Doug Lawrence
Jul 24, 2017 · 1 min read

In fairness to Schmidt and others, I can see a flawed way to get there “with the numbers”. Joe’s problem is that he sets up the equivalencies in a fair way, where scoring runs and winning the game is a good thing. But to see it the way some do, ignore the runs you have, and only value the future runs you are going to get. So player 1 is up, 1 out. He homers. Player 2 comes up and there is a .309 run expectancy. Second case, player one doubles. Player 2 comes up with a .6 (Nichols table) run expectation. In other words, after the home run, run expectations drop compared to a hit or walk. That is irrelevant of course, because in case 1 you ACTUALLY have the run, which is what you want. So if you are playing baseball where total runs are important, Player 2a comes to the plate with a total 1.301 run expectancy for the entire inning, Player 2b comes up with .6. But if you don’t care about the run you already got, the Plater 2a comes up with a .301 R.E for the remaining inning. and Player 2b with .6. The homer cut the rally expectations in half.