THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

On a loosely related note, Andrew McCutchen beat the throw as he stole 2nd against the Reds, but he overslid and was tagged out.  Technically I believe he was momentarily safe at 2nd (he touched the bag safely and then lost contact with the bag), so in my mind it should really be a stolen base followed immediately by a caught stealing as well.  However, the official scorer simply ruled it a CS without an SB to go with it.

Now of course this is different from Tango’s example because the discrepancy is not shortchanging McCutchen of a positive play.  However, it does matter to those who like to make a big deal over technicalities and those who have McCutchen on their fantasy baseball team.  I fit both categories, hence me mentioning this

Very interesting. Call the stat a “Decoy”? Like, Rivera gets a DC (short for decoy?) instead of a CS in this case. There could be a lot of different scenerios where a base runner could decoy a throw, not just limited to today’s play. I would like that.

Why not call it sacrifice run? It’s the same as sacrifice fly - player is sacrificing himself so that his teammate may score. Same as players who hit or advance a base safe, but put themselves into rundown so that leading runner may score.

Baserunner’s choice?

“Same as players who hit or advance a base safe, but put themselves into rundown so that leading runner may score.”

Exactly.  With the Angels though, I think Rivera might have overdone that a bit.  He’d get himself out in a rundown play to help a runner score who probably was going to score anyway.

I like the idea of a “sac run”.  That’s the ultimate in giving up an out for a base… you actually get a run with 2 outs.

1/mickeyg13, Concerning McCutchen: Why give him credit for a steal when he didn’t execute it properly? That seems like giving first base to a strikeout victim because he worked the count well - he had a good process, but he didn’t come through.

6/Sean I’m quivering over technicalities and I know it.  Technically the instant he touched 2nd base before the tag, he was safe.  At that moment it should have been a stolen base technically, regardless of what happens after that.  This only lasted for a few tenths of a second though as he then left the bag and was tagged out.  Your strikeout victim has no relation to this.  The closer analogy would be when a player makes too wide of a turn on a single and gets thrown out trying to scramble back to 1st.  He is still awarded the single even though the net result of the play is an out.  There’s not any huge injustice in not awarding McCutchen the steal as well since the end result is functionally equivalent.

If it makes you feel any better, mickey, a batter is not awarded a base on a hit if he overslides it either, only if he runs through/past the base and is put out trying to return to it (or advance to the next base).  If McCutchen were sliding into second on an attempted double and the same thing happened, he’d only get credit for a single.  I guess the rationale is that a runner has to either hold the base (which is the language in the rulebook specifically describing slide plays) or voluntarily leave it (which is not written in the rulebook, but I am inferring).  A slide is a clear intent to stop at the base and conclude the play, so the player has to hold the base to be considered safe on the play.  A runner who overruns the base has completed the play of reaching the base and begun an advance toward the next base.

As long as you keep track of outs made on the bases, it shouldn’t make much difference which way you classify it (aside from fantasy purposes, of course).