from Amazon
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Optimal SB success rates by player?
A reader wrote:
Have you guys ever done a study (or know of someone who has done a study) on the optimal stolen base percentage for a given player? I don’t know the exact number, but let’s say the break-even stolen base percentage is 67%. If a player steals at a rate of 60% with 20 attempts, then the right thing for him to do is to reduce the number of attempts, specifically the tougher attempts against better throwing catchers or tricky pitchers with good moves to first. That’s a pretty easy one. But I also think if a player steals at a rate of 84% (I’m thinking of Tim Raines), he probably didn’t attempt enough steals. Surely ther were situations where he would have had a 73% chance of success, but he didn’t make an attempt for whatever reason (fear of failure? fear of lowering his SB%? saving his legs/body against the brutalness of sliding head-first into second?) whether reasonable or not, he didn’t.
So, a player specific question I’m interested in is: did Tim Raines attempt enough Stolen Bases in his career? Given his talents and success rate, was he playing suboptimally by not attempting enough steals? I think there are a ton of factors that needs to be considered, including stealing 2nd vs stealing 3rd, game situations, possibly helping the batter hit better by staying at first, protecting his body in a long season/career, etc. etc.
The best way to get me to quote a reader is by saying “Tim Raines”. Yes, I have thought about that. Not so much Tim Raines, since he attempted quite alot of SB, but more about Carlos Beltran, who has an even higher SB success rate than Raines, but attempts far fewer bases.
I would guess that the “beating up the body” is the best reason to err on the side of caution. That perhaps a player, be it Raines, Rickey, Coleman, Beltran, Ichiro, etc, could attempt more steals on situations where they think they would be successful 75% of the time, but they don’t do it, because the extra cost on their bodies. If you make the SB worth +.02 wins and the CS as -.04 wins, then a 75% success rate means adding .005 wins per attempt. If there are 20 such attempts that these runners are giving up, they are giving up 0.1 wins in a season (i.e., 1 run). I think it’s worth giving up that run, if it means not having to have their bodies pound against the dirt an extra 20 times on a play that is a bit over break-even.
Recent comments
Older comments
Page 1 of 344 pages 1 2 3 > Last »Complete Archive – By Category
Complete Archive – By Date