Efficiency of Scoring Baserunners in MLB

• Activity Number: 349
• Type: Contributed
• Date/Time: Tuesday, August 5, 2014 : 10:30 AM to 11:15 AM
• Sponsor: Section on Statistics in Sports
• Author(s): William Knapp*+ and Jason Osborne
• Companies: and North Carolina State University
• Keywords: base-runners ; scoring ; sacrifices ; baseball ; OBP ; stolen bases

Abstract

Over the past decade or so the strategy of major league baseball teams has begun a distinct change. Numerous teams have likely switched to the "moneyball" strategy of acquiring affordable players with good on-base percentage, most notably the Oakland A's and Boston Red Sox. The luxury tax implementations of 2013 have also altered the strategy of team signings for many clubs, even the Yankees. Using play-by-play data retrieved from baseball-reference.com, we fit logistic regression models for scoring probabilities as functions of a number of factors including sacrifices, attempted stolen bases, and on-base-percentage. We also use it to rank teams according to the proportion of runners on base that end up scoring. Correlations of baserunner-scoring proportions with win-loss records are made across the last three seasons. The results could be used to inform personnel decisions that go beyond simple on-base percentage.