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April 27, 2007

Scoring From Third

The DMN’s Evan Grant wrote at length about the Rangers’ ghastly performance with runners on third in Thursday’s 9-4 loss to Cleveland. He noted their inefficiency at getting runners home from third with less than two outs and Texas’s attempts to wean themselves off the homer heavy “all or nothing” approach. Per manager Ron Washington, "These guys have been so used to banging that it's hard for them to take that shorter stroke. It's not going to be easy to get it out of their system. But we will."

I watched that game, and, this being a family blog and all, I can’t tell you what I was yelling at the tv. What I can tell you is that hitting with runners on third is not the biggest problem afflicting the Rangers.

I don’t have the stats with less than two outs, but I’ve compared the Rangers to the American League in all man-on-third situations to see how effective they are at bringing runners home. The second and third columns in the table below are Others Batted In per Plate Apperance. Thus, if the hitter homers, his run doesn’t count. I’ve also deducted intentional walks from the plate appearances for the purpose of this exercise. Multiplying the difference in Texas’s and the AL’s OBI/PA by Texas’s number of appearances in each situation results in the Rangers’ run deficit or surplus relative to the league as a whole.

Base Situation (1/2/3)
Texas OBI/PA
AL
OBI/PA
Difference
Texas PAs
Texas Run Deficit
- - 3
26%
30%
-4%
27
(1.2)
1 - 3
58%
49%
9%
31
2.9
- 2 3
27%
50%
-23%
11
(2.5)
1 2 3
68%
74%
-6%
22
(1.3)

TOTAL RUN DEFICIT: -2.1

Texas’s inability to hit with runners on third has cost the team about 0.1 runs per game. I’m not suggesting that 0.1 runs is nothing. Over the course of a season, that extra 0.1 is worth almost two wins. However, Texas’s hitting in these situations is not close to being a catastrophe.

Posted by Lucas at April 27, 2007 08:31 PM