Oxy

Is there a formula that equates team wOBA (this is basically the best rate statistic, right?) to expected run total? And then compare that expected run total to actual run total? I would think that would give evidence in one direction or another if we have tilted too far in being aggressive on the basepaths to the point of it being detrimental. Not proof either way, but it would provide some evidence, no?

Not even close. He'd have to do what he's done for at least another 6 years and probably more like 8 years to approach candidacy. He's never been the best player in the league at his position (except for maybe this year), only has 2 all-star appearances and his highest finish in the MVP race is 10th (twice). He's never even been in the top 5 in the league in any batting category. Still, he's been consistently very good. A lot of this is probably due to him being a notoriously poor starter (thus few all-star games) and being on mostly bad teams (thus no MVP votes), but he still needs to have a great year or two for a great team in order to put him in the discussion.

Because the good players already have more money than they know what to do with and they are going to get paid well whether they win or lose? Some guys have incentive laden contracts, in which case I agree with you. Still, there is something that separates the Robin Yount's, Chipper Jones', Derek Jeter's, Hank Aaron's and Jackie Robinson's from the Alfonso Soriano's, Albert Belle's, and Hanley Ramirez'. If you believe that people never change no matter who they keep company with or who they trust as an authority, you can believe that the manager doesn't matter. It seems to me that reality paints a different picture though.

Braun is a great leader.

It actually worked the way it should once! Helps when Gomez and Segura are the runners. Well, it didn't "work" but it didn't hurt, anyway.

Say the Dodgers lose--what were the odds on Sunday night that the standings would look like they do tonight? 11 straight games all falling in the Brewers' favor. At roughly 50/50 per game, that's .5^11, right? Or 1 in 2048? Slightly less than 0.05%?

What Russ said. You are making the assumption that running the contact play with runners on the corners will ALWAYS end up with guys on 2nd and 3rd if the guy gets thrown out at home. This is an incorrect assumption. I'd imagine they end up in that state about 3% of the time. If that. I'm actually not making that assumption at all. That's kind of an extreme example of what should happen if we had nine Paul Molitors on the team. It should happen more often than it does. My main point is that I think a lot of runs score from 3rd when the play is on that wouldn't score if the play wasn't on. The fielder just throws to first and the run scores and nobody blinks an eye. Some of those wouldn't happen if it was left up to the runner to decide and he is afraid of getting thrown out, so he stays put.

That almost sounds like you might be excited

Yes, odd things happen. That's why the probability isn't zero. Well, according to this link....a lot of "Odd" things happen: http://www.coolstandings.com/comebacks.asp?i=1&sn=2012 Seems to me those probabilities are somewhat meaningless. That's a fun list! 94 times in the last 108 years a team's playoff odds have been below 10% at some point in the season and they still made the playoffs (according to these oddsmakers, anyways). Still, that doesn't mean that the stats are wrong or meaningless. That is the LOWEST point of the entire season for that team, and it gets into some pretty complicated math that I don't want to to do to try and figure out to determine if the numbers are close. There is a weird time component that really complicates matters when you use the entire season and get to cherry pick a teams lowest playoff odds. It would be less deceptive if they had different lists for a specific number of games remaining. Still, it means that MOST years at least one playoff team will have defied the odds by coming back from a significant deficit from some point in the season. It's probably not actually "defying the odds" though, since we don't actually know how many other teams have been in the same situation as each of those teams and didn't make the playoffs. EDIT: After looking at the list again, they do list an AVGPOFF, which when combined with the lowest playoff odds makes for some even more unlikely scenarios and also removes some of the deception. I do think that the odds throughout August are probably very screwed up because of roster changes and the fact that it is "make or break" time for a lot of teams.

Look at the actual numbers behind the "worse base out state." That's what I was pointing to earlier when I stated that you only score between .05 and .1 runs more when one of your baserunners is on first rather than second, or second rather than third. This means that it "hardly ever" has to work in order for it to be effective. Like 1/20 times. The thing is, as I stated in my previous post, we don't actually know when a run scores because the contact play was on and when that run would have scored anyway, thus it's impossible to actually run the statistics to see if it's a good or bad strategy. I am of the opinion that managers have always known that it's a good play, but fans (and players) HATE getting guys thrown out at the plate (especially if they're out by a large margin) so it fell out of favor because it just wasn't worth educating people about it. With the growth of sabermetrics and more educated baseball fans I bet you'll see it being run a lot more often.

Ha! I was actually thinking the opposite. In that the more the opponent prepares for the execution of your own "normal" philosophy, the more the opposite philosophy will work. Therefore it is better to be flexible and understand the situation to know when one strategy is more or less likely to work than it is to rigidly stick with one tactic. I do love that fact that running the squeeze plays often brings in the defenders for the reasons that rluz stated. It is also nice to keep your players mentally sharp and into the game. The more it is run, the better your players will be able to execute it when it is needed.

Actually, it is impossible to actually run the stats to know how successful the play is, because we don't know how often the play is on. All we as fans see is the times when a player gets thrown out at home. We all completely forget the times that a guy grounds out, the guy from third scores, and the player at first is retired. Perhaps the only reason a guy scored in this scenario is because the contact play was on so he was able to get a big lead and not perseverate about "should I stay or should I go?." Since he is all go all the time when the play is on, the fielder never even has an opportunity to throw home (or chooses not to) and takes the safe out at first. This is STILL a successful contact play. A run is a big deal.

The exact opposite is actually happening though. Fewer outs will be recorded by having the contact play on than by not having the contact play on. It's easier to throw to first for the force out than it is to throw home for the tag/rundown. I think you are assuming everyone is blinded by their aversion to making an out at home when in reality, the confusion is regarding how you are framing the question. I asked you to provide the assumed base/out situations. You came back with the run difference between to base situations. The part that you appear to be ignoring in your analysis is the part that I don't like about the contact play. A contact play forces a batter to swing at a pitch that he otherwise may not have. That obviously negatively impacts the odds of that swing resulting in good contact and hence, a non-out. That must be considered in any analysis of the contact play. Am I misunderstanding something? Yes, I think you are. I'm not talking about the squeeze play (safety/suicide or otherwise) The batter has nothing to do with the contact play. It's NOT a hit and run. He just takes his AB as he normally would. What it DOES do, is allow the runner on third to get a gigantic lead at third base and immediate take off for home as soon as the ball hits the ground. He freezes on a line drive/fly ball/ etc. If the contact play is not on, he has to take a smaller lead at third, as if the ball is hit hard at the third baseman or SS he has to get back to the bag before they do. With the play on, he can be as far away from the bag as the third baseman (or a step farther) and score that many more times on ground balls that he wouldn't be able to if he were 5 feet closer to the bag. There is very, very little downside to having the contact play on, at least once you get over the trauma of making an out at the plate. Also, I agree that very few times the batter ends up at second base on the contact play. That is more due to poor awareness, coaching, execution and understanding of baserunning than a strategic thing. Obviously if Prince is at the plate and Johnny Estrada is at third, that situation won't happen (Although it still might be advantageous to run the contact play). But the current team has A LOT of speed and athleticism. They should be able to run it more effectively than they do (even still, I think it's been more positive than negative the last couple of years).

Of course it isn't likely. The odds are something like 4%. But the confidence interval for that 4% is very wide. I'd rather take the chances of flipping a coin up heads five times in a row than rolling a 25 sided die and coming up roses once. Mathematically, it may all come out in the wash, but this isn't mathematics. It's sports . EDIT: I got the 4% from ESPN. If Baseball Prospectus has different numbers, so be it. Perhaps they take into account winning the first "sudden death" tie-breaker game to get to the next sudden death tie-breaker game to then actually join the playoffs? Baby steps .

The exact opposite is actually happening though. Fewer outs will be recorded by having the contact play on than by not having the contact play on. It's easier to throw to first for the force out than it is to throw home for the tag/rundown.

?? An out is going to be recorded either way. Actually, an out will be recorded significantly LESS when you make the defense throw the ball home and make an awkward catch and tag on the runner rather than just toss it over to the easy, routine, force play at first. People react to the contact play as if it costs the team outs. It doesn't. It saves outs and scores runs when it works, and merely exchanges the position of the baserunners when it doesn't work. If it is executed properly, it actually shouldn't even cost the team baserunning positions! If the runner from 3rd is out by 10 ft+, he should get caught in a run down and allow the other 2 baserunners to get to second and third. Actually, when there are runners on 1st and 3rd, you have the contact play on and get caught in a rundown, you can IMPROVE your baserunning positions because guys should be able to get to 2nd and 3rd while you are dancing between 3rd and home. Now you have guys on 2nd and 3rd rather than first and third, and all from a hard hit ground ball that could have been a double play ball to end the inning!

I agree that being 2 games out going into the last homestand is the most realistic shot at maintaining hope, but I don't think they need to go 8-2 on that trip to do it. They are 4 games back right now. Make up 1-2 games in the next 4 home games, then either make up another game or hold steady over that 10 games road trip. If the Crew goes 3-1 over the next 4 games and the Cards go 2-2, They'll be 3 back. Go 6-4 over the 10 game road trip (including at least 2 wins against PIT), and have the Cards go 5-5 over that same stretch. There you go, 2 games back with 6 home games against HOU and SD left, and you didn't even have to rely on the Cards to completely tank to do it.

Can you explain how you came to that conclusion? Base/out situation, assumptions, etc... I had a fairly lengthy discussion/description of the odds a few weeks ago at the end of the "Impressions of Roenicke" thread- viewtopic.php?f=63&t=28627&start=520 There was another discussion in an in-game thread earlier this year. In summary, I always like the play when there are two guys on base. The run differential between having a players on 1st and 3rd instead of 2nd and 3rd OR 1st and 2nd instead of 1st and 3rd is miniscule. Just look at the run matrix table rluz just posted a couple of posts up. The run differential in those situations varies from .05 to .1 runs, but that is not taking into account the benefits of the contact play working (i.e. NO outs being recorded because you forced the throw home) as in that situation you gain A LOT by scoring a run AND saving an out. Meanwhile, if it doesn't work, the situation is almost exactly the same as if you never put the play on in the first place. There are A LOT of good things that can happen when you put the contact play on, with the downside being extremely small when it doesn't work.

I've been beating the drum in favor of the contact play for awhile. I don't know if I've convinced anybody around here, but I'm pretty sure it's a good play, even by rigorous SABR standards. I find it kind of ironic, because this is the one instance on this forum where emotion wins out over the numbers, yet I think it's one of the clearer situations where the numbers say it's a pretty good play. The fact of the matter is that it only has to work about 1/20 times in order for it to be a successful strategy. That's almost never, but for some reason everybody just hates to make an out at the plate as opposed to an out at first base. Everybody hates outs on the basepaths, but when you exchange an out at one base for an out at a different base the run differential is fairly small.

The greatest feeling in the world is when you hope for the impossible to happen, and it happens. When it doesn't happen, I am not discouraged nor even disappointed, as it was impossible in the first place. But when it does happen...

Having Hart, Aoki, Gomez and Gamel to cover CF, RF, 1B, and DH seems pretty close to ideal. It would have been nice to give Gamel a chance at being an everyday player before needing him as a well used reserve/platoon player, but it's nice to have the flexibility of 4 starting caliber players for 3 positions. 2 from the left side, 2 from the right side, with a nice mix of speed, defense, contact and power.

I keep hearing things like this, but Gallardo recorded his MLB leading 23rd quality start last night. It may not be the best stat, but I think the number/% of quality starts is certainly an indicator of consistency. Gallardo is a #1. He may not be an elite ace, but it's not because of inconsistency.

Defensive mistakes cannot be counted on as they can happen whether the contact play is on or not. If it's not on, the 3B could just as easily throw the ball into the stands. The guy almost NEVER gets caught in a rundown as he is breaking for the plate and the ball is hit behind him. He doesn't know where the throw is, or if he needs to get caught in a rundown until it is too late. I'd wager that the guy gets to second 20% of the time at the absolute most. That means the run expectancy difference comes out to be .117, which means it needs to be successful 1 in about 8.5 times, where it would NOT have been successful otherwise for it to be viable. I just doubt that it does that. As I said, I agree with you for the most part on this specific situation (guy on 3rd, 1 out, infield in). But there are also times when you can improve the odds depending on the baserunners involved and the guy on deck, so it shouldn't be automatically denounced as a losing strategy. The odds are also improved by the possibility of saving an out and scoring multiple runs if everybody is safe. Still, if everybody is coached well and executes well (both offensively and defensively) I think it is a sound strategy.

Did you actually read either of my posts?