Posted by bad_luck on 5/15/2014 11:30:00 AM (view original):

Posted by The Taint on 5/15/2014 1:36:00 AM (view original):
Looking at the exact situation you brought up earlier, Man on 2nd, one out. The average number of runs scored in this situation is .721, pretty good. Your chance of scoring one run is almost 42%. So you do what you're "supposed" to do and hit a ground ball to second, making the second out while moving the runner to third. With a runner on third and two out, the run scoring average goes down to .385. Had you struck out, your team is worse off, but not by much. With runner on 2nd two out, the run scoring average is .348.

There's never been any coach in the world asking their players to ground out to the right side(making the second out) to move the runner over to third. Ever.  I said that if you were going to make the second out, you are better off moving the guy to third with a grounder than striking out, your odds are better at scoring.  I see your percentages agree with me.

Sure, you're slightly better off in that specific situation grounding out instead of striking out.

But you're worse off in more situations grounding out to second. Anytime there is a guy on first and less than two outs and you ground out, you've reduced your run scoring by way more than the small amount you gained in your scenario. For example, if you have guys on first and second and no one out, the average run scoring for that inning is over 1.5. That is a huge opportunity. Striking out here sucks, it reduces your average run scoring to 0.963 but it isn't a disaster like a double play, leaving a guy on third and two out, reducing your average run scoring to 0.385.

Double play situations are much more common than productive out situations. And that's before you eliminate many outs in play that aren't actually productive  - pop ups, shallow flies, come backers, etc.

Lastly, if you aren't asking your players to change their approach in productive out situations, what are we arguing about? That's my entire point. That it isn't worth changing a player's approach just for the sake of avoiding the strikeout.

Nobody is asking for the batter to change their approach to just make contact with 1st and 2nd and no one out.  The situation doesn't warrant it.  It's not a productive out situation unless it's a SH in a late and close game, or maybe your .045 hitting pitcher is up.   Game situation entirely dictates the way at bats should be approached.


We're arguing that not all outs are created equal. 

Posted by MikeT23 on 5/15/2014 7:52:00 AM (view original):

Posted by The Taint on 5/14/2014 11:15:00 PM (view original):

Posted by MikeT23 on 5/14/2014 10:42:00 PM (view original):
FWIW, I don't think it's 25% of the time. 

There's less than 2% of a chance that your opponent will make an error.
I can't imagine a team having more than 1 sac fly/hit per game with any regularity. 
Add in 1-2 times where a runner is moved but a sac is not credited. 

Seems to me that a ball in play, at best, would be beneficial 3-4 times a game. 
Take at least one of those away for hitting into a DP(wouldn't happen with a whiff).

10-12% of the time it's better to put it in play and we really don't know how that affects a guy "taking something off his swing" all the time in order to make contact but, IMO, that has to be worth something.  5-7% of the time it's better to make contact?   Not insignificant but certainly not 13-14 combined outs.

I see strike em out, throw em out double plays with some regularity.

OK, let's put it at the bottom end.   5% of the time it would be more beneficial to put the ball in play.   1.35 times per game per team. 

Teams are averaging just over 4.2 runs per game.    .155 runs per out.   

So, essentially, a strikeout instead of putting the ball in play is costing teams .21 runs per game.   34 runs per year.   

How significant is that?

Your calculation is wrong. The frequency is 6% of PA. The difference is around 0.037 runs on average (2nd to 3rd with 2 outs) or 0.26 runs on average (2nd to third with one out). But those advantages are completely wiped out (and then some) by the ground balls that become double plays in with a runner on first.

Who's asking for a ground ball with a runner on first?

Posted by The Taint on 5/15/2014 11:41:00 AM (view original):

Posted by bad_luck on 5/15/2014 11:30:00 AM (view original):

Posted by The Taint on 5/15/2014 1:36:00 AM (view original):
Looking at the exact situation you brought up earlier, Man on 2nd, one out. The average number of runs scored in this situation is .721, pretty good. Your chance of scoring one run is almost 42%. So you do what you're "supposed" to do and hit a ground ball to second, making the second out while moving the runner to third. With a runner on third and two out, the run scoring average goes down to .385. Had you struck out, your team is worse off, but not by much. With runner on 2nd two out, the run scoring average is .348.

There's never been any coach in the world asking their players to ground out to the right side(making the second out) to move the runner over to third. Ever.  I said that if you were going to make the second out, you are better off moving the guy to third with a grounder than striking out, your odds are better at scoring.  I see your percentages agree with me.

Sure, you're slightly better off in that specific situation grounding out instead of striking out.

But you're worse off in more situations grounding out to second. Anytime there is a guy on first and less than two outs and you ground out, you've reduced your run scoring by way more than the small amount you gained in your scenario. For example, if you have guys on first and second and no one out, the average run scoring for that inning is over 1.5. That is a huge opportunity. Striking out here sucks, it reduces your average run scoring to 0.963 but it isn't a disaster like a double play, leaving a guy on third and two out, reducing your average run scoring to 0.385.

Double play situations are much more common than productive out situations. And that's before you eliminate many outs in play that aren't actually productive  - pop ups, shallow flies, come backers, etc.

Lastly, if you aren't asking your players to change their approach in productive out situations, what are we arguing about? That's my entire point. That it isn't worth changing a player's approach just for the sake of avoiding the strikeout.

Nobody is asking for the batter to change their approach to just make contact with 1st and 2nd and no one out.  The situation doesn't warrant it.  It's not a productive out situation unless it's a SH in a late and close game, or maybe your .045 hitting pitcher is up.   Game situation entirely dictates the way at bats should be approached.


We're arguing that not all outs are created equal. 

Two things:

1) Asking batter to change their approach in productive out situations is foolish. Best case scenario, you gain a slight increase in average runs. And you're doing it at the expense of their talent. If shortening up and making contact was what they were best at, they'd already be doing it. You're asking the batter to cut down on his swing and giving up a shot at an extra base hit.

2) tec's original complaint is that players strike out too much. Not that they strike out too much in productive out situations (we don't know that they do). Team run scoring and strikeouts aren't correlated. The Red Sox scored the most runs in 2013. They had the 8th most strikeouts. San Francisco was 27th in strikeouts and 21st in run s scoring. Detroit was 2nd in run scoring and near the bottom in strikeouts. Cleveland was 6th in run scoring and 9th in strikeouts. Strikeouts don't matter. How often you make outs is what really matters.

I think he's confusing "hitting behind the runner" with "intentionally hitting the ball to the 2B".

Which isn't surprising.

Posted by The Taint on 5/15/2014 11:48:00 AM (view original):
Who's asking for a ground ball with a runner on first?

No one.You take the good with the bad. Guys who make a lot of outs in play do it in good and bad situations. Same with the strikeouts. Guys who strikeout with a runner on third and 1 out also do it with guys on first and second and no one out.

Posted by The Taint on 5/15/2014 11:48:00 AM (view original):
Who's asking for a ground ball with a runner on first?

It sounds like BL is assuming that anytime a hitter puts a ball in play with a runner on first, it will result in a double play.

Posted by MikeT23 on 5/15/2014 11:53:00 AM (view original):
I think he's confusing "hitting behind the runner" with "intentionally hitting the ball to the 2B".

Which isn't surprising.

If you have the ability to control where the ball goes, please let the Dodgers know. They could use someone who can both hit 1.000 and play third base better than Miguel Cabrera.

Posted by bad_luck on 5/15/2014 11:52:00 AM (view original):

Posted by The Taint on 5/15/2014 11:41:00 AM (view original):

Posted by bad_luck on 5/15/2014 11:30:00 AM (view original):

Posted by The Taint on 5/15/2014 1:36:00 AM (view original):
Looking at the exact situation you brought up earlier, Man on 2nd, one out. The average number of runs scored in this situation is .721, pretty good. Your chance of scoring one run is almost 42%. So you do what you're "supposed" to do and hit a ground ball to second, making the second out while moving the runner to third. With a runner on third and two out, the run scoring average goes down to .385. Had you struck out, your team is worse off, but not by much. With runner on 2nd two out, the run scoring average is .348.

There's never been any coach in the world asking their players to ground out to the right side(making the second out) to move the runner over to third. Ever.  I said that if you were going to make the second out, you are better off moving the guy to third with a grounder than striking out, your odds are better at scoring.  I see your percentages agree with me.

Sure, you're slightly better off in that specific situation grounding out instead of striking out.

But you're worse off in more situations grounding out to second. Anytime there is a guy on first and less than two outs and you ground out, you've reduced your run scoring by way more than the small amount you gained in your scenario. For example, if you have guys on first and second and no one out, the average run scoring for that inning is over 1.5. That is a huge opportunity. Striking out here sucks, it reduces your average run scoring to 0.963 but it isn't a disaster like a double play, leaving a guy on third and two out, reducing your average run scoring to 0.385.

Double play situations are much more common than productive out situations. And that's before you eliminate many outs in play that aren't actually productive  - pop ups, shallow flies, come backers, etc.

Lastly, if you aren't asking your players to change their approach in productive out situations, what are we arguing about? That's my entire point. That it isn't worth changing a player's approach just for the sake of avoiding the strikeout.

Nobody is asking for the batter to change their approach to just make contact with 1st and 2nd and no one out.  The situation doesn't warrant it.  It's not a productive out situation unless it's a SH in a late and close game, or maybe your .045 hitting pitcher is up.   Game situation entirely dictates the way at bats should be approached.


We're arguing that not all outs are created equal. 

Two things:

1) Asking batter to change their approach in productive out situations is foolish. Best case scenario, you gain a slight increase in average runs. And you're doing it at the expense of their talent. If shortening up and making contact was what they were best at, they'd already be doing it. You're asking the batter to cut down on his swing and giving up a shot at an extra base hit.

2) tec's original complaint is that players strike out too much. Not that they strike out too much in productive out situations (we don't know that they do). Team run scoring and strikeouts aren't correlated. The Red Sox scored the most runs in 2013. They had the 8th most strikeouts. San Francisco was 27th in strikeouts and 21st in run s scoring. Detroit was 2nd in run scoring and near the bottom in strikeouts. Cleveland was 6th in run scoring and 9th in strikeouts. Strikeouts don't matter. How often you make outs is what really matters.

In the NL this year, there is a record number of strikeouts per game and OBP is the seventh lowest in the history of the game(five of the lowest years were between 63-68).  Do you think there's a correlation to the lack of plate discipline and an almost all time high in making outs?

Posted by The Taint on 5/15/2014 12:01:00 PM (view original):

Posted by bad_luck on 5/15/2014 11:52:00 AM (view original):

Posted by The Taint on 5/15/2014 11:41:00 AM (view original):

Posted by bad_luck on 5/15/2014 11:30:00 AM (view original):

Posted by The Taint on 5/15/2014 1:36:00 AM (view original):
Looking at the exact situation you brought up earlier, Man on 2nd, one out. The average number of runs scored in this situation is .721, pretty good. Your chance of scoring one run is almost 42%. So you do what you're "supposed" to do and hit a ground ball to second, making the second out while moving the runner to third. With a runner on third and two out, the run scoring average goes down to .385. Had you struck out, your team is worse off, but not by much. With runner on 2nd two out, the run scoring average is .348.

There's never been any coach in the world asking their players to ground out to the right side(making the second out) to move the runner over to third. Ever.  I said that if you were going to make the second out, you are better off moving the guy to third with a grounder than striking out, your odds are better at scoring.  I see your percentages agree with me.

Sure, you're slightly better off in that specific situation grounding out instead of striking out.

But you're worse off in more situations grounding out to second. Anytime there is a guy on first and less than two outs and you ground out, you've reduced your run scoring by way more than the small amount you gained in your scenario. For example, if you have guys on first and second and no one out, the average run scoring for that inning is over 1.5. That is a huge opportunity. Striking out here sucks, it reduces your average run scoring to 0.963 but it isn't a disaster like a double play, leaving a guy on third and two out, reducing your average run scoring to 0.385.

Double play situations are much more common than productive out situations. And that's before you eliminate many outs in play that aren't actually productive  - pop ups, shallow flies, come backers, etc.

Lastly, if you aren't asking your players to change their approach in productive out situations, what are we arguing about? That's my entire point. That it isn't worth changing a player's approach just for the sake of avoiding the strikeout.

Nobody is asking for the batter to change their approach to just make contact with 1st and 2nd and no one out.  The situation doesn't warrant it.  It's not a productive out situation unless it's a SH in a late and close game, or maybe your .045 hitting pitcher is up.   Game situation entirely dictates the way at bats should be approached.


We're arguing that not all outs are created equal. 

Two things:

1) Asking batter to change their approach in productive out situations is foolish. Best case scenario, you gain a slight increase in average runs. And you're doing it at the expense of their talent. If shortening up and making contact was what they were best at, they'd already be doing it. You're asking the batter to cut down on his swing and giving up a shot at an extra base hit.

2) tec's original complaint is that players strike out too much. Not that they strike out too much in productive out situations (we don't know that they do). Team run scoring and strikeouts aren't correlated. The Red Sox scored the most runs in 2013. They had the 8th most strikeouts. San Francisco was 27th in strikeouts and 21st in run s scoring. Detroit was 2nd in run scoring and near the bottom in strikeouts. Cleveland was 6th in run scoring and 9th in strikeouts. Strikeouts don't matter. How often you make outs is what really matters.

In the NL this year, there is a record number of strikeouts per game and OBP is the seventh lowest in the history of the game(five of the lowest years were between 63-68).  Do you think there's a correlation to the lack of plate discipline and an almost all time high in making outs?

This year? We're at 40 games. I wouldn't make any conclusions based on 40 games.

The last two years, are pretty damn close, with k's being higher than ever, and OBP being lower than ever, and as it's trending this year, it's getting even worse.

Posted by bad_luck on 5/15/2014 11:37:00 AM (view original):

Posted by tecwrg on 5/15/2014 9:21:00 AM (view original):
I think we can agree that "all outs are equal, so it doesn't matter how they're made" is a pretty dumb statement.

All outs aren't perfectly equal, as we see with the run matrix. 75% of the time, all outs are exactly the same. 6% of the time, a productive out nets you a slight gain in run scoring. 19% of the time, an out in play is either neutral or a complete disaster.

If you understand baseball, you know that hitters don't get to pick and choose when and how they make their outs. Guys who avoid strikeouts and make a lot of outs in play also hit into a lot of double plays.

We can also look at it on the team level and see that there is absolutely zero correlation between run scoring and strikeout totals.

Hitters also don't get to pick and choose what happens when they put a ball in play.  BABIP says they get a hit around 30% of time time.  Actually, a little higher than that, since BABIP inexplicably excludes HR's.  Add another roughly 2% of the time, there will be an error. 

So let's say 33% of the time, something positive happens offensively when a ball is put in play.

What percentage of the time does something positive happen offensively when a batter strikes out?

You seem to be arguing on the premise that if a hitter KNOWS that putting a ball in play will result in an out, he might as well just strikeout, since an out on a BIP with a runner on first could be "a complete disaster".  Unless Nostradamus, Jean Dixon or the Amazing Kreskin is in your lineup, that's probably not a good premise to base an argument on.

Posted by bad_luck on 5/15/2014 11:52:00 AM (view original):

Posted by The Taint on 5/15/2014 11:41:00 AM (view original):

Posted by bad_luck on 5/15/2014 11:30:00 AM (view original):

Posted by The Taint on 5/15/2014 1:36:00 AM (view original):
Looking at the exact situation you brought up earlier, Man on 2nd, one out. The average number of runs scored in this situation is .721, pretty good. Your chance of scoring one run is almost 42%. So you do what you're "supposed" to do and hit a ground ball to second, making the second out while moving the runner to third. With a runner on third and two out, the run scoring average goes down to .385. Had you struck out, your team is worse off, but not by much. With runner on 2nd two out, the run scoring average is .348.

There's never been any coach in the world asking their players to ground out to the right side(making the second out) to move the runner over to third. Ever.  I said that if you were going to make the second out, you are better off moving the guy to third with a grounder than striking out, your odds are better at scoring.  I see your percentages agree with me.

Sure, you're slightly better off in that specific situation grounding out instead of striking out.

But you're worse off in more situations grounding out to second. Anytime there is a guy on first and less than two outs and you ground out, you've reduced your run scoring by way more than the small amount you gained in your scenario. For example, if you have guys on first and second and no one out, the average run scoring for that inning is over 1.5. That is a huge opportunity. Striking out here sucks, it reduces your average run scoring to 0.963 but it isn't a disaster like a double play, leaving a guy on third and two out, reducing your average run scoring to 0.385.

Double play situations are much more common than productive out situations. And that's before you eliminate many outs in play that aren't actually productive  - pop ups, shallow flies, come backers, etc.

Lastly, if you aren't asking your players to change their approach in productive out situations, what are we arguing about? That's my entire point. That it isn't worth changing a player's approach just for the sake of avoiding the strikeout.

Nobody is asking for the batter to change their approach to just make contact with 1st and 2nd and no one out.  The situation doesn't warrant it.  It's not a productive out situation unless it's a SH in a late and close game, or maybe your .045 hitting pitcher is up.   Game situation entirely dictates the way at bats should be approached.


We're arguing that not all outs are created equal. 

Two things:

1) Asking batter to change their approach in productive out situations is foolish. Best case scenario, you gain a slight increase in average runs. And you're doing it at the expense of their talent. If shortening up and making contact was what they were best at, they'd already be doing it. You're asking the batter to cut down on his swing and giving up a shot at an extra base hit.

2) tec's original complaint is that players strike out too much. Not that they strike out too much in productive out situations (we don't know that they do). Team run scoring and strikeouts aren't correlated. The Red Sox scored the most runs in 2013. They had the 8th most strikeouts. San Francisco was 27th in strikeouts and 21st in run s scoring. Detroit was 2nd in run scoring and near the bottom in strikeouts. Cleveland was 6th in run scoring and 9th in strikeouts. Strikeouts don't matter. How often you make outs is what really matters.

Over the course of a season, strikeouts to runs may not matter, but in the context of a single game, making contact compared to striking out might.  Watch the Mariners on a nightly basis and you will see what I mean.

Posted by The Taint on 5/15/2014 12:06:00 PM (view original):
The last two years, are pretty damn close, with k's being higher than ever, and OBP being lower than ever, and as it's trending this year, it's getting even worse.

A low OBP is a problem. If a guy strikes out so much that he can't reach base at a reasonable level, he needs to be replaced. Outs are bad.

That isn't the question, though.

Assuming that a guy is otherwise productive, does the way that he makes his outs matter? I don't think it does. An out is an out.

But your graph shows that you are wrong, even if the percentage is small.