Games: Tampa Bay Rays, Aug. 22: Judging the Royals with Lee Judge

Games » Tampa Bay Rays

Aug22

How the Royals helped the Rays

In the bottom of the third with one out, B.J. Upton singled. Matt Joyce followed with another single and the Rays would have had runners at first and second, but Lorenzo Cain let the ball get away and Upton advanced to third. Then, Royals starter Luis Mendoza hit Evan Longoria with a pitch and Joyce moved to second.

Ben Zobrist followed with a fly out to left, so Upton tagged and scored. Jeff Keppinger followed with a single and Matt Joyce scored. Without the error and hit by pitch, the Rays would have scored one run, not two.

In the sixth, relief pitcher Louis Coleman walked the leadoff batter, Carlos Pena. That was the third consecutive inning in which the Royals walked a leadoff hitter, and you can only get away with that for so long. Pena scored on Ryan Roberts’ double. In the seventh, pinch runner Sam Fuld scored on an Alcides Escobar error, and even the eighth inning home run by Jose Lobaton came after Aaron Crow fell behind 2-1 and had to throw the Rays catcher a fastball in a fastball count.

The Royals lost 5-3 and helped the Rays score at least three runs with walks or errors. When teams talk about beating themselves, this is the kind of game they’re talking about.

Game notes

In the first inning Johnny Giavotella kept a Salvador Perez throw on the infield when B.J. Upton stole second base. Not every outstanding play results in an out, some just save a base. Lorenzo Cain was not charging hard from center field on the play. Once the center fielder determines the ball has not been put in play, it’s his job to back up throws to second.
Mendoza appeared to struggle with his command all day. The walks are one indication, but here’s another: With two outs in the second inning and runners at first and second, Luis went 3-2 on Jose Lobaton, a .236 hitter. Going to 3-2 with two outs lets the runners get a head start. It makes it easier to score from second on a single and from first on a double. Fortunately, Lobaton grounded out to second.
Kevin Seitzer once told me that Johnny Giavotella was a “fastball hunter” in the minor leagues. In his book on hitting, Hall of Famer Mike Schmidt says every at-bat contains a hittable fastball. His job was to find it. I’d think the same advice applies to Gio: He can’t afford to take hittable fastball at this level; hitters don’t get that many. Johnny probably won’t get a second or third mistake in one at-bat.
Before his departure, Doug Sisson told me that the pitchers around the league were speeding up delivery times to home plate. That meant “situational” base stealers — like Jeff Francoeur or Eric Hosmer — were going to have a tougher time stealing a base. Doug also predicted the “true” base stealers — Chris Getz, Jarrod Dyson and Alcides Escobar — would still get their 20 steals. Esky got his 25th of the season, Dyson already has 22. With Getz injured and Dyson on the bench, Kansas City has only one base stealing threat in the lineup, and that’s Escobar.
Jeff Francoeur had a long run into foul territory and overran a pop-up. The ball hit the ground behind him — no error was scored. I won’t know until I talk to Jeff, but I’m guessing the Tropicana dome was the culprit. As I wrote at the beginning of this series, the roof is white, the lights are low and if a fielder takes his eye off the ball for even a moment, he’ll have a hard time finding it again.
Just to make things more interesting, the bullpens are in play. A fielder running into foul territory has to worry about suddenly running up and then off a pitching mound — neat, huh?
When Mitch Maier told me all warning tracks in the majors are not uniform, I was surprised. You’d think baseball would want to protect one of their biggest investments, the players. The tracks are different widths and made of different material. Remembering how many strides it takes to cross a warning track before hitting the wall also depends on remembering which city you’re in.
Ryan Roberts was hitting eighth and batting under .240 when he led off the fourth inning with a walk. Unless the Royals turned some type of double play, walking Roberts meant that the number two hitter, B.J. Upton — who already had two hits in the game — would get a plate appearance with a runner on base. Walks issued to the right hitter can help a pitcher negotiate his way around a problem. Walks issued to the wrong hitter can force the pitcher into a bad matchup.
Roberts set sail for second before Mendoza delivered a pitch, but Luis neglected to step off the rubber before attempting to pickoff the runner.
In the sixth inning with a run in, nobody down and a runner on second base, Jose Lobaton, batting ninth, bunted the runner, Ryan Roberts, to third. At that point, Tim Collins got up in the Royals bullpen. In the later innings, fans who keep an eye on the bullpen can sometimes divine the manager’s strategy. The next left-handed hitter in the lineup was Matt Joyce, batting third. Ned Yost was going to let Coleman face Desmond Jennings and B.J. Upton, but if Joyce got to the plate, he’d bring in Collins.
Joyce got to the plate with two down and runners at first and third. Ned’s strategy worked: Collins got Joyce to ground out to end the inning and no further damage was done.
In the eighth, Eric Hosmer was called out on strikes, the fourth time a Royals hitter went down looking. That usually indicates disagreement between the players and the home plate umpire on the exact location of the strike zone. In the ensuing argument, Ned Yost got tossed. Interesting, because I don’t think Chino Cadahia is with the team — family business — so I wonder who managed the rest of the ballgame.

The Green Monster

The Royals now head to Boston and Fenway Park. Of course, the most famous feature of Fenway is the Green Monster. The Monster is 37 feet, 2 inches high, and the left-field foul pole is 310 feet away from home plate. Everyone knows how it affects hitters: Routine fly balls can become home runs or doubles — if they’re high enough. Long line drives that might be home runs elsewhere can become singles — if they’re low enough.

But the Monster also affects base running.

The normal rules go out the window. A runner cannot be sure of scoring from second with two down, the wall’s just too close. So the “never make the first or third out at third” rule doesn’t apply. Runners still might hold up with no outs, but with two down, they need to get to third whenever they can. Also pay attention to the wall down the left field line that juts out toward the field. A ball that’s normally a double down the line can ricochet into short left field so the shortstop might be the first one that can get to a ball in that area.

Comments

Luke Healy
10 months ago

wasn’t really surprised yost got tossed. it seemed like the home plate umpire was squeezing mendoza all day and wasn’t being consistent with shields on the mound. the rays had 6 walks in the game and it hurt the royals. the royals tried to use what it seemed the home plate umpire was giving them and got punched out four times with only one walk. in a two run game those calls make a difference, but with the errors and other mistakes i can’t really say the royals deserved this one.

glad gio finally got a hit. do you get to talk to him much? i know the jump from aaa to the big leagues is pretty huge, but he was hitting the ball really well down there. i wonder if he is feeling the pressure that this may be his final audition for the royals. haven’t seen all the games but haven’t heard too many poor things about his defense since he’s been up. if he can start hitting a little better it would be really good for him and the team. i’m rooting for the guy.
Terry Payne
10 months ago

Tommy Lasorda once said something like this: An exceptional team will still lose 1/3 of your games, despite playing exceptionally, and will win 1/3 of it’s games despite playing on a mediocre level. It’s the OTHER 1/3 that will determine whether the team progresses.

In other words: 1/3 of the games you play are completely up for grabs, and depend on the “little” things: A runner moved here, a pitch made there, a routine play not made, etc.

That’s why the fundamentals are practiced so rigorously in the spring and, hopefully, preached year-round. IMHO it IS the little things that determine the decisive games that can give you one more win.

Baseball is a game that can be, due to it’s design, analyzed to death. And that’s one reason it can be so appealing to non-participating idiots like me.

However, let’s assume a middle-infielder doesn’t cover a bag properly on an attempted steal in the late innings of a game and the runner is safe. Then the runner is moved on a groundout when the secondbasemen makes a sensational diving stop, but loses the ball when his glove gives just a little and the ball dribbles out as he dives to his left, then the runner scores on a freak balk call.

How, exactly, is all that recorded in the “books?”

To me, this is the ultimate fascination of baseball: It looks SO easy from an ass-planted POV, yet is SO difficult in it’s day-to-day, unfortunately-executed-by-humans actuality.
Lee Judge
10 months ago

Luke: Yeah, I get to talk to Gio and like most players, he seems like a good guy. I imagine Johnny feels pressure, they all do.

Even a player with a guaranteed contract does not want to fail. Every guy, from Francoeur to Tony Abreu feels pressure. Abreu just to stick, Francoeur to live up to his contract.

After Chris Getz spent time rehabbing in Omaha, he told me how the players there thought Triple A was kind of cutthroat: everybody trying to figure out how to make the next step. Chris was thinking it wouldn’t get any easier for them in the big leagues: there’s always someone waiting to take your job.

After seeing how often a player comes up to the big leagues, has his “cup of coffee” and then disappears, I’ve come to respect anybody who figures out how to stick in the major leagues for years.
Lee Judge
10 months ago

Terry: After managing hundreds of games, I quit worrying about the stuff I couldn’t control and focused on what I could control. (I got that one from Joe Torre.)

If we lost by three runs or less, it was a rare game that couldn’t have been won if I’d been allowed to change three controllable plays and their outcomes.

It was always stuff like not walking the leadoff hitter, getting down a sacrifice bunt or backing up a base. Stuff that we could have controlled, but didn’t.

Do enough small things right and they add up to a big thing: winning. Do enough small things wrong and you know where that leads.

I’d tell my teams we had to do everything right because, unfortunately, we wouldn’t know what plays mattered until the game was over.

Obviously, that’s one of the reasons for this web site’s existence: find the seemingly small moments in the game that have big consequences.

And you’re right: as they say in baseball, the further you get from dirt, the easier the game becomes.
Terry Payne
10 months ago

Lee: Your comments remind me of a guy who attended, let’s say, certain association meetings.

He said, “You know, I only need 2 of these (similar) meetings a week. But I attend 7 of them, because I don’t which 2 I need.”

The variations and intricacies of this game are what keep an old badger like me showing up, game after game. You have absolutely no idea going into it, whether something mundane, or spectacular, or historical might happen.

For instance, the pitcher’s duel on Tuesday was only the 2nd game since the deadball era, 1920, when BOTH starters went at least eight innings, yielded three hits or less, no runs, AND struck out 8 or more.

The other game was in 1968, the year of the pitcher, after which the mound was lowered because it was determined that the pitchers had developed an unfair advantage.

And they say baseball never changes.

Baseball HAS to be the most complex little boys game ever invented.

‘Nuff said.
Brendan Woodbury
10 months ago

Doug Sisson was fired, and that must be an awful experience, so I don’t want to add to that, but I’m not sure about his theory.

MLB teams are on pace for 3239 SBs this year, only about 1% off the pace for last year’s total of 3279. However, CS are on pace to be down over 9% from last year and are even farther off the pace (13%) if pickoff-caught-stealing are taken out of that.

Stolen base attempts are down a bit (attempts=SB+CS), and catchers’ success rate in throwing out batters is significantly down. Those aren’t the sorts of numbers I’d expect if pitchers were speeding up their deliveries.
Jim Fetterolf
10 months ago

Brendan, eyeballs and stop-watches tell us if a pitcher is speeding up. The stop-watch is primary data, requires no weighting or interpretation.
Brendan Woodbury
10 months ago

Jim F -

Maybe the measurements are inaccurate. Maybe they’re an unrepresentative sample. Maybe there’s a tell for when pitchers are using a slower delivery. I don’t know.

All I know is that the 29 MLB teams other than the Royals are on pace for more stolen bases in aggregate (and a higher success rate) than they had last year.

I believe that the stolen base data are absolutely reliable, so that leads me to believe that either the pitch time data are faulty or Sisson’s theory is flawed, but his theory makes sense to me.

At the very least, it should be noted that the Royals’ drop off in stolen bases is not replicated across the league.
Terry Payne
10 months ago

Brendan, how do you factor in the fact that the Royals “snuck up” on the league last year with their aggressiveness, then were forced to back off when the league was aware that the Royals had been hyper-aggressive on the bases?

My point: it must be hard to factor in a team’s intentions, year-to-year, which, of course, are always dependant on the make-up of the team you HAVE, rather than the team you WANT to have.
Joel Kallem
10 months ago

Terry, I grew up with a similar caveat about baseball - every team will win 60 games and lose 60 games. It’s what they do with the other 42 that determines their fate. Almost always true except a team will occasionally win more than 102 games or lose more than 60 games like Houston this year.
Terry Payne
10 months ago

Joel - question: giving our mutual agreement about the “middle third” being up for grabs, who would your manager overseeing those games be?
Brendan Woodbury
10 months ago

Terry -

The Royals are actually stealing at a higher success rate this year than last year.

Here’s attempts and success rate month by month:

Apr 11: 39 attempts 87% success rate

May 11: 27, 67%

Jun 11: 40, 73%

Jul 11: 38, 67%

Aug 11: 33, 61%

Sep 11: 34, 79%

Apr 12: 22, 64%

May 12: 22, 68%

Jun 12: 24, 79%

Jul 12: 26, 77%

Aug 12: 29, 86% both numbers through today

I can’t discern any clear relationship there, but I suppose others might.

The Royals’ position players are basically the same as last year (substituting Cain for Melky), and I think the other 29 teams in aggregate have roughly the same pool of players as they had a year ago.
Terry Payne
10 months ago

Brendan, thx VY much for the info. Offhand, it just appears there are substantially fewer attempts this year, than last. a) am I looking at the info correctly and, if so, b) what can you tell me about why that is? Thx, TP
Dan Kuhlman
10 months ago

“as they say in baseball, the further you get from dirt, the easier the game becomes.”

As I say to my friends, “The closer you get to having dirt in your eyes, the harder it is to see all the details in what you are trying to observe.”
Tim Bruggeman
10 months ago

I’m confused. I couldn’t watch the game, but I was listening on the internet.

I don’t think there’s anything in the rule book that requires a pitcher to step off the rubber before attempting a pickoff.

Why was Mendoza called for a balk?
Lee Judge
10 months ago

Tim: The balk rule states that the pitcher can’t make a motion associated with his pitch and not complete the delivery.

In other words, most pickoffs moves are balks—at least by rule. What we’re left with is how umpires interpret the rule.

Generally, if a right-handed pitcher lifts up his front foot he’s got to throw to home plate. If a right-handed pitcher picks up his front foot and whirls around to catch a runner between bases, they’ll call that a balk. He can do it if the runner’s on second (called an inside move), but not if the runner was on first and broke for second.
Brendan Woodbury
10 months ago

Terry -

The Royals definitely have far fewer attempts than last year. We’re on pace for 163. Last year, we attempted 211.

However, the pace (and success rate) of attempts has been much higher in August, which suggests the possibility that Kuntz has us running in more situations than Sisson did.

It varies by situation, but for the good of SBs to outweigh the harm of CSs, the success rate needs to be in the mid-70s at least, so there are long stretches of time where our base-stealing approach was doing more harm than good.
Lee Judge
10 months ago

I won’t try to explain what other teams are doing and why it is or isn’t working. I have a hard enough time explaining what the Royals are doing.

But…

If your explanation of events concludes that Doug Sisson doesn’t know how to use a stopwatch, you need a new explanation.

The guy’s done it all his life and did it every night for the Royals. I can confirm the accuracy of his times because I was also timing the pitchers.

I also noticed how pitchers were cutting their delivery times. Some guys came in as fast as 1.1 and 1.2. Times that fast made me think I was doing something wrong, but Ned Yost confirmed them.

There were instances where my time differed from Doug’s, but that would be because Doug had a key on the pitcher I didn’t have.

I think the Royals got out in front on this issue in 2011 and teams had to react. The first time the White Sox came to town that year they had a bunch of guys over 1.4 (the time needed to steal a base). The last time they came to town most of their pitchers were 1.3s, but they were having a hard time keeping the ball down in the zone with the faster deliveries. Pitchers have had time to work with slide steps and quick steps and seem to do a better job of keeping the ball down this year.

If I’ve done the math right the Royals were stealing 0.94 bases per game in 2011. This year they’re stealing 0.76.

Escobar is going to surpass his 2011 total. Dyson’s already done that, but in many more games. Getz might have, but now we’ll never know. Melky stole 20 and Cain’s got 5, but of course Lorenzo’s missed a lot of baseball.

Gordon had 17 last year and has 7 so far. Francoeur had 22 and now has 3.

Since spring training everyone has told me the pitchers across the league are speeding up. In response, the Royals have looked for counts in which the percentage pitch from a particular pitcher is off-speed. That gives them a better chance of stealing a base.

Hosmer is actually ahead of his pace last year and some of that may be experience: learning when to run.

Bottom line: pitcher’s delivery times are only one of the factors that might affect the stolen base numbers. But I’d be willing to bet a lot of money that Doug Sisson had them right.
Joel Kallem
10 months ago

Terry, the choice of manager is complex. One part of the job is picking the right strategy in the particular situation. That is complicated by the fact that the “right” strategy may have more than one answer in numerous situations. Another (and bigger part in my opinion) facet of managing lies in personnel management of the players available on the roster. Right now, I’m content with Yost because of his handling of the young Royals’ development. He seems to be able to create an environment where that is happening at a significant pace. Whatever Yost’s shortcomings on the strategy side (real or perceived), I think they are less important at the current time.
Brendan Woodbury
10 months ago

Lee -

Don’t be so prickly. The reason we don’t use stopwatches for Olympic events any more isn’t because the judges didn’t know how to use them. It’s because there’s a lot of inaccuracy, even among experienced users, especially if the point where you start timing and finish timing are indistinct (compared to a starter’s pistol).

I don’t know how Doug is getting times from across the league, and I don’t know how many samples he’s getting from each team, and I don’t know what the average error is on each measurement. All I know is that the other 29 teams are stealing more bases, catchers are throwing out fewer base stealers, pitchers are attempting more pickoffs, and hitters are doing the same or slightly worse than last year. None of those are outcomes you’d predict if pitchers were speeding up their deliveries.

I’m not trying to attack Doug Sisson. Obviously, our base running has been terrible this year, but I’m not saying that’s all his fault. However, it at least raises the possibility that he wasn’t right about all of his baserunning theories.
Terry Payne
10 months ago

Joel - again I think your analysis is spot-on.

My next question is: do you think, should the team begin to win consistently, that Ned will still be managing, or will they kick him upstairs?
KC Guy
10 months ago

Perhaps, even though pitchers are speeding up their delivery times, teams are also focusing on stealing more bases, and so far are coming out ahead. It could be kind of like early in the year, when pitchers are ahead of hitters — it takes time to catch up, but it will. Or maybe the stolen base has been an underutilized asset lately — I doubt Vince Coleman was the fastest player to ever play in the Major Leagues, but stealing 100+ bases at over an 80% clip for multiple seasons shows he knew how to use his speed to success…which means it can be done, regardless of whether the defense knows it’s coming. If he would have come up in the last 10-15 years, how many stolen bases do you think he would he have had? A renewed focus on that aspect of the game may be showing that teams are realizing that, if they do it at the right time, they can actually use the stolen base as an offensive weapon..
Jeff Frost
10 months ago

With all this discussion about speeding up and slowing down deliveries with runners on, the one thing I really noticed that the Rays do better than any team I have seen, is changing their pace of pitching and delivery when nobody is one. Luke is about the only Royal that seems to change delivery pace. The Rays would hold a little bit longer on some and then quick pitch on others. This was across the Board, from Shields, Hellickson, Price and the relievers. This has to have an affect on timing. As we know all hitters are in a rhythm when it comes to timing a pitcher once they start their windup. I thought this was huge and had us off balance quite a bit. We should have been stepping out more, and hopefully our pitchers saw that!

Also- the Rays hitters are SO methodical! Pena is like a human rain delay, which again, takes the pitcher out of their rhythm!

I think this comes down to good coaching and managing!
Brendan Woodbury
10 months ago

I always figured that Vince Coleman’s totals were boosted by playing such a huge proportion of his games on artificial turf (not just his home stadium, but 3 of the other five stadiums in the NL East). In today’s era of natural grass stadiums, I don’t think we’ll see anyone approach his numbers again, although Billy Hamilton may prove me wrong.
KC Guy
10 months ago

the one thing I really noticed that the Rays do better than any team I have seen, is changing their pace of pitching and delivery when nobody is one.

One thing I liked about GMDM is that he seemed open to guys that have unorthodox deliveries — Coleman, Collins, Crow, etc. — that can really throw a batter off. Hochevar does it too, with doing a legal “quick pitch” and all. They apparently were also in on Chris Sale for a while before that draft, and you see what he’s done.

Obviously, in Collins’ case, he had to refine his style, but he still has a lot of deception in what he does (plus he throws from an unusual height that can’t really be taught).

The speeding up and slowing down on delivery times is something every pitcher should do, along with developing a change-up they can throw for strikes..
KC Guy
10 months ago

In today’s era of natural grass stadiums, I don’t think we’ll see anyone approach his numbers again, although Billy Hamilton may prove me wrong.

I’m curious to see what he can do once he gets to the Majors, but I don’t think it’s that much different running on dirt cutout/turf/dirt cutout vs all dirt. Obviously, I would love to see a comparison, but the time from 1st to 2nd is so short, I don’t know how much difference the surface would really make.

The key is having a runner who knows what they’re doing, can pick up the pitcher’s keys, and, honestly, has the mentality to steal bases. Sometimes a guy is inordinately fast, and can make up for mistakes, but then again even some of the fastest guys are terrible base stealers, so there is a science to it..
KC Guy
10 months ago

**I will add a caveat that all dirts are different, and teams can (and do) specifically slow down an infield to hamper a base stealer if they want to.
Lee Judge
10 months ago

Brendan: Your comparison to the Olympics doesn’t hold up: those events are being timed out much more precisely. Pitchers are being timed to the tenth of a second.

As I already pointed out, I can confirm Doug’s times because I timed them as well. He got times from across the league because he timed every opponent the Royals faced whenever they had a runner on, every night, on every pitch.

I timed the pitchers much more sporadically, but I saw the samw decrease in delivery times. And what Doug predicted in spring training, that the true base stealers—Dyson and Escobar—would still got their twenty bases and the situational base stealers—guys like Gordon and Francoeur—would drop off has come to pass.

I can’t tell you about other teams, but it’s a fact that many pitchers have sped up their deliveries and it’s also a fact that the Royals are stealing less bases.
Brendan Woodbury
10 months ago

Lee -

The Olympic events were being timed to the tenth of a second when they used human timers (you can easily confirm this by looking at world records from before the 1970s) They switched to hundredths (or thousandths, in the case of some winter sports) when they switched to electronic timing.

When they still used human timers, the Olympics usually used multiple timers for each competitor and then took the middle time or averaged them, specifically because of the inherent inaccuracy of manual timing.

Outside of the Royals, MLB teams are getting as many stolen bases as last year. Maybe you’re saying that teams are only speeding up their deliveries against the Royals, but the other teams are not seeing Sisson’s prediction borne out. The Royals are an outlier.

Actually I should say that the Royals were an outlier. It’s too small of a sample to be definitive, but since Sisson left, the Royals have resumed last year’s pace of stolen base attempts (but with a higher success rate).
Joel Kallem
10 months ago

Terry, interesting question. If they start winning consistently, I would say Ned deserves a chance to manage (after all they are winning). However, if after a season or two he doesn’t deliver at least a division championship, I would say it might be time for a change.
Jim Wilson
10 months ago

Lee, pitchers have sped up there delivery versus what? Versus last year? Do you have times from last year? You say you don’t know what other teams are doing and then make the statement that you “think the Royals got out in front of this issue in 2011.” If the Royals were out in front of this issue, why was their performance so bad compared to other teams? The Royals appear to have been behind the curve not in front of it.
KC Guy
10 months ago

Did they not speed up their deliveries? Is there proof otherwise?
KC Guy
10 months ago

It’s too small of a sample to be definitive, but since Sisson left, the Royals have resumed last year’s pace of stolen base attempts (but with a higher success rate).

Pretty sure Sisson didn’t actually call the stolen base attempts..
Jim Wilson
10 months ago

Speed them up versus what?
Lee Judge
9 months, 4 weeks ago

The Royals got in front in 2011 when they finished second in the league in stolen bases. The theory was that without performance enhancing drugs the stolen base would become more important.

By the end of 2011 teams were starting to speed up their pitchers’ deliveries home. As I wrote then and repeated several comments ago, the White Sox we’re faster in general during their last visit to KC in 2011 than their first. A lot of guys who were 1.5s became 1.3s.

By spring training 2012 Doug said almost everybody they faced was faster than the year before. Some of the Royals early failures this season came when guys who were stealing bases last year kept trying even though the new delivery times said not to.

But, as I also said, delivery times are only one of the factors involved in stealing a base. The response of the Royals—and I imagine other teams—was to start looking for breaking ball counts to run on.

That information is now available and Seitzer can tell you the percentage for any pitcher in most counts.

The Royals also study frame by frame video of pitchers when they deliver home and when they come over to first and try to find the first physical difference between the motions and then give those keys to the runners.

If they can find a key that can be spotted early and don’t have to wait for the foot to come up, they can counteract the quicker delivery times.

Some pitchers also have trouble throwing strikes out of the slide step or quick step and, if a team can identify those guys, the runners can wait until the pitcher finds himself in count where he has to throw a strike and—even though the pitcher is faster in general—steal in those counts where he’ll be slower.

The game does not stand still. People come up with a strategy and someone comes up with a counterstrategy: runners stole bases, pitchers got quicker and now runners are figuring how to overcome that.
Brendan Woodbury
9 months, 4 weeks ago

Lee -

The Royals outstanding stealing bases in April of 2011 and then pretty bad the rest of the year (69% after April) and on in to 2012. I posted the stolen base rates above in response to a question from Terry if you want the details.

The rest of the league seemed to respond to the Royals aggressive base stealing pretty quickly last year. The Royals responded this year by cutting their number of attempts.

I can’t find a similar pattern among the rest of the league, so this strategy must not be in widespread use.