:
The international rules state that “A team can use three different jokers at bat during each offensive half. The use of a joker does not cause any other player in the batting order to lose his turn at bat.”
As to when a joker can be used: “The use of a joker need not be announced beforehand. A joker can take a turn at bat, if the player in the batting order hasn't settled at bat. A joker cannot be taken away from batting if he has settled at bat.”
In practice this means that each batting team can use up to 3 additional players to take a turn at bat once each inning.
History
In 1986 a change to the rules allowed each team to use one joker per inning and created a whole new dynamic to the sport. This change to the rules came some 13 years after the designated hitter rule was adopted in the American League in MLB. Whilst the use of the joker at first was not the greatest of successes, with 1986’s Joker of the year Unto Väisänen of Sotkamon Jymy being relegated, the rule stuck and was expanded later on to include 3 jokers.
As the format of the game has shifted from 9 innings to 2 periods of 4 innings, the emphasis on good use of the jokers has been amplified. Crucial situations in games become all the more important, because there are only 4 innings to outscore your opponent in each period. Being a joker has seen the development of players who excel in this role and can focus their practice on hitting and game tactics, rather than worrying so much about fielding skills - Jere Dahlström is a good example of a career joker. Sometimes players who excel at batting, but have lost their intensity in fielding will find themselves comfortably slotting into a joker role. This phenomenon is seen in baseball as well, as former players often joke about moving from centre field, to first base and then to a designated hitter role as their age caught up with them. Interestingly, the reverse is also seen in pesäpallo, with Perttu Ruuska famously moving into the pitcher role last season after years as a joker; even all-star pitcher Juha Puhtimäki played as a joker earlier in his career before becoming the leagues best pitcher.
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| Jere Dahlström is one of the league’s best known jokers |
Of the current Superpesis players, Jere Dahlström and Jukka-Pekka Vainionpää have won Joker of the year 3 times in their careers, often also topping the league in RBI scored. Jere Dahlström did this in 2006 and 2009 with Koskenkorva and Vimpeli, whereas Jukka-Pekka Vainionpää did this in all 3 of his award winning years (2014, 2016 and 2019 with Seinäjoki).
Why are jokers part of pesis
In baseball, the rationale for using a designated hitter is 1. To protect pitchers from being injured; and 2. To provide some additional batting power (given the fact that statistically pitchers are the least successful batters on the lineup). Neither of these factors are the case in pesis, as the vertical pitch means that injuries at the plate are far less common and the fact that pitchers are often just as good hitters and/runners as anyone in the lineup.
So why add jokers to the game at all? Well, the answer lies with the focus for the game - as I discussed in my first post on Fundamentals, pesis is a game of tactics at its heart. The role of a joker means that a batting team can insert a batter for a specific role in a specific circumstance to add a tactical element to the game. In the modern game, jokers tend to fill one of several specific roles, usually as:
- “hard hitters/repatriators” - to bring runners home fro 3rd base (or even 2nd);
- “Runners” - to get on base and run quickly around the bases, posing a threat to score;
- “Progressors” - to generally move runners from 1st or 2nd base.
In fact, many of the leagues top RBI scorers are jokers, such as Jukka-Pekka Vainionpää or Roope Korhonen. During the 2020 regular season the only player in the top 10 for RBI scored that was not a joker was pitcher Perttu Ruuska. It is worth pointing out however that Ruuska has had a number of years experience as a joker up until 2020 as well.
So why are there 3 different jokers on any batting side and why can they only be used once? There has to be a level of restriction on using jokers to make the tactical decisions more meaningful; if a team could use jokers as and when they like as often as they like it would actually take away from the tactical elements of the game because the position players roles would become somewhat meaningless.
I often wonder whether baseball could benefit from having “jokers” in MLB; who wouldn’t want to be able to have some solid hitters at the plate at clutch situations without having to take a gold glove shortstop out of the game? But overall I think the mechanism for jokers in pesis probably wouldn’t translate as well into MLB and would actually reduce the tactical elements in baseball... it would be interesting to see if what it would look like though.
What to look for
Jokers are given numbers 10, 11 and 12, but can take a turn at bat at any moment in the inning. All jokers wear the same design vest over their team jersey as every other team and are easily recognised. The vest is usually brightly coloured checkered. The next time you watch a gam, focus on the jokers and look at different game situations and when a joker will come to bat - did the game manager put a hard-hitter in to bat? Was there a scoring opportunity available? Did the team need to get a fast runner on base? After a while you will get used to seeing the various ways that jokers are used in games and which players fill which roles.
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