THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

Thursday, July 06, 2006

Stealing Home

By Tangotiger, 02:37 PM

I love Carl Crawford. Stealing home just makes me like him that much more. How smart was the play?

An average team, up by 3, in the bottom of the 4th, with two outs, and man on third, will win .848 times. If we makes it, it goes up to .892. If he’s out, it goes down to .827. So, that’s a gain of .044 wins against a loss of .021 wins. The breakeven point was only 32%. If Crawford thought he had at least 32% chance of making it, he should go for it. Looking at the play, with the big lead, and the pitcher going through a windup, and Crawford being one of the fastest players in the league, it’s easy to see that he probably had at least a 50-50 shot at it, and that’s probably being very generous to the pitcher, Johnson.

• Sabermetrics • Baserunning

#1 Kevin (see all posts) 2006/07/06 (Thu) @ 15:25

I’m a little disappointed in the blogosphere - its been going nuts over crawford’s steal of home (which WAS very cool) but where was all this hoopla a few days ago when Orlando Cabrera stole home?

#2 David Smyth (see all posts) 2006/07/06 (Thu) @ 15:51

I think it was mentioned in The Hidden Game that the 2 out steal of home is the “unknown great percentage play”, with a BE similar to the 32% Tango posted.

A personal note--that play was the first time I put my saber reading to use. Soon after the Hidden Game was published in 1984, I think, I played against my bro-in-law in a table game (All-Star Baseball?). I beat him on a 9th inning, 2 out steal of home as a direct result of reading the book. The play was a complete surprise to him, and a major chest-thumper for me. After that, saber was in my blood…

#3 tangotiger (see all posts) 2006/07/06 (Thu) @ 20:51

It should be noted that it’s not only the steal of home, but even a sac fly. It’s the same 32% breakeven point. 3rd base coaches are even more scared of failing than managers.

#4 David Smyth (see all posts) 2006/07/07 (Fri) @ 16:04

I don’t understand, Tango. You can’t have a sac fly with 2 outs, and it’s the 2 out situation which lowers the BE pt so far.

#5 tangotiger (see all posts) 2006/07/08 (Sat) @ 19:14

With one out, a flyball makes it two outs, and the runner on 3B is now “stealing home” off the OF, rather than the P, with two outs.

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THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

Thursday, July 06, 2006

Stealing Home

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