Friday, September 14, 2018

Odds of taking extra base on hit; updated table for Statis-Pro

After pulling together additional data on how rarely runners are thrown out trying to take an extra base on a hit, the following are the best rules to play.

1. If playing with a Statis-Pro Fast Action Deck then a runner should only be thrown out by an outfielder with a T2 (the weakest throwing arm) on an 88, by a T3 on an 87-88, by a T4 on an 86-88 and by a T5 on an 85-88. That means even a T5 will throw out a runner 6.4% of the time, and this is consistent with our earlier piece on only 1.3% of runners on first base being thrown out at 3rd base on a single, and we just reviewed additional data showing that runners going second to home are out only slightly more at 2.9% of the time. Sometimes the decision will be made not to take any chances and send the runners, but this is it. Still, use the charts on whether or not the runner takes the extra base, but if the number is too high to take the extra base but not one of these 85-88 numbers, the simply have the runner stop after taking as many bases as the batter.

2. If playing with dice, the following is the updated chart we are adding to the game.

Die RollRoll for extra base on hit2nd roll if 6 on 1st roll
1OBR A,B,C extra base, others holdTagged out
2OBR A,B extra base, others holdOut if T3, 4 or 5, if not safe
3OBR A extra base, others holdOut if T4 or 5, if not safe
4Second to home score, but 1st to 3rd holdOut if T5, if not safe
5Safe if 2 outs, others holdSafe
6Roll again for close playSafe

Note that runners have a much better chance of going from second to home than from 1st to 3rd on a single. The study actually shows that a runner goes 2nd to home 58% of the time, almost twice as much as the 30% chance of going from 1st to third base. The actual average from 1st to home on a double is slightly closer to the 1st to 3rd on a single - on which the runner makes it a little over 40% of the time according to this study. 

In the dice version of the game, a fast OBR: B runner trying to advance on a mediocre T3 throwing arm will go from 1st to 3rd (or 1st to home on a double) with less than two outs 44% of the time in the game, but from second to home with two outs 78% of the time.

An earlier post covered how we set up the odds of advancing an extra base on a hit in Statis-Pro based on the fact that runners were only thrown out going from 1st to 3rd a total of 1.3% of the time. The following is our new simple chart for attempting to take an extra base on a hit:

Note that the runner can only be thrown out if the first roll is a 6 and then a second roll is lower than the outfielders throwing arm, so rolling for the extra base in the game is almost always worth the shot.

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