Dewan: Making a great defensive play then leading off the next inning

From SABR member John Dewan at ACTA Sports on November 5, 2013:

Announcers are always saying, “Isn’t that amazing! Dokes just made that incredible play, and sure enough, here he is leading off the next inning. That sure seems to happen more often than not.”

Of course, the probability that the player who made a great play in the previous inning coming up to bat lead-off is one out of nine. There are nine lineup positions and there’s a one-in-nine chance his lineup position is due up first. But does it actually happen more often than that? I recently had an email conversation with Craig Wright on this subject where he said “We have the old adage that when you make a great play you often lead off in your team’s next at-bats. It seems like a false connection simply made up in our minds, but who really knows without actually checking it out? Maybe the more distant we are from our last at-bat the more focused on defense we are and likely to make a great play.”

We can check that!

Read the full article here: http://www.statoftheweek.com



Originally published: November 5, 2013. Last Updated: November 5, 2013.