@UVa Baseball

[FredJacket]

I understand your point and it is a good one But other facts make it a tough decision.
1) Are you better off with a runner on 3rd with 2 outs that can score on a wild pitch or a passed ball. especially when the batted ball makes a double play questioable.
2) Or are you better off with a runner on 2nd in scoring position with 2 outs left if the runner on 3rd is thrown out?

#2

 

[CINCYMETJACKET]

I understand your point and it is a good one But other facts make it a tough decision.
1) Are you better off with a runner on 3rd with 2 outs that can score on a wild pitch or a passed ball. especially when the batted ball makes a double play questioable.
2) Or are you better off with a runner on 2nd in scoring position with 2 outs left if the runner on 3rd is thrown out?

For me, it's not a tough decision. Go on contact and make the fielder make the play at home or give up the run and try for the DP.

Throwing home is not a routine play. The fielder has to make a good throw, and the catcher has to catch it and make the tag. Sounds easy, but when you force players to do it, a lot of things can go wrong.

If they get that out, we still have 1st and 2nd with 3, 4, 5 in the lineup due up. Give me that scenario compared to where we were.

 

[gtbeak]

I understand your point and it is a good one But other facts make it a tough decision.
1) Are you better off with a runner on 3rd with 2 outs that can score on a wild pitch or a passed ball. especially when the batted ball makes a double play questioable.
2) Or are you better off with a runner on 2nd in scoring position with 2 outs left if the runner on 3rd is thrown out?

You are better off with runners at 1st and 2nd and 1 out compared to runner at 3rd with 2 outs. I know this is college ball and not MLB, so the numbers are probably a little different, but at the MLB level the run expectancy in an inning with 1st & 2nd and 1 out is 0.908 runs, and for runner at 3rd and 2 outs it is 0.413 runs. (source: https://library.fangraphs.com/misc/re24/ ). In our case, 1 run would have tied, 2 runs would give us the lead, so more than one run was desirable.

With runner at 3rd and 2 outs you are not very likely at all to score more than 1 run. The chances of scoring 1 run are somewhere between next batter's OBP and batting average (a hit definitely scores a run while a walk passes the baton). I would estimate this to be usually around 33%. As you mention, you could get a wild pitch or a passed ball, but neither happen at a rate of much more than 3% tops. So, approximate chance to score 1 run is 36%, more than one run is <10%.

With runners at 1st and 2nd and 1 out the you have two chances for a batter to get a hit to score the run. The chances of this happening are 51% if both are .300 hitters. Of course you could have a DP, which usually happens about 2 times in a ballgame. I don't know exactly how many DP chances come up in a game, but my guess would be that around 10% of the time you get a DP when there is a runner at 1st and less than 2 outs. That would take your chances for scoring at least one run down to 51% - 10% = 41%. So your chances for scoring at least 1 run is only marginally better, but your chances for scoring 2 or more runs is quite a bit larger.

ETA: Me being the geek that I am, I ran a filter on Baseball Savant for the 2024 MLB season to see how often the runner at 3rd tried to score. I filtered on the 2024 MLB season, runners at 1st and 3rd with 0 outs, a ground ball hit that turned into either an out or a fielding error (IOW, not a ground ball base hit). As of last Saturday there had been 26 instances where this has happened in the 2024 season. 25 of the 26 instances the runner tried to score from 3rd. This shows that major leaguers understand it shouldn't be a question for the runner at 3rd, he should be going on contact. The one time the runner didn't try to score was in a tie game, 9th inning, and the defense had the infield all the way in.

 

[FittedJacket]

For me, it's not a tough decision. Go on contact and make the fielder make the play at home or give up the run and try for the DP.

Throwing home is not a routine play. The fielder has to make a good throw, and the catcher has to catch it and make the tag. Sounds easy, but when you force players to do it, a lot of things can go wrong.

If they get that out, we still have 1st and 2nd with 3, 4, 5 in the lineup due up. Give me that scenario compared to where we were.

This was a good point to the extent where they did get a double play on the 6 4 3. I’d rather have two men on with one out. In a perfect world the batter does their job and avoids hitting a double play ball.