Too many runners thrown out at home! Topic

sinatra
Posts: 2012 (0)
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Behold the box score below.  You will see that I had two runners thrown out at the plate in one inning, and three in the entire game.  I had hit and run set to 4 and baserunning aggressiveness set to 3.  I see that most games have at least one runner thrown out at the plate, which is CLEARLY at odds with real life.  I sent in a ticket about this over a month ago, and never got a response.  I am also including my link to a post I made addressing the long ticket time, which discusses this a bit.  Any input/opinion is appreciated so that we can get a discussion generated on this, even if WIS continues to ignore it for some arbitrary reason.

http://www.wisjournal.com/forums/Posts.aspx?TopicID=449737

Chicago White Sox
  D.Mulligan enters the game to pitch.  
  E.Lake fields the groundball but makes a bad throw to 1B. J.Wallaesa reaches on the throwing error.  
  A.Lopez enters the game as a pinch-hitter for E.Blackwell.  
DPHR A.Lopez hits a groundball single to RCF.  
DP E.Fletcher hits a groundball single to RCF. J.Wallaesa is gunned down at the plate by G.Woodling.  
DPHR L.Frey grounds a single to CF. A.Lopez scores.  
  R.Bauers enters the game to pitch.  
DP W.Kurowski flies out to RCF. E.Fletcher is nailed at home on a one-hop throw from E.Lukon.
1/26/2012 2:54 PM
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sinatra
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I have one active team...experimenting with aggressiveness settings and analyzing hundreds of box scores isn't something that I can viably do.

But even taking your small sample you posted into consideration, 2 in 17 games still seems awfully high to me.  That would be roughly equivalent to slightly less than two runners thrown out per day in the actual MLB.  Any of us that watch major league baseball games know that there is no way that two runners per day are thrown out at home plate.  I would be surprised if there's two in an average week.
1/26/2012 3:45 PM
sinatra
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My ignored ticket as sent to WIS:

I notice that there are an extremely high number of baserunners thrown out at home plate in Sim League Baseball. In today's PM2 game alone, I had three runners thrown out at home in a 2-1 game. While three is an anomaly, it is not uncommon to have two runners thrown out at home in a game, and I would estimate that over 50% of games feature at least one runner thrown out at the plate.

This is definitely at odds with real major league baseball, where such events rarely occur. I have all baserunning settings set at 3, so it's not like I am telling my players to run renegade.

I coach junior high baseball and I feel like my job as a coach of adolescents would come under scrutiny if I had as many runners thrown at home as I do in WiS. Clearly anything attempting to emulate the pros should not have this many runners thrown out at home plate.
1/26/2012 3:47 PM
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sinatra
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My gut feeling is that there are more outfield assists at second or third than there are to home, for two reasons:

1.  It is an easier throw to second base 100% of the time and probably 99% of the time to third base than it is to make a throw home (shorter distance)
2.  I personally would be less likely to roll the dice and send a runner home than I would to send a runner to second.  If you have a guy on third, especially with less than two outs, it would make sense to keep him there in hopes that a later hitter would knock him in.
1/26/2012 5:03 PM
sinatra
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2 more games have simmed...3 more runners thrown out at home.  Two of them were mine and one was an opponent.  One of them was during a tie game during extra innings, so I will accept that the risk may have been justified there.  Still, I am calling shenanigans
1/27/2012 1:34 AM
zubinsum
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Posted by sinatra on 1/26/2012 5:03:00 PM (view original):
My gut feeling is that there are more outfield assists at second or third than there are to home, for two reasons:

1.  It is an easier throw to second base 100% of the time and probably 99% of the time to third base than it is to make a throw home (shorter distance)
2.  I personally would be less likely to roll the dice and send a runner home than I would to send a runner to second.  If you have a guy on third, especially with less than two outs, it would make sense to keep him there in hopes that a later hitter would knock him in.
If an outfielder throws a ball to second and the second baseman cuts a guy down at the plate, the outfielder still gets an assist.
1/27/2012 1:35 AM
zubinsum
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Posted by contrarian23 on 1/26/2012 4:48:00 PM (view original):
I don't have the time to go through a lot of old boxscores from MLB, but just looking at team-level stats from baseball-reference:

The average 1910 NL team had 64 outfield assists in ~154 games.  No idea how many were at home vs other bases.
The average 1930 NL team had 43.
The average 1950 NL team had 37.
The average 1970 NL team had 33.
The average 1990 NL team had 33.
The average 2010 NL team had 26.

Looks like a historical average would be mid-high 30s. 

Doesn't tell us much, because I have no idea what % of outfield assists come at home vs other bases, nor how that split would have evolved over time.

My best guess is WIS is overdoing it on the baserunning aggressiveness thing, but I have no idea why you are seeing 10-20x more of these than I am.
My last league had a total of 481 outfield assists.

481 assists / 24 teams ~= 20 assist per team

It looks like not enough runners are being thrown out.  Then again, OLs are filled with speedsters.
1/27/2012 1:45 AM
sinatra
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Posted by zubinsum on 1/27/2012 1:35:00 AM (view original):
Posted by sinatra on 1/26/2012 5:03:00 PM (view original):
My gut feeling is that there are more outfield assists at second or third than there are to home, for two reasons:

1.  It is an easier throw to second base 100% of the time and probably 99% of the time to third base than it is to make a throw home (shorter distance)
2.  I personally would be less likely to roll the dice and send a runner home than I would to send a runner to second.  If you have a guy on third, especially with less than two outs, it would make sense to keep him there in hopes that a later hitter would knock him in.
If an outfielder throws a ball to second and the second baseman cuts a guy down at the plate, the outfielder still gets an assist.
You are 100% correct, but that I wasn't trying to say that wasn't the case at all.  I'm saying that on a ball hit to the outfield, the distance that a throw must travel (regardless of whether or not a cutoff man is used) is shorter if the throw is going to second or third than it is to home plate...the lone exception being a ball hit deep along the right field line that rolls into foul territory.  In that case, I think it would be slightly longer of a throw to third base, again, whether or not a cutoff man is used.
1/27/2012 2:17 AM
mixtroy
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Have you taken into consideration as to WHO the runners are that are getting gunned down at the plate, and their speed ratings?

1/27/2012 9:35 AM
sinatra
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Not really, I can go back and look at that...but I don't think it should matter too much.  I assume that the Sim Third Base Coach is aware of who on the team is fast and who isn't, and would not send the slow guys home on a close play as often as the fast guys.  Speed should only make a significant difference if we are assuming that the players ignore the Third Base Coach or that one doesn't even exist in the sim.
1/27/2012 10:54 AM
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jbfg8r
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I just had two runners thrown out at home in one game, the latter being the pitcher.  Given his speed rating this makes sense, but IRL the 3rd base coach would not wave the runner to go home like that.
1/27/2012 2:17 PM
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