from Amazon
Sunday, November 02, 2008
The Book - High School Edition
This is NOT any kind of announcement. But, someone posted a mailbag question that I think deserves its own thread, and allow for discussion among everyone. A tangential question could also be: what would The Book be at the turn of the 20th century? Here is the original question in its entirety:
Guys,
I’m a high school baseball coach in California and I have a question I’d love for all three of you to tackle. Even though it might only make a difference of a few runs per season, I’m passionate about trying to manage in the most logical way possible, and I read your blog regularly for insights.
Here’s my question: In a low-quality high school environment, if you assumed that none of the hitters in the game had the ability to hit home runs, all pitchers are throwing 70-82 mph with average-at-best control and mediocre off-speed pitches, and virtually all runners reached base via singles or walks (at a 1:1 ratio or something near it)...how would you manage?
Would there be any “rules” you’d establish for your players? Do the sabermetric principles that you discuss on the blog that apply to MLB change slightly when discussing high school? For example, does the “break even” point for stealing bases or taking the extra base change in this environment? How would you approach or (de?)emphasize bunting at the high school level, assuming no elite players on your team and low-level competition, too?
My initial thoughts are more on the defensive end: I’d want to play aggressively shallow to take away bloop singles and give OFs a chance to prevent runners from taking the extra base. Should my hitters take more pitches, due to the wildness of the pitchers and their complete inability to hit for power? I’d love any ideas you can give. Basic topic for reply is “What you do if you coached high school baseball”.
Thank you guys, I am grateful.
The initial, short, and incomplete answer, of course, is that everything changes. Run scoring in MLB (and most high-level baseball) centers around the basic MLB model we use for most of our analysis. When the components of run scoring change so dramatically (as you say, few, if any HR’s, lost of walks, lots of ROE’s I assume, probably more GB’s, then the models that determine optimal strategies have to drastically change. Well, it’s not really the models, but the inputs I guess. I also assume that in high school, you have a large spread of talent in all areas, for example, some runner cannot get thrown out on an attempted steal and others could not make it more than 25 or 30% of the time. Anyway, I am about to head to the airport, but I’m sure there will be lots of good input in this thread. Good question! For those high school (or college or Little or Pony League, etc.) coaches out there, hopefully if you read enough on sabermetrics, you can use the methodologies that sabermetricians use to determine optimal or at least roughly optimal strategies, and by using your own inputs and making logical inferences, etc., you can answer these questions yourself, rather than us saying, “Yeah, you need to this, this, and that.”