Base Running: Risk vs Reward
Is being thrown out on the bases a consequence of risky base running or is there a best of both worlds?
One of my favorite things to point out/criticize/celebrate while watching a baseball game is the TOOTBLAN. If you don’t know what that acronym represents, it’s “Thrown Out On The Bases Like A Nincompoop”; essentially the base runner was tagged out in the middle of the base path, anything outside a force out.
Now I’ve already discussed with my Twitter following we may need to start categorizing TOOTBLANs. It seems like they are mostly the base runners fault, which would make sense. The runner was too aggressive, either running through a stop sign from their base coach or simply not looking for a sign at all. But the base coach could also be responsible; if the runner does exactly what’s told, how can they be to blame?
Now, the person who made the play in the field could have done something spectacular deserving a category all its own. When Alex Bregman made the perfect throw home in the ALCS this season, should the runner have been “blamed” for running into the out? It’s arguable.
But the TOOTBLAN categorization will have to wait until next season. What I wanted to bring up here is are the teams who run into more outs on the bases paying off on the other end?
Baseball-Reference.com totals all instances where a base runner was thrown out on the base paths… no TOOTBLAN categories just yet. They also total how many times an “extra” base was taken, whether it was on a wild pitch, passed ball, balk, or sacrifice fly.
For the “risk” portion of this exercise, I have calculated a ratio between outs on the bases and bases taken (OOB/(OOB+BT)). This should provide a reasonable value for how often risky base running leads to a worst-case outcome.
B-Ref also totals every instance where there was a runner on first base and a single was hit. They give the totals for how often the runner went from first to third, a common area of the game that is complimented as a runner smartly reading the play, getting a good jump, and having the speed to advance an extra base. A similar area of the game is when a runner is on second and scores on a single.
For the “reward” portion, I looked at the success rate of runners advancing from first to third on a single, and from second to home on a single. Since the second-to-home advancement (58.45% in 2017) happens about twice as often as the first-to-third (27.94%), I didn’t do a straight proportion but gave the first-to-third twice the weight.
Here’s a chart of each team’s 2017 numbers in the “risk” vs “reward” values just assigned:
First takeaway from the chart is there is nearly zero correlation between the two totals. So we can already jump to a fairly confident conclusion that the teams who had more runners thrown out on the base paths aren’t getting the pay off either.
As far as the individual data points in the chart above, the area teams want to be is in the top left. If the team is commonly advancing an extra base plus not running into base running outs, they’re doing a lot of things right. the Arizona Diamondbacks look to be the furthest “top-left” team in the league last season.
The area teams don’t want to be in is the bottom right. Teams in this quadrant are not advancing an extra base often, plus they have been running into way too many outs on the bases. The rebuilding Philadelphia Phillies have some work to do on this front; perhaps new manager Gabe Kapler already has that on a dry-erase board in his office.
The Boston Red Sox certainly jump off the page here; they have the second highest “risk” total but also the highest “reward” total. I heard a lot of Boston fans this season complaining about the outs ran into on the bases, but clearly they were a very aggressive base running team, and having it pay off quite a bit.
The Cleveland Indians and Kansas City Royals are in the final quadrant, the bottom-left. These teams weren’t getting thrown out often, nor were they advancing. Not good, not bad.
A bonus point I felt worth taking a look at is Fangraphs posts a base running statistic of their own. They take several attributes into their calculation including stolen base success, avoiding double plays (not sure how much of a skill this is, but I digress), and of course also advancing extra bases.
Does the risk/reward analysis done above compare to Fangraphs metric?
The Diamondbacks were the second best base running squad this season according to Fangraphs; we have one equivalency. The Phillies were the fifth worst base running squad in MLB on Fangraphs; two-for-two.
The Red Sox were a positive base running squad on Fangraphs, 5.1 runs above average. The Indians and Royals were also slightly positive.
The best base running team on Fangraphs was the Minnesota Twins. They are in the bottom-left of the chart above, clearly their not getting thrown out often pays off more than their lack of success in taking on advancement chances. The worst base running team on Fangraphs was the Detroit Tigers; another match on the chart.
There were some inconsistencies. The New York Yankees fared very well on Fangraphs and not well on this chart. The Toronto Blue Jays were the second worst base running team on Fangraphs and although not pictured above in the chart, were in the top left quadrant.
How about individual players? I went ahead and ran the same analysis on a player level:
Byron Buxton, Mookie Betts, and Ben Revere showing up as good base runners? Check. Joey Votto, Dustin Pedroia, and Robinson Chirinos showing up as poor? Check again.
Matt Chapman is an outlier but he was only thrown out four times on the bases this season while taking eleven extra bases. He advanced from first to third an amazing 11 out of 16 occurrences and scored all four times he was on second when a single was hit. (Fangraphs had him as two runs above average in their base running statistic.)
Have a specific question on how a specific player or team fared? Ask me on Twitter or in the comments below.
Any other questions/comments, please feel free to give feedback. Also, give ideas for TOOTBLAN categories!
