I never understood the logic behind this, are runs worth less in the early innings? I think in all situations except late innings and down by a lot you should take a run that you can score without getting a hit, which only happens when you have R2 0 out or R3 1 out, not exactly the most common situations. No, but consider the following options: Inning: bottom 1, tie game, [80% chance of 1 run or 20% chance of 0 runs], [30% chance of 4 runs or 70% chance of no runs] Inning: bottom 9, tie game, [50.1% chance of 1 run, 49.9% chance of no runs], [50% chance of 2+ runs, 50% chance of 0 runs] In the second case, choice 1, there is a 75.1% chance of winning the game, and for choice 2, a 75% chance of winning the game, assuming each team has a 50/50 shot in extras. Thus, the 1 run play is a better option, although the second option has a higher mean runs scored. In the first case, I won't compute the odds on winning, but the mean runs scored in case 1 is .8, and the mean runs scored in case 2 is 1.2. In this case, the 1.2 runs is most likely the best choice. *NOTE: I know these situations are not exact, reasonable, etc, but this is a quick and dirty example of why it is not always better to go for one run.