Just looking at some stats. We are: 2nd in the league in Stolen Base Opportunities 3rd in the league in Stolen Base Percentage (86%) yet 13th in the league in Stolen Bases (below league average) For a team that embraces analytics, it seems like we are leaving a lot of potential runs on the table. Why would we not attempt more often when the success rate is 86%? The league average is 79%, so it's not like catchers are throwing out runners at a high rate - it's exactly the opposite. I'm not an analytics guy, but this seems like 6th grade math.
Stealing bases is a skill, and it's a skill that is very underdeveloped in the modern game because metrics consistently say the value is rarely worth the risk. You have to consistently steal at an over 80% clip to create any positive value, and very few players can do that at high volume, nor do they want to even try in the risk averse modern game. Picking your spots and stealing bases is different from aggressively taking them Baseball is sport of outs not time, and risking one of your 27 to help maybe advance a base which maybe will help score at best one run doesn't jive with the math. It's very much in the same grouping as the sac bunt, not quite as bad statistically but the same general concept. You play for a lot of runs most of the time, not one, so you protect those outs.
Speaking of sacrifice bunts.... if you are in extra innings...in the bottom half of the inning and still tied....you need to be sacrifice bunting 100% of the time.
Cause most of our SB come from 3 players. Tucker, Altuve and Pena Tucker has hit 28 extra base hits Altuve has 19 and Pena has 14 So that's basically 61 hits that didn't lead to much opportunity for the SB The rest of the team really aren't SB types. Jake has the speed, but has never been very good at it. Chas will run if he starts hitting The others just kind of run in situations of opportunity, pitcher falls asleep, that kind of stuff We really don't want Jon, Alex, Yordan, Yainer trying to steal a lot of bases
Yes. First pitch of the inning. Man on second no outs. 100% sac bunt. Of course not if the first guy somehow didn't get the sac bunt down.
It should be as matter of fact as a guy taking second on fielders indifference if he's not being held on. There shouldn't even need to be a sign. Just sac bunt in that specific situation.
Bunts and stolen bases were a HUGE part of the game for a long time. I would love to see more of that style of baseball again.
Success rate is high (86%) because of selective stealing. Trying more often (being less selective) would reduce our success rate and reduce run opportunities. Eighth grade math.
The Astros have 7 guys hitting over 0.400 on bunts since 2019, with two more guys perfect on getting sacrifices with bunts in play. Diaz, Bregman, Singleton, and whoever the 26th man is on the roster are the non-bunters.
Here's the thing, the Astros like scoring runs and winning games. The Astros bunt effectively even if they sacrifice the happiness of bunt enthusiasts by swinging away in bunt situations in which it is harder to bunt and bunting when they got a good chance for a hit.
I think there may be some additional considerations at play, although I agree from that information it's curious given that the conventional rule of thumb for success rate in base stealing is around 70%. For instance, it's been observed that attempting to steal a base can make the batter at the time perform worse - maybe this is entering into their calculation. Additionally, perhaps base stealing is relatively risky from an injury perspective. Maybe when you account for some of those additional factors as inputs to your "base stealing" model the updated break even success rate is closer to the mid-80s.
There is a big difference between break even success rate and optimal success rate. The goal isn't to get as many steals at the break even point. The goal is to get the most value towards helping the team win. Here's a quick run value for this season for teams SBs attempts and percentage. Near 70%, it takes a lot more stolen bases to add a lot of runs (i.e., you are just breaking even most times). Increasing percentage slightly when stealing a lot, increases runs very fast if you can keep up the attempts. When you get around 85%, getting better percentages doesn't help as much, but you add a lot of runs quickly if you can increase your attempts without losing much efficiency. From this, I'd guess 80-85% is the optimal rate for most teams. If you are a big stealing team, you want to be closer to 80%. If you don't have a lot speedsters, you probably want to be closer to 85%.
People who know how to bunt should bunt when the team needs a bunt. I dislike the give-it-up bunt, except in certain situations, I LOVE the bunt for hit (which if you do it right it accomplishes both things)
