IGT 06/16 - Brewers at Mets - Win One For Marie!

[Edgy MD]

Did you not see it?

[Fman99]

For some reason Marte did not break on contact. The infield was in and the first baseman did catch the grounder. Marte waited for him to throw to second to break for home.



The throw was not great and the shortstop, in attempting to ensure he forced the runner, had to do a bit of a shuffle step just to step on 2nd and force Guillorme. While that was all happening, Marte scored uncontested.



It was all very clunky, on both sides.

[Frayed Knot]

The fact that the infield was in caused the sloppy throw and footwork since the IF'ers were set-up for, and only anticipated, a throw home if the ball came to them.

I think (1B) Tellez simply assumed Marte had broken for home and instantly decided he had no shot at him so went for the GiDP as his only hope. But the DP wasn't

going to happen as he's now throwing to a back-pedaling (and somewhat late-arriving) SS because of course he was playing in too.

Marte obviously should have broken on contact (I can't believe Buck sent him out there to do anything else) but at least he read the play correctly as it unfolded.

[Edgy MD]

Brewers shortstop Willy Adames, who had a kinda rough game, was sort of caught in no-man's land. He was already cheating in, and took a step or two in when the ball was hit. I don't know if he suddenly realized that his job was to cover second, or he only figured that out after Tellez turned toward him, but he was taking an un-natural path to the bag, and he and Tellez connected really poorly. A perfect approach and a perfect throw might have made the double-play possible, but with the infield in, that was going to be a tough one to pull off even if everybody does their job perfectly.



I'm trying to figure out if there was any gamesmanship in Marte's strategy — trying to draw a throw behind him at third, or at least make Tellez think of that. It's a time-honored baseball tradition that, when you see a drafthorse like Tellez out there, you want to make him make plays. Ask the 2015 Royals.

[Frayed Knot]

The other odd note about the 8th inning play was Nido immediately going over to check on Renfroe and help him up.

At the risk of yapping about 'back in my day when men were men' type of bullshit, that was the last thing I wanted to see after that play with a man on 3rd and an out still to get.

He took a mitt to the face ... Big Fuckin' Deal. Send him some flowers after the game if it makes you feel better.



I remember back when Francouer was here and he slid, somewhat hard, into an opposing catcher (don't even remember whether he was out or safe) and then immediately bounced

up to check if he was alright. Gary virtually exploded at seeing this saying that the catcher's condition should be none of Frenchie's concern. Fast forward a decade or more to this

similar, if reversed, play last night, and none of the three in the booth said a word, either not seeing it or becoming so used to it that they took no notice.

[Edgy MD]

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[roger_that]

Edgy MD wrote: Did you not see it?

A few times. But it still didn't make much sense to me. If Marte did not take off when the ball first bounced, wouldn't it have been relatively easy to throw him out at almost any point? He couldn't have known that the shortstop would get his feet all tangled up. Normally, that would be a straightforward play, SS to C. Did Marte screw up and get away with it? Or was that planned somehow?

[Edgy MD]

As the booth tried to suggest, the typical play there would be to break for home, and if you're out, you're out. At least you (a) keep your team out of a double-play, still giving them a chance with two on, ( force the firstbaseman, usually the worst thrower on the team, to make a throw, and © force a tag play, which is never automatic.



That said, whatever Marte was thinking, it worked. I'm wondering if he thought that — among the (a) infield being positioned in, ( the firstbaseman being forced to start the play, © his dancing off third enough to make the the firstbaseman pause a beat, and (d) Plummer's wheels, from the left side — the double play was an unlikely outcome, and not breaking was simply the sMARTEr play.

[MFS62]

Happened to see a discussion on a Strat page this week that mentioned that Marte has the highest possible "card" rating(whatever that is) for baserunning in their 16 team league.

Starling Marte, NYM: rh, 33, 514 ab, AA steal, cf-2(-2)e4, 85.2/100.2; was the last guy passed over, best baserunner in the deck

Whatever he thought about on that play, Strat feels he's the one to know how to achieve the best outcome.

Can any strat players here confirm that?



Later

[Frayed Knot]

That 'Strat Page' (whatever that is) is using a lot of words to tell you that Marte is fast, something we kinda already knew that and (don't want to speculate too much here) is likely the reason he was pinch-running.



The question at hand is his instructions and/or thought process at the time.

[Edgy MD]

There are AAA stealers too (Raines, Henderson). A AA stealer is a guy that can win a basestealing title. A AAA basestealer is an all-time great, best of his era. There's usually, therefore, typically only one in the deck at a time, even if it's a guy like Billy Hamilton who doesn't have much else in his offensive satchel.



A 2 on defense in centerfield is a good flycatcher, and exists on a 1/2/3/4 spectrum. a -2 is a solid arm, but that comes on a much wider spectrum, going on a -5/-4/-3/-2/-1/0/+1/+2/+3/+4/+5 spectrum.



Jesse Barfield was a +5. Dave Winfield and Ellis Valentine too, and I imagine Yoenis Céspedes when he was at the top of his game. I never had a -5 on my team, but I had an outfield of three -4's in Corey Snider, Kirby Puckett, and Glenn Wilson. George Bell was usually my starting leftfielder, but I'd call him in to play third (or lift him entirely) and send Snider out there when a sacrifice fly could make the difference.



What you're not showing, however, is his actual baserunner rating, which should exist apart from his stealing rating. The top baserunner in the league usually has about a 1–18 rating, which means that, when he has a chance to go for an extra base, he's going to get it about 90% of the time, assuming a 0-armed outfielder is throwing.

[MFS62]

That was all they posted.

Everyone's thought process is different.

My take on it is that a very good baserunner has the ability to take in the situation (such as where the ball is hit, placement of the defenders, ability of the defenders, etc.) and can process that information is a very short period of time to determine whether he should run.

We can't know what, and the speed with which, it went through his mind that resulted in his decision. (We can only guess.)

We can just see the result.



Later

[batmagadanleadoff]

Happened to see a discussion on a Strat page this week that mentioned that Marte has the highest possible "card" rating(whatever that is) for baserunning in their 16 team league. Starling Marte, NYM: rh, 33, 514 ab, AA steal, cf-2(-2)e4, 85.2/100.2; was the last guy passed over, best baserunner in the deck Whatever he thought about on that play, Strat feels he's the one to know how to achieve the best outcome. Can any strat players here confirm that? Later

I haven't played in many years, decades really, and SOM is always adding new features to the game. The "AA" designation is a base stealing rank, which in SOM, is separate from baserunning. I have no idea what that "85.2/100/2" is, but it might be connected to Marte's SOM baserunning. I've never seen SOM numbers or rankings in that format. That's definitelty a new feature that didn't exist when I played. There was a baserunning rank when I played, but it was in this format: 1-x, where x is a number less than 20 and as far as I can remember, never higher than 17. 1-17 was the highest ranked baserunning designation.

[Fman99]

Edgy MD wrote: assuming a 0-armed outfielder is throwing.

Neat trick

[Benjamin Grimm]

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