Schrodinger's Bat: Odd... (10/13)
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October 19, 2006 Schrodinger's BatClogging the Bases
"I think walks are overrated unless you can run. If you get a walk and put the pitcher in a stretch, that helps. But the guy who walks and can't run, most of the time they're clogging up the bases for somebody who can run."--former Cubs manager Dusty Baker Now that "Sweet" Lou Piniella has taken over in Chicago, Cub fans can begin to put the Dusty Baker era behind them--an era that began full of such promise in a surprising 2003 season. But ever since the fateful foul pop fly that wasn't caught, the fortunes of Baker and his Cubs headed down a path that culminated in the train wreck that was the 96-loss 2006 season. Would that the results of the last four years could be blamed on something as simple as a curse. Unfortunately, the explanation for the slide is more complex and involves a series of questionable player-personnel moves and what has proved to be an unrealistic reliance on two injury-prone starters. So begins the judgment of history. Although Baker did not bring a World Championship to the North Side, he did leave fans with a plethora of entertaining quips like the one beginning this week's column. I thought about that quote while contemplating the managerial change as my family and I made our way across the remnants of the Western Interior Seaway after a family wedding in Iowa. The major question to me, spurred on by an interesting post and conversation on the blog associated with The Book, was just how frequently runners tended to "clog the bases" for their teammates. It's hard to underestimate just how little interest my wife had in this question, but for me, much of the final few hundred miles was spent happily crunching the numbers with a laptop. Advancing and Obstructing In order to take a look at this question, I used the baserunning framework used to calculate Equivalent Hit Advancement Runs (EqHAR). In particular, we can use the advancement percentages in the following scenarios:
In each case we can then compare what happens when there is a runner at the lead base (second, third, and second respectively) with what happens when the lead base is empty. I did just that for the years 2000-2005, covering more than 105,000 opportunities. The resulting percentages are shown in the following table:
Lead Runner? To2nd To3rd Scores OA Runner on First Batter Singles Yes 68.9% 27.3% 1.4% 2.4% No 70.1% 28.1% 0.8% 1.0% ---------------------------------------------------- Runner on Second Batter Singles Yes N/A 38.2% 57.4% 3.1% No N/A 34.4% 61.0% 3.5% ---------------------------------------------------- Runner on First Batter Doubles Yes N/A 52.0% 45.0% 3.0% No N/A 54.8% 42.1% 3.2% There are several interesting things we can see from this table:
What we're really interested in is seeing whether and/or how fast runners are affected by "clogging." To address that question, we can compare and contrast some of the fastest runners with some of the slowest. We'll select the top and bottom five runners (by EqHAR) from 2000-2005:
Leaders and Trailers in EqHAR for 2000-2005 Name Opp OA EqHAR Rate Juan Pierre 315 4 15.22 1.41 Luis Castillo 331 6 14.64 1.32 Rafael Furcal 272 3 12.09 1.33 Ray Durham 249 0 11.87 1.37 Mike Cameron 188 2 11.59 1.37 ------------------------------------------------ Edgar Martinez 178 3 -12.50 0.58 Rafael Palmeiro 231 9 -11.50 0.63 Dmitri Young 181 10 -11.04 0.60 Richie Sexson 153 6 -10.83 0.53 Juan Encarnacion 201 12 -10.73 0.66 The following tables aggregate the performances of these ten runners using the same categories as those shown above.
Lead Runner? Opp To2nd To3rd Scores OA Runner on First Batter Singles 5 Best Yes 244 64.8% 31.6% 2.9% 0.8% No 792 58.0% 40.0% 1.3% 0.8% ------------------------------------------------------------ 5 Worst Yes 270 71.1% 24.4% 0.7% 3.7% No 574 77.9% 20.6% 0.7% 0.9% Runner on Second Batter Singles 5 Best Yes 126 N/A 30.2% 65.9% 2.4% No 511 N/A 28.2% 69.5% 1.2% ------------------------------------------------------------ 5 Worst Yes 97 N/A 44.3% 53.6% 1.0% No 354 N/A 42.9% 49.2% 7.1% Runner on First Batter Doubles 5 Best Yes 59 N/A 37.3% 61.0% 1.7% No 204 N/A 47.5% 49.5% 2.9% ------------------------------------------------------------ 5 Worst Yes 88 N/A 62.5% 34.1% 3.4% No 175 N/A 66.9% 26.9% 6.3% With a runner on first, good baserunners advance more frequently when the batter singles and there is no lead runner (40.0% to 31.6%). That advantage is reduced, however, by the fact that they also score less often (1.6%). Poor runners, on the other hand, actually make it to third less frequently (20.6% to 24.4%) when there is no one on in front of them than when second base is empty. This is likely because of the times they can sneak into third by taking advantage of a play being made on the lead runner. When a good runner is on second and the batter singles, you can see that the advantage is still there, though it's smaller--69.5% to 65.9%. This is shrunk further by the fact that they are thrown out 1.2% more often. Once again, we can see that slow runners actually score more often when there is a runner on in front of them. What is so damaging to these runners' teams is that they're thrown out a whopping 7.1% of the time when there is no lead runner. Finally, as we saw in the overall numbers, both good and bad baserunners score more frequently when they are on first and the batter doubles with second base occupied. Interestingly, both fast and slow runners score even more frequently with a runner on in front of them than the rest of the player population does. As mentioned before, it's hard to understand why this is the case. The Bottom Line Given that the case when the batter doubles with a runner on first is somewhat anomalous, we'll consider only the cases where a runner is on first or second and the batter singles. We'll also use the percentages and totals in the previous set of tables. We can estimate that, given that a good baserunner gets 40 opportunities per season in the first case and 25 in the second, if there were no lead runners, the baserunner could expect to pick up at most just one additional base per season. There simply aren't that many opportunities where the next base is occupied, and the differences in advancement percentages are not that great. In some of these cases the lead runner "clogs" the bases through no fault of his own, but simply because they are unsure of whether the ball will be caught. In the end, this analysis doesn't tell us anything we don't already know: baserunners are good, more baserunners are better. Baker's premise is wrong.
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