Taking the Extra Base

One of the interesting things to look at when you have access to play by play data is how often baserunners advance on various plays. Probably the two most common scenarios that come up are the first to third and second to home scenarios when the batter singles. If you’ve read this blog previously you’ll know that these are two of the scenarios I use when calculating my baserunning framework.

In any case here are the leaders for 2004 in going from first to third on a single (more than 10 opportunities):

Jack Wilson  PIT 21 13 .619
Larry Walker  COL 26 16 .615
Jose Macias  CHN 12 7 .583
Miguel Olivo  CHA 14 8 .571
Alfonso Soriano TEX 21 12 .571
Chone Figgins ANA 29 16 .551
Laynce Nix  TEX 20 11 .550
Robert Fick  TBA 22 12 .545
Torii Hunter  MIN 22 12 .545
Tony Womack  SLN 35 19 .542

The league average is .272.

In contrast Tino Martinez and Bill Mueller were apparently dragging boat anchors behind them as they were 1 for 33 and 1 for 30 in these situations respectively.

In going from second to home the leaders were:

Luis Castillo FLO 16 15 .938
Rondell White DET 13 12 .923
Cesar Izturis LAN 20 18 .900
Dan Wright  NYN 10 9 .900
David Wright  NYN 10 9 .900
Coco Crisp  CLE 17 15 .882
Hideki Matsui NYA 22 19 .863
Reed Johnson  TOR 20 17 .850
Vladimir Guerrero ANA 19 16 .842
Dave Roberts  BOS 12 10 .833

The league average here is .598. On the bottom of the pile Sammy Sosa was 1 for 10 and Randall Simon, Mike Piazza, and Shannon Stewart were 2 for 12.

Now of course in both of these lists there is no allowance made for where the ball is hit nor how many outs there were when these opportunities occurred. Both of these are factors, however, that come into play when calculating the baserunning framework.