Nimmo and the Mets have a deal

[metsmarathon]

the game is better and more fun when stolen bases are in play.



unfortunately, the math says that unless you're really good at doing it successfully at the major league level, you're team is better off if you just don't.



at least, according to the maths that we are currently able to measure.



there may be secondary effects of having a base-stealer on first that are harder to measure, and it makes sense that these effects must surely exist - we just cannot measure how much value they have - of skewing the infield defense, or distracting the pitcher's focus, or degrading the catcher's ability to frame pitches, or affecting pitch selection, or being more primed to go first-to-third, or advancing on a bad throw, and so on and so forth - that i think teams and players should keep the SB in their arsenal, even before the upcoming rule changes, but it's probably a hard sell. i dont know how much those knock-on effects truly move the needle, but you're still going to need to be significantly more successful than not for it to be worth it.

[Edgy MD]

If anybody wants to cite their studies, please do.

[metsmarathon]

per a cursory google search:



https://batflipsandnerds.com/2018/11/03/analytics-and-its-effects-on-the-mlb-the-stolen-base/https://batflipsandnerds.com/2018/11/03/analytics-and-its-effects-on-the-mlb-the-stolen-base/



just scanned through it a bit; has lots of math, draws some conclusions. seems pretty good.



i've been reading this kind of thing for at least the past 10-20 years, so there are plenty of other sources out there.

[Edgy MD]

Thank you.

[batmagadanleadoff]

there may be secondary effects of having a base-stealer on first that are harder to measure, and it makes sense that these effects must surely exist - we just cannot measure how much value they have - of skewing the infield defense, or distracting the pitcher's focus, or degrading the catcher's ability to frame pitches, or affecting pitch selection, or being more primed to go first-to-third, or advancing on a bad throw, and so on and so forth - that i think teams and players should keep the SB in their arsenal....

Wouldn't these other effects already be baked into the formula, to a large degree? If these "secondary" effects impact run scoring, they would change the break-even number for base-stealing, which is a function of run scoring.

[nymr83]

Edgy MD wrote: I would disagree with that. I think we've all read some variation on that, and allowed it to become an established truth, while we neglect to cite where we got it, and mostly don't remember where we got it, or what the break-even point actually is alleged to be. Bill James has been researching the value of stolen bases at least since you were in elementary school, if not earlier. Tom Tango and then like a zillion others. The break even point is in the neighborhood of a 75% success rate and the math you'd need to calculate this yourself is fairly simple and straightforward. You just need to assemble the data so that you can then calculate break even. Or just trust James and Tango and like every other reputable sabrmetrician. They're not defending their break even figures the way others claim there's an invisible magician in the sky who runs the world. This is just math and logic.. There's no mystery here, not by any stretch of the imagination. Break even might change radically in 2023 as the bases will be larger and pickoff attempts will be severely limited. Its gonna be easier to steal a base next season.

Why would larger bases change the break even rate? they would likely change the success rate for many players, thus changing the number who should attempt to steal more often as they are more likely to hit that break even rate, but why would the break even rate change?

[Ceetar]

the break even point will change because MLB will fuck with the baseball again. The bigger bases and the inane pick-off rule will have some effect, but it's hard to tell what exactly yet. It might be that the huge lead you'd be able to get if you can draw 2 throws cuts into a lot of the value of a SB, because if you can be 40% of the way already..



If you really want to get in the weeds with it, you could adjust based on park and offense. If you're a light-hitting offense in a low-run park, your break even point is lower. Same if you're playing against the Yankees and Aaron Judge, because MLB has made sure the balls are more likely to fly out of the park in those games. More chance of a HR means less difference between being on first or second.





As for secondary effects? we can measure those too. We have all sorts of splits for pitchers, runners on base, speed of runner on base. We can isolate out pitcher stats when Rickey was on base versus not. I don't know those conclusions off the top of my head, but they're not significant. You'd also have to look for potential batter distraction too. Perhaps rhythms get broken up for batter's too, when there's throw overs. This might be ESPECIALLY true in 2023, with the pitch clock. The pitcher still has quite a few ways to delay the game, and mess with timing. And with a faster pace of play and the pitcher still in control of it, it might mess with batter's more. We're absolutely going to get pick-off attempts on comically slow catchers, just so the pitcher can take an extra 15 seconds or whatever. Pete Alonso takes the lazy 40mph pick off throw, puts the tag on the runner in a comically slow manner. Looks at the ball. Adjusts his grip, Lobs it back softly.

[metsmarathon]

there may be secondary effects of having a base-stealer on first that are harder to measure, and it makes sense that these effects must surely exist - we just cannot measure how much value they have - of skewing the infield defense, or distracting the pitcher's focus, or degrading the catcher's ability to frame pitches, or affecting pitch selection, or being more primed to go first-to-third, or advancing on a bad throw, and so on and so forth - that i think teams and players should keep the SB in their arsenal.... Wouldn't these other effects already be baked into the formula, to a large degree? If these "secondary" effects impact run scoring, they would change the break-even number for base-stealing, which is a function of run scoring.

the secondary effects can absolutely be measured, it's just that, to my knowledge, WE don't have ready access to that dataset.



they're not currently in the formula, because it looks at the entire population of base/out situations, not the quality of the runner or the expected outcome.



you would need to at minimum parse it out to the effect having a likely basestealer on first vs an unlinkely basestealer, and look at the change in the outcomes. there's a lot of small sample size things, and apples & orangutans comparisons that would come out, where with a narrower dataset you're probably going to need to normalize for the quality of hitter - presuming a better hitter could be more likely to follow a good basestealer and a less-good hitter may likely follow a worse basestealer. but given enough data, i'm sure it could be done.



give me a well-paying job, and maybe some python lessons, and i'll get right on it LOL.



but i do believe the secondary effects would change the break-even number. i don't think it's a wholesale change, but maybe a few percentage points of success rate, and maybe that's enough to encourage the entire volume of basestealing to rise, if the data were to bear it out.



also, it may be true that if mlb continues to deaden balls, the cost of an unsuccessful stolen base goes down. i think too that perhaps as k-rates increase, maybe advancing that extra base could become more valuable (?). math must be done! to the calculators, baseball nerds!

[A Boy Named Seo]

Changing topic slightly, Sherman said https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2022/12/yankees-have-discussed-outfield-trades-with-twins-diamondbacks.htmlthe Mets were asking the DBacks about Alek Thomas before they re-signed Nimmo. AZ asked for Baty in return (kinda comparable minor league numbers!) but the Mets decided to keep Baty and just buy back Nimmo because money isn't real for Cohen. Considering an alternate universe with Thomas the center fielder of the now and future and Escobar/Vientos at third for this year is kind of a fun exercise. Wonder if they woulda been content with Vientobar? Or try for Justin Turner for a year?

[Ceetar]

Thomas is an interesting thought. It's Sherman so I won't put too much thought into how real that "plan" was but looks like Thomas struggled with MLB, though still a good center fielder. I could see how you could think he would regain some of the BB% he had in the minors, and be a pretty useful MLBer. Though not as good as Nimmo, and the Mets offense is already a little hit or miss, and could probably use some more power. Still could use some more power. Maybe they have something in their three? prospects that on the cusp here, I dunno. Gotta try to find spots for them too, be interesting to see how that shakes out.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Edgy MD wrote: I would disagree with that. I think we've all read some variation on that, and allowed it to become an established truth, while we neglect to cite where we got it, and mostly don't remember where we got it, or what the break-even point actually is alleged to be. Bill James has been researching the value of stolen bases at least since you were in elementary school, if not earlier. Tom Tango and then like a zillion others. The break even point is in the neighborhood of a 75% success rate and the math you'd need to calculate this yourself is fairly simple and straightforward. You just need to assemble the data so that you can then calculate break even. Or just trust James and Tango and like every other reputable sabrmetrician. They're not defending their break even figures the way others claim there's an invisible magician in the sky who runs the world. This is just math and logic.. There's no mystery here, not by any stretch of the imagination. Break even might change radically in 2023 as the bases will be larger and pickoff attempts will be severely limited. Its gonna be easier to steal a base next season. Why would larger bases change the break even rate? they would likely change the success rate for many players, thus changing the number who should attempt to steal more often as they are more likely to hit that break even rate, but why would the break even rate change?

The rules changes will likely change both figures -- the break-even point and the success rate. The two figures are independent of each other. All things being equal, base stealing will be easier in 2023. But this doesn't necessarily mean that the success rate will go up. because "all things being equal" is the operative phrase and all things might not be equal. The rules changes might also encourage lesser skilled base stealers to make more SB attempts, which could offset the improved rates that one would expect to be generated by the better base stealers. We'll see.

[nymr83]

Bill James has been researching the value of stolen bases at least since you were in elementary school, if not earlier. Tom Tango and then like a zillion others. The break even point is in the neighborhood of a 75% success rate and the math you'd need to calculate this yourself is fairly simple and straightforward. You just need to assemble the data so that you can then calculate break even. Or just trust James and Tango and like every other reputable sabrmetrician. They're not defending their break even figures the way others claim there's an invisible magician in the sky who runs the world. This is just math and logic.. There's no mystery here, not by any stretch of the imagination. Break even might change radically in 2023 as the bases will be larger and pickoff attempts will be severely limited. Its gonna be easier to steal a base next season. Why would larger bases change the break even rate? they would likely change the success rate for many players, thus changing the number who should attempt to steal more often as they are more likely to hit that break even rate, but why would the break even rate change? The rules changes will likely change both figures -- the break-even point and the success rate. The two figures are independent of each other. All things being equal, base stealing will be easier in 2023. But this doesn't necessarily mean that the success rate will go up. because "all things being equal" is the operative phrase and all things might not be equal. The rules changes might also encourage lesser skilled base stealers to make more SB attempts, which could offset the improved rates that one would expect to be generated by the better base stealers. We'll see.

Maybe we are talking about different things here?



When I say "success rate" i mean the percentage of stolen base attempts that are successful. So if a player attempt 5 steals, steals 4 bases, and is aught once, his success rate is 80%. I agree that this number should go up under the new rules.



When I say "break even rate" I mean the rate at which a player must be successful for his stolen base attempts to be a net positive impact rather than a net negative impact on his team';s run scoring probability. Why would this change in the rules change that number?

[batmagadanleadoff]

Maybe we are talking about different things here? When I say "success rate" i mean the percentage of stolen base attempts that are successful. So if a player attempt 5 steals, steals 4 bases, and is aught once, his success rate is 80%. I agree that this number should go up under the new rules. When I say "break even rate" I mean the rate at which a player must be successful for his stolen base attempts to be a net positive impact rather than a net negative impact on his team';s run scoring probability. Why would this change in the rules change that number?

We're talking about the exact same things. Break-even changes every year, albeit very slightly usually. Otherwise, by your logic, break-even would be a constant, a fixed number. Generally, break-even rises when run scoring is more plentiful. The easier it is to score runs, the more costly a failed stolen base attempt is.



BTW there are different break even rates for stolen bases in the same season. So for example, in the bottom of the ninth inning in a tied game, when the home team needs to score just one run to seal a victory, the break-even rate is lower. Under other circumstances, the break even rate would be higher because a failed stolen base attempt could potentially cost that team more than one run. But in that ninth inning situation, those extra runs are moot.

[Edgy MD]

And that's a big part of why I registered my tendency to disagree. While a homerun or double may happen whenever, a stolen base is a strategy targeted to a specific situation, and so taking it out of the game situation and declaring it to be worth X runs which equals Y wins isn't particularly accurate.

[metsmarathon]

when you put it in the game situation, you're still ascribing it to "worth X runs which equals Y wins", just with a more narrow focus.

[batmagadanleadoff]

when you put it in the game situation, you're still ascribing it to "worth X runs which equals Y wins", just with a more narrow focus.

Yeah. I didnt get that either. Runs scored and wins correlate positively and very powerfully. The circumstances in which runs are scored are irrelevant to this.

[Edgy MD]

Well, I'm saying that X and Y do not have a constant value.



The assumption, when constructing bottom-line stats like WAR, is often that homers happen when they happen, so there is no point in distinguishing between a homer hit when up 10 in the eighth inning batting against a position player forced into service on the mound (of infinitesimal value in the great scheme of things) and a homer hit when down three with the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth batting against Kenley Jansen to close (of supreme value). The notion is that the situation in which you hit the ball is a random roll of the dice. One could argue with that, but I understand why that's the way WAR is built. In bWAR and in fWAR, a homer is worth approximately two runs (X ≈ 2), no matter how many were on when you actually hit it, no matter what the game situation.



But it's different in stealing. Virtually nobody would steal up 10 in the eighth. But if you're the winning run trying to get into scoring position in the ninth — the very difference maker — the temptation to run is higher. There's a wicked closer on the mound who your matter has virtually no chance of squaring up for extra bases, but maybe they can squeak one through the infield and you can score from second. These are the factors that more typically occur around stealing.



Steals and steal attempts are not randomly distributed across all game situations.



So the difference between adding .31 runs (or whatever) by stealing second and losing .57 runs (or whatever) by being caught should not be measured against all situations for a strategy that is mostly deployed in a narrower range of situations. The game situation matters, and the difference between a runner on first and a runner on second is vastly different and the strategy selected defers to that. When stealing, the difference between a runner on second and a runner on first is typically more valuable than its general difference. And of course, the difference between a runner on first and a runner out has a different value.



Sense? Does that make any?

[batmagadanleadoff]

Edgy MD wrote: But it's different in stealing. Virtually nobody would steal up 10 in the eighth. But if you're the winning run trying to get into scoring position in the ninth — the very difference maker — the temptation to run is higher. There's a wicked closer on the mound who your matter has virtually no chance of squaring up for extra bases, but maybe they can squeak one through the infield and you can score from second. These are the factors that more typically occur around stealing. Steals and steal attempts are not randomly distributed across all game situations.

The break even rate for base stealing is a direct function of run expectancy. And run expectancy has nothing to do with whether a team is up by a dozen runs or down by one.

[Edgy MD]

But the relative value of a run does. And the relative value of an out.



Please feel free to cite any studies or formulas you are referring to.

[metsmarathon]

M.e.t.b.o.t. would tell you that the value of an out or a run or even a base can be situationally valued in terms of the probability of winning the game.



The probability of a base turning into a run is derived from the run expectancies.



You could argue that run expectancies change given the expected performance of the players in question, sure, but in a macro sense they can be readily determined.



I feel like you're both mostly arguing about the same thing here.



I would say too that edgy, maybe you could provide some data and formulas that show that the risk of stealing a base against a wicked good closer is somehow greater, when it may be true that that unicorn base runner himself has higher value because of how unlikely he was to get on base in the first place and erasing him in an unsuccessful base steal attempt has a terribly detrimental effect on the outcome of the game.

[Edgy MD]

I'm not actually offering a thesis, but expressing dubiousness toward one.



With regard to your post above, however, I would actually propose that the risk of stealing against a wicked good closer in a wicked high leverage spot is, if anything, less, not more. The impact of the run expectancy difference is filtered through the reality that the potential first run may be far more valuable relative to the potential second run than it is in a more general situation. We intuitively know this, which is why we call stealing and related maneuvers "one-run strategies."



Though I certainly don't think the matter is closed.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Edgy MD wrote: But the relative value of a run does. And the relative value of an out.

Break-even rates are averages. Of course, a player should always consider the context when attempting a steal. And the catcher. Mike Piazza wasn't a bad defensive catcher but he couldn't throw his mother out on a stolen base attempt. And a base-runner twice as fast as Terrance Long should attempt a steal every single time he's on first base and second base is unoccupied. Also, any runner on first base should always attempt a steal of second base if the pitcher has a heart attack on the field and drops to the ground in cardiac arrest, so long as time-out isn't called. But none of this should impact the break-even rate. A runner caught stealing hurts his team just the same whether the pitcher on the mound had a heart attack or not.



As mentioned, there are separate break-even rates for when a team needs only one run to win a tie game. And it's understood that break-even should drop in the later innings of close games. Stolen bases are more valuable the closer the game is. That's because failed attempts tend to wreck a team's chances of having a big inning and very often, the winning team will score more runs in one inning than the losing team will score in nine innings.





But you can say this for every stat. A player doesn't get an extra boost to his BA or SLG or OPS or OBP just because his HR was a decisive come from behind walk-off HR. In the stats, that HR registers the same as a HR hit at the tail end of a blow-out win.



Break-even rates are based on run expectancy tables. And that, to some degree, is a limit. But no stat is perfect. A stat only measures what it measures A player's HR totals don't reflect how many doubles he hit.

[Edgy MD]

=batmagadanleadoff post_id=114880 time=1671125853 user_id=68]But you can say this for every stat. A player doesn't get an extra boost to his BA or SLG or OPS or OBP just because his HR was a decisive come from behind walk-off HR. In the stats, that HR registers the same as a HR hit at the tail end of a blow-out win.

[Edgy MD]

Are you ready for the storm?



Brandon Nimmo meets press to discuss his long-term contract with Mets, but is more inclined to talk about the weather.



[media=youtube]k2CVKY2OS8U[/media]



Scott Boras joins the show, with cameos from from Chelsea Nimmo and Angela Showalter.



Buck is great, because no matter how anodyne the words being spoken into the mic are, Buck sits there with a face that says, "Am I really hearing what I'm hearing?"

[metirish]

https://greaterlongisland.com/video-tour-mets-star-brandon-nimmo-finds-his-5-million-long-island-home/https://greaterlongisland.com/video-tour-mets-star-brandon-nimmo-finds-his-5-million-long-island-home/



New spread for Brandon and family

[A Boy Named Seo]

Great find, I love shit like this. I don't what Nimmo and his family's style is, but I suspect they won't be trying to buy all the staging furniture. Maybe they won't end up with a rope-lined wagon wheel in the house, but maybe they will?



I bet he told his agent "anything ranch-style" but ranch-style apparently looks hella different in the east.

[Edgy MD]

Yeah, four or five spacious colonials smashed together apparently equals "ranch" in Wantagh.

[metsmarathon]

needs more pixellated artwork

[metirish]

Brandon might have lots of time to enjoy his new spread