I feel as if I may owe Wendell Kim an apology or two...

I think you're mistaking marginal for average in this article.


How do we know that Perlozzo isn't 96% successful b/c he can almost always tell when to send the runner? Let's say that there's usually a 100% chance of success and sometimes a less than 70% chance and only very rarely is the chance of success between 70-100%. (btw, I think this is likely the case; there are very few "tough calls" on sac flies usually it's fairly obvious) In this case, a 3rd base ump might make all the right decisions and have a success rate (like 96%) FAR above the break even rate.

The break even rate should be his marginal rate of success not his average rate of success. His average should be considerably higher than his marginal. If a coach has a 73% (or lower) success rate he's definitely making bad calls.

Not sure this logically holds up. You should send the runner when it's a sure thing, when he has a 73.2% chance of making it, and all instances in between. If those are randomly distributed within that spectrum, wouldn't that then make the optimum success rate 86.6%?

Which still means that they're too conservative, but not by all that much.

I don't see how these aggregate percentages fit into the 3B coach's decision-making process. If Carlos Ruiz is on third, no outs, and a medium fly ball's hit to Alfosno Soriano, sending Ruiz is stupid. But if it's Rollins on 3d and Juan Pierre's catching the ball, sending Rollins is a no-brainer.

Pretending every baserunner and outfielder is an identical aggregate of league-average statistics, and every play has a league-average outcome, just doesn't translate to the real world.

You state that the average team leaves 4 runs on the table per year, but your article leaves the idea of game situation unmentioned. Eighteen makes a great point about how deep the fly ball is, who is on third, and who is catching it. But equally important to a coach's decision making is inning and score. If I am up 1 in the eight I might make a very different decision than if I am up 8 in the eighth, or if it is early in the game. Thus, a conclusion of:

Thus, the ideal third-base coach is a sign on a stick featuring the words "If the gentleman currently holding the ball is an outfielder, please turn left and run an additional 90 feet."

is far too strong. At least until you can convince me that you have controlled for these factors.

It's strange that you chose Sam Perlozzo as your sample 3rd base coach, since he's a vast improvement on his predecessor, Steve Smith. (Smith is currently participating in The Amazing Race and that's hardly far enough away from Citizen's Bank Ballpark for my taste, but Cleveland Indians fans will have to put up with his aberrant arm-waving this season).

Note that the Phillies are far and away the most successful team in baseball at the art of the stolen base for several years running (pun intended). Most analysts attribute this to the sagacity of one Davey Lopes, 1st base and baserunning coach extraordinaire, but perhaps a modicum of credit is due to the baserunning skills of Messrs. Utley, Rollins, Victorino, Werth, Howard (8 SBs, only 3 of which were back-ends), et al; and Mr. Perlozzo's success rate is a result of smart, speedy runners who give outfielders a reason to hurry their throws.

Feliz, Ibanez, Ruiz - them he don't run so much, for obvious reasons.

Four runs left on the table by each team. Thirty teams. So 120 runs left on the table. But the situation only came up 97 times. Buzzzzzz ... click ... that ... does ... not ... compute.

What am I missing?

I'd like to see leverage factored in here somehow. Others allude to a similar addendum that would consider game/ runner/ fielder situations. What I'm curious about is the effect to which the run on third is important to the team. As you point out (or seem to be) the third base coaches job is to score runs, not to have safe baserunners. Doesn't this mean that when you calculate the average runs scored in a given situation, inning should be taken into account? When your team is down a run in the 8th, the break even point may be different as would the overall chance of scoring a run before the end of the game.

It may be true that teams on average leave runners on base over the course of a year, but are all those runs of equal value? Wouldn't the break even point be context dependent?

Still sometimes it doesn't matter what the third base coach says because players will go or not go no matter what the coach is signaling or telling them to do. See: Punto, Nick.

What if any consideration should there be to the possibility of injury? Maybe you dont send your pitcher or a prone "Carroll Red" player unless it doesnt look like it will be a close play?

Another question. How easy is it for a human being to assess in the 3 to 4 seconds a fly ball is in the air, "Gee, I think that tagging up has a 75% chance of success, I should send the runner"? Or "Hmmm, that fly ball has only a 58% chance of success, he needs to stay"?

Or the third base coach can hope that the ump is watching the catch in the outfield, and not the runner, and the runner can get a millisecond jump on the catch.

(but of course, the ump COULD call the runner out without even seeing if he left the base early or not, as in last year's playoffs)

I'll try to illustrate the flawed logic with some tangible examples.

Situation 1. Michael Bourn is on third base and Juan Pierre makes a diving catch running up the hill in center field at the Juice Box, slamming into the flag pole.

Conclusion: Runner should be sent, because he has a 73.3% chance of scouring, and thus a positive outcome.

Situation 2. Jorge Posada is at third and a pop fly is hit 150 feet from home into right field which Ichiro catches running at 70% of maximum speed directly facing home plate.

Conclusion: Runner should be sent because he has a greater than 73.3% chance of scoring, and thus a positive outcome.

If the article was done correctly it would have disregarded all of situation 1's above (plays where throws aren't attempted or reasonably done so), and weighted situation 2's to the correct chance of the runner actually scoring, (say 5% for that particular scenario up to 99.9% chance were an outfielder could theoretically throw someone out).
Then further weighted those numbers against the game situations mentioned by others.

Good idea, very poor execution.

Seems rather simplistic to say that more runs would be scored if runner is sent 100% of the time instead of anything less than 100% of the time- just sayin...

You have confused the break even point to make the decision on sending the runner (you give 73.2%) with the measured success rate. If a 3B coach had perfect knowledge of the odds, and followed the 73.2% rule for each runner, then his overall success rate would be much higher than 73.2%. You average in all the runners with higher chances when you calculate the success rate.

"it says that Perlozzo needs to be 73.2 percent sure that Rollins will make it before he sends him. So, if third-base coaches league-wide are playing the game correctly, we should see that about 73 percent of the runners in this situation wind up scoring."

No, no, no.

He needs to be *at least* 73.2% sure. If he's greater than 73.2% sure, he will send the runner. If he's 100% sure 50% of the time, 73.2% sure 25% of the time, and 0% sure the rest of the time, he's going to send the runner 75% of the time at an 86.6% success rate.

You could think of the events in three baskets:
-no doubt safe
-no doubt out
-grey area
This analysis should only involve the grey area, but you include the no doubt safe in the analysis.

I would guess that the distribution of out percentages is highly bi-modal and probably bathtub shaped, i.e. the vast majority of the time the runner will almost certainly be out if he runs or he will almost certainly score if he runs. If this is the case, then the vast majority of the time the runner will run precisely when he should run, which is what we seem to be observing (understand that there may be times that the runner would almost certainly score and decides not run anyway). Somehow one has to be able to identify those times where the end result of the play is uncertain and see what the results of those plays are.

One thing to note: it seems to me that it's pretty rare to even see a close play at the plate in these situations. Nearly every fly ball seems to end with the outfielder lobbing the ball to second while the runner trots home, or the runner taking three steps towards home and stopping while the ball reaches the catcher on a couple of hops.