The number values to running aggressively
Including a long bonus ramble on the offensive character of the 2002 American League!
Taking the extra base was one of the frequently-cited qualities about the World Series Champion 2002 Angels to the point of exhaustion, and is less often mentioned as a quality of that franchise in general during the Mike Scioscia years.
The Mariners are attempting a similar strategy to what the Angels are said to do: If you’ve got a single, go for two. A double, go for three. Now hitters do this but generally speaking, they’re pretty conservative about taking the sure base over the chance at greater riches.
Is it worth doing? When does it become counter-productive?
Back to the 2002 Angels. It’s hard to distinguish the attempts at extra bases from a team’s overall character, for a couple of reasons. Particularly, extra bases are a product of the team’s speed (Adam Kennedy’s a lot more likely to take second on a liner to right-center than, say, Frank Thomas is). The Angels stole 117 bases that year (and were caught 51 times). So they’re stealing and (supposedly) taking the extra base. Where does strategy and team composition meet here, and how to divide them?
First, take HRs out of it. How often did an at-bat result in an extra-base hit? Here the Angels were #3 in the AL. This immediately reveals some odd things, though: the Mariners, #2 in steals, fare quite badly at XBH/AB. The Red Sox, who didn’t steal, do well. The Mariners, who tried stealing a ton, don’t, and neither do the Royals. Speedy teams weren’t getting extra bases, and slow teams were. Hmm.
Let’s try something different: what percentage of hits were turned into extra-base hits? That is, (2B+3B)/H. Again, strangeness: the list goes Baltimore-Minnesota-Boston-Toronto-Texas.
Even Edgar and Olerud hit a ton of doubles, though. Maybe the double’s not the best method. The real mark of aggressive baserunning and speedy teams is the triple. Who pulled that off more, as a percent of their non-HR hits? Kansas City, Detroit, Toronto, Tampa Bay… Anaheim’s almost at the bottom.
So we shrug and move on. Some people believe that aggressive baserunning is worth a run a game, but no matter how we look at this (what teams scored more runs than you’d expect, given the number of balls they put into play, or hits they got, or… whatever) there’s no way the effect’s that big. There’s a good Michael Wolverton article from 2004 where he looks at this and finds the difference in 2003 between the best team in the league at not being caught stretching and the worst was 15 runs. The Angels were the second-best team in baseball that year.
15 runs over a season is hard to distinguish from noise. I’d be interested to see if that pattern exists over a long period of time: did Sciosia-managed teams do consistently well over years? That his players were thrown out so rarely in 2003 suggests that they were not as aggressive as widely believed, since Wolverton’s study focuses on the cost of baserunning outs. The Angels could have scored 100 runs by advancing more than they should have — but if they were doing that, even with a tremendous success rate, they’d still have been on the leader board there for their failures.
Back to the point. Stretching an extra base is, from a value standpoint, exactly the same as trying to steal a base. You start with the value of being on the base you could get with 100% certainty, and you’re risking the value of being one base further against the damage of being out. There are obvious real-world differences that affect the decision (where’s the ball, who’s fielding it, and so on), but in the end, it’s the same kind of wager that stealing bases is.
Fortunately for my purposes, a ton of research on this has already been done. For purposes of simplification, make it a generic situation, so I can use a run expectation table.
Say that leading off, Raul Ibanez hits a ball into left-center, and it’s a sure single. In 2005, teams with a guy on first with no outs scored on average .9 runs.
Should he make the turn to second? Teams with a guy on second with no outs scored on average 1.1 runs, which means it’s worth +.2 runs if he makes it.
But if he’s thrown out… teams with one out and no one on scored only .3 runs/inning. So it’s -.6 if he’s caught trying.
This is easy. 75%, right?
Wow, that’s tough. Stretch a double to a triple? The value of being on third with no outs is pretty high — 1.5, a gain of .4 runs — but the difference between being on second with no outs and having one out and no baserunners is also larger — .8 runs.
You need to be able to get there 2/3rds of the time to make it worthwhile.
You see where this is going: as a strict value proposition, trying for the extra base is worth it when the player can do it successfully in the vast majority of situations. Every time they fail, it’s a pretty nasty knock to the team’s chances that inning.
In this sense, it becomes clear that there are players you want trying this: more than speed, you want players who can judge their chances on the fly, maybe able to head back if the fielder who looked like they bobbled it comes up throwing, and you need coaches who can help. If a guy’s going to go every time, they’re going to get killed out there. So there are players who may not be well-suited to this. The trick would be to figure out who those guys are, and get them to knock it off, while the others keep at it.
So if you see some players getting thrown out now, so be it. If they’re thrown out over and over stretching their hits, that’s when you should get really mad about it.
Up soon: the secondary effects. Putting pressure on the defense, keeping the rally going, and so on, and good stuff like that.
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Great post Derek, can’t wait to see further info on this if you decide to do it.
A couple things stand out to me, one its crazy to have sloooow goes trying to take the extra base in my opinion. Ibanez was out on his triple, and it wasn’t even close. Like you said you want to do this with certain players, not the whole team. If you want to preach this, you should preach it to Ichiro, Betancourt, possibly Reed (although, his baserunning instincts have proven pretty poor thus far). You shouldn’t be telling Ibanez, Everett, Richie to be so agressive. That’s where the ugly outs are going to come from.
Secondly, I think it might be a little better to go for the extra base than it is to steal. Reason being the throw from right to 3rd or 2nd is much more likely to be offline than the catcher trying to throw a runner out. Again though, only select players on your roster should be trying this.
I have a feeling we’ll be reading in the paper for the next couple of days about how this team is so much better due to a different attitude, and being more agressive. When really its just a better lineup.
Thanks for the info and looking into this stuff.
Equally important, is who’s up to hit. As I imagine you’re aware, that’s far more important than secondary “intangible” effects — and that’s the great failing of Run Expectancy matrices.
Run Expectancy Matrices tell us the break-even for the steal is the same whether its Richie Sexson or WFB with the bat in his hand. And if your methodology of the first approximation tells you something that is that self-evidently wrong, it’s probably worth refining that methodology before you start looking for second order effects like “pressurising the pitcher”.
Run Expectancy matrices enable you to simplify the problem, but only by removing the factors that make the decision difficult (and interesting).
What becomes even more muddled in trying to figure out whether it has an effect is when do you quantify when something was going to be a double or a triple anyway? Balls hit into the gaps going to the wall probably have a greater chance in resulting in a triple then one down the line. So do we start to call it “taking an extra base” when the fielder gets to the ball or before that?
This is one of those cases where blind stat analysis might not be sufficient enough to quantify results. This might be a situation where the only way to truly capture accurate data is observation of every single event. Who’s got the time?
Also – as I’ve said a few times – I’m not convinced this is being done as much to maximize the number of wins the M’s get this year as to make a team that was so boring that even we were having trouble watching in August into something that people might want to spend $20 to see. The difference between winning 83 and 81 games might not be as important to the bottom line as the difference between a mediocre take and rake team and a mediocre team playing the old Billy Ball. Triples, stolen bases, and squeeze plays are pretty darn exciting after all.
Now that I think about this, why don’t mediocre football teams ever try this strategy. Take – say- Arizona. They never make the playoffs, no one watches their games, so why not just go nuts? Become the fans’ team and run flea flickers and reverses. Go for it on 4th down all the time. Have 12 different fake punt plays and use them. It might not make the team better, but I bet it would get a lot more people watching and talking about the team as they speculate on what they’ll do next. Who knows, perhaps they’d even win a few more games until other teams adjusted to what they were doing.
All Cylinders…
The Seattle Mariners are off to a 3-1 start, and their offense is carrying the team. They’re scoring 6.5 runs per game. They’re hitting for a high average, posting a high OBA, and slugging over .500. Part of this is……
Football teams don’t do it — unless they’re Mississippi Valley State with freaking Jerry Rice — because everybody knows it’s a losing strategy. Serious fans aren’t willing to sacrifice real competition for spectacle. In baseball, you can play more “exciting” baseball while simultaneously maintaining that it’s a winning strategy.
In addition to the value (however ugly) of aggressive baserunning, 2 other things are clearer to me now (though I greatly underestimated the value of each of these prior to the season):
1. Chaves is getting through to the oft-troubled M’s pitchers, and, at least for now, is able to give them ways to get out of bad situations (though I have been pleased that his trips to the mound are few). I thought the press about Price not getting through to pitchers was exaggerated, but it’s clear to me that at least Pineiro and Meche believe for now.
2. Having a steady veteran behind the plate and calling pitches who is not distracted that he’s only hitting .100 is HUGE. Jo-Mama is a steadying influence, gives props on big outs, and I think guides pitchers along in ways that the “Committee of Horribles” could not do last year. It caused bad situations to always get worse. Jo’s hands and defensive ability also save runs (you saw that clearly contrasted with Mathis the other night who tried to catch rather than block bad pitches). How about no errors for the M’s in 4 games too!
It’s early, but I think we win a lot of games that we are kept in by our defense. I like the rejuvinated offense too, however long it may last.
I have yet to be at all impressed by the other teams in the division yet this year either.
The M’s haven’t been in first place this late in the season since 2003!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Jar, I thought the same thing, but then took a step back. Are you sure you — like me — are not just having a hard time thinking the other teams just look bad in comparison to the M’s? I am waiting for the other shoe to drop too, but we’ve had great starting pitching, agressive approaches at the plate when needed, error-free defense, and a whole lot of timely hits and runs. Granted some starting pitchers we have faced looked lost (Loaiza’s velocity was absent last night), and we’ve seen some bone-headed plays and managerial decisions on the other side, but I am starting to think that the M’s are causing things to happen rather than simply benefitting from bad play. I know it’s hard to start thinking that way, in anticipation of the bottom falling out. Part of me (a part which is currently locked in a mental solitary confinement ward and is chained and gagged for fear I get my hopes up) is thinking it’s possible we will still be close to first in a few months. Obviously sample size is too small for that excitement.
I totaly agree M Fan in CO. I was more thinking that it is nice that the M’s have looked decent and they are off to a good (but early) start so far, and the rest of the division is kind of in the opposite seat right now, it’s kind of nice for a change.
One way we could quantify this is to simply keep track of all doubles and triples and running into outs each game in a running log and add them up until we get enough data to be meaningful. Someone would have to judge whether each extra-base hit was “aggresive” or not, and then compare the numbers to the number of outs run into. Unfortunately, I am not usually able to watch every game myself.
I did see the first game of the season, though, and I think the M’s probably lost that game (or could have won it but for) overagressive baserunning. Specifically Lopez trying to go to 2nd while Ichiro went from 1st to 3rd. Lopez made the 2nd out, and Sexson later made the 3rd with what could have been a sac fly, and the M’s went on to lose the game by 1 run.
I know Jar. It’s weird. It seems like an eternity since I’ve had real hope. I think it’ll turn out to be a gritty battle in the AL West after the All-Star break, though. The A’s always turn it on.
No. 5, zzyzx, ladies and gentlemen, may I present: the 1979 Seattle Seahawks!
If the emphasis on “the extra base” gets Richie Sexson to drop the “Edgar trot” and actually run to first base so as to increase the number of times he can safely take second, it is a good thing. (No, I am not picking on Edgar; he had a note from his doctor.) But DMZ is right. Blindly encouraging everyone on the team to run! run! run! is going to, pardon the Fairly-ism, run the M’s out of an inning more often than not. Unlike last year, there are no black holes in the lineup anymore, so conserving outs is more important than sacrificing outs in order to move a runner up 90 feet.
Hey, I am all for being aggressive on the basepaths, it is exciting, it is productive, etc., but there is a line between aggressive and stupid. A few times in the last week that line has been crossed. That needs to stop.
As for the new aggressive aproach and attitude, I love it. Just know when to say when.
A great post. It reminds me of an article I read a few years ago on a similar vein.
http://www.harvardmagazine.com/on-line/050221.html
About encouraging Richie to run harder to first…
…he is really tall. I’m actually worried about things like his hamstrings and hip flexors when he runs, simply because of his height (and there’s no way he only weighs 206). His legs are really long levers – those muscles that move them around take a lot of load.
We saw in 2004 what the length of his arms can do to his shoulders.
The other advantage of this mentality, is that when it fails, it fails in a way that gets the blood pumping, more of a, “Why the blerp did you do THAT?” than the quiet, “Oh well, what else is on?” that yet another 3 up 3 down from the 7-8-9 part of the lineup inspires.
I suppose this would be very difficult to quantify, but I wonder if Alfredo Griffin has any impact on the Angels and their ability to reach extra bases. As a player, Griffin was renowned for his ability to make the correct decision, so much so that Bill James even pointed it out in one of his yearly books. As Anaheim’s first-base coach, Griffin is certainly involved in the decision-making process, so it’s only logical that the Angels would benefit from his expertise.
Of course, quantifying that decision-making would be difficult. I suppose you’d have to look at each inning of each game, see how many times Griffin sent guys to second on balls in the gap, and see how many times they were thrown out/safe. Shouldn’t take you too long to figure that out, right? Maybe by 2 o’clock today?
Hey all; long-time reader first-time poster.
It seems to me that the inherent value of going for the extra base would have drastic variability from game to game. Primarily, I think the best way to distill this variability would be in a comparison of the ERAs of the starting pitchers and likely relievers. In other words, the higher the ratio of M’s ERA to opponent ERA in any given game, the more valuable an extra base attempt would be. In the reverse situation (a low ratio of M’s to opponent ERAs) going for the extra base would be more counter-productive as the runs are more likely to come on their own.
I suppose one would need to generate expected run matrices that are contingent upon ERA.
Any thoughts?
Go M’s.
I think zzyzx is on the right track, here. It may be dumb to run out of innings like this, but it sure is an exciting way to be dumb.
The intellectual side of me can recognize, “This is possibly a counter-productive strategy.” The baseball fan side says, “Run, run, as fast as you can!” Taking extra bases, either on hits or by steals, is always exciting. That’s the stuff I go to the ballpark to see.
Anyone buying this offense?
You might be able to do that analysis, but ERA is an awfully crude tool to use. You’d be better off looking at BB/9 rate (what are the odds you would have been handed second anyway when the next batter walked) K/9 rate (what are the odds you’re going to get stranded when the next two or three batters stike out) and then sacrifice opportunities to move you along (groundball pitchers don’t give up outs that advance runners). Somebody might be able to integrate all of that, but not me.
Actually, I think the best run matrix would be built upon line-up construction. Since we have play-by-play data thanks to the utterly cool retrosheet, I’d love to see a run matrix that says how many runs its worth when the #2 hitter goes from 2nd to 3rd with 1 out as opposed to the #6 hitter. I’d bet my bottom dollar that the numbers aren’t the same.
You’re right, they’re not. This ties into the sacrifice bunting analysis that’s been done, so I should do a second “numbers” piece that talks about that.
24: I agree that ERA is a relatively crude tool here, but I would be worried that BB/9 and K/9 would not give enough credit to the pitchers that throw a lot of outs. I picked ERA because we were focusing on run production here, maybe it would be better to look at a team’s total runs allowed for each pitcher, though I worry that starts to get even less specific.
25: That is a good idea. I also wonder if you couldn’t simplify the stat by simply breaking the line-up in to thirds and looking at how many runs are scored when someone from the top 3 gets to second compared to the middle 3 or the bottom 3.
On Richie running: doesn’t a greater injury risk come from the wear and tear of overcompensating by switching to full speed to make up for lollygagging to first or sliding head first when he could have gone in standing up? A steady run to first reduces the need for him to run as hard as he can. And if he needs a note from his doctor (like Edgar), he should not be trying for that extra base in the first place (again like Edgar).
To be fair, it was not just Sexson. Too many times last year we saw a guy get a hit, jog to first base, and then make a late sprint to second when an outfielder bobbles or overplays the ball, to disastrous results.
On the sac bunts thing – I agree on the lineup value. As handy as the Harvard article and all the other research article are, I haven’t seen it take account of when in the lineup you bunt.
No outs, Lopez on first and Raul up, I’d HATE to see a bunt – and thankfully so would Hargrove.
Reed at first and Betancourt at the plate, Ichiro on deck… the bunt starts to look like a reasonable option.
A run-expectation matrix that considers line-up construction would be better, but not best. You’d need one that considers the particular pitching matchup as well. And even that would omit a whole host of other factors like the speed of the particular baserunner, or whether the pitcher is tiring, or the ability of the ensuing hitter to take advantage of outfield gaps effectively widened by fielders moving in to enable a play at the plate.
Frankly, all those factors are what makes baseball so darn fun for intelligent people to watch. More specialized matrices would be valuable, but you’d sure need a lot of them to automate the manager’s decisions.
zzyzx poses an interesting question about football, and the answer is field position. The whole risk equation is different in football, because the consequences of bad choices include the increased likelihood your opponent will score. In baseball, the offense and defense don’t interact, so the expected runs matrix is always positive. Those negative cells in the the expected score matrix for a flea flicker make it a really bad choice, particularly if you did it so often that surprise doesn’t factor into the expected gain.
no logical place to post this (unless I waited for the game notes I suppose) but the SF Chronicle has a nice Slusser piece about Felix, which includes the note that the A’s have released Mac Suzuki
brian – yes, but Gregg “I have 10 rules and I’ll figure out a way to make them apply to any game” Easterbrook blamed the Hawks’ loss on not going for it on 4th and inches on their own 26:
“The game’s two critical moments for Seattle were coaching mistakes. The Blue Men lead 3-0 midway through the second quarter, faced fourth and the length of a football on their own 26. Aaaaaiiiiiiiyyyyyyeeeee! I cried aloud to the football gods as Mike Holmgren sent in the punter. Sure it’s your own territory in a close contest. But you have the league’s leading rusher; he averages 5.1 yards a carry. Shaun Alexander has been stopped on a third-and-1 or fourth-and-1 only once all season. And it’s the Super Bowl, don’t mince around, go win the game! ”
source
Fans always want the team to go for it on 4th down. I’m not saying it’s rational or would lead to more wins, just that it would be fun, get press, and could excite a team that was going nowhere. If the old plan isn’t working, why not try the new plan? Worst case scenario, you still lose.
get a hit, jog to first, spring to second
Welcome to Bret Boone’s career.
I despise agressive baserunning. Hateithateithateit.
No one in management should be pushing any kind of baserunning but “smart” baserunning. If you can make it to second, do it… if you can’t, don’t. If you are unsure… don’t. “Agression” shouldn’t even enter the equation.
It’s very simple – you use your best judgement to evaluate the variables and decide if you can make the extra base. You don’t go for the sake of being aggressive, that’s just stupid.
And I know the mathematical point of return on investment here is at .66 or .70 or whatever… but that, in my opinion, is way too fine a judgement for baserunners or even coaches to be making in the moment.
I think only three possibilities can reasonably be calculated in the moment – “I can make it”, “I can’t make it” or “I don’t know if I can make it or not.”
The first you obviously go, the second obviously stay… and the third, to me, is an obviously stay – that’s what the .66 or .70 tells us.
God I hate giving away outs.
Oh, and the other thing that I hate about it is perhaps more personal than factual… I have seen too many players I value get hurt by that last desperate push to make it that extra base. It puts them in overdrive and their bodies in danger.
I should add that I hate aggressive baserunning.
Here’s a question for anyone who’s played the game competitively more than I have (translation: at the high school level or above):
To what extent can we realistically expect a baserunner to judge the likelihood of a successful advance on the basepaths?
Obviously a baserunner’s not going to think: “Hey, the right fielder’s picking up the ball in deep right center as I round first– EIGHTY PERCENT! GO FOR IT– whoops, no, that’s Vlad out there, my chance is only 55%, back to first I go.” (Not even I would do that!) He’s going to have to think in more qualitative categories, like “can definitely make it,” “can probably make it,” “have a fair chance to make it,” and “no way can make it.”
Now, if a runner only advances on “can definitely make it”– which, mathematically, probably corresponds to “95% or better” (more or less)– then he’s leaving value on the table by declining to take good chances in the 75-95% range. In that case, it is at least understandable that a coach or manager would wish to encourage them to be more aggressive on the basepaths.
However, even if the aggressiveness is understandable, there isn’t yet a guarantee that it will pay off. That depends on the runner’s ability to distinguish, on the spur of the moment, between “can probably make it” (let’s say 75-95%, for purposes of this discussion) and “have a fair chance of making it” (say, 25-75%).
If the runner can correctly identify, as he rounds one base, which bases he can probably take and which ones are closer to 50-50, then that’s great. By all means let him do it. But if he can’t tell that difference– and I don’t mean that as an insult, it seems like it would be pretty hard– then to encourage aggressiveness means that you’re in effect asking him to run on a lot of the “fair chance of making it” cases as well as the “can probably make it” ones. This can quite easily lead to more bad chances being taken than good ones, and can thus leave the team worse off than if it took a play-it-safe, station-to-station approach.
(Note: John in LA posted while I was typing, but I obviously agree with his point, which is basically a shorter version of mine.)
In almost every circumstance, you’re taught as a baserunner to make up your mind before the play happens. So, essentially, you’re standing on first base, and you’re supposed to make decisions about every what-if situation you can encounter. There are the never-broken-laws, such as “freeze on a line drive” or “run on a ground ball behind you” that always apply, but you’re supposed to come up with situation-specific decisions ahead of time too.
Every coach I ever had taught me to make as few decisions during a play as possible, because indecision is almost always a bad decision. There isn’t time, as Paul and John note, to calculate odds while you’re running. So, most coaches teach that you decide before the ball is hit how you’re going to run.
Thanks, Dave, that helps me understand what’s going on here. So then, how does a runner typically decide whether go from first to third? Will it be a simple rule like “anything through the infield right of second base, or anything that gets to the warning track on the left side”? (Or some such thing, depending on his speed plus knowledge of the park and the outfielders.)
And if his manager’s telling him to be more aggressive, does he then add riskier cases like “okay, now I’ll go if I can see the CF’s numbers when he picks it up in left-center”?
I would take the base unless I knew for sure I couldn’t make it, but then, the only thing I was ever good at in baseball was running the bases and sliding around the tag.
actually, I take that back, I could lay down a sweet bunt.
Thanks, Dave, that helps me understand what’s going on here. So then, how does a runner typically decide whether go from first to third? Will it be a simple rule like “anything through the infield right of second base, or anything that gets to the warning track on the left side� (Or some such thing, depending on his speed plus knowledge of the park and the outfielders.)
It always includes your information on the outfielders abilities. My thoughts were usually something along the lines of the following while standing on first and less than two out:
“Hit down left field line, go for third if he hasn’t picked the ball up by the time I touch second base.”
“Hit to fairly deep left center, go for third if he has yet to begin throwing motion.”
“Hit to right center, go if the ball is not in the air.”
“Hit down RF line, just go.”
I’d adjust those thoughts a bit based on what I knew about the OF’s speed and arm, but those were the general tendancies.
(Note: Paul Covert was typing while I was posting, but I obviously agree with his point, which is basically a much better stated version of mine.)
Interesting, Dave… that seems to imply that the base coach’s influence was negligable. Is that the case? And if so, is that equally true at the major league level do you suppose?
In my experience (all pre-college based, and obviously none professionally), base coaches were mostly useless. They’d wave you around when it was obvious you should run and hold you up when you were already slamming on the breaks. I can’t remember more than a few instances where I looked to a base coach for guidance.
I’d imagine that’s mostly true in the majors as well. I didn’t see Richie Sexson or Jose Lopez getting waved to second base on their terrible decisions.
John,
Thanks.
Note that the case Dave was answering me about was the first-to-third decision, which does not involve a base coach.
Presumably for the second-to-home decision, the 3B coach (who can see the ball when the runner can’t) would have a similar set of guidelines in mind while awaiting the play.
In any case: Based on Dave’s explanations, I hereby revise my earlier position to say that there should be a way to implement an “aggressive baserunning” policy well, by working with the runners to help them develop an intelligent set of rounding-second-base decision guidelines that takes advantage of the “can probably make it” cases without taking bad chances when it’s “maybe, maybe not.”
However– getting back to Derek’s original remarks on the required success percentage– this only works if the manager and coaching staff agree that the “maybe, maybe not” cases aren’t worth taking the chance on. If they think (formally or, more likely, informally) that gaining a base one time is worth giving up an out the next, then we could see a lot of bad chances taken on the basepaths this year.
(And note that the view that “gaining a base is worth giving up an out” is also the view that motivates a high frequency of bunting. This may be a bad sign….)
Spiezio Season Watch: 0-2 with 1 K.
Base Coaches can also cause injuries with base runners. A naturally aggressive base runner that’s on second base may try to score on a sharp base hit to rightfield or center. If the third base coaches throws up the stop sign, and the runner has to stop his momentum coming around the bag, he can really damage some ligaments in his legs.
#45.
Is this record broken???
Tom Tippet wrote a very good article several years ago on “Measuring the Impact of Speed”. There are some places where it gets into the specifics of the Diamond Mind Baseball game, but overall it is very informative and includes comments on Advancing on Hits and Advancing on Outs.
Interestingly, it mentions that in 2002 Ichiro was one of the league’s best baserunners and he only managed to take 6 more bases than the average runner could have. The article is also cool because it uses Ichiro for all the examples.
Here’s the article to which Sphexi refers. Slight correction, though: What Tippett concludes is that Ichiro gained about 30 bases, worth about 6-12 extra runs (not bases) on non-boxscore advances compared to the average runner.
Sorry about that, the link didn’t show up.
And Paul, I had zoned in on the advancing on hits section. Thanks for adding the summary information.
I suppose that to someone who may not have played at any higher levels, this isn’t such an obvious thing but Dave’s right on: basecoaches influence the runner’s decision minimally. The first base coach’s role can be essentially reduced to that of the equipment manager (You’ve got to have someone to take away all that body armor) because of 1st base’s orientation. The player rounding 1st can see the entire field and doesn’t really need someone to tell them what to do. I have the personal opinion that if baserunners left the decisions up to the coaches and just put their heads down to run, a lot of these stupid outs would be avoided. Baseball players have shown an unbelievable inability to make these judgements while running.
The only instructions they generally rely on at first are verbal orders to hit the dirt on pick off attempts or to advance on a botched pickoff. Remember too, the effectiveness of verbal communication drops at each advancing level and therefore, probably is nonexistent at the Mariners level. More fans means you can’t hear a coach (hence why minor leaguers are not allowed to yell cutoff orders to outfielders – you’ll have to make that judgement without verbal clues to make it in the big leagues).
The third base coach (in theory) should be the one to decide whether a runner is going both 2nd to home and 1st to 3rd (in addition to signal relay pre-pitch). The runner should not be looking behind, around, etc. However… this doesn’t always work this way. It seems major leaguers like making this decision for themselves.
As to how you gague whether you would make it or not, you never have time to consider. I broke down all the possibilities like Dave did (in other words, knowing the answer before presented with the question) and did the same as a base coach. Players are encouraged to not think during a play anyways. There simply isn’t time to gague statistical probabilities (not to mention most baseball players haven’t taken enough math) and so the “smart baserunners” are the ones who probably take the time to plan everything out while the “poor baserunners” don’t take the time between plays to develop a thought framework with which to react.
Hm…I always thought that the runners SHOULD trust the coaches more…craning the neck while running the basepaths slows you down physically (and making assessments while running also slows you down).
In addition to the rules-of-thumb mentioned above, there are also the rules like “don’t make the first or third out at third base,” that sort of acknowledge the fact that making an out on the basepaths is very costly, and often is not worth the risk of trying for an extra base.
Anyone think of Doyle when they read #45?
And in the majors, coaches are supposed to know the capabilities of the opposing outfielders and their own baserunners so that they can make good decisions. I, too, think the runners shouls pay MORE attention to the coaches. I can’t believe how often I see a runner looking out to the outfield, trying to assess the situation, in a situation when a base coach has a much better chance to see it and signal him.
Most of all, though, runners could pick up an extra base now and then with a little hustle. Jogging to first is bad enough, but easing up going into second or third drives me absolutely crazy. Round the base aggressively, dammit, and see if a fielder bobbles it. I know part of the reason is that they have to play 162 games, and they can even be injured doing something like this, but I think it stinks. I haven’t gone to a HS or college game in many years, but I keep sayuing I’m going to do it just to see how kids do it these days.
/rant
#45
It’s called the SPEZI-O-METER, being a Cards fan it pains me to have to fire it up again.
Rightnow his strikeout percentage is .500, last year it was .353. He was hovering around .400 all of last year inevitab;y tailed off. Regression to the mean I guess.
As to base running, there’s a difference between aggressive baserunning and smart baserunning. I’m not sure the Mariners know which, exactly, they are going for.
Richie ran hard through first tonight.
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