Brewers Running Game

[RockCoCougars]

Inevitably, you have to approach baserunning aggressively but still smartly & sensibly. But Macha just basically ignores it as an option altogether.

 

The first sentence I agree with wholeheartedly. The second sentence, I'm not sure. It's not like the Brewers were burning up the basepaths under Yost. I think Melvin's approach is one that views the risk involved with making outs on the basepaths as > the reward of stealing more bases.

You have perfectly summed up what in my view is the failure of Macha (and to a lesser extent Melvin) to produce a winning team- and that is an unwillingness to take risks. Macha is far too conservative for my tastes, and would be better suited for a pushbutton type team, one like... I don't know, one with Hudson, Mulder and Zito as your 1,2 and 3 starters.

[1992casey]

That averages to about 63.5% from 1900-1977.

 

I'm wondering how the threshold of success might differ by era. For instance, would the the necessary success threshold in the 1960s, where offensive production was very low, be lower than the necessary success threshold over the past two decades?

[TooLiveBrew]

Thanks Topper, I appreciate that link.

 

 

You have perfectly summed up what in my view is the failure of Macha (and to a lesser extent Melvin) to produce a winning team- and that is an unwillingness to take risks. Macha is far too conservative for my tastes, and would be better suited for a pushbutton type team, one like... I don't know, one with Hudson, Mulder and Zito as your 1,2 and 3 starters.

 

Who on the team would you run more as manager, though? I summed up my thoughts on this earlier in the thread, and really the only candidate I could come up with was Escobar. In that case it'd likely be a difference of maybe 5-10 more SBs, and roughly 3-6 more outs on the basepaths (mostly in front of the pitcher's spot in the lineup, no less)

[RockCoCougars]

Not counting Escobar, I'd run Gomez (though I know you can't steal first) and Weeks more. I'd say both of them could easily have at least 10 more steals this year. Against poor throwing catchers, I'd run anyone more.

[Baldkin]

That averages to about 63.5% from 1900-1977.

 

I'm wondering how the threshold of success might differ by era. For instance, would the the necessary success threshold in the 1960s, where offensive production was very low, be lower than the necessary success threshold over the past two decades?

My understanding is, in a lower run scoring, lower slugging era, the threshold is lower, because the extra base is much more valuable... e.g. if Prince is hitting (the 1990's) the extra base is way less valuable than when Escobar is hitting (the 1960's).

 

And for where the 75% thing came from, a good explanation can be found here.

 

I won't show all the numbers here, but when you average the cost of a

successful steal in a situation weighted by how often it occurs in that

situation, you get a resulting expected defensive cost of a steal of .16

runs. Doing the same thing for a caught-stealing yields an expected

defensive benefit of .49 runs for a caught stealing.

 

This analysis suggests that the price the offense pays for a caught

stealing is three times the benefit they get from a successful steal.

Another way of looking at it is that in today's game, you need three

successful steals for each caught stealing (a 75 percent stolen-base

rate) just to break even. Previous research had suggested that the SB/CS

break-even point was closer to 2-to-1, but it looks like today's high

run-scoring environment creates an even tougher standard than that.

[topper09er]

That averages to about 63.5% from 1900-1977.

 

I'm wondering how the threshold of success might differ by era. For instance, would the the necessary success threshold in the 1960s, where offensive production was very low, be lower than the necessary success threshold over the past two decades?

 

As the average run scoring environment decreases the SB threshold does as well. The reason is that making outs on the bases is not as bad because the run probably would not have scored anyways.

 

I got out "The Book" which uses numbers from 1999-2002 (the heart of the steroid era, and including AL numbers) and has the threshold at 72%. But those days appear to be over, the 2000 AL averaged 5.3 R/G and it is down to 4.5 this season! (and it got down to an all-time low of 3.4 in 1968)

[TooLiveBrew]

The AL's avg. runs/game from '01 to '10 so far: 4.9, 4.8, 4.9, 5.0, 4.8, 5.0, 4.9, 4.8, 4.8, 4.5. I don't think it's anything more than just an abberation.

[Never Outhustled]

The reason Macha is a horrible manager is because he just plays it safe all the time. He knows overall you should not steal a lot so he just decides to never steal because he cant figure out the times when you actually should, thus making him a terrible manager.

Macha never steals? They do have 54 stolen bases, more than 8 teams. He steals an appropriate amount. Macha may be a poor manager, but his strength is understanding the risks of basestealing with a massive HR hitting lineup.