I was listening to a Pirates-Brewers game on the radio this afternoon. The Brewers had runners on first and third with two out, Prince Fielder at the plate with an 0-2 count and the runner at first (Ryan Braun) stole second.
Immediately the announcers began denouncing this as a dumb move. “First base is now open! The Pirates can walk Fielder intentionally to get to a weaker hitter!”
Excuse me, but couldn’t the Pirates have decided to walk Fielder anytime, regardless of whether first was open? There’s such a thing as pitching away from a hitter and avoiding the strike zone. True, that results in a slightly greater chance of a wild pitch (something I’ve rarely seen happen during an attempted intentional walk). But it doesn’t seem like that huge a risk.
Is there some enormous fulminating big deal about having first base open for an intentional walk that I’m missing?
Yes. Having first base open negates the possibility of a (typical) double play. It’s not that they wanted to walk Prince Fielder, as putting two on intentionally is not usually a good strategic move, but it becomes one when first is open. Put Fielder on the open base and turning two becomes a distinct possibility. With the base occupied the Pirates are far more likely to give him good pitches to look at instead of junk that he can’t drive.
It seems counter-intuitive, but when you get into the minutia of baseball strategy it’s really not.
They did in fact intentionally walk Fielder. Whether you agree with the wisdom of that move by the Pirates or not, the announcers were right to point out that if the Brewers wanted Fielder hitting instead of McGehee (who is slugging .347 and did promptly strike out), Braun didn’t do them any favors by taking a base.
I don’t know how big a deal that makes it, but it is true at least that the Pirates weren’t going to walk Fielder until Braun stole second, at which point they walked him.
I totally agree with this. I would also say that, in my humble opinion, the intentional walk is almost always a bad idea. All it does is put another runner on base (for free, mind you) that the offense can drive in. Fielder is dangerous, certainly, but even with him batting over .300 right now, that means he’ll fail to drive in those runs 70% of the time (and probably much less frequently, given that he was 0-2). I mean, hell, the only run scored in that game came from a solo homer from pop-gun hitting Yuniesky Betancourt, not off the intimidating bat of Prince Fielder. In that particular case, McGehee struck out, which makes the manager look like a genius, but he could have just as easily slapped a 2-run single through the infield, putting Fielder in scoring position and giving the Brewers a shot at blowing the game wide open.
I’m not a fan of intentional walks. It’s bad strategy to donate runners to the opposition.
Dude, it’s Prince f*cking Fielder. He’s hitting .310 with 30 bombs on the season. Over the past week he’s hitting almost .600. He’s hitting .311 on the 0-2 count.
I’ll bet the pitcher was nervous putting the ball anywhere near the plate…
I still think having two runners in scoring position and making it a bit tougher for the Pirates to get the third out on a ground ball made the steal a decent move, seeing as how the Pirates could always have walked Fielder, “intentionally” or not, but on the other hand maybe this explains why teams never give me a call when managerial positions are open.
Next thread: why announcers become apoplectic when hitters go after the first pitch with runners in scoring position, instead of waiting deep into counts to make an out. It doesn’t matter how fat that first pitch is, you must take it rather than risk killing the rally after one pitch instead of six. :dubious:
Yes, Braun made a bad decision. He “took the bat out of the hands” (an old expression) of his team’s best hitter. The Brewers were more likely to score with only one runner in scoring position and Fielder batting than they were with the bases loaded and whatever lame-ass hits behind him batting. Additionally, loading the bases set up a force at every base, making the third out easier to get no matter where said lame-ass might have hit it.
If intentionally walking the dude to create a bases-loaded situation was acceptable to the Pirates, then it was acceptable. If it was a good option before the steal, then it was still a good option. What Braun did was just removing options from the Pirates. Even if the options he removed were worse than the options that remained, he still removed options, and that’s always a good thing.
That’s not true, though. Removing options is not always a good thing; it’s a good thing to the extent that you’re not making other options which you don’t want to happen more attractive. You can put five people on Michael Jordan and remove that option, or play all 11 men on defense at the line of scrimmage in football and remove the option to run the ball, but the other team is going to score on every play. The point here was that, assuming the Brewers prefer to have Fielder batting with two on than McGehee with the bases loaded, Braun changed the percentages and made that less likely to happen. He didn’t take any options away; he changed the payoff.
First and third: the cost of an intentional walk is putting a man on first base and putting a man that was on first on second. The gain is that you don’t have to face the batter, and you get the chance for a force at third or home.
Second and third: the cost of an intentional walk is putting a man on first. The gain is not facing the batter, plus forces at second, third, and home.
I was watching the game. The first couple of pitches after Braun stole second were at least not too far off of the plate. Once Fielder got up to a 3-2 count, the final pitch was a traditional “catcher standing up, pitch is three feet outside” intentional-walk pitch.
The point is, though, that with Braun at first, walking Fielder has the benefit of avoiding Fielder, but the disadvantage (from the Pirates’ perspective) of moving Braun into scoring position, where he could be scored by a single. So the Pirates are rpesented with a strategic dilemma; avoid Fielder but make it much easier for Braun to score or risk Fielder but necessitate an extra base hit? It’s a more even trade off than you might think; Casey McGeehee isn’t a good hitter, but he is likelier to hit a single than Prince Fielder is to get an extra base hit.
However, when Braun steals second, there is no longer that strategic dillemma for Pittsburgh to worry about. The runner is already in scoring position and so there is no longer any reason to consider that in the tradeoff of walking Fielder. Now the basic math is the likelihood of Fielder getting any sort of hit versus McGeehee getting any sort of hit - and Fielder is much likelier to get a hit.
That’s simplifying it, but it’s the basic reason things change when Braun steals.
So was Braun stealing second a bad move? I believe it was a reasonably smart move.
Fielder is a great hitter… but not as much when he’s 0-2. All batters, in at bats when they go down 0-2, see their batting average plunge. Braun’s move either results in Pittsburgh continuing to attack Fielder, in which case they’re better off having Braun in scoring position, or walking Fielder when they had him on the ropes, in which case Fielder is rescued from an at bat where he’s now likely to be about as good a hitter as, well, Casey McGeehee.
Had Braun stolen second with Fielder ahead in the count it would have been really, really stupid.
Sure, but the guy the OP is talking about thought the steal was a BAD move because it opened up first base for the intentional walk. That only makes sense if having the bases loaded and McGeehee at the plate is a better situation (for the Pirates) than having runners on first and third with Fielder at the plate. But if that was true, then the intentional walk would have been advantageous to the Pirates even before first base was open.
The fact that an intentional walk was available makes the steal a less good move than it might have been. It doesn’t make it bad.
Before the steal, the Pirates were asking “Which is better: Letting Fielder swing at the ball, or getting bases loaded with Fielder on first and Braun on second?”. After the steal, the Pirates were asking “Which is better: Letting Fielder swing at the ball, or getting bases loaded with Fielder on first and Braun on second?”. The only thing that changed was that, after the steal, it became harder to force an out. Which was a good thing, for the Brewers.
Now, one might have argued, before the fact, that attempting a steal was an unwise decision, because of the risk: The payoff was relatively small, and there was a chance he’d get caught stealing. But after the fact, with the steal a done deal, it’s kind of hard to argue against success.
I think I understand what the OP is trying to say. If the Pirates thought they were in a more advantageous position position by walking Fielder with Braun on second, why weren’t they willing to walk him with Braun on first?
My answer would be that the Braun’s decision was dumb because he risked getting thrown out unnecessarily. It was a very large risk (stranding a runner at 3rd with your best hitter at the plate!) and had little to no reward. Dumb call.
My answer would also be that if you expect sporting strategy to be internally consistent you’re probably going to end up a very disappointed person.
Braun’s decision was a very large risk? Pirates catcher Ryan Doumit is only throwing out runners 19.3% of the time this year and Ryan Braun is successfully stealing at a 84.6% clip. Those are way better odds than Fielder getting an 0-2 hit to drive in a run. Further, in the unlikely event than Braun gets thrown out, Fielder gets to go back to the dish the next inning with a clean slate, not facing an 0-2 count. Better to have both runners in scoring position and play for a big inning, IMO.
