Quick Takes and Clogging

A couple quick hitters on a Friday morning:

Found this interesting article on the Rockies Jeff Francis from earlier this season. I liked this quote from Francis when explaining the "hop" on a good fastball.

"My second-year mechanics professor found out I was a ball player, and asked me to do a presentation with another softball player in the class," Francis recalls. "We read The Physics of Baseball, and one chapter was about the ball's flight toward the plate. The ball rising [is] an optical illusion. Normally, the ball drops a certain amount in the quarter-second or so that it's in the air on its regular flight towards home plate. If the right backspin is obtained, the air can hold it up just a bit longer on the way to home plate, dropping a certain fraction of the regular distance. Since the eye is so used to seeing it drop the regular amount, the ball gives the illusion of rising on the way towards the batter."

This was interesting since I noticed that Tim McCarver said on the Game 1 broadcast that the four seam fastball rises. He didn't qualify the statement although I suppose its possible that he knows it doesn't actually rise but still, alot of folks don't.

For the next day or two ESPN.com is running a special where you can view the Inside Edge information. For example, here is the breakdown for Aaron Cook. It's interesting since it gives you a feel for how a pitcher works left-handed versus right-handed hitters and how the pitch selection differs. In Cook's case he uses his slider twice as much against right-handed hitters than against lefties where he instead relies on his changeup. Of course in his case he's throwing his sinker 82% of the time against both and trying to stay on the outside corner down.

My column on Baseball Prospectus this week used the now infamous Dusty Baker quote as as the introduction into investigating "base clogging" as discussed in a previous post. The results confirm Tom Tango's quick discussion on his blog that a good baserunner is probably only are held up by lead runners to the tune of 1 base per season.

The following table shows some of the results that I didn't include in the column for space reasons. Essentially what it shows is how often runners advance in each of three categories of plays broken down by whether or not there was a lead runner on in front of the runner of interest. I calculated the values for each season since 2000 to see if there were any trends but as you can see overall the data are remarkably consistent.

As you can see runners do indeed advance to third more frequently when on first when the batter singles and there is no runner on second but only by a small amount. Same goes for a runner on second when a batter singles as they score more often but again only be a few percentage points. The interesting thing is that when a runner is on first and the batter doubles, having a lead runner on seems to increase the liklihood that the runner will score. There are probably one or more other factors to consider but I don't have any real favorites at this point. I also did some checking with fast and slow runners and as expected the gaps widen but not by as much as one might think.

Batter Doubles with a Runner on First
           Lead?     Opp   To2nd  To3rd   Scores   OA   To2nd   To3rd  Scores      OA
    2000    TRUE     934             479     424   31           51.3%   45.4%    3.3%
    2000   FALSE    1986            1079     845   62           54.3%   42.5%    3.1%
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    2001    TRUE     853             421     400   32           49.4%   46.9%    3.8%
    2001   FALSE    1866            1012     805   52           54.2%   43.1%    2.8%
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    2002    TRUE     827             461     341   25           55.7%   41.2%    3.0%
    2002   FALSE    1745             985     699   61           56.4%   40.1%    3.5%
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    2003    TRUE     817             414     386   17           50.7%   47.2%    2.1%
    2003   FALSE    1923            1033     823   69           53.7%   42.8%    3.6%
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    2004    TRUE     902             478     401   23           53.0%   44.5%    2.5%
    2004   FALSE    1932            1057     819   57           54.7%   42.4%    3.0%
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    2005    TRUE     852             445     379   28           52.2%   44.5%    3.3%
    2005   FALSE    1937            1071     804   62           55.3%   41.5%    3.2%
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

   TOTAL    TRUE    5185            2698    2331  156           52.0%   45.0%    3.0%
           FALSE   11389            6237    4795  363           54.8%   42.1%    3.2%

Batter Singles with a Runner on First
    2000    TRUE    2924    1950     859      39   78   66.7%   29.4%    1.3%    2.7%
    2000   FALSE    6937    4779    2041      59   59   68.9%   29.4%    0.9%    0.9%
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    2001    TRUE    2601    1771     732      36   60   68.1%   28.1%    1.4%    2.3%
    2001   FALSE    6463    4505    1830      56   71   69.7%   28.3%    0.9%    1.1%
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    2002    TRUE    2749    1876     772      33   68   68.2%   28.1%    1.2%    2.5%
    2002   FALSE    6502    4521    1849      58   75   69.5%   28.4%    0.9%    1.2%
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    2003    TRUE    2771    1951     712      42   66   70.4%   25.7%    1.5%    2.4%
    2003   FALSE    6719    4752    1861      43   64   70.7%   27.7%    0.6%    1.0%
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    2004    TRUE    2753    1889     758      43   63   68.6%   27.5%    1.6%    2.3%
    2004   FALSE    6745    4777    1839      58   70   70.8%   27.3%    0.9%    1.0%
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    2005    TRUE    2719    1949     673      39   58   71.7%   24.8%    1.4%    2.1%
    2005   FALSE    6794    4828    1859      49   58   71.1%   27.4%    0.7%    0.9%
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

   TOTAL    TRUE   16517   11386    4506     232  393   68.9%   27.3%    1.4%    2.4%
           FALSE   40160   28162   11279     323  397   70.1%   28.1%    0.8%    1.0%

Batter Singles Second with a Runner on Second
    2000    TRUE    1366             494     813   36           36.2%   59.5%    2.6%
    2000   FALSE    4445            1461    2792  145           32.9%   62.8%    3.3%
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    2001    TRUE    1249             457     739   40           36.6%   59.2%    3.2%
    2001   FALSE    4240            1442    2587  156           34.0%   61.0%    3.7%
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    2002    TRUE    1259             491     709   40           39.0%   56.3%    3.2%
    2002   FALSE    4335            1475    2655  150           34.0%   61.2%    3.5%
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    2003    TRUE    1268             460     747   44           36.3%   58.9%    3.5%
    2003   FALSE    4337            1499    2627  155           34.6%   60.6%    3.6%
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    2004    TRUE    1292             546     694   39           42.3%   53.7%    3.0%
    2004   FALSE    4240            1469    2590  144           34.6%   61.1%    3.4%
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    2005    TRUE    1243             487     703   38           39.2%   56.6%    3.1%
    2005   FALSE    4335            1578    2557  145           36.4%   59.0%    3.3%
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

   TOTAL    TRUE    7677            2935    4405  237           38.2%   57.4%    3.1%
           FALSE   25932            8924   15808  895           34.4%   61.0%    3.5%