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Wednesday, October 19, 2011
Manager mistakes in the 2011 WS: Game 1
This thread, which hopefully Tango will stick, will be about manager mistakes in the WS. Hence the title of the thread!
It didn’t take very lone, IMO. With no outs in the top of the first, hit and run with Kinsler on 1st and Andrus at the plate. I’ve never seen the research, but I have always suspected that the hit and run was rarely a good strategy. If it were, it would be used a lot more. There is not a whole lot of game theory to it - it’s not like managers are going to pitch out every time a runner reaches base in order to thwart the hit and run.
Basically you have a batter forced to swing at some bad pitches, which is what happened in this case, and you have a runner who is vulnerable if the batter misses. Now, I hate the hit and run with a slow runner on first base, since if the batter misses, he is like 50% likely to be thrown out, the number depending on the speed of the runner and his jump.
In this case, Kinsler is an excellent base stealer but apparently he did not get a good jump as he was thrown out by a mile. A bugaboo of mine is when a runner does not get a great jump just because the hit and run is on and he expects the ball to be put in play. He should be doing the exact same thing he does when he attempts a steal. He should assume the batter is not going to make contact…