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Which is the best situation to score?

Posted by

December 03, 2008

You're the manager of a major league baseball team in 2008 and you have a choice to make. Which of the following situations would you prefer?

  1. Man on first and third, two outs
  2. Man on first, one out
  3. A clean slate—no one on, no outs

Based on all the events that occurred in the 2008 season, we can figure out how many runs scored, on average, in each one of those situations.

Counting every inning and every time within the inning when there was a man on first and third with two outs, .481 runs scored in that inning from that point forward. The value of (a), then, is .481 runs.

For (b), a man on first and one out, .528 runs per inning scored, on average, from that point forward.

For (c), no one on and no one out, .521 runs scored.

The answer is (b). But not by much. I picked these three scenarios because, interestingly, they were all about even. In each of them, the average runs scored was about a half a run. Here is the complete run matrix table for 2008:

Average runs scored in 2008 based on the base/out situation
Base Outs
Situation 0 1 2
None on .521 .279 .108
Man on first .900 .528 .227
Man on second 1.150 .695 .335
Man on third 1.499 .969 .346
Men on first and second 1.530 .919 .464
Men on first and third 1.769 1.159 .481
Men on second and third 2.006 1.422 .589
Bags loaded 2.306 1.586 .799

Source: Bill James Online.


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