Comments on: Oh Andy, Well You Came And You Gave Without Taking…

By: 51cq24

51cq24 — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 21:38:02 +0000

[109] unless by “touched and then dropped” he meant caught and then dropped

By: RIYank

RIYank — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 21:26:44 +0000

Oh, I mis-read.
NO. It is not possible. If the foul pop is not caught, then of course the ball is dead and runners return to their bases.

By: RIYank

RIYank — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 21:26:08 +0000

[107] Yes.
He doesn’t know the rules, and he made up a story that’s impossible.

I have reposted the story in the game thread, by the way.

By: 51cq24

51cq24 — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 21:23:27 +0000

[105] isn’t that possible?

By: Yankster

Yankster — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 21:09:38 +0000

[82] great post.

[83] You are right that wins > runs. And probably that it’s easier to improve the management of outs than to improve the ability to get hits (because the concept of outs as an asset is relatively new to baseball while hitting is, at least conceptually, mature). The strategy of using outs as an asset is not necessarily the last “the optimal strategy.” A team merely not giving up outs to the best of its ability could still lose to a team with a conscious goal of a high out strategy like having a relatively low OBP but with high slugging, for example.
[93] [98] fantastic

By: RIYank

RIYank — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 21:03:09 +0000

[104] Oh, I forgot /irony. Oops. (He did lay down a sac a few days ago with two strikes, remember?)

For some reason this just occurred to me. Did anyone else smack your own forehead so hard it was painful when Jon Miller demonstrated that the basic rules of baseball are too complex for him? It was after the Swisher “appeal play” at second. They’d shown the replay and Joe Morgan was trying to save face (he had smugly announced that Swish left too early), and he was grasping at straws and said that the runner can leave as soon as the ball touches the fielder’s glove (as if this helped Joe’s case). And Miller agreed (this part is correct), and then claimed to have seen a game in which a runner scored from third on a foul pop that the fielder touched and then dropped. He said he saw this play.
My god.
I swear, Joe Morgan looked like a giant in the booth. He was Dustin Pedroia standing between two five year olds, towering over them like a giant. A huge, gritty, giant.

By: Raf

Raf — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 20:56:30 +0000

[103] But it’s a supertough lefty that Damon has no chance in hell of hitting! And if you’re going to have him swing away, may as well let him do it when the count is in his favor.

Personally, I’d send the runners in that situation. Damon k’s, he k’s.

By: RIYank

RIYank — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 20:51:39 +0000

[102] There’s no way Damon could ever K while bunting. He would never bunt with two strikes!

By: Raf

Raf — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 20:48:21 +0000

[100] Nope. I’ll take my chances with Damon swinging. He could K while bunting, he could DP while bunting.

A hitter will make an out more often than not, may as well take my chances with him swinging away :)

By: 51cq24

51cq24 — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 20:46:58 +0000

i personally think that bunting can be useful a lot of the time. if you are in a situation where a strikeout or double play is more likely than usual, like when the batter or opposing pitcher has a high strikeout or very high ground ball rate, and when you only need one run, i would usually bunt a runner to 3rd, whether or not there’s another runner on 1st. otherwise i usually don’t like any bunting, except when the batter is especially fast. i almost never like bunting a single runner to 2nd.