Ha, I was about to link this in the Dugout.

The general framework of this seems sound. It will be interesting to see of there are any big discrepancies between what Dan gets and what James Click did for BPro (and why exactly isn't BPro continuing that work and giving us updated Baserunner Runs?).

It would also be interesting, for years where we have both, to compare these figures to the baserunning component of S-Lwts.

Damn...Just as I was about to link to the Seattle Times Sabermetric Leaderboard!

I was surprised to see David Eckstein as a plus runner, since somebody or other assured me that he was a slow and/or lousy base runner.

And where is the magnificent Jeter in all this, with all of the press he gets about being a heady base runner?

I was surprised to see David Eckstein as a plus runner, since somebody or other assured me that he was a slow and/or lousy base runner.

That may have been me, and that's based on 2005 only.

I also do something similar, as does MGL in superLWTS, as Hawk noted. IIRC, I had Johnny Damon on top from 99-02, but I can't remember. I'm pretty sure I had Jeter way up there too.

That may have been me

Nope. I am specifically joking with somebody else, who suggested that Eckstein was a total black hole of offense, defense and everything else, that he put the Cardinals' post-season hopes in jeopardy.

Me, I just think, given the overall recent lousy calibre of NL Short stops, he was not a bad pick up and is at worst around league average over all, and not a big deal given the firepower the Cardinals can bring to bear.

I'm pretty sure I had Jeter way up there too.

Ah-HAH! Another sell out to the mainstream media myth of the almighty Jeter! Oh, Tango we hardly knew ye!

What surprised me was how few times they got
thrown out per season (5 was the max, for Juan
Encarnacion in 2003). When I saw George Bell in
the early 90's for the Cubs, seemed like he got
nailed at least a dozen times. I'm sure it was
much higher for Hal McRae in his heyday with KC...

If you compare extra bases gained to extra base
opportunities for say Bill Mueller, who got nabbed
10 times, it works out to 65/75 or 86.7%. That
likely was the worst percentage-several guys never
got thrown out.

So why would major league players not risk being
thrown out by an OFer, vs. being thrown out by a
catcher on a stolen base attempt, where the
percentage chance of making it is much lower?
Is it because the spread of opportunities (always
make it/maybe make it/never make it and everything
in between) is much greater than it is for a
stolen base? That is, most of the time it is easy
for the baserunner to make an informed decision of
his chances, and most of the time it is black and
white, and few real gambles. On a SB attempt tho
you have already rolled the dice by the time the
catcher has thrown, thus giving you little chance
to change your mind (well sometimes a runner will
"bluff" towards second, probably because he saw
he would be dead-mainly from reading the pitcher
tho).

Or is it because being thrown out on the bases
carries much more of a stigma than being thrown
on attempting to steal? I know listening to
broadcasts it seems like announcers will harp on
a guy who got nailed by an OFer, but a CS is seen
as a "worthwhile", honorable gamble.

I would love to see how the teams do, would be useful for judging and rating third base coaches.

So why would major league players not risk being
thrown out by an OFer, vs. being thrown out by a
catcher on a stolen base attempt,

Tango will probably chime in with actual data (probably showing me wrong), but I would think that generally the difference between being on second and being on third is low, unless it's with one out. The old adage "don't make the first or third out at third" is pretty much right. So to go from first to third is usually something you should only try when you're darn sure you can make it.

Similarly trying to score from second on a single has a low break-even point with two outs, but a fairly high one with 0/1 out -- though probably a bigger difference than the one above.

I'd guess that the break-even point for advancing on a hit is often in the 85-90% range.

Meanwhile, the first to second move is, relatively, a good move in almost any out situation.

Another thing that needs to be considered is the risk from the OF's perspective. If a C makes a bad throw, the runner advances to 3rd -- again I suspect not that big of a deal most of the time. Meanwhile, even on a good but late throw from the OF, the second runner can advance a base. So the high success rate of advances may partly be due to the fact that OFs only really try to throw a guy out when they think they've got a real good shot at it (or they are named Sammy Sosa).

i was REAL surprised to see jeff bagwell so far down the list. i mean, i know he's gotten a LOT slower this year, but i didn't think he would be that far down.

i was also REAL surprised to see how few guys got thrown out.

it might could help if some OF did things like hit the cut off guy. or throw accurately

The old adage "don't make the first or third out at third" is pretty much right.

That's correct. You can use the run expectancy charts to determine the break-even points. IIRC, stealing 3b with 2 outs requires an 85% success rate.

***

As for how few people get thrown out... how many assists do OF get? The league leader is usually around 20 or so, right? So, I'll guess you are talking about a team's OF getting 40 or so assists from the OF? So, you should expect that a batter gets thrown out around 4 times a year. (All numbers quick and dirty, and guesstimates).