Baseball Strategy:Hit and Run
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The bottom line is a hit and run is very rarely a play that increases a team's run production. More often than not, it puts two offensive players in a compromising position: The hitter, who is forced to expand his strike zone in an attempt to make contact, and the runner, who is often thrown out at second if the hitter cannot make contact with the ball, because he did not take a traditional approach to stealing the base (or, because he's not fast enough to steal a base).
No matter what guys like Joe Morgan or Tony LaRussa try to tell you, there are few if any exceptions. But, if the hit and run actually works, you'll be in for a managerial love-fest from whoever's in the booth because things like hit-and-runs exist only to convince the viewer that managers actually play a significant role in the outcome of a game.
[edit] Does the Hit-and-Run spark big innings?
(From my comment on this article:)
"Okay, quick, what's the MLB success rate on hit-and-run plays? 35-40%? Let's call it 37.5%. So on 37.5% of the instances a hit-and-run was called with a runner on first, the baserunner advanced and no double play occurred. That means on 62.5% of plays, either a fielder's choice resulted (no advancement) or they got doubled off. Let's say the hit-and-run cuts the expected DP% in half, so guys get doubled off only 6.5% of the time, and a FC occurs 56% of the time. Okay, so what about the advancement scenarios? Let's say managers only hit-and-run with batters who have a .285 average or better, so the odds that the runner advanced and the batter got on with a hit is 28.5%. That means the other 9 percent of successes resulted in a runner on second, but also in an out. Oh, and on what fraction of the 28.5% do runners take third base? About 33% of the times a hit lands in the outfield, so we'll say 9.4% of the time. So, to recap:
Hit-and-run results --------------------- Double Play 6.5% No DP, no Adv. 56.0% Advancement+out 9.0% Hit + Adv. 19.1% Took third 9.4% ---------------------
If our manager is calling the hit-and-run with no outs and a runner on first, we can re-write this as:
Hit-and-run results --------------------- 0 on, 2 out 6.5% 1B, 1 out 56.0% 2B, 1 out 9.0% 2B & 1B, 0 out 19.1% 3B & 1B, 0 out 9.4% ---------------------
Almost there... Now, you want to know whether or not the hit-and-run is good for big innings (vs. non-intervention by the manager). At the start of an inning, the probability of scoring 2 or more runs is 13.8%. With nobody out and a man on first (our situation before the manager hits and runs), it's 26.1%. Let's assign probabilities of big (2+ run) innings to each of our scenarios after the hit-and-run:
Probability of 2+ runs --------------------- 0 on, 2 out 2.5% 1B, 1 out 16.1% 2B, 1 out 17.5% 2B & 1B, 0 out 42.1% 3B & 1B, 0 out 45.9% ---------------------
Now we can combine the frequency of getting to each state from our hit-and-run (chart 1) with the probability of a big inning once we get to each state by multiplying the two values and adding. The resultant probability of a big inning from our hit-and-run: 23.1%. Remember, if we did nothing it would be 26.1%. It's close enough that it would make sense in late innings (or even if your batter was better than .285), but on average it seems to lower our chances of a big inning."
