THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

One thing I am curious about. Is trying to hit “extra” flyballs (which presumably leads to more fly OUTs) with a runner at third and less than two outs even a good idea?

I mean it is still much more valuable to score that runner with a base hit than to sacrifice him home and I assume that unless it is an extreme “small-ball” situation that a walk is also clealy preferable.

What you want to do is avoid the strikeout, since the cost of the K in that situation is ENORMOUS.  You need to make contact.  And, the data bears that out.

Great article by John.  I’ve got nothing to add to such fine work.

It’s a real good start, but something’s just nagging at me. In the part where he looks at hitting to the right side, he doesn’t even mention handedness of batter or pitcher. Given the size of the sample it’s unlikely you have an unusual number of left-handed batters/pitchers in your split, but it’s far from impossible.

Same with the fly ball information - we don’t know if the players in each sample are representative of the usual GB/FB split. And here we’re even less confident about our splits, because teams are well aware of the effect of sac flys, and so late in games in those situations they could cherry-pick their reliever with the best ground ball rates, thus skewing the numbers.

Again - real interesting study, but it’s a starting point, not a conclusive analysis.

One of the research projects that I envision for when we finally get a base of Hit f/x data is whether certain players sacrifice bat speed for greater control of angle off the bat, both horizontal and vertical angle.  I suspect most batters don’t do this but some batters without great power might.  Choking up would be one way to do this, but holding the bat with the tip more toward the catcher is another way to have a quicker, more accurate swing but at a significant loss of bat speed.

Very well written, analyzed and cogent article!  I rally like this guy (Walsh) even when (and especially) he is not writing pitch f/x articles.

When we look at the fly ball rates and the rate of batted balls to the right side, we are looking at the result of the skill of the batter AND the pitcher.  If we find that these rates do not change much as compared to typical situations, like the fly ball rate in a sac fly situation, it is likely that the pitcher is trying to keep the ball down, and is successful at that, and the batter is trying to hit a fly ball (mostly by offering at high pitches and laying off the low ones, if he can), and is also successful at that, but that the net result is zero.  So batters DO likely have an ability to alter their swings and/or pitch selection, but the result is a wash after you consider the alterations that the pitcher makes.

If you watch much baseball, it is obvious that many, if not most, batters try and hit the ball to the right side with a runner on second and 0 outs.  Pitchers, also, to SOME extent, try and keep the ball to the third base side of the plate or throw more or less fastballs, depending on the handedness of the batter.  Pitchers don’t alter their approach as much as batters do in that situation though.  And some batters (the power hitters) don’t alter their approach at all.

I once decided to include batters hitting to the right side (whether it was much of an ability or not) in Super Lwts.  I quickly scrapped that idea though, as I found that beyond handedness and BIP rate in general, the difference between the best and worst players at hitting the ball to advance the runner on 2nd, was like 1 or 2 runs a year at the most.

#3/

Yes, a more rigorous study would have controlled for these effects, but I didn’t think it was worth the trouble.  I did look at the increase in right-side-fraction separately for right- and left-handed batters and found that each group increased the right-side-fraction by about the same amount.  LHB, of course, hit more often to the right side, but they increase their right-side fraction by the same amount as RHB.

"And some batters (the power hitters) don’t alter their approach at all.”

Great point.  And, this is true in alot of these splits, be it with men on base, or by count (or especially by count AND men on base).

John, any chance you can include some various splits by profile of batter?

When I was in grade 6,7 and 8, I could control where I hit the ball; however, that was if I could hit the pitch. Against harder throwers it was almost impossible to just hit the ball. I would bet that some of the elite players in MLB could do this (ones with a great eye and bat speed). When I play now, I just try to make solid contact.

My first question here. Loved “the Book”, especially the lineup chapter. But I’m not a number-crusher myself, so my questions:

1-On the related subject, what is the linear weight value anyway for advancing a runner from second to third by giving an out?

2-Jeter praises himself for having this ability to hit on the right-side. Let’s say his ratio (following the article’s logic) is 1.20. Jeter is a lifetime .317/.387/.461. What is the break-off point underwhich he shouldn’t try to hit on the right side? (if he hits .280/.310/.380 under this condition, is this ability still worth it?)

1. Generally speaking, each base is worth 0.25 runs (one run divided by 4 bases).  However, the base from 1b to 2b and from 2b to 3b are each worth around .18 runs.  Add 50% if there is 0 outs, and chop in half if there are 2 outs.

2. What I would like to see, accompanying the splits that John showed, is the actual performance.  It’s all well and good to hit to the right side, but you really want to know the LWTS run value of each BIP.

marc, #2, great question.  Just like with the hit and run (and to some extent the sac bunt), we have no idea whether it is “worth it” for any individual batter to try and alter his swing/approach unless we know, as Tango says, what his average result it.  Obviously by trying to hit to the right side, you have to sacrifice something (otherwise it would be correct to do that all the time).  Whether what you sacrifice otherwise is less than or greater than what you gain by moving the runner over more often that you would with a “regular” swing is a good question.  We ought to be able to determine that, again, as Tango says, by comparing what batters do with a runner on second and 0 outs to what they do with 1 or 2 outs.  To some extent at least (we still don’t know how much of that difference is due to the pitcher altering his approach and how much to the batter altering his, or maybe even the defense).  In other words, when we compare situations with different outs, we have to be careful in how we attribute any differences we may find.

By doing an analysis like that for different classes of batters, we may find that it is correct for certain types to alter their swings and incorrect for others (of course we have selective sampling issues here in that it may only be correct for batters that DO do it and CAN do it).

#10/ Tango,

Your point 2) is interesting—I could have looked at not only how frequently a hitter manages to hit to the right side, but what actually happens when he does. 

Maybe there are enough interesting things here for a follow-up piece.  (Though, I did sort of want to stay out of the “productive out” debate, because I think it’s been worked to death.)

Oh, yes, I think the productive out thing is exactly where it should be headed!  What is Erstad’s run value on outs in the situation you describe, relative to the other players.

And, you’d probably want Table 50 of The Book to get your answer, which is similar to this:
http://www.tangotiger.net/RE9902event.html