THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

If someone is on first base, they got there with a walk a good portion of the time.  I’m thinking most of this effect is related to catchers trying to get strikes out of their pitcher by going back to the basics.

Probably not a big deal, but wouldn’t it make more sense to look at it compared to pitches with no stolen base threat on at all (instead of overall). I did it quick from the data there and got 60.8% fastballs.

Also, I’m sure we’ll see some of this stuff with the PITCHf/x data soon.

The “ALL” is all situations, when really Dewan should be showing the “all pitches with man on 1B only”.  In short, he’s missing a line between lines 2 and 3.

I wrote to Dewan about the “missing data” and he sent me the rest of it.  When I get back home and on my own computer, I’ll post it here.

We hear a lot about how good, experienced hitters take pitches when a SB threat is on first.  There is never any reference to the fact that taking a pitch is not good for the batter, that the runner is not going to be safe all the time (obviously), or that swinging when the runner is going is not necessarily a bad thing (might be better than taking - I don’t know).

What does the BE point of a stolen base go up to when the batter takes a pitch at the various counts, not counting any benefit from a ball in play when the batter is running?  IOW, how does the cost to the batter of the take (there is always a cost of course, except perhaps with 3-0) affect the BE point of the SB attempt?

Hi Mitchell,

Thanks for your email.

Less is more.  I didn’t want to clutter the point I was trying to make with too much information.  We did look at what you asked about and it shows a slightly smaller percentage of fastballs thrown, but it’s really not significant.

Situation Fastballs Total Pct
SB threat 30 or more 5,835 9,232 63.2%
SB threat 20 or more 9,730 15,482 62.9%
SB threat 10 or more 20,871 33,213 62.8%
SB threat 0 or more 78,052 126,102 61.9%
SB possible 0 or more 90,592 147,714 61.3%
no man on 1st 290,094 473,977 61.2%
all 420,698 690,062 61.0%
man on first 130,604 216,085 60.4%

SB possible = runner on first base and second base empty

SB threat = runner on first base and second base empty and third base empty


John Dewan

Another interesting issue to look at is that of “protection”. Do pitchers throw more fastballs (or strikes in general) when a feared slugger is on deck to try to reduce the chance of giving up a walk ahead of him?

We looked at the “pitching around” in The Book, and it was excerpted here:

http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/pitching-around-batters

However, it doesn’t look at the pitch repertoire that leads to that performance level.