Why do so many bloggers hate Plaschke?

Nah. That's marketing more than anything else.

 

Stolen bases did not hold down attendance. Less disposable income and much fewer credit cards made attendance less in the 1970s and 1980s.

 

In fact, it's far more than 50 percent of the time that runners are successful. Last year, NL runners were successful on 1564 of 2070 attempts, which is 75.5 percent. Compare that to steal-happy 1982, when NL runners were only successful 68.4 percent of the time (1782 of a whopping 2604 attempts). I think you can attribute that to managers only giving the green light to guys like Pierre and Reyes and Crawford now, instead of the Tommy Herrs and Terry Pendletons of the world.

The question is, how much more valuable is a runner on second than a runner on first, and is that worth the 25-30 percent risk of making an out. Many sabermetricians are of the opinion that outs are too valuable to give away, and there is definitely some validity to that.

But here's an interesting stat. I don't have an explanation for it, and I have no idea what it means. But for whatever reason, batting averages seem to go way, way down when there's a runner on second base as opposed to a runner on first base. I don't know if that can be chalked up to the first baseman playing on the bag and balls squeezing through, or the 2B/SS playing closer to the bag, and opening up holes, or pitchers being distracted by a runner who is more likely to steal second than steal third, or what.

But it's been borne out over the last decade, and it's an interesting tangent to the debate over whether stolen bases are worth the risk.

Here's the numbers, if anybody's interested. Again, I'm not drawing any conclusions or trying to make a point. Just that it's happening this way on the field.

National League batting averages
w/ R-1B only w/ R-2B only lg. avg.
2007 .277 .267 .266
2006 .279 .256 .265
2005 .280 .247 .262
2004 .278 .239 .263
2003 .280 .251 .262
2002 .265 .251 .259
2001 .273 .246 .261
2000 .284 .249 .266
1999 .277 .255 .268
1998 .281 .253 .262

And maybe it doesn't mean anything, but the numbers were similar in 1978-82, 1967-71 and 1957-61 (the only years I checked.) There's a consistent 20-40 point drop in batting average when there's a single runner on second versus a single runner on first. I don't know what that says, but it certainly decreases at least some of the benefit that a team gets from that one extra base. Obviously, it's a good thing to have a runner in scoring position -- but if a runner generally moves from first to third on a single, and your batting average goes up 40 points in that situation, maybe it's not such a bad thing to keep him on first and let your hitters hit.

EDIT: And since a stolen base often results in an intentional walk, putting two runners on, the numbers don't change much when there's runners on 1st and 2nd, instead of just 2nd. Batting averages with runners on 1-2 are still about 10 points lower than the league average, close to .250, as opposed to the .270s and .280s with a runner on 1st only. Just sayin'.

 

Don't you guys do this dance biweekly?

 

Well, a batter, with none out and a runner on first, often will just ground out to the right side to advance the runner into sac fly position. As good as a sacrifice, but it counts against the batting average. And the average may be higher with a runner on first because besides the holding-the-runner-on aspect, the pitcher can be thrown off trying to hold a base-stealing threat on. Wonder if there's a stat comparing runner on first not held vs. runner on first held. I'd guess batting average would be higher with a Brock on first than with a Stargell.

 

"Team speed for Christ's sake, you get fuckin' goddamn little fleas on the fucking bases getting picked off trying to steal, getting thrown out, taking runs away from you, you get the big cocksuckers who can hit the fuckin' ball out of the ballpark and you can't make any goddamn mistakes." -- Earl Weaver

 

Paul DePodesta certainly did not "win the division with someone else's players." Again, the rallying cry against him by much of the SoCal media was that he traded away some of the guys who had helped the Dodgers to also-ran status in recent years. He traded for Brad Penny (and couldn't predict the injury to him) and Milton Bradley, who was a pretty major part of that year's "success."

Yes, he also traded for Hee Seop Choi. But the kid didn't just show up and sit back. He knew he had a team that had a tendency to fade (especially Lo Duca), and he did what he could to juice it enough to get it over the finish line. Not every move worked, but Chavez Ravine denizens had gotten used to Chad Curtis being the big midseason move. Aggressiveness works.

As for Pierre . . . Most teams like their leadoff batters to draw a walk or two. Pierre can be an effective threat when paired with another speedster at the top, as he was in Florida with Luis Castillo, and as the Dodgers see him being with Rafael Furcal in a perfect world. If he bats second, he might get sloppier pitches with Furcal on base. If he bats first, all the pitcher has to do is dare him to hit it, since he has zero power and will not walk.

In the field, his arm is middling. But like all baseball discussions, this one does not take place in a vacuum. Ask yourself this: would you rather go with an outfield of Ethier, Andruw Jones and Kemp, or try to slide Pierre in thre somewhere?

The glass is half full, though. On the video game, I can put him at first and keep that speed in the lineup. Problem solved.

 

I'm neither a sabermetrics guy or an old-school guy. Ideally, you'd have a good combination of both.

Regarding the blog post, which this post was about — Plaschke is one of the best in the biz, when he's basically turning his column into a feature. He takes some whacked out fucking stances, and I can't handle it. When he delivers, he does it like few do. I'm talking, maybe 10 writers in the country. When he doesn't, he's pretty unbearable.

I'd still take him over all but Posnanski and a few others.

 

The former. Easily.

Andruw's one of the top 5 defensive center fielders in history and (until last year) a very productive hitter. I'd pencil him in for 160 games and never regret it for a second.

Kemp hit .342 in 300 at-bats last year and is a career .311 hitter in the minors, and, while he can't play the field worth a damn, I think his bat is too valuable to keep out of the lineup. He's 22, with the potential to be a real star.

Ethier regressed a little last year, but still had an .800+ OPS in 2007. He's also a career .300 hitter in the minors and, while he can't run the bases worth a damn, he's a lot better player than Pierre, who's not a good enough fielder to make up for his atrocious hitting and not a good enough hitter to make up for his defensive flaws.

 

There's more pressure on a hitter to knock a runner in from second than moving him station-to-station with a single if he's on first. The impact on the mind is completely different when put in a pressure situation.

In the case of a stolen base, you don't want to take a chance with someone other than your first or second hitter. They usually are the fastest on the team, to set up the meat of the order. If you're going to steal, why not try a hit-and-run, if you have the third or fourth batter up? It's basically the same thing if the runner gets gunned at second and there's no hit. At least with a hit-and-run, you give your third or fourth hitter a chance at a hole.

 

The stolen base came back in a big way last year in the National League. The league stole at a 76 percent clip, which is just amazing. (Lou Brock for his career only had a 72 percent success rate). The Phillies stole 138 bases at an incredible 88 percent rate.

The game constantly evolves, of course. The last 15 years has seen power dominate the game -- on the mound and in the batter's box. As the stolen base trickles out of the game, more teams are going with catchers with mediocre arms and huge power pitchers with long deliveries. The basestealers caught up last year.

Pierre isn't a totally hopeless hitter. If he were in a decent park for him (which Dodger is not), he could hit .320, which would make him a fairly valuable hitter. At .295 he's marginal.

He hits well enough to be a starting center fielder for a few bad teams...except he's not a good center fielder. With Andruw on board, Pierre is easily the worst-hitting corner outfielder in baseball.

It's not that Ethier is some stud. He's not. But he's outplayed Pierre by a wide margin for two years and has a lot more upside.