Billy Butler Ran Into 10 Outs
Last season, Billy Butler ran into 10 outs. If you didn’t know that before, you definitely know that now. And if you’re anything like me, now that you know that, you want to know what happened. Boy have I got the post for you. It’s this post!
I spent an embarrassing amount of time assembling different numbers. It wasn’t until I finished that I realized I didn’t really need them. What the numbers reveal, you already know to be true: Butler is a lousy baserunner. He’s one of the very worst baserunners, of his own time, and of all time. To think, he’s not even 30 for another four weeks. Billy Butler is going to slow down. Prior to slowing down, he’s still been historically bad, by whatever baserunning metrics you favor.
Baserunning success is a function of a few things. There’s speed, of course, but there’s also instincts. Beyond those, there’s coaching, and then there’s plain old luck. You’d figure that, over a career as long as Butler’s, the luck would basically even out. We always assume this to be true, and we’ll work with it. So there are a few reasons why Butler has been bad. It’s left him as a completely one-dimensional player, and it’s evident that player isn’t particularly valuable unless the bat is terrific. Butler can still hit the ball hard, and that’s good, because he desperately needs to.
To get back to the point: Butler ran into 10 outs last year. This is an unfamiliar statistic, so let me give you some context. The numbers come from Baseball-Reference, and they don’t include failed steals. Jose Altuve ran into an incredible 19 outs, which was the highest total in the league. Dexter Fowler ran into 13 outs. Butler’s total of 10 outs was higher than everyone, save for 11 players. So Butler’s way up there for a guy who shouldn’t be taking many chances. In fact, consider this: Butler was on first for 27 singles, he was on second for 17 singles, and he was on first for 15 doubles. Just seven times, or 12%, did he advance the extra base. The overall league average was 39%. Butler ran into more outs than he took extra bases. Just about nobody does that.
Butler did the same thing in 2014, by a margin of six to five. So.
The 10 outs — how did they happen? How did Billy Butler arrive at such a total? I was curious enough to go to the video. Below is everything that I found.
Out No. 1
Butler didn’t run into his first of the 10 outs until May 31, which means he did an awful lot in about four months, but this is a promising start, as Butler’s dignity goes. Because, as you see, Butler didn’t really run into anything. Butler hardly moved. That’s not a joke at the expense of Butler’s speed. He was just put in a lousy situation. You could argue, I guess, that Butler could’ve read the ball better, or maybe you could argue Butler could’ve attempted a more evasive maneuver, but ultimately, Butler was on first when Josh Reddick hit a screaming liner…to first. The best players get doubled up on these. Bad luck!
Out No. 2
This one isn’t bad luck. I don’t know what to blame here — I’m leaning toward just blaming Butler’s speed, because I don’t think his instincts were that bad. He was on second, and the ball was hit on the ground behind him. The hitter did his job, or at least he would’ve done his job if the runner were anyone other than who he was. Nine times out of 10, this is a productive out, but Jose Iglesias made the heads-up decision to go for the lead runner because he recognized the lead runner’s identity. Iglesias has seen plenty of Butler in his career, and this shows good awareness. Or does it? Would you and I have known to do the same thing? I don’t know how to answer that. But Butler was out by a damn mile. This gets more amazing every time I watch it.
Out No. 3
Goal: try to score from third base on contact.
Prep: assess the situation before a play develops.
Assessment: ask yourself the following questions:
Question No. 1: are you Billy Butler?
Question No. 2: there is no second question.
Determination: if the answer to question No. 1 is yes, do not try to score from third base on contact.
Out No. 4
In Butler’s defense, this took an accurate throw. If the throw is off-line, Butler reaches home safely, and everyone’s thrilled. But, I mean, I didn’t manipulate this screenshot. The catcher has the ball, here, and Butler is nowhere to be seen.
So maybe it wasn’t worth the risk. Even with two outs, maybe it wasn’t worth the risk. Here’s a fun fact: Butler scored three times from second on a single, out of 17 opportunities. Lorenzo Cain scored 21 times out of 21 opportunities. This play is more of a coin flip, but I don’t know how a third-base coach ever feels confident waving Billy Butler around.
Out No. 5
Oh no. This is one of those in-betweens. It would’ve looked weird if Butler just stopped at first, because everything about this play screamed “two bases.” Butler would’ve stopped there, and then the ball wouldn’t have arrived at the infield for three or four seconds, and during that gap, fans would wonder why Butler didn’t stretch. It would’ve felt like enough time to stretch. This is the argument against stretching. Had Butler stopped, he might’ve felt uncomfortable for three seconds, but better to feel uncomfortable on base than uncomfortable off it.
Out No. 6
Hey, it happened again! Another out you can’t pin on Butler. Maybe it’s better this way. The A’s can just heap the bad baserunning luck on Butler, because he’s already so far in the red it doesn’t make any difference. If you have to beat anything, beat the dead horse. That way no one gets hurt.
Out No. 7
This is one of the dumbest double plays I’ve ever seen. Now, no matter what, off the bat, this was likely to be a double play. The bases were loaded with nobody out, and the ball was hit sharply to third. When the ball hit the ground, everybody was supposed to run. I have absolutely no idea why Butler tried to return to third. Then, I have absolutely no idea why Butler reversed course and tried to score. Off the bat, you’d think out at home, and out at first. 5-2-3 double play, leaving runners on second and third. Butler didn’t go, however, so the third baseman stepped on third and threw to first. Never mind that the throw was wild — forget about that. This was then going to be a 5-3 double play, also leaving runners on second and third. When the third baseman threw the ball, Butler could’ve stayed put. He could’ve stayed put! What was he doing! Based on his body language, I think he knew he didn’t know what he was doing.
Inexplicable. It’s the kind of inexplicable that makes me think I’m just missing something obvious. Because, you know, a trained professional baseball player shouldn’t do anything that dumb. But sometimes even really good players get lazily picked off, or they forget how many outs there are in an inning. I guess this is sort of like that? It seems dumber, but at least Butler got exercise.
Out No. 8
Holy shit.
Here’s something I put together. It’s the play above, timed to sync with a Dee Gordon hustle double.
Everything in baseball happens pretty fast. Differences between extremes are still mostly small, and the difference here is about 1.7 seconds. If you count 1.7 seconds out loud, it seems like nothing. You might be able to lift 300 pounds off the ground for 1.7 seconds. You’re constantly holding your breath for well more than 1.7 seconds. Sometimes your heart doesn’t beat for 1.7 seconds. You could probably stand the company of Carlos Mencia for 1.7 seconds. But in baseball terms, 1.7 seconds is an eternity. The slowest pitches make it from the mound to the catcher in a third as long. From contact to the bag, Gordon’s double took him 7.4 seconds. Butler came in a hair over 9.1. (Butler was out.) Butler was 23% slower. Oakland announcers were critical of Butler’s route as he rounded first. I’m perfectly happy to blame that. It seems like there would be a few things to blame.
Out No. 9
Two outs, and the ball was hit 380 feet. When there are two outs, and the ball is hit 380 feet, you should be able to score from first. It shouldn’t even be a question. This was probably the thought going through the head of the third-base coach — “of course I’m going to wave the runner, because in this circumstance, you always wave the runner.” But! I can think of one circumstance in which you might not want to wave the runner.
Look at Butler’s teammate on the other side of home. Look at him in the screenshot. Then look at him in the video, as Butler is tagged without sliding. This is what I live for. I didn’t know that a few hours ago, but now my very soul feels fuller.
Out No. 10
Haven’t we been over this? This was at the very end of the season, so there’s an argument that nothing mattered, but when you’re Billy Butler, and you’re on third base, there’s no such thing as the contact play. Or, there shouldn’t be. This ball was hit too softly to get turned for two, so there was no reason for Butler to move. I would’ve been fine with him bluffing — I would’ve applauded him bluffing — to maybe draw a bad throw, but this shows bad situational awareness. Or maybe it shows bad personal-skillset awareness. It shows some kind of bad awareness. Butler, at least, could laugh about it, which now that I think about it is sort of troubling.
I don’t know what it’s like in there. I don’t want to accuse Butler of not taking his job seriously. There’s no way for me to know that, and I don’t want to criticize for the sake of being critical. I don’t want to pile on and say that Butler is a stupid baserunner. It’s possible, though, he hasn’t paid enough attention to baserunning lessons, because he knows it’ll never be a strength. That might reflect more on the coaches. Now I’m just speculating, to no end. You don’t often see runners laughing after making bad outs, is the point. I guess at the end of the season, it’s just insignificant. And maybe Butler will know better for next time. Keep your eye out for potential contact plays in 2016. Butler better keep his ass still.
We’ve got 10 outs. Two were just line-drive bad luck. There was a good throw home in there. There was also slow running, and there were poor decisions. Billy Butler ran into 10 outs. I’ll be damned.
Jeff made Lookout Landing a thing, but he does not still write there about the Mariners. He does write here, sometimes about the Mariners, but usually not.
Number five is amazing – it feels like the ball is rolling around down there for eternity. He looks like he got out of the box a little .. slow .. but seemed to be running as fast as Billy Butler permits himself to run from first to second.
The thought of Billy Butler running into anything is painful.
Dear god
I liked this article a lot.
It really is amazing how many things a baseball player can be bad at, Jeff.
#7 should have been a triple play, and the way the A’s season went, I’m surprised it wasn’t…
Pujols is just totally taken aback. He has to stop himself and realize “Yep, he is actually trying to score.”
Jeff Sullivan: professional troll or professional comedian?
http://i.imgur.com/c7NJRa2.gif
I can’t help wondering how Butler’s foot speed stacks up against other notorious base-cloggers as well as against MLB average and the very fastest players. Is there info available, maybe from Statcast, that would allow such comparisons on top speed, time to first base et al?
Just think about what would’ve happened in #7 if only Freese (I assume it’s him) doesn’t throw that ball 15 feet to Albert’s left…that would’ve been one of the dumbest triple plays we’ve seen in a while.
As for most of the others…we all know he’s slow. He knows he’s slow. He probably just hasn’t admitted he’s THAT slow. And he looks even slower on those gifs than in real life. Poor guy.
Watching him run is mesmerizing. The more I watch it, the more fascinating it becomes. If you just focus on him running… he looks like he should be faster, everything on his body is moving so fast….but his strides are so small. His motions are just so inefficient. There’s just so much wasted inertia. It seems like somebody along the line could have taught him to run properly.
It looks like he’s trying to paddle a Flintstones car.
HAHA!
As an A’s fan it was horribly, horrible to watch this. Not to mention the 26 BPs he hit into.
SO many of us him want him gone.
Out #3 fascinates me for many reasons.
A-Rod is so far off the line he’s essentially playing shortstop. Why he would be doing that against Smolinski – a dead pull hitter who has a .400 BA on pull shots in his career?
It’s fair to say Butler should have realized how far off the line A-Rod was and known he had to go back. It’s also fair to say that ball should have gone through the hole. Not that a grounder to LF should have scored Butler though.
Danny Valencia’s body language in Out #9 is priceless.
Yes – this was my highlight, too. Just standing there, arms dangling, wondering wtf just happened as the defense jogs off the field.
Very fun article, Jeff. Thank you for making me laugh.
UBR anti-leaderboard for this decade:
http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=np&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=0&type=1&season=2015&month=0&season1=2010&ind=0&team=0&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=0&sort=14,a
Great piece. As an A’s fan, I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. Cry, I think. A Royals fan in town to see the interleague Giants series came up to me and said, laughing, “how do you like Billy Butler on the bases?”
I wrote an article last week for Seamheads “Taking the Extra Base – The Players”.
http://seamheads.com/2016/03/16/taking-the-extra-base-the-players/
Billy Butler ranks as the 6th worst all-time in 1st-3rd percentage. Butler has gone from 1st to 3rd only 31 times in 277 opportunities (*runner on 1st, clean single, no errors). His 2014 season is tied for 8th worst all-time (1 for 31).
Billy Butler 31 277 0.112 1st-3rd% (Career Totals through 2015)
That’s one stat he shouldn’t try to improve.
You know that part of Monty Python and the Holy Grail where Lancelot is running up towards swamp castle? Where they show him tunning, and then cut to the unconcerned guards, and then cut back to show him running in the exact same place.
Yeah.
That!
Watching him run brought to mind John Mulaney’s bit about being a bad driver:
“Cars were pulling up, and looking over to see who just did that piece of **** move, expecting to see like a hundred year old blind dog who’s texting while driving and drinking a smoothie. Instead they see a 28 year old, healthy man, trying his best.”
Jeff, did the A’s happen to lose any of these games by 1 run? You didn’t list dates on these so I couldn’t see for myself.
Yes, I am an A’s fan looking to pin losses on Butler’s horrendous baserunning.
Also, Alberto Callaspo was really, really bad/stupid at baserunning when he was in Oakland, probably just as bad as Butler honestly. His 2014 was one of the all-time worst seasons I’ve ever seen from any player: .580 OPS, 18 GIDPs, 7 OOB. He made Butler’s 2015 look like Pujols in 2001. He has bad at everything and made the dumbest decisions all season long – he did get a big hit in the WC game that year though, but still, one of the most dreadful excuses for a baseball player I’ve ever seen.
*he was bad at everything
They won 68 games last year. Even if all of these plays were erased from history, they would have jumped up to 4th in the rankings.
PS. yes, at least Out #3 was a 5-4 Yankees win.
I’d argue some of these weren’t technically outs Butler *ran* into. I don’t know if he should try to improve his speed or just acknowledge the fact he’s better running one base each play.
In #7, can the 3B tag Butler, while Butler is on the base, before stepping on the base to force out the runner from second? That is, with the bases loaded, does Butler have the right to the 3B bag unless and until the runner from second gets there, or does he not get the right to free passage on the bag until after the runner from second is put out?
Until the third baseman steps on the bag at 3B, Butler is “forced” to try to advance, and he can be put out by either being tagged (regardless of whether he is on 3B) or forced out at home plate. The 3B could have tagged Butler (getting him out and preserving the force out at 3B), stepped on 3B, and then thrown to 1B for a triple play. That’s actually what he should have done. It’s also another reason why Billy Butler’s baserunning display here is so monumentally terrible. He can’t avoid the out by returning safely to the bag if the 3B plays it correctly. In this case the 3B didn’t play it correctly, giving Butler and the A’s a gift, which Butler promptly reciprocated with yet another baserunning gaffe on the same play. What a maroon!
TOOTBLABB?
This was a lot of fun to read/watch. I’m struggling to understand how he managed 51 doubles one year back in KC. Must have been before OF’s realized they could nail him at second on gappers and balls hit into the corners.
Amazing-ness
So along the lines of “Player X did thing Y N times,” should anyone be looking for another interesting fact: I think of reaching on error as something done more often by relatively fast players. So on the 2015 leaderboard:
http://www.baseball-reference.com/play-index/share.cgi?id=842HD
you will find, among others, Gregory Polanco, Starling Marte, Ben Revere, Cesar Hernandez, and Dexter Fowler. The leader is Nick Markakis with 11 ROE for the season.
…and then there’s Tuffy Gosewisch with 8 ROEs in only 138 PA. How did he do that? Did he cloud the minds of fielders? Coat his bat with black oil that rubbed off on the ball? Admittedly he did raise his speed score past 2 last year after not cracking 1 the two years before.
(He’s not strictly speaking the rate leader, because Andrew Cashner had 4 in 60-some PAs, and Juan Nicasio was a perfect 1 for 1. But still.)
Also, in quite a few of these you can see why producers like to cut to the runner rounding third. If they didn’t, you wouldn’t believe what was happening.
I know it doesn’t fit within the parameters of this article, but love breaks rules http://www.sbnation.com/lookit/2014/5/30/5765388/billy-butler-thrown-out-at-first-jose-bautista
Standard rules and procedures of baserunning definitely appear not to apply to Mr. Butler. The unlucky plays not only add insult to injury but also seem to instill a sense of fatalism that is ultimately damaging to the A’s. $10 million down, $20 million to go.
A few key things occur to me as an A’s fan, moving forward:
1. Discomfort aside, the first base coach should always tell Billy Butler to stop at first when he hits a hard liner to the wall. Maybe any hard-hit ball into the outfield.
2. The third base coach should always stop Billy Butler at third no matter what. Sometimes even when he started there.
3. But Billy Butler should almost never advance to third, because Bob Melvin should send in a pinch runner every time Billy Butler successfully gets on base. In fact, that could be a key path to Coco Crisp getting playing time: In any Billy Butler start, replace him with Crisp any time he gets on base. That likely means Crisp will come in as DH, avoiding any possibility of Crisp throwing the ball.
(I say all this out of love, not hate.)
I just want to see Butler trying to score on Ben Revere. That would be priceless.
Jesus, is there a video with sound for #7? That one is pretty tragic.
#10 wasn’t that bad of a play. With 1 out and runners on 1st and 3rd, you want to break home on a double play ball. The mistake is that the ball was probably too weakly hit to be a double play, but that’s a tough read.
Yes, but did you also notice that Butler was looking back towards the third baseman fielding the ball while running, all the way up until the throw to home was made? What was Butler expecting to happen? How would we have to see to impact his decision-making on the basepaths? Why does any major league player run forward for several steps while looking behind him? That’s just an asinine decision to make.
Yes, but did you also notice that Butler was looking back towards the third baseman fielding the ball while running, all the way up until the throw to home was made? What was Butler expecting to happen? What would he have to see to impact his decision-making on the basepaths? Why does any major league player run forward for several steps while looking behind him? That’s just an asinine decision to make.
So my wife isn’t convinced he’s that slow (I disagree)… He just never seems to try to run fast. The decision-making is terrible. Did anyone else on the A’s run into an abnormal number of outs? In that case, maybe the basecoaching could be responsible. But for the most part, he just sucks.
“You might be able to lift 300 pounds off the ground for 1.7 seconds.” Sounds like someone needs to get to the gym more often. Both my wife and a 39-year old woman from our gym can deadlift 300+. It should be very attainable for Fangraph’s target audience of 20- or 30- something males. No might about it. One can even put some weights in one’s mother’s basement and get a few sets in while one’s spreadsheets are compiling.
1.7 seconds? Try 1.7 decades (and stll going)
This was hilarious. Thanks for the laughs, Jeff.
Surely Mike “Keep on Truckin'” Gallego deserves partial credit for a few of these outs.
Whew! That was laugh out loud funny! Great way to start my Friday!