Jim Henneman: Would Hyun Soo Kim Be Slowest O's Leadoff Man? No Way

[jamalshw]

35 minutes ago, Frobby said:

BP has a stat for baserunning runs.    It includes not only runs gained by stolen bases, but by advancing on various kinds of batted balls, etc.    According to that stat, in 2016, the top team in MLB was the Diamondbacks, at +19.4 runs, while the worst was the Tigers, at -18.4 runs.    I've looked back at the last 40 years, and the spread of 37.8 runs between best and worst is pretty typical.

The best baserunning team of the last 40 years, per BP, was the 1979 Royals, at +32.6.    The worst was the 1987 Orioles, at -33.2.     The '79 Royals stole 207 bases while being caught 76 times.   The '87 Orioles stole 69 bases while being caught 45 times.    Interestingly, for the Royals, only about 1/3 of their baserunning runs related to stolen bases; the rest came from advancing on batted balls.    Same for the '87 Orioles only more so: only about 12% of their negative value came from their stolen base record.

And what of the 2016 Orioles?   Per BP, they were at +1.0.    They cost themselves 2 runs on stolen base efforts, and made up for it by being slightly above average in other categories.

BB-ref has its own version of Baserunning Runs, in which the 2016 Orioles ranked a -2.    On that measure, the '87 Orioles ranked -18.

Bottom line, I think you are right that speed on the basepaths is not a very high impact attribute.

It would be interesting to see if there's a way to weight the relative importance of those runs gained/lost over the course of the season. Of course a swing of less than 40 runs over 162 games can be marginalized, I would guess that a number of those runs likely came in close games late (though that's just a guess and not easily quantified). Obviously, in the grand scheme you want to score more than you allow, but looking solely at the number of runs and not the timing can paint only a portion of the picture. After all, that's why a team's Pythagorean record and actual record can vary. The argument is that eventually it evens out as luck is a key factor to that difference, but I think the difference cannot be exclusively attributed to luck. 

[Frobby]

42 minutes ago, UpstateNYfan said:

Statistically you are most likely correct and teams, rightfully so, try do win games. I may be in the minority, but, for entertainment value, I enjoy speed. It is painful for me to watch a guy like Hardy (who I like), hit a ball in the hole, the SS drops it and still beats Hardy by two steps with a throw. 

I actually agree with you.   I was highly entertained in 2006-07 when we had Brian Roberts and Corey Patterson atop the lineup stealing 80+ bases between them.   Unfortunately, those teams didn't have much else going on for them.   On the whole, I'll take the current plodding, homer-oriented offense over those 2006-07 teams, but I do enjoy watching a team that can run.  

[DrungoHazewood]

On 3/9/2017 at 8:18 PM, Can_of_corn said:

The Schnozz's .358 good enough?

That's a good question.  Lombardi might be the slowest good baseball player in history.  He's the guy who supposedly was once thrown out at first on a ball he lined off the left field wall.  It would be pretty gutsy (or desperate) to bat him leadoff.  He might not score from second on a double.

In '42 Lombardi "won" the batting title* at .330, had a .402 OBP, and scored 32 runs.  In his career he never started a game batting higher than 4th in the lineup.

* for those who haven't heard the story the league commish stepped in and awarded Lombardi the title despite only playing 105 games and 347 PAs, more-or-less because catching is hard.