Buy The Book
I’m talking about by cutting off hits in the gap (or wherever) and by the threat of a strong and/or accurate arm. As far as I know, none of the defensive systems takes this into consideration. UZR and my “arm lwts” do not.
Posts from another thread: break-even points, hit & run, run environments, et al.
Good recap by Pinto on the SB.
A very quick rule of thumb on the breakeven point is to do this:
1. take runs per game and divide by 2 (so, a 5.0 RPG gives you 2.5. That’s close to the breakeven of SB, 2.5, to CS, 1).
2. Figure the percentage (2.5/3.5 = 71.4%)
3. Subtract 3%
4. Breakeven is: 68.4%
In The Book, I said the breakeven point for 1999-2002 (5.0 RPG) was 68.7%.
So, a 4.0 RPG environment would give you: 2.0, which is .667, which becomes .637. This is why it really pays to play small ball against a great pitcher.
In no particular order, according to the Fans’ Scouting Report, the 8 fastest players in baseball are:
Bourn, Michael
Crawford, Carl
Davis, Rajai
Gathright, Joey
Gomez, Carlos
Patterson, Corey
Reyes, Jose
Victorino, Shane
Admit it. Other than Crawford and Reyes, and maybe one or two other guys, you have no idea how fast the other guys are, other than “fast”. But, the Fans are saying “the fastest”. Rally is telling us that Carlos Gomez ran a 3.1 on a bunt last night. The one thing about speed is that the random variation is very low. A guy who runs a 3.1 is not going to run a 4.2 on another day. So, if you have a group of fans that tell you that Carlos Gomez is one of the fastest runners in the league, then, you’ve got to give great weight to that. The 3.1 simply seals it.
This is but one game, but Geoff Young of Ducksnorts tells us that this pitcher was trying to get his mechanics back on track, so they decided to make him pitch with the windup, even with men on base. The answer is: 10 SB.
Whenever you can get your expected SB rate (based on the runner, his lead, the pitcher, what you think the pitcher will throw, and the release/arm of the catcher) above the breakeven rate, you should consider running. If your expected SB rate is way above the breakeven rate, you should consider going almost all the time (body willing). In this case, it seems that pitching from the windup turns everyone into a Tim Raines (Ichiro/Beltran for you young pups). This is the reason you don’t see pitchers pitching from the windup. The extra half second (or whatever it is) makes all the difference in the world.
Tom Tippett produced alot of great research over at Diamond-Mind, prior to being bought out. If you go to their home page now, you won’t see any of it. It’s still there, but you have to know the path, which you have right here. His best research article was probably the Ichiro one (Impact of Speed, May 2002). With the web, you never know when things will simply disappear. Read it while you can.
There’s a discussion over at USSM as to whether Ichiro should run more. I write the following at post 91:
Dan Fox shows us that Wade Boggs may have been the least successful baserunner of our lifetime. Biggio and Molitor have reached base as often as Wade Boggs in their career, yet have managed to score around 300 runs each, more than Boggs. The 150 extra HR helps. But, it certainly can’t explain it all. Boggs’ baserunning explains the rest. To put another way, Boggs has reached base almost 500 more times than Raines, yet has scored less runs than Raines did. Yowza. The average Raines’ hits and walks are worth more than the average of Boggs’. Boggs’ 3010 hits have some “emptiness” to them.
By the way, Rice/Boggs would be a good candidate for “With or Without You” for GIDP.
Want to know how times have changed, how often runners go for the extra base on a hit? Here you go.
To read the first line: when a single is hit, with a runner on 1B, between 1957 and 1968, with 0 outs, the runner will go for the extra base 36% of the time, and he will be successful 95% of the time. This compares to the 1993-present numbers of 27% and 96%. The gap widens with 1 out (39% attempt, against 30% attempt), and shrinks alot with 2 outs (40% to 36%). The 1957-1968 was definitely more aggressive, as they ran just as hard with 1 out as with 2 outs, which is not necessarily a good idea.
The same pattern repeats with the runner on 2B. With 2 outs, there’s not much distinguishing a runner’s aggressiveness over the years. But, at 0 and 1 out, runners today are far more passive. There’s nothing necessarily wrong with that, since far more runs score today, making the breakeven point higher today (outs are costlier).
On the flip side, a double, with a runner on 1B, has not changed the aggressiveness of the baserunner.
At some point, soon I hope, I’ll break down these numbers by baserunner.
I’ll also point out the obvious:
Dan Fox checks in with his minor league baserunning numbers.
He didn’t say it in so many words, but he may as well just have:
Well, the best way to shut down the running game is to keep them off base in the first place, but if the Red Sox *do* get on base, we’re not going to do a damn thing differently, and if Boston wants to run into outs in front of Ortiz and Ramirez, God bless ‘em.
Which is exactly why you don’t want to put speedsters in front of those guys.
Dan Fox gives us some leaders and trailers for runners on non-steal, non-PA events.
In The Book, I looked at SB, CS, PK, BK, WP, PB, DI, OA (though maybe the last two didn’t survive the final cut… don’t remember) when looking at the basestealing chapter. I reasoned that a Pickoff is very close to a Caught Stealing, so I had to include it. I then reasoned that a Balk is the flip-side of the Pickoff, so I had to include that as well. Whether WP or PB had anything to do with the runner, I figured it wouldn’t matter, since given a large enough sample, if it didn’t matter, it would end up being close to zero anyway.
A few years ago, I also looked at it in evaluating catchers from 1974-1990. By the way, I wrote an article for the THT 2008 Annual that updates this article for all the Retrosheet years (1957-2006, minus 1999). And I also have a leader/trailer chart for pitchers too.
Pizza Cutter gives us his speed scores.
I also used speed scores in The Book, though I didn’t lay out the exact process. It is fairly similar to what Pizza did. One thing he did was look at pickoff throws, which is cool. He had an earlier article on the subject, and I’ll repeat it here: he figures it as pickoff throws per “time on base”, where “time on base” is simply “1”, regardless if he goes through 1 or 3 batters at the plate. This doesn’t make any sense. What you really want is pickoff throws per plate throws. But, if that’s not easy to come by, use 3.75*batters faced (or use the simple pitch count estimator).
Regardless, it’s fantastic stuff.
A quick look at steals in college ball over at Baseball Analysts, with my comments reproduced here:
I wrote the following in resonse to Matt’s article:
There are three major reason why the baserunning rates would differ:
1 - Parks. The closer the OF is playing, the less chance you’ll have to take the extra base. As well, turf parks force the fielders to play a bit farther. As we know, parks changed considerably in the last 40 years.
2 - Run Environment. The higher the run environment, the larger the cost of the out. However, the value of the base does not rise to the same proportion. So, with the breakeven point higher for SB and for baserunning/taking extra base, it will be less likely that a runner will try for the extra base.
3 - Actual players. The Vince Colemans and Willie Wilsons do not fill our league like they used to. It could very well be that this era is filled with guys who simply don’t have the speed to take the extra base.
If you were to create a chart like this:
http://www.tangotiger.net/destmob.html
for say a group of speedsters today (Crawford, Pierre, Ichiro, etc), and compare it to speedsters of yesteryear (Raines, Rickey, Coleman, Wilson), might they be the same? Maybe. But, you might have a disproportionate number of those speedsters back then.
In any case, all three are plausible.
Black Hawk goes through the numbers for us. The LI was a 3.7, meaning everything (on average) that happens is magnified 3.7 times more than normal. In this case, the stolen base event is only magnified twice as much. Typically, the win value of a SB and CS is around +.02 and -.04. In the Ackbar case, it was double that. So, what he attempted didn’t have the high risk/reward that the batter had.
In the minor leagues, he was a terrible percentage stealer. 179 SB and 96 CS? He attempted to steal well over 50% of the time that he could in the minor leagues. This guy ain’t no Vince Coleman. Steve Lyons is more like it.
I don’t see “Game Theory” really in play, because this situation (poor but fast basestealer, with one out to go in the game) is not common enough that it’s a play that keeps the opponent wondering.
Dave gets into the nitty gritty at the top of this page while I check in at the bottom.
PizzaCutter takes a look at throwing over to first. The league leaders in runners who had the most pitches thrown their way is a who’s who of fast runners. A couple of nits:
Recent comments
Older comments
Page 1 of 65 pages 1 2 3 > Last »Complete Archive – By Category
Complete Archive – By Date