Lindholm: Running the bases, an analysis
From SABR member Scott Lindholm at Beyond the Box Score on June 19, 2014:
Some time back I wrote a post introducing my Mistake Index, where a variety of different measures are gathered in one place to see how many mistakes teams and their opponents make. This index is in a Google Docs spreadsheet and updated daily. It’s not perfect, but it combines a number of measures for easy reference and comparison.
There are three broad categories of mistakes — pitching, fielding and baserunning. Baserunning mistakes have their own name, the TOOTBLAN, which stands for Thrown Out On The Basepaths Like A Nincompoop (from noted etymological source Urban Dictionary), and a very strong argument can be made that these represent severe lapses in judgment. This isn’t always the case — sometimes a perfect throw by Yoenis Cespedes will get a runner out, but often they’re mistakes, and possibly the most correctable in baseball.
I add getting caught stealing and picked off to TOOTBLANs as baserunning blunders. These measures can be found in this section of Baseball-Reference.com and is very illuminating when viewed in the whole. These are the leaders in base running mistakes through Monday, June 16th.
Read the full article here: http://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/2014/6/19/5818310/major-league-baseball-baserunning-mistakes-caught-stealing-out-on-base-stolen-base
Originally published: June 19, 2014. Last Updated: June 19, 2014.