THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

He may be the slowest for sure.  When you release the results, is there going to be any designation between speed (scoring or not scoring from 2nd on a 1B) and errors running the bases (picked off a base).

I swear David DeJesus is one of the worst mental error base runners in the game.

My base running numbers I compile also include most outs on the bases.

Bengie Molina moves from one base to the next at a speed that looks like a jog from a normal player.  For him it’s his top gear.

He doesn’t take stupid risks on the bases, but I think it’s apparent to anyone that his slow baserunning will cost you a few runs here and there.

‘Terrible baserunner’ is a term that is used to describe a mistake prone player.  It’s not used on Molina because for him, slow pretty much covers it.

http://www.rlyw.net/index.php/RLYW/comments/is_jorge_posada_the_worst_base_runner_ever/

Right, which is why I compared Posada to Molina.  It seems like their numbers are similar.  Posada has been a little worse the last few years (which is not unusual due to his age), but Molina has been worse in the past.  So unless Posada is faster than Molina, it does not look from the numbers that he is a terrible or even a bad base runner…

As far as those runners in the Tango link above, first of all, they are not normalized to games played which makes a comparison of “ability+ speed” worthless.  Secondly, most of them are simply slow.  If we want to know how “good” of a base runner someone is, independent of speed (or lack of), we have to compare their speed to their base running numbers, altghough I am not sure how to do that (measure their speed) without using their base running prowess.

Posada just seems like a typically slow base runner, despite all the (nearly universal) hate on the BTF thread…

"Here are the same numbers for Benjie Molina, also known as a very slow catcher and almost 37 years old, almost 2 years younger than Jorge .  I have never heard anyone say that he was also a terrible base runner.”

Did you mean that you’ve never heard anyone say that Molina was *not* also a terrible base runner?

No, I meant what I said. I do not recall anyone saying that Molina was a terrible base runner other than by virtue of his being one of the slowest players in baseball.  I could be completely wrong though.  I do not follow Benjo Molina.

In any case, my question is whether Posada is a poor base runner above and beyond his slowness.  If he is also one of the slowest players in baseball, then the numbers clearly indicate that he is not any worse than that would suggest. If he is not nearly as slow as Benji, and is in fact, just worse than average in speed, then perhaps he is also a “bad” base runner, and even then, not by much, again, according to the numbers.  I mean a below average runner is probably -2 to -3 runs, a very slow runner is -5 or -6 runs; anything above or below that represents fluctuation or poor base running prowess…

Is there some reason a player should not be penalized for their speed when figuring out their base running value?  Do we give bad defenders credit if they are slow?

MGL said this:

Presumably, they are arguing that he is a lousy base runner, over and above the fact that he is very slow, especially as a 39 year-old former catcher.

So, MGL is showing that yes, he’s pretty bad as a baserunner.  But that that could simply be a physical limitation he has (he’s old, he’s slow, he’s a catcher).

The question MGL is asking is if he’s even worse than what we’d expect from his physical tools because he’s a mental wreck on the basepaths.

You know, if you put Torii Hunter’s head in Posada’s body, what would we get?  Presumably a -10 or -11 baserunner or something.

Put another way: what if you put Ozzie Smith or Tim Raines or Larry Walker’s head inside Posada’s body?  Well, Posada would come in as a league average baserunner.

But, we’d be extremely impressed if that happened, right?  So, we’d breakdown his “0” in baserunning as “-6” for physical and “+6” for mental.

OK, that makes sense.  As someone who’s seen way too much base running by Posada, I’m probably biased.  He seems to make a lot of boneheaded decisions, but the effect may not be as big as it appears to be visually.

I guess I’m thinking more in terms of value and not skill.

The Molina “Chariots of Fire” video is bone-headed baserunning as opposed to merely slow baserunning.  Molina decides to go home on the overthrow to 3rd and is out by 6 or 7 feet.  The 3rd base coach didn’t give him the stop sign, but still, a slow baserunner with good instincts should know whether he can go home there.

Admittedly, that’s just one baserunning gaffe, so no career-level conclusions to be drawn, but I think some people were alleging that Molina is both slow and a bad baserunner.

My guess is that it is safe to say that speed is worth up to 4 or 5 runs per 150 games and smarts another 2-4…

An interesting thought i had is that while players like Posada who tends to get critizied for making “stupid mistakes” (and lets face it, we’re talking outs here, no player ever gets critizied when he is safe no matter how questionable the desicion was) as baserunners probably also give you value in extra bases taken that other players of their physical skillset that are more risk-adverse leave out there.

If in fact “standard” baserunning dogma is too risk-adverse (and it very well might be, especially for slow “station to station” type players) it might even be better for players to have a “style” of baserunning that causes what seems to be big misstakes from time to time.

Or to put it in other words, even if the std deviation on your estimate of your chance of making it is high, you still need to compare that estimate with the break-even point on the play you’re making somehow. If you only go when you “KNOW” that you’re above the break-even point you’re also dooming yourself to stay put in lots of situations where there is significant positive expected value in going for it.

#15, that is a very good point.  Your wording is a little off, though.

“If you only go when you “KNOW” that you’re above the break-even point you’re also dooming yourself to stay put in lots of situations where there is significant positive expected value in going for it.”

You SHOULD go only when you know that your chance of making it is above the break-even point.  I know what you meant though.  You meant, “well-above” the break-even point, or you KNOW you can make it a high percentage of the time, even though the break even point might be low.

For example, with 2 outs, I think the BE point for trying to score is around 1/3.  That means that in some close circumstances, you will be thrown out 2/3 of the time, and you will probably also look bad because you likely would not have made it but for a bad or dropped throw…

Actually MGL, that is not my point. (Not that I disagree with what you wrote.)

My point is instead that from the players perspective, as he is making his decision he can’t know but has to make an estimate of both the Break-Even point and his chance of success. 

To put it as an example using mathematical terms (and I am NOT implying that the player thinks in those terms, just using it to illustrate the thinking).

Player estimates that the break-even point is 0.7 with a s.d. of 0.05 because he doesn’t know the “odds” that well. He also estimates that his chance of making it is 0.75 with a s.d. of 0.08 because he isn’t very familiar with this exact situation.

The player who uses a reasoning that he should not take this chance because the chance might be lower than the break-even point is ignoring that it might also in fact be significantly higher.

I didn’t catch the part in your original post about the SD.  But I’m not sure what what the standard error (the better term than SD) has to do with anything, and I don’t get your last post at all…