THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

Saturday, June 12, 2010

“Don’t make the 1st or 3rd out at third base” doesn’t really mean, “Don’t…”

While it is not a bad rule of thumb for the base runner, it doesn’t mean DON’T ever make the out.  It means, DON’T try unless you are 80+% sure you are going to make it.  Which means that you should occasionally make that out.  Which means that over the long haul, if a team doesn’t make an out or two at third with 0 our 2 outs, it is probably being too conservative on the bases, more or less.

Watch the video of Rickie Weeks attempting a steal of 3rd with 0 outs in the bottom of the 5th in tonight’s game. If there ever were a steal attempt of third where the runner was going to be (before the pitch is thrown, of course) safe 90% of the time, this is it, in my opinion. It took an absolutely perfect pitch, low and inside, and an absolutely perfect throw, a strike right in front of the bag, in order to nail the runner.

And of course, the announcers (on the Tex broadcast) went on and on about how bad the play was, simply because he made an out and he violated the rule.  Now, one of the broadcasters was an ex-major league player, Jeff Huson.

You mean to tell me that in 30 years of playing baseball, including probably 15 or 20 professional years, and over 100 years of baseball in general, that no one tells a baseball player that it is OK to make an occasional 1st or 3rd out at third as long as you are ALMOST positive that you are going to make it when you make the decision?

Similarly, on the other side of the coin, in the COL/TOR game (I watch a lot of games!), Todd Helton, a very good base runner, was on second when Carlos Gonzales hit a grounder to the SS.  Helton took off on the throw and was out easily at third on a return throw from the first baseman, Overbay.  Even though there was 1 out (the time for the riskiest advance to third), the COL announcers went on and on about how bad a play that was because, “He already was in scoring position.” No mention of the fact that it was 1 out and getting to third with 1 out only requires a reasonable chance of making it.

Finally, a week or two ago, Jimenez was pitching and Clint Barmes was playing second base.  The same announcers remarked that Barmes has a weak bat (which he does) but that he was in there for defensive purposes (he is a good defender at second, a former and sometimes current SS), and that with Jimenez on the mound, one saved play in the field could make the difference between a win and a loss since Jimenez is not likely to give up many runs.  Really dumb logic although it sounds really intelligent and logical, doesn’t it?  Of course, you could come back with, “Well with Jimenez not likely to allow many runs, wouldn’t a better bat be important since one hit could be the difference between a win and a loss?” The REAL answer, I think, is that you typically want your good fielders out there with a bad pitcher on the mound since they will get more opportunities to field a ball with that bad pitcher on the mound, especially if the good pitcher is a high K pitcher (like Ubaldo) and/or the bad one is a low-K pitcher…