from Amazon
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Basic Strategy: baserunning with 0 outs
Ensberg gives the blueprint.
Let’s pick one out and see what do you do if you are on second base and 0 outs. My natural inclination is to do what Ensberg says. Let’s work it out.
Runner on 2B, 0 outs is run expectancy of 1.189 runs. Let’s say it’s a 90/10 play, where there’s a 90% chance of an out, and a 10% chance of a hit or error.
Option1: You tag up, and move to 3B on the hit/error (gives you RE of 1.904). And when there’s an out, you’ll be able to advance 10% of the time. So, 81% you are stuck at 2B (RE of 0.725) and 9% of the time you get to 3B (0.983). Add it up, and the RE is 0.866 if you tag up.
Option2: You move half way, and react. On the hit/error, you score (gives you RE of 1.953… notice how this number is not very different from just staying at 3B). On the out, let’s make it that you get back safely 87% of the time (0.725), and are doubled-up 3% of the time (0.117). Add it up, and the RE is 0.825 if you move half way. Even if you are NEVER doubled-up, your RE is still only 0.848.
So, here are the breakeven points: if you tag up and there’s NO chance for you to advance, it’s the same thing as going halfway and having a 1% chance of being doubled up. So, being doubled-up at the expense of scoring is a huge killer. Huge.
That’s on a play where there’s a 90% chance of the batter being out.
***
What about on an almost sure hit? If you wait to tag up, the RE is 1.79. If you move halfway, you can get doubled-up SEVENTY percent of the time, and STILL break even.
Conclusion: the level of your lead off 2B on a flyball is going to be directly influenced by the chance that the ball is going to fall in. I think this was obvious to most of us, but I was surprised to the extent that you can just take off. This goes to what to do on line drives. If on a low line drive and the infielder has a 10% chance of making an out, you can only take off to the extent that you’d be able to make it back to 2B at least 30% of the time.
I didn’t realize I’d be so fascinated by something that seems so implicitly benign.