Bryan Keefer is co-author of the New York Times bestseller about
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The World Series small ball tally
So I’ve had a request that I stop writing about baseball, to which I respond: Yes, dear, I’ll get you another ginger ale now that the World Series is finally over.
But first, one last tally of the relative success of “small ball.” The idea is that, in the playoffs, playing against teams with presumably better pitching, runs are at a premium. So teams are urged by commentators to “manufacture” runs with sacrifices, stolen bases, and the like. Statistically, these plays don’t help a team generate runs. But they’re so ingrained in baseball conventional wisdom that managers use them anyway.
So here, finally, is a tally of how the runs were scored in the 2003 World Series, as well as a tally of the success and failure of various “small ball” plays:
Total runs scored: 38
Runs scored by play on which they scored:
Walk: 1
Single: 12
Double: 5
Triple: 2
Home run: 14
Sacrifice fly: 4
Number of times a sacrifice bunt actually contributed to a bunt vs. total sacrifice bunts: 2 out of 8
Number of successful steals vs. total attempts: 4 out of 9
Number of times a steal contributed to a run: 0
From those numbers, “small ball” clearly hurt the teams that played it, costing them critical outs and netting virtually nothing in return. 21 of the 38 runs scored in the series scored on extra-base hits (and, though those numbers don’t show it, doubles were involved in several of the other runs). It’s hardly case closed, given the small sample size, but it’s clear that big plays, especially home runs, are generally the key to winning ball games.
- October 28, 2003
filed under: Baseball