“Here’s the Throw…”

How often should players be thrown out at home plate when trying to score from second on a single? The first thing to realize is that the answer is definitely not “Never.” If a team never gets a guy thrown out at the plate trying to score from second, they are almost surely too timid in sending runners home. The obvious case is with two outs. If you have a handy RE24 table (and assuming the table is accurate for your team) the generic answer is fairly simple. Here’s one I took from FanGraphs.

If you haven’t seen one of these before, it’s just the expected runs in the rest of the inning starting from the 24 possible combinations of outs and baserunners.

So suppose the batter hits a single with a man on second and two outs. What is the crossover-probability of being thrown out to send him? If you send him and he is out, you get no runs. If you send him and he is safe you expect either an addition 0.214 or 0.305 runs depending on whether the throw allows the hitter to advance to second on the throw or not. Call this 0.25 runs on average. If you hold him up at third, you can expect 0.471 runs. So sending him nets (1-p)x1.25-0.471. Equating the two, this gains runs whenever p<62%. Third bases coaches ought to take huge chances with two outs.

With no outs, however, the situation is very different. In that case, getting thrown out yields an expected 0.5 runs (roughly averaging man on first and man on second with one out), scoring yields 1.9 runs, and staying on third yields 1.8 runs. So now the equation becomes:

0.5p + 1.9(1-p) = 1.8

Giving a crossover probability of p of around 7%. Essentially, you should never get thrown out at home.

There are obviously thing that make this simple model more complicated. In particular, I have taken no account of the score difference — the point of baseball is to win games, and run-scoring is only one component.

So now the question is: are third bases coaches too aggressive or not aggressive enough? Unfortunately, we have no direct evidence to evaluate this, because we cannot observe the probability of scoring on any particular play. There are some clues we might get, though from looking at the data. More about that tomorrow.

The Game

When I was a kid, all the World Series games were day games. (The first night game was in 1971.) My first baseball memory was watching Game 7 of the 1964 World Series on a Thurday afternoon at a party at the Alexander House, bordering what would eventually be Phipps Plaza. My memories are pretty fragmentary, but I think I actually remember Mantle’s homer off Gibson. Of course it’s possible that this is a manufactured retro-memory, but y’all aren’t reading this to psychoanalyze me, I hope.

A 3:10 start in Milwaukee is a genuinely odd time to start a baseball game. Big games are almost never day games any more. But today’s match between two of top three records in the NL, with the top two starters in ERA had a definite Gibson vs. McLain feel, to name a World Series matchup just four years later. Unlike a World Series, a win is not exactly critical for either team, but things are still tight enough that every regular season win is still important.

Of course, every anticipated pitcher’s duel has the potential to become what is known in my household as a Foltynewicz, in which hitting the bars before the end of the first inning is the preferred path.

Sale cracked first, with a three-single third inning that put the first two runs on the board. Like so many close games, there was a chance to get out of the inning had a ball up the middle found Sale’s glove… but it didn’t.

Through five innings, there were 11 hits, all singles, between the two teams. Ronald Acuña, Jr., as is his wont, made one incredible play to keep a Brewer from taking second base on a ball into the right field corner, made one bonehead play when caught on a delayed steal that had William Contreras slightly dumbfounded, and blew a challenge.

After Matt Olson was robbed at the wall by an excellent play on Misiorowski’s 90th pitch, Michael Harris II got the first extra-base hit of the game: a ringing double, but he was stranded and it appeared that we could face the rest of the Brewers’ staff for the rest of the game: Miz finished with four hits, 6 K’s and two walks.

Sale gave up more hits (8) and also struck out 6, but was equally efficient, getting through his six innings on 94 pitches to Misiorowski’s 96. All told, it was what you expect from playopff-level baseball. And if Roger is going to be disappointed in the Braves offense, consistence requires to him almost equally disappointed in Milwaukee’s.

Antonio Senzatela is no Jacob Misiorowski, but good enough to pitch a scoreless 7th. He was greeted by a single which would have been a double had Dubón been running out of the box — instead, it was a replay-assisted out at second.

Brent Suter is not only no Chris Sale, he went to Harvard. Despite his unfortunate choice of institutions of higher learning, he is growing on me. He is that baseball type known as a “character.” We have plenty of baseball celebrities. We need more characters.

Senzatela came back out for the 8th and promptly walked Yastrzemski in one of the few matchups between two players with internal z’s in their last names. The Brewers then botched a double play that got RAJ to second. He advanced to 3rd on an Olson single with two outs. Harris singled him in, though, to cut the margin to one. A walk to Ozzie Albies loaded the bases for Dubón. A lineout ended the threat.

Dylan Dodd is no Bob Dylan. He did however get Tangled Up with Brew in the bottom of the eighth, yielding a single and a walk to start his stint. A strikeout was followed by a double play that was brilliantly turned bu Dubón and Albies, but relied on Gary Sánchez being as fast to first as Gary Glitter.

Trevor Megill (older brother of the Mets’ Tylor) is the Brewers’ closer. After his first pitches led to two outs, Yastrzemski singled to give Acuña a chance, which became an even better chance when pinch-runner Lane Thomas stole second. But he struck out to end it.

Sean Murphy haters will note that William Contreras had four singles in this game, including the first RBI.

Overall, a good game that we didn’t win. Much better losing the same game a month-and-a-half from now.

Another day game tomorrow, 2:10 EDT.