First to Third

One of the interesting quotes in the Jeff Angus piece on Mike Scoscia was where Scoscia said:

"We can't manufacture on base, so we can't afford to have any wither on the vine. Last year, we went from 1st to 3rd {base} 99 times; we were thrown out six times. Conversely, the Oakland Athletics who play a very passive running game because they don't want to run into outs went {from}1st to 3rd, I believe it was 31 times...you can get those numbers...and they got thrown out 4 times."

This is interesting to me since my base running framework tracks what happens when a batter singles with a runner on first. For 2004 I had the Angels as having 271 such opportunities and reaching third 74 times or 27.3% of the time. I also had them scoring 3 times and getting thrown out 7 times. For the A's I calculated that they reached third 58 times in 235 chances (24.7%) while scoring twice and getting thrown out only once.

Now in my numbers I'm only including those times when second base was not occupied. When I include the times when a runner was on second the Angels had 375 opportunities and made it to third 107 times, scoring four times and getting thrown out 10 times. The A's advanced to third 81 times in 340 chances scoring twice and getting cut down four times.

Based on this I'm not sure how the Angels are calculating their numbers but the point is that they're not that different from other teams and in fact the number of baserunners they lose more than makes up for the small difference in advancement. The reason that they score runs with less is that they hit so well with runners in scoring position both in 2004andd 2005.

In any case here are the numbers for 2005 when second base was unoccupied sorted in order by how often the team advances to third on a single (these are not park adjusted of course).

Team      Opp  Second     Pct   Third     Pct  Scores    OA
NYN       205     128   62.4%      73   35.6%       3     1
TBA       238     156   65.5%      77   32.4%       4     1
NYA       282     185   65.6%      91   32.3%       4     2
CHN       226     154   68.1%      69   30.5%       1     2
CHA       242     167   69.0%      73   30.2%       1     1
KCA       233     161   69.1%      70   30.0%       0     2
ANA       244     168   68.9%      72   29.5%       2     2
ATL       202     143   70.8%      59   29.2%       0     0
HOU       198     138   69.7%      57   28.8%       1     2
OAK       232     164   70.7%      66   28.4%       2     0
TOR       254     177   69.7%      72   28.3%       1     4
SFN       235     167   71.1%      64   27.2%       1     3
TEX       199     141   70.9%      54   27.1%       2     2
MIL       204     143   70.1%      55   27.0%       1     5
FLO       244     177   72.5%      65   26.6%       2     0
CIN       198     145   73.2%      52   26.3%       1     0
COL       228     164   71.9%      59   25.9%       2     3
WAS       217     158   72.8%      56   25.8%       0     3
ARI       221     163   73.8%      57   25.8%       0     0
PHI       226     157   69.5%      58   25.7%       6     5
LAN       221     161   72.9%      56   25.3%       2     2
SLN       225     166   73.8%      57   25.3%       1     1
BAL       229     169   73.8%      58   25.3%       1     1
BOS       257     189   73.5%      65   25.3%       1     1
DET       246     181   73.6%      61   24.8%       2     2
PIT       227     167   73.6%      56   24.7%       2     2
SDN       208     152   73.1%      51   24.5%       0     5
CLE       213     158   74.2%      52   24.4%       0     3
MIN       243     182   74.9%      57   23.5%       2     2
SEA       197     147   74.6%      45   22.8%       4     1

Looks like the Phils were the most high risk-high reward team getting thrown out five times but also scoring six times.