Daily Notes: Ft. A Graph Regarding Baserunning vs. Defense

Table of Contents
Here’s the table of contents for today’s edition of the Daily Notes.

1. A Graph Regarding Baserunning vs. Defense
2. Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

A Graph Regarding Baserunning vs. Defense
Introduction
Last (Monday) night, while inspecting the team leaderboards available at the present site, the author noted to his own self how the Seattle Mariners, while having produced a not entirely woeful batting line this season, had also recorded very much one of the league’s worst cumulative position-player WARs.

A great weakness for the Mariners? Their league-worst team UZR figure, for one thing. And a second thing? Their run production from baserunning, in which category they’re presently second-to-last among all teams this year.

It’s not surprising that a team which has elected to give copious outfield starts both to Raul Ibanez and Michael Morse would have demonstrated some weakness so far as defensive run-prevention is concerned. It’s also not surprising that a team which frequently deployed a lineup featuring Ibanez and Morse and Kendrys Morales would’ve exhibited a marked difficulty in producing runs on the bases.

Foot speed and agility and some sort of baseball-specific instinct are required, one could speculate reasonably, both of the fielder and the baserunner. One could continue speculating reasonably, it would seem, that there might exist some express relationship between the runs produced/prevented in either category.

In fact, as reasonable as this speculation might be, the truth appears to suggest mostly otherwise. Below is a graph depicting the relationship between baserunning runs and fielding runs* on the team-level over the past five years.

Not a particularly strong relationship, it would seem. And while a similar comparison on the player-level reveals a slightly stronger relationship (r-squared of ca. 8%), neither instance produces a very significant result.

Thus one concludes: it would appear that whatever qualities appear relevant both to baserunning and fielding (speed, agility, etc), they are dwarfed by a combination of (a) other, separate skills unmentioned here and/or (b) noise from what is (maybe, although not probably) a small sample.

*With WAR’s positional adjustment included, as well — which makes little difference on the team level, but more on the individual level.

Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
Pittsburgh at Texas | 20:05 ET
Francisco Liriano (136.0 IP, 82 xFIP-, 3.0 WAR) faces Martin Perez (95.0 IP, 100 xFIP-, 1.4 WAR). Among all of today’s games, this is most relevant in terms of its influence on the postseason. Pittsburgh currently possesses odds of 24.3% and 75.2%, respectively, of winning the division and qualifying for a wild-card berth; Texas, 27.6% and 63.0%, respectively.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Texas Radio.

Today’s Complete Schedule
Here’s the complete schedule for all of today’s games, with our very proprietary watchability (NERD) scores for each one. Pitching probables and game times aggregated from MLB.com and RotoWire.

Note that these NERD scores are calculated using the methodology introduced recently and designed to account for the influence of playoff odds on the watchability of games. ***Unlike in recent iterations of this table, the author has adjusted the day’s NERD Game Scores such that, combined, they average 5.0.*** This allows said table to resemble more closely the Game Scores that have appeared here over the preceding four months.

Away		SP	Tm.	Gm.	Tm.	SP		Home	Time
Jeremy Guthrie	KC	2	0	7	8	3	CLE	Zach McAllister	19:05
Ivan Nova	NYA	7	1	5	3	3	BAL	Miguel Gonzalez	19:05
Andrew Cashner	SD	7	0	2	0	1	PHI	Tyler Cloyd	19:05
Jerome Williams	LAA	4	0	2	0	5	TOR	Mark Buehrle	19:07
Julio Teheran	ATL	7	0	3	0	4	MIA	Tom Koehler	19:10
Clay Buchholz	BOS	7	0	10	9	8	TB	David Price	19:10
Edwin Jackson	CHN	4	0	5	2	8	CIN	Tony Cingrani	19:10
Jo. Zimmermann	WAS	9	0	4	0	5	NYN	Dillon Gee	19:10
Francisco Liriano	PIT	9	5	10	5	7	TEX	Martin Perez	20:05
Rick Porcello	DET	7	1	4	0	6	CHA	Erik Johnson*	20:10
Jarrod Parker	OAK	4	5	5	0	0	MIN	Liam Hendriks	20:10
Wily Peralta	MIL	6	0	9	7	9	STL	Shelby Miller	20:15
Trevor Cahill	AZ	5	0	2	0	3	LAN	Edinson Volquez	22:10
Jordan Lyles	HOU	4	0	2	0	2	SEA	Joe Saunders	22:10
Jorge de la Rosa	COL	3	0	1	0	1	SF	Ryan Vogelsong	22:15

To learn how Pitcher and Team NERD Scores are calculated, click here.
To learn how Game NERD Scores are calculated, click here.
* = Fewer than 20 IP, NERD at discretion of very handsome author.