New balk rule in baseball

The Game Room
21

Some more; I’m not sure that there’ll be “a ton,” but we shall see.

Advanced stats/sabermetrics have largely killed off the stolen base and the hit-and-run, as those stats told managers that the success rate on those plays (in many cases) didn’t pay off, as far as expected run production – i.e., the odds of being thrown out trying to steal second base, for most runners, isn’t worth the increase in odds of being able to score from second base on a subsequent hit, versus being able to score from first.

And, so, the current game is largely station-to-station ball, unless you have (a) a runner who’s very skilled at stealing, (b) a pitcher who’s not good at holding men on, and/or (c) a catcher with a suspect arm. The new rule essentially increases case (b), but it’s a question of “how much.” Yes, players will be able to take longer leads once the pitcher has used up his two step-offs, but we’ll see if that actually leads to significantly more steal attempts.

22

These changes will certainly change baseball, possibly for the better. There’s nothing magical about the old balk rule and games moving along at a snail’s pace while pitchers and batters wasted time trying to psych each other out in the most boring way possible. These changes will increase the amount of ‘small ball’ played to the benefit of all.

23

It’s certainly been my observation that many steal attempts are inning killers. I especially hate when a runner is a bit too far from first and gets picked off. I often yell at the screen, advising players to just stay put and wait for the next guy to get a hit. They don’t listen.

It seems to me that the advantage of even a successful steal (you still need the next guy to get a hit) is almost never worth the risk.

24

One thing I wonder about is if, over the last decade or so, that players aren’t getting as much training and practice in the nuances of the running game (i.e., how to take a lead, how long of a lead is safe, etc.), as, much like bunting, it’s a skill which comes into play less often now.

The idea is probably that, if your runner is on first, and a subsequent batter gets a single, the runner will be able to advance no further than third (barring a defensive miscue), whereas if the runner is on second (after a successful steal), he has a pretty good chance at scoring on a single.

But, if he’s thrown out trying to steal, the odds of him scoring drop to zero, of course. :slight_smile:

25

My favorite is when a runner dramatically steals a base and then the batter gets walked a pitch or two later.

These new changes make me want to watch some baseball, at least in the beginning of the season, to watch the pitchers try and grapple with the new rules.

26

I love them. I’m far more willing to give baseball the benefit of the doubt with changes than most people on the board, but I think the general consensus is positive (with the biggest split being on the shift ban). The interesting thing about the pitch clock is that baseball has had pitch clock rules on the books - they’ve just never been enforced.

27

I’ve seen the pitch clock in action at minor league games. I think it caused me more stress than the pitcher – oh, no, does he see it? Will he pitch in time??

28

More steal attempts means more replay reviews at second. And more runners being called out for lifting their foot one millimeter off the bag for one nanosecond.

29

I felt that way a little too. After a while of watching for the novelty of it, I had to train my brain to stop paying attention to the clock. It helped that the pitchers were getting it done in ample time, so it wasn’t a nail biter for each pitch. I hope that they find a way to make the clock less obvious for the TV audience.

30

But the bases are bigger now so that should even out, or better.

31

Well, the on-field clock turns off after 8 seconds, when the batter has to be alert to the pitcher. Spring training games have had the clock going near the score bug, sort of like in football.

Salvador Perez stole a base last week! How big ARE these bases?!?! :smiley:

32

Pretty big.

33

Invalid unit of measurement. Need banana.

34

I’m expecting the pitch clock to be in the corner of tv screens for every single at-bat.

Was limiting the throws to first tested in the minors? If so, were there a bunch more stolen bases?

35

Yes and yes - it increased SBs at the rate of 2.23 attempts in 219 (68% success rate) to 2.83 in 2022 (77% success rate). The rule makes sense in context with the pitch clock - it would be trivial to reset the pitch clock by just throwing over to first any time you wanted.

36

The break even point is roughly 70-75 percent success, though it does depend in the score.

It’s worse than that; getting thrown out stealing also means everyone else on your team is less likely to score in that inning. If you’re the third out, everyone else’s shot at scoring drops to zero, in fact, but even if you’re only the first or second out, you alter the likelihood of anyone else coming around to score.

It’s not just that stolen base attempts are down; stolen base success rate is up. Last year the stolen base success rate was about 77 percent, which is astoundingly high by historical standards. For most of the 70s and 80s you’d see it was around 60-70 percent.

This isn’t the first time stolen base attempts have been low; from the 1930s to 1950s stolen bases were actually much fewer than today. That was a very dull brand of baseball. At one point the NL went 14 years without anyone stealing 30 bases in a season. Steals came back in the 60s and the 70s and 80s saw a really nice resurgence of them.

37

I suppose that makes sense, if managers are looking at advanced stats, and only giving green lights to players who have a high likelihood to succeed at a steal attempt.

Last season, the average MLB team only attempted 110 steals, but was successful 87 times. The Mariners were exactly average on both counts, so I took a look at their individual stats: just four players (Julio Rodriguez, Dylan Moore, Sam Haggerty, and Adam Frazer) accounted for 70 (80%) of their stolen bases, and 92 (84%) of their total attempts. Only nine Mariners attempted even a single steal, out of thirty players who had at least one plate appearance for the team.

38

A side effect of the emphasis on stolen base success rate is that catchers with good arms aren’t as valuable as they used to be.

Most people who observed both Gary Carter and Yadier Molina play would agree they both had amazing arms; I think it is fair to say that either man could have been said to have about as good a catcher’s arm as it’s possible for a human to have. Both, at their peak, blew away half the baserunners who attempted to steal on them.

However, because of the conditions of their time, Carter’s throwing ability was actually more valuable, because it did way more damage to the opposing team, simply because they were attempting more steals. In 2010, a pretty typical year for him, Molina threw out 33 of 68 prospective basestealers, 49 percent. The average NL catcher would have thrown out 20, so Molina eliminated 13 baserunners on top of the average catcher, which is a nice contribution considering the fact that his reputation subtracted about 30 stolen base attempts from what an average atcher would have faced.

In 1979, a fairly normal year for him, Gary Carter threw out 47 percent of basestealers, about the same percentage as Yadier in 2010 - but he faced 141 attempts. That’s 66 men thrown out, about 19 more than a non Gary Carter threw out that year, and that wasn’t even his best season. In 1983 Carter faced 161 basestealing attempts and mowed down 75 of them.

Both Molina and Carter see their throw-out rate drop in the latter half of their careers, but during their prime it’s kind of an open question as to why anyone would attempt to steal bases against them at all, or against Ivan Rodriguez, Lance Parrish, or Johnny Bench. It’s just utterly stupid. The only time you should ever run on guys like those is if you have a truly exceptional basestealer, a Vince Coleman or Rickey Henderson type, the pitcher is really bad at holding runners, and it’s a close game. Ivan Rodriguez faced 94 basestealers in 1996 (and got more than half of them) and I’d guess 80 of those attempts were just flame-broiled stupid.

In Gary Carter’s heyday, well, they just didn’t know this stuff. Phrases like “runs created formula” sounded like Klingon to MLB insiders. By 1996, though, they really should have known, and today they clearly are getting the message, and they are becoming unwilling to run on catchers who van bring the heat to second base.

39

Of all of the rules changes, the larger bases (along with the reduction in pickoff attempts) is the one I have the most “I wonder what will happen?” interest in.

There is a very clear analytical tipping point for stolen base effectiveness, identified elsewhere in this thread. Ideally the games would be balanced in such a way that a “good” base stealer would exceed that rate against an average catcher, IMO. An “excellent” base stealer should exceed the break-even rate against almost all catchers. And an “average” runner should only exceed the rate against poor-throwing catchers.

Pre-2023, I think it’s been such that only “excellent” runners even try to steal, and only against “non-excellent” catchers. Hopefully the new bases change that, but it’s very hard to know what the optimum size will be to make that happen. It will also take a lot of trials before teams really know exactly what the new equilibrium is, so I imagine any change in strategy might take half a season to develop.

40

I suspect the pickoff limit will help basestealers more than the larger bases.