More aggressive baserunning analysis
I’m going to stand on the shoulders of giants, as some scientist guy said.
Tom Tippett wrote a 2002 article on the impact of speed that gets into aggressive baserunning and Ichiro.
Today, I read an article on Baseball Prospectus by Dan Fox (“Baserunning, in two acts” subscription required) which build on a set of articles he wrote at the Hardball Times:
Circle the Wagons, Running the Bases Part I, Part II, and Part III
Part III uses run expectency in much the same way I started, but gets a little nuttier with it.
The short version of the BP article is that the Mariners were really good at baserunning last year, and there’s not a lot of room for improvement. Moreover, to sum the whole thing up, you have to be successful a lot to make it worthwhile and, as you’d expect, it depends a great deal on the game situtation.
Anyway, it’s good reading.
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Actually, that quote goes to the novelist, theologian and literary scholar C. S. Lewis.
Thanks for the links. Personally, if I were running the M’s offense right now, they wouldn’t be running — I don’t think we have the outs to spare, the way we’re hitting — but oh, well.
Did not “Butterfly” say that when she lived in the REDWOODS ?
No it doesn’t. At least, not unless he lived earlier than I think he did. That “scientist guy” may have been quoting someone else, but he gets pride of place in written attribution.
Run Expectancy provides lots of useful information about when to steal — under the modest, sensible and easily-fulfilled criterion that you have a line-up of 9 exactly-league average hitters.
You mean it WASN’T Liam and Noel Gallagher????
Baserunning… strangely enough, I’ve always considered it a skill that in its own way, demands standing on the shoulders of giants… if we take giants to be the ability to occasionally hit a well-placed ball… you know, the sort of thing that brings fans to the park (sleazy attempt here to provide a segue to the following off-topic remark…)
erm, … anybody have any powerball insight on the effects of attendance numbers? Tangential to that snide comment, I loved Jim Moore’s feeble attempt at a pseudo article concerning fan support. Just goes to show what you get, under these circumstances, from someone who has to write to get paid. For him, and to perhaps provide insight into dwindling numbers (BTW, anybody got a ballpark figure on season tickets sold?), I launch another quote in his direction… “You can fool all the people, some of the time…”
The quoute refers to Sir Issac Neuton’s… It “appeared in a letter he wrote to fellow English scientist Robert Hooke that was dated 5 February in either 1675 or 1676.” (1)
“the phrase “on the shoulders of giants,” which was borrowed from earlier sources. This phrase was actually quite commonly used by authors and thinkers of the Middle Ages and Rennaissance.” (1)
1 — http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question/history/q0162b.shtml
It should also be noted that it’s late… and I do know how to spell both Quote and Mewtons last name. 🙂
Can we please not go off-topic in discussing my Newton quote or attendance figures?
Thanks.
Off topic, [deleted, off-topic]
Hickey points out that this weekend the “Mariners host baseball’s greatest anti-theft device”…
It doesn’t surprise me that (a) Hargrove’s got the math wrong (from the BP article, quoting Grover in reference to J.Reed’s near running into a ST out at 3rd that managed to work out: “Your stomach turns and flip-flops some, but it worked and led to some runs. I’ve said it before. We’re going to run into outs, and some of them are going to look really ugly…But for every ugly one, we’ll have five good ones, and I’ll take that ratio.”); or (b) that he’s desperate enough for runs to try to get them over and above what he might reasonably expect due to anything other than good luck — which, of course, can easily and randomly turn to bad luck.
GWO has a good point, though — all of this analysis tends to measure speed’s value relative to average players. If I had some more evidence that Grover was being selective about whom he asks to push it a base (the fact that Raul Ibanez has three triples before the end of April suggests to me that he isn’t, though), I’d feel better about the strategy.
Huh? No it doesn’t. The success rate is the success rate, regardless of who’s running.
The value, as with stealing and other like strategies, depends on who’s at bat. Not that the variance is all that huge.
That’s not true.
A fast runner on second will score more often on a single (or from first on a double) than a slow runner, so there’s more benefit in a slow runner stealing the base than the quick.
Since you’ve apparently worked it out, are you going to tell us what the variance is?
If you have to be successful 50% of the time to make pushing on to second worthwhile in a given situation, you have to be successful 50% if you’re fast or slow. That’s not even debatable.
To the ? — maybe.
Sorry I didn’t explain that very well. Just a quick, simplified example, contrasting a quick runner and a slow runner. Let’s call them Ichiro and Edgar.
Ichiro is on second. He’ll score on any hit.
Edgar is on second. He’ll score on an extra-base hit, or two singles, or a single and a deep sac-fly.
Now lets have the runner steal a base.
Ichiro is on third. He’ll score on any hit, or any sac-fly.
Edgar is on third. He’ll score on any hit, or a deep sac-fly.
So Edgar’s stolen base has turned a single that advances the runner into an RBI single.
But if the batter singles after Ichiro steals third, the stolen base had no value. This is especially important with two out, because you can’t even sacrifice him home.
Just another reason Run Expectancies cannot be considered anything other than a fun toy.
So, I just saw this. Interesting article. This is not my forte so if someone could correct me if I’m wrong, I would appreciate it.
The conclusion I am drawing from the Tippet article is that speed is good in many ways, but not as good as many people think or at least the ususally unmeasured aspects of speed don’t have as big an impact as people think.
So, since this was all predicated on Ichiro being the runner, is it fair to assume that, since his aggressive speed doesn;’t give an enormous return, it is much worse to have your other not-as-fast runners trying to run the bases as if THEY had Ichiro’s speed (and judgement, I’m thinking).
So we have a smaller-than-expected return, coupled with an as-bad-as-expected cost, magnified by having the ratio of those two things far worse with people like Ibanez or Lopez instead of Ichiro…
Is that close to accurate thinking?
How many “1/10 – 1/2 runs” is worth each out?
Derek: gwo in #13/15 is correct.
Which leads me to this quote “Run Expectancy provides lots of useful information about when to steal  under the modest, sensible and easily-fulfilled criterion that you have a line-up of 9 exactly-league average hitters. ”
That is why the RE chart is a *starting point* in the analysis, and not the ending point. Certainly, you need to adjust the RE chart to reflect real-life batters. MGL in our book, The Book, looked at the sac bunt as a strategy using real-life situations.
Furthermore, the true currency is not runs, but wins. I looked at this in the book as well for the steal, and the break-even point plummets down to 60% in certain late and close situations.
Going back to gwo, the RE chart has to be modified for the runners on base as well. If you have a gazelle, he’s more likely to take the extra base on a hit, and therefore, if he’s followed by a singles machine, the RE values will jump for the runner being on 1b or 2b. That’s why the breakeven point for a speedster is different than from an ox.
Tom
gwo/#15: just saw your last line. Blasphemy! It would be more accurate to say “Just another reason that Run Expectancies need to be adjusted for contexts”. RE are extremely powerful, and the basis for analyzing every single strategy in baseball, and the basis for how the batter/pitcher approach that PA.
Re #3: Ahh — mental reference to the wrong quote.
And as for tangotiger’s comment — that might seem, as referring to the M’s, to suggest awareness of this stuff on Hargrove’s part. Would that it were so . . .