from Amazon
Tuesday, June 27, 2006
Baseclogging
Tim McCarver likes to talk about how slow guys with a high OBP clog up the bases for the subsequent batters. Let’s try to work some numbers.
Say you have a guy who gets on base, but is a slow runner. Someone like Ortiz. Ortiz will be on first base 150 to 200 times in a season. Take a fast runner like Crisp. Crisp will hit a single about 18% of the time, and probably 85% of those times, Ortiz will remain on 2B. Crisp will take a walk only 7% of the time. So, 22% (.18 * .85 + .07 = .22) of the time that Ortiz is on 1B, we’ll be in a Ortiz/2B, Crisp/1B situation. That’s 40 times where we’ve set ourselves up for possible baseclogging.
The base-clogging will happen in situations where Crisp can go to 3B, but Ortiz isn’t going to try for home, so he’s staying on 3B. So, at the minimum, it has to be a single. A hitter will get a single 17% of the time, meaning 7 times we have the minimum requirements (.17 * 40). Of those 7 times, Ortiz will score 2-3 times and stay at 3B 4-5 times, meaning that the trailing runner will be stuck at 2B 2-3 times.
Crisp would probably have made it to 3B, sans base-cloggers, 3-4 times. So, the base-clogging Ortiz would block the speedy Crisp one time per season.
So, yes, McCarver was right. It is possible for a slow runner to clog the bases for a faster runner. One base for the season; that’s the cost.