Stop. Trying. To. Steal. Bases.

Captain Iago

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Yeah, it's not necessarily the sheer amount of stolen base attempts that is the problem, it's the who, and it just so happens that those guys are stealing a lot of bases altogether. And my larger point is this: the fact that those guys are stealing so much is more aptly placed at the feet of Ozzie. Those have to be all his decisions.

As for the bunting, yeah it's pretty bad. The thing about bunting is, it's a one-run strategy. You are sacrificing the chance at scoring many runs for an increased chance at scoring many runs. Statistically speaking, and this may surprise you, teams should play for one run over many runs when they are down by one, tied or in the lead. That being said, the numbers say that bunting a man over from first with zero or one outs is always, always a bad move.

As far as metrics that rate bunting, I have been hard-pressed to find one that measures that alone. The closest one I have found is Equivalent Ground Advancement Runs (EqGAR), but that takes into account all situations in which runners may or may not have advanced on a ground ball, not just bunts, so drawing many conclusions from that is a little iffy (the Sox are at 1.68 currently).

What is interesting, though, is that of the 44 sacrifice hits (just bunts) the Sox have, 33 of them (75%) have come with a man on first base. That's definitely bad.

How correct/incorrect would it be for me synthesize this info into one idiom - that it's hard to teach an old dog new tricks? Way oversimplified?
 

Lefty

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You'd have to note that the dog is really, really stupid.
 

Lefty

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Some notes on Ozzie's bunting:

Of the 302 sacrifice bunts Ozzie's White Sox have committed throughout his managerial tenure, 218 of those have come a man on first, flat-out the worst situation in which a team can signal for a sacrifice. It doesn't increase your chances of scoring many runs, nor does it increase your chances of scoring at least one run, which is more often than not the mantra behind signaling for a sacrifice.

Because of that then, it is fair to use a Run Expectancy table to assess how many runs have been gained/lost via bunting, because we want to know the total number of runs the team bunted its way out of. Assuming all these bunts occurred in the 2008 season (which actually saves runs considering bunting was extremely less valuable even in the tail-end of the steroid era) with a runner on first and nobody out (the "best" situation for a sacrifice), the difference between that situation and a runner on second with one out (the result of a successful sacrifice) is 0.21 Expected Runs. That means that throughout his managerial career, Ozzie's sacrificing with a runner on first nearly 73% of the time has cost this team roughly 46 runs. Adding that to the amount of runs Ozzie's teams have cost themselves over his time with the team (55 runs), that's 101 runs cost throughout his tenure, roughly ten whole wins or about 1.5 wins a season. Most of these wins, mind you, can be properly placed at the feet of Ozzie, considering he is the one signaling for steals with guys that shouldn't be stealing and bunts in the worst-possible situation. So then, we can figure, conservatively mind you, that Ozzie is good for costing his team a full win a season (this is just using a Run Expectancy framework, too, if we were to use a Win Expectancy framework, the results would probably be even more harsh).
 

DewsSox79

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i think we should make a thread of what was done wrong and what was done right as a whole, from jr all the way down to the ball boy.
 

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