Javier Baez’s Other Secret Skill
It’s been a few years now since we first discovered that Javier Baez has an elite tagging skill. At the time, it wasn’t obvious that a player actually could have an elite tagging skill. Applying a tag seems like a pretty specific, rote act. There’s not a lot of variation. Baez, though, somehow found a way to do it better than everyone. Baez has a way of doing that.
Well, it seems possible Baez has managed to somehow find value where none seemed clearly available — in this case, by causing fielders to self-combust while he runs the bases. It’s a skill that leads to errors and extra bases for Baez and his friends, and it was on display Wednesday night as Baez stood at first base with Anthony Rizzo up to bat. The Cubs’ first baseman hit a single to center field. Then this happened:
Baez scored on the throwing error and Rizzo advanced to second, eventually making it to third thanks to another throwing error. A guy on Twitter with 1.7 million followers asked for a post on this.
Hey, @fangraphs can we get an article on Javy’s supernatural ability to induce errors in the defense? https://t.co/wZ4L6X7i0p
— Chris Hayes (@chrislhayes) September 6, 2018
Prior to this season, Baez possessed a lot of loud skills that hadn’t fully translated to the playing field. He had power. He had speed. He was good on defense and made some spectacular plays. He also struck out a lot, though, and never walked. And the power was good, but not great. In 2016 and 2017, that meant he was a roughly average player on offense. Complementing that with above-average defense meant he was worth 4.5 WAR in nearly a thousand plate appearances.
This year, Baez has struck out a little bit less and hit for power a little bit more. The result is that he’s recorded more wins in this season alone than the previous two combined. He’s also in the conversation for the NL MVP award.
Baez’s skill on the bases is generally well-known and accounted for by our various metrics. Baez has 22 infield hits on the season, and those show up in his batting average, on-base percentage, wRC+, and WAR. Baez has 21 stolen bases, and those show up in baserunning runs (BsR) — just as his eight outs do on attempted stolen bases.
To give a sense of how that works, here are the players with at least 20 stolen bases on the season, their times caught stealing, and their stolen-base runs (wSB):
| Name | SB | CS | wSB |
|---|---|---|---|
| Trea Turner | 35 | 8 | 3.4 |
| Whit Merrifield | 30 | 8 | 2.4 |
| Starling Marte | 30 | 12 | 0.8 |
| Dee Gordon | 30 | 10 | 1.6 |
| Jose Ramirez | 29 | 5 | 3.4 |
| Billy Hamilton | 29 | 8 | 2.3 |
| Mallex Smith | 28 | 9 | 1.6 |
| Mookie Betts | 27 | 6 | 2.6 |
| Lorenzo Cain | 26 | 7 | 1.9 |
| Trevor Story | 25 | 6 | 2.3 |
| Tim Anderson | 25 | 7 | 1.9 |
| Ender Inciarte | 25 | 11 | 0.2 |
| Mike Trout | 22 | 1 | 3.6 |
| Francisco Lindor | 22 | 8 | 0.8 |
| Javier Baez | 21 | 8 | 0.7 |
| Andrew Benintendi | 20 | 2 | 2.8 |
| Jean Segura | 20 | 10 | -0.4 |
| Jose Peraza | 20 | 6 | 1.2 |
In baseball, getting on base is the hard part, and it’s more valuable than advancing one base. As a result, the penalty for getting caught stealing is worse than the benefit of getting an extra base. That’s why, generally speaking, a runner needs to be successful in more than two-thirds of his attempted steals in order to make a positive offensive contribution. Baez is above that mark this season, and at 74% for his career, which has been good for two runs above average. However, it is possible that this understates Baez’s effect on the bases if he draws throwing errors at a higher than normal rate.
On Baez’s 29 steals this season, he has advanced an extra base due to error on five occasions, or on 17.2% of those stolen bases. That’s three times the normal rate: we would typically expect a player with Baez’s attempt numbers to draw just an error or two. Take this play from July in the 10th inning of a tie game against the Padres. Baez attempts to steal second to get in scoring position.
The play isn’t over yet.
Baez took a situation with a run expectancy of about 0.5 runs and ended up with 1.254. Yet, in this case, Baez only gets credit for around 0.2 of that 0.7 increase. More importantly given the situation, the game went from a 50/50 toss up to an 83% chance of winning for Chicago.
That was the most impactful play Baez made on a steal and error, but there are four other similar plays this season. One time, for example, Baez was “credited” with a caught stealing for a play on which he also scored, as seen below.
In the scorebook, that goes down as a caught stealing and costs him about 0.4 runs. In reality, the result of the play meant an increase of 1.1 runs expected. Some results don’t matter as much. Twice Baez stole second base with two outs — which is a positive move for which he gets credit — and then made it to third base on an error. The run expectancy barely changes at all, as the batter is likely to score on a hit from second base anyway. If we take the difference in results from the typical player stealing a base, Baez’s five steals on which he took more bases due to errors nets him about 1.3 more runs above average. How much credit to give Baez for these bases is somewhat questionable. Last season, there was just one error on a Baez stolen-base attempt, so it doesn’t necessarily appear to be skill-related. Looking at similar players, we find that Lorenzo Cain has had no errors on stolen-base attempts while Starling Marte has had four.
There’s also the matter of Baez reaching base on an error, as well as getting extra bases that way. Baez has reached base on an error 10 times this season, which may be something a little more skill-based considering he did so seven times a year ago. The average is between five and six over a full season. If we credit Baez with around 0.4 runs for every time he reaches on error above average and another 0.2 for the advancement of runners already on base, that’s another three runs to Baez’s total. It also helps his reputation to do so on the biggest stage, like in Game Five of the NLDS last year.
As for the original play in question, Baez was already getting credit for making it to third base, as going from first to third is a large part of baserunning runs. The error that allowed him to score and Rizzo to make it to second — the other error allowed Rizzo to make it to third — increased the run expectancy by about 0.3 runs, as first and third with nobody out is already a good situation for scoring. These types of plays occur far less often. There have only been 99 throwing errors from outfielders all season, and most throwing errors by infielders happen at first base.
Whether Baez has a “supernatural ability to induce errors” is probably in the eye of the beholder. Baez gets on base more than the average player via the error because he’s fast and runs hard. It’s a trait shared by others, but the only players with more in the National League this season are Starlin Castro and Ian Desmond, per Baseball-Reference. Baez has also advanced on more errors while stealing than most players, but that appears to happen randomly among players and seasons. Baez certainly creates those chances by attempting a decent amount of steals, but it doesn’t appear that he’s specifically responsible for the errors.
There might be somewhere in the range of three to five unaccounted runs that Baez is creating over the course of a season with his speed, but keep in mind that there are other players to whom this applies, as well. We notice Javy because he is a noticeable player on a very noticeable team. Sadly — or perhaps happily — these plays are not likely the result of a supernatural ability, but of an incredibly natural one in pushing opposing defenses to make plays and forcing the issue.
Craig Edwards can be found on twitter @craigjedwards.
This is a great article about Javier Baez but the thing that sticks with me is that Mike Trout is 22 for 23 on stolen base attempts.
Its the non SB that make Baez really interesting. He takes a lot of chances beyond SB attempts. He doesn’t play it safe at all, which is what SB % looks a lot like. Buxton’s is the gold standard in SB success – no need to get hung up on Trout.
Trout is #37 all time in BsR.
That’s a little misleading, because UBR has only been tracked since the beginning of this century.
all-time sounds way better lol
Fair point, he’d certainly drop a few notches.
few hundred notches
But following the lead of this article, how many runs did Trout lose this year because he hurt his wrist on a SB, and was out two weeks? How about last year, when his missed 40 games when he fractured his thumb? I even wonder about his finger injury in June, when he had to DH for more than a week. Sad to say, Trout would have (a lot) more WAR now (and maybe favored to win his fourth MVP) if he hadn’t tried to steal any bases the past two years.
I’m curious, if over 2/3 success for base stealing is a net positive, is there a point over that of (for lack of a better phrase) diminishing returns. That you should be running more and would gain more value by getting caught some.
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You should consider a Fangraphs membership, mapaweyuki56.
Love this post from a statistical standpoint. I do wonder if opposing players may but into the narrative and psych themselves out. There’s no doubt that his aggressiveness on the bases is part of the defensive scouting report, so I wouldn’t think it’s unreasonable to think that players may rush their throws (or have an “oh, shit!” moment) knowing that it’s Javy. Chacin almost threw a ball away on a pickoff while Javy was standing on first base. Pretty subjective stuff from a biased fan, and not necessarily a skill, but could be more than pure luck-of-the-draw.
If Javier being aggressive on the bases is in the scouting report. A “oh shit” moment would be less likely, right? If there’s a known aggressive baserunner on base, wouldn’t you be less surprised when he is agreesive?
Baez scored from first on a single to Cain on Monday as well. He rounded without hesitation and when Cain bobbled the ball, he just kept going inducing a poor throw home and beating the tag. I think from watching all season Baez does have a sort of ability for creating this chaos. He is fast and he is hyper aggressive which has created a reputation across the league. I don’t think it is a stretch to say that sort of thing can get in a fielder’s head causing them to press and rush plays they should be able to routinely make and leads to more errors. Particularly with respect to Cain, there is no doubt in my mind that scoring from first on his bobble on Monday directly led to him rushing his throw and airmailing it last night.
Retribution for Cain for his 2015 ALCS scamper seems almost biblical in its excessiveness.
Game number 130 (ish) versus Cain scoring a game winning, pennant clinching run is hardly comparable. Context matters.
I think he has a 6th sense about it. He seems to be able to judge it all in an instant – he senses weakness and takes advantage is my take. I think it is more Baez than the fielders choking… although I am sure that could be a factor. Baez puts fielders in bad spots…
Baez may well have a special ability to induce errors, but I’m not really seeing it on these plays in particular. The first play he’s going first to third on a single. That’s a good, aggressive play. But that’s also a completely normal throwing error. Nothing he did caused the outfielder to make such a horrendous throw. That’s completely on the OF. The second one he stole a base. Again, nice play by a good runner. But he did nothing to force the catcher to throw 5 feet over the 2Bs head. That type of play happens all the time. Nobody says anything when it’s not Baez running. The third one is actually a terrible play by Baez. He got picked off, wasn’t running hard, and got bailed out by a terrible throw. The fourth is the only one that I think we can even charitably credit him with, because his speed down the line forced the catcher to throw quickly.
I’m curious about a different type of error that can be “forced” by speed. The other day Harrison Bader hit a hard ground ball to third that seemed like a standard groundout. However, the 3B was playing extremely shallow respecting Bader’s speed, so he didn’t have much time to react and ended up botching the play. Bader didn’t really do anything special on the play so it didn’t seem very notable, but the fielder’s *knowledge* of Bader’s speed led directly to the error. It made me wonder if fast players like Bader or Baez can reliably induce this type of error simply by forcing fielders to play out of position.
You’re a Cards fan, right?
I am. I’m also a Baez fan and, to be clear, I *do* think that Baez adds value by forcing errors. I just don’t think these were the best plays to demonstrate that. Someone upthread mentioned him scoring from first on a bobble by Cain. That’s a much better example of speed forcing an error than a play where an outfielder throws a ball 15 feet over the 3Bs head.
Because it was the same player on Monday and yesterday, he absolutely caused it this time. Cain was very clearly thinking of the play Monday and rushed the throw yesterday in an attempt not to get burned again.
That being said, there’s absolutely no way to accurately measure and track that for all players without a ton of subjective anecdotal “evidence”.
Well you might be right that Cain was thinking of the bobble play when he made the horrible throw from the clip in the article, but “Javier Baez forces errors by getting inside the fielder’s head after burning them on a different play earlier in the series” isn’t really a provable hypothesis. Even if it was, it’s so specific to this one play that it hardly seems worth considering how to allocate value to that “skill”. Baez was going to make it to third easily on that play. Even a slower runner would have been safe. Cain’s decision to throw was a poor one. The throw itself was even worse. Cain deserves all of the credit for that mistake.
Well sure, if you read no further then that one gif. Even on that play, it’s impossible to tell how close it would have been on a decent throw, because it was so bad. But looking at where and how hard the ball was hit, going first to third is not a given.
And the point of the article is to that some base running skills are acounted for. But others are not (or even skills) or actually negative the way some metrics are calculated.
This is part of the reason fast runners have higher babips and reach on errors more often.
Right. And the higher BABIP is reflected in their batting average, wRC+ and offensive WAR. The errors are not, as far as I know. If reaching on an error is a repeatable “skill” for fast runners (and it may not be) it’s fair to question whether it should be included in some way in a player’s value.
Tango’s done some math on it, and it’s absolutely a skill over a long enough sample size (he used Jeter as an example, and his .350 career BABiP actually ties into Pwn Shop’s point).
He actually includes it in his (aka the original) version of wOBA
Baez does not have a statistically significant, empirically demonstrable skill in inducing errors. (That’s not to say that he doesn’t have the skill, he likely does, it’s just so marginal that it doesn’t test as statistically significant). While bases taken by error correlate with aggressive running and speed score, they correlate more with OBP- Baez doesn’t stand out at taking bases on error.
This article just guesses that it might be true, apparently without doing the tests, and then offers conjecture of what it might mean if it were true.
But just as one would expect given the extreme micro-sample, there is no statistically significant skill set identified in the data. ‘Hidden Baez skills’ is just sort of a fun meme, in the wake of some MVP chatter.
I could not agree more. What has happened to analytical standards?
Great. Can we now dispel the primary notion that Javy has magic tagging powers and attribute his supposed skill to selection bias, since you can put together a highlight real of virtually any other player with enough opportunities tagging someone? Baez had a breakout year and, if he can maintain an elite ISO going forward, will have established himself as a solidly-above average major leaguer. In addition to his sound (if not elite) glovework. We don’t need to go inventing skills to celebrate how good he is.
I have never seen anyone else put down tags as quick as Javy. If you have some sort of compilation of other players doing it, we’d all love to see.
Watch Jordy Mercer for five years and then tell me Baez isn’t substantially quicker and more creative.
I didn’t even have to put this together, and it took four seconds to google.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVGq2JXKwRA (one of them is Baez!)
Every fielder is taught from age 5 to let the ball come as close as you can and then react as quickly as you can. This is not specific to Baez. There are precisely no data showing that he’s better at tagging. The FG article cited in support of this proposition is just Mr. Fagerstrom watching a highlight reel and saying in conclusory fashion that a quarter of players would make those tags. It’s a highlight reel, by definition comprised of the best moments the compiler could find.
Maybe “tagging skill” is a phenomenon that exists. But the onus is on someone asserting the existence of something to prove it. Baez, like Jeter before him, benefits from having (i) more people see him on a day to day basis because of his play for a national-market team, and (ii) his good plays constantly broadcast on national networks because of the self-reinforcing narrative. Find a way to study it and either prove it or disprove it. The default position of rational people is skepticism. Until proven otherwise, this should enjoy no more support than the Verducci Effect or the belief that “closers” perform better in high leverage situations. Maybe those aren’t the best examples b/c they’ve already been disproven, but you should see what I mean.
The first one by Ahmed is fantastic. The Baez one is lightning-quick and I have doubts on how many other players could have done that. There’s a Gregorius one that was pretty good. Nearly every other tag I saw looked unspectacular, as in I would have expected more than half of other MLB players at the respective positions to make the same plays.
If you just compare them 3. Ahmed, I don’t know what that was. Didi’s was just teally tryng to keep it from going into CF and had the athleticism to make it work. Javy took a typicalish throw on a close play and made the tag.
I agree, few players can catch and swipe with that speed.
I agree that Baez’s alleged supremacy on tagging is overblown. He is definitely good at it but I was amazed that the author could blithely say he’s the best. Andrelton Simmons is probably the answer in the current era if you ask any questions about who is the best infielder at doing x. Seen plenty of tags as fast as Baez’s from Simmons. Plus ones like that effort last year at 3B when he tagged the guy in mid air.
This is something I discovered playing softball with a new team of this year. I used to run the bases as fast as I can all of the time and would induce errors being aggressive like some of the Javy Baez examples. But there is a more subtle approach that some of the veterans on my team employs. They intentionally run the bases slower sometimes to induce throws to home or to 3rd that allow runners to move up or induce throwing errors. It is absolutely a skill.
“We notice Javy because he is a noticeable player on a very noticeable team.”
His aggressive style and the fact that he has highest % of steals for his team in baseball makes him stand out even more.
Base-running has always been a clear and large hole in WAR. Baez exemplifies the shortcomings of the metrics. I have heard it mentioned many times that base running metrics are crude but accurate enough.
Baserunning metrics penalize aggression and reward not taking extra bases as they are more about penalizing mistakes than rewarding positive outcomes. It makes sense – running into a tag is an easily recordable outcome. Taking an extra base doesn’t result in anything. You could count the number or ratio of times a player goes from 1st to 3rd on a single – that would tell you something. How would you discern a routine 1st to 3rd as opposed to a difficult one like the Baez situation? Going from 1st to 3rd on a double is routine. Sometimes it is routine on a single, sometimes not. If a defensive player makes a miscue and it doesn’t result in an error are we talking about his base-running acumen right now? We wouldn’t be. This is a good time to celebrate the limitations of metrics. We are never going to be able to accurately quantify many things and that is okay!
It is the ability to take the extra base that we should value in a base-runner – the answer certainly is not in sprint speeds or anything like that. How many “bad” base-runners run into outs because of a call from the bench or base coach? Should that be counted against the player? Just because a player has the speed and aggression to run into outs doesn’t mean he is a worse base-runner than a player that is always going to go station to station. Most interestingly – what if the defensive players were just a bit better in their execution of Baez plays this year? Maybe Baez runs into a bunch of outs… failure and success is only partially in Baez hands. To be clear, I think Baez is clearly the best base-runner in baseball, but I can’t state that with confidence or quantify it. I know it has a lot of value as he breaks games open quite often with they plays he is involved in.
I have always thought that we might want to call taking the extra base on an error a SB. In this case it would be when Baez advanced to home and it was contested. That would be a huge help to find what base-running metrics are missing. If a first and third “steal” of home counts, then any time a player tries to take a risk on a non-batted ball should be a steal. Just a thought. It should really have another name, but in a world where all you have are SB, CS and running into putouts, that is what you need to call it. Ideally, we would also count that contested 1st to 3rd as something, but teasing out routine v not would be impossible. I guess it would need to be ruled by an official scorer. Its all do-able but you would have to accept that change is needed in the first place… and people don’t seem to be very interested in that. I personally don’t see the value in getting it right. All it will ever be is an estimation… it is always a good time to appreciate the players and complexities beneath the outcomes that we record and place arbitrary values on. Recognizing the limitations of metrics is every bit as important as their application, yet the extent that people don’t want to believe that always shocks me.
Lastly, that caught stealing error in the pirates game was one of the most bullshit rulings I have ever seen!!! He stole the base and took another and all he got was a CS… without a recorded out.
Many of the things you say we do not account for, we do.
But, of course, many of the other things he says we don’t account for are not included in the UBR metric FG currently uses.
Tell me about it. How are they measured? We live in a world where people are still trying to predict SB from sprint speed – I remain unconvinced that these things are happening with any accuracy. Of course, it would be easy to just shut my eyes and ears and simply put my blind faith in progressive metrics. It science!
I get that relatively few people understand the intricacies of base-running, but wallowing in ignorance is quite another thing. Notice that nobody offered anything resembling an explanation other than you pointing me somewhere, which I appreciate. If they did, I could undoubtedly poke holes in it… which is how progress happens… or not. I will try to look at the FG metric. I don’t doubt that there are attempts to account for what I describe, but I do doubt the accuracy and methodology. I have never seen any conversation not facilitated by myself that measuring the most meaningful facets of base-running are even on anyone’s radar.
So, I looked up UBR. I wouldn’t use it. It is is a lot like the inverse of throwing metrics (equally troubling). It sounds exactly like I would have thought (the crudest attempt possible). Players get awarded for advancing on batted balls with no respect to the batted ball (or fielder). Taking a base on Ichiro is the same as taking a base off of whoever has the worst RF arm. Not all balls to RF are created equally. That is not how it should work. (Again) sometimes a runner goes from 1st to 3rd on a single hit right at the RF (impressive). Sometimes the runner goes from 1st to third on a ball off the right field wall and the only reason it was a single is that the hitter was an aging DH. Heck, players get awarded for advancing on a FC lol. Runners get awarded for going from 2nd to third on a GB to SS – which makes sense… but that is bad base-running 101 more often than not. Probably every instance of that event could have been the SS throwing behind the runner and creating an out. Its tough to measure!
Not sure who here watches baseball, but Javy Baez did a perfect example of what base-running looks like on 9/6 (day of this article). He was stealing second and the ball was hit through the infield, so he went from 1st to 3rd. The defense was horribly misaligned and Bryce Harper did a terrible job of getting into good throwing position and made an inaccurate throw after a clumsy pirouette. It was a great example of good base-running, but at the same time it was equally about poor defense and alignment. Was that 1st to 3rd valuable? Bart Colon would have went from 1st to 3rd on that single. Did Baez take home or did Harper give it to him? Like I suggested, you are going to need humans scoring these things and it is going to be subjective but it is closer to a solution than blindly assigning values to outcomes. I can see the promise in xstats here, but like everything else – IMO the best course is understanding the limitations of the metrics – there is never going to be a solution. The deficiencies are fun to look at though. You can look at them as deficiencies or the beauty and complexity of the game and the players that play it. Its sad that people are less interested in that than just hanging numbers on things.
I’ll bet you are wrong about that. I have had many conversations with people in the know and I have not reached that conclusion. I think people assume a lot of things that are not true. Whenever help is presented or useful ideas they are almost always rejected.
I’m sorry but Baez doesn’t deserve credit for Matt Wieters inability to catch a baseball and then throw it.
As you noted, Baez forced only 1 error on a SB attempt last year but 5 this year. That’s just random noise.
OTOH, reaching on an error is something of a skill, though a very small one. Baseball Prospectus did a study years ago and determined that reaching on errors more consistently than expected had less to do with speed and the defining characteristic was that they were RH hitters who hit the ball hard with speed being a bonus which Javy fits to a T. This was long before Statcast and even before batted ball data so the observation that they hit the ball hard was more, well, observational than empirical, but they tended to be RH hitters. I remember Jack Clark figured prominently as someone who got on a LOT on errors but wasn’t particularly fast. (He reached on an error a staggering 21 times in 1979, though his next best season was 10).
Thinking about it, it makes great sense. Errors tend to be on balls hit relatively at fielders rather than ones they have to move to glove. At the same time, balls hit hard are harder to field even if they are hit right at the fielder. Combine that with RH hitters tending to pull the ball to the left side where there is a longer throw (and thus less time recover from a dropped ball) and it makes sense that reaching on an error is going to happen a lot more often to RH hitters who hit the ball hard with speed being only a small bonus to add to it.
Sure enough, using b-ref, there are 23 guys this year who have reached on an error 8 or more times and only Shin Soo Choo is a lefty. There are 2 switch hitters (Robbie Grossman and Ketel Marte who may well have run those up as RH hitter though I’m not going to check) and the other 20 are RH hitters. Sure, many of them have good speed (Starling Marte, Trea Turner, LoCain and yes, Javy Baez) but the list also features JD Martinez, Nicholas Castellanos, Robbie Grossman and one of the slowest baserunners in the game, Albert Pujols.
Expanding it out, there are 50 guys with 6 or more ROE – 7 lefties, 8 switch hitters and 35 righties. VMart has reached on an error 6 times this year and I would bet anything they were all from the right side because he is the slowest guy I think I have ever seen.
Go back a year to 2017 and same thing: 28 guys reached 8 times – 5 lefties, 6 switch hitters and 17 righties.
Reaching on an error is a “skill” in the sense that it favors certain types of hitter more than others,
That more than makes sense, it is simply intuitive. RH hitters hit a lot of balls either down the line or in the 56 hole. Speed isn’t a necessary factor because virtually all throws that aren’t handled by the first baseman are going to allow the hitter to reach, even VMart.
How about a bit more to that… defenders on the left side have more range. You have to get to a ball to make an error. 1B don’t make a lot of errors. Most balls hit by 1B are simply ruled hits.
Errors are a flawed metric… especially in this context. An error is only charged if an extra base is taken. Javy Baez isn’t a great base-runner because of the errors he forces – that is just one way it manifests itself. A trash throw on a force attempt of a batted ball is an error, but a trash throw on a runner taking an extra base is not an error… unless it goes in the seats. If you make more fielders throw more often, then you are going to generate those throwing errors. Most of Javy’s best base-running doesn’t result in anything – it is just him being safe.
I think your discussion of reaching on errors is on the money, but I don’t think that is what this discussion is about.
The last 2 paragraphs discuss him reaching base because he’s fast and runs hard. I’m saying that is incorrect and that it is more about the fact that he hits from the right side and hits the ball hard.
The voice of reason! Thank you for writing this. This article defies all logic. If it a simple click magnet, so be it. But if this truly represents the state of baseball analytics, we’re in a serious dry spell.
Well of course he “induces” more errors by being more aggressive. Every player would actually. This is just through the fact that an Error can only be charged if a runner advances because of a misplay of any kind. If Baez never pushed the envelope on the bases that much, all those little misplays would have never made it into the boxscore.
Eg if Baez Never took off for third base after a throw from the catcher that got into the OF there would (almost) never be an error charged. Same for all other aggressive baserunning situations with minor misplays involved.
I think the idea is that his “induces errors” to “makes baserunning blunders” ratio is particularly high. Puig, on the other hand, is probably much lower (more blunders to the same or fewer number of induced errors).
Some players are aggressive and run into outs – those aren’t errors. I don’t think it is an “of course” situation. A player is only going to run into so many outs before they become hesitant and stop being aggressive. His judgement has been great this year, which is what I think we are talking about clumsily.
For me, you can throw out all the errors and he has still made a ton of contributions on the bases… like yesterday.
Nm
Anti-empirical, fluff content article imo.
Really demonstrates the new fangraphs style imo. Unserious data analysis, verifiably wrong conclusions, tweet-based ‘insight,’ broad appeal, lots of clips. Click bait more so than intelligent fact-based analysis.
Good grief, bucko, even to the extent I agree with your complaint I am bored silly with seeing it reposted. Go do something you love.
Apparently this is something he loves.
Bored man complaining about a complaint tells original complainer to get a life. Pretty much summarizes the state of the internet!
Where’s Crow when we really need him?
This is how you get conversations started about something that could be “serious data analysis”. Personally, I don’t think any baseball analysis is too serious.
Starlin Castro’s placement on top of the “reached base on error” list is more than enough evidence that whatever skill may be involved certainly has nothing to do with running hard or otherwise hustling out would-be outs.
I am very confused about “0.8 runs for every time he reaches on error above average”.
Are you telling me a single is worth 0.8 runs?
Am I completely misunderstanding something or does that sound too high?
At first blush it does sound kind of high, but looking at run expectancy charts I suppose it’s plausible. For example, leading off an inning with a ROE raises RE from 0.243 with 1 out and bases empty to 0.831 with no outs and man on 1st and that’s just if you assume the guy ends up on 1B. If he advances to 2B on the error it goes up to 1.068.
Where you really, really add up is man on 3rd and 2 outs. 99.99% of the time if you reach on error in that scenario you go from zero runs if the fielder makes the play to 1 run plus the expectancy of the new state (0.214 for man on 1B and 2 outs would be the least runs expected)
I bet the number is based on actual data but I also suspect that if you average out all the various scenarios (& account for the runs that actually score on errors) it comes out to 0.8.
The run value of an RoE or 1B doesn’t just come adding a baserunner – it’s also because you’ve avoided an out.
I love this article and something I’ve believed for a long time is that errors shouldn’t hurt hitters in WAR as the “luck” part of reaching on errors should even out. I wonder how much WAR you could add to Ichiro’s career?
Also, Baez may be unquestionably the flashiest tagger in baseball, but I think Andrelton Simmons and possibly others would like a word about claiming unequivocally that he is the best.
Ichiro reached on 7.8 errors per 650 PA, over his career.
2018’s league average is 5.7 per 650 (and we know from Tango that the run value of one ROE is ~0.9), then I think you can add 2.1 runs (or 0.21 wins) per 650 PA to his WAR total.
That comes out to ~3.5 WAR.
Jeter reached on 10.3 errors per 650, giving us 4.7 extra RoE per 650 PA. That’s 4.2 extra runs per 650, and 8.2 extra career WAR, if that 5.7 number is normal.
I’d be interested to see some other players, along with RoE below average.
It’s a bit like how the gap between Ryan Howard’s RE24 and his wRAA shows how we were too quick to dismiss his “Run Producer” label as just “Ribbie Silliness.”
You should be using per AB instead of per PA. Ichiro walked much less and so had more opportunities in 650 PA to actually cause an error.
If we’re talking about career runs added, rather than measuring the skill, we need to use PA as the denominator.
Using AB for that would be like using BABIP to evaluate someone’s ability to hit for average.
Just to pair off 2 similar hitters:
Harmon Killebrew reached on error 144 times in 9,833 PA or 9.52 per 650. (or if one prefers AB, then it’s 11.49 per 650 AB)
David Ortiz reached on an error 55 times in 10,091 PA or 3.54 per 650 (or 4.14 if you use AB).
As I noted in my earlier comment, it’s really more of a RH hitter thing than a speed thing.
And hitting it really, really hard helps, too!
Agreed on the tags 100%. What does a normal middle infielder tag like? Are they missing tags? I bet Lindor is a decent tagger. Most of Baez fancy tags are in fact very routine tags – he just adds the defensive equivalent of a bat flip.
Fair enough, but then it’s also fair to say that a fair amount of outs are made with his unique style.
If you look at what would be a textbook tag, the catch is made out in front of the base and slapped on the runner.
The classic Javy tag has his glove in line with the runner to the base, so there is no added motion, the runner basically runs into the glove as the ball is caught.
I mean, the timing involved falls into the ‘don’t try this at home’ category. There’s a reason it hasn’t been done, it takes huge ‘nads, confidence and athleticism to execute. Not to mention a near perfect throw.
Rafael Furcal made me ask the same question Chris Hayes asked, and surely there are a few similar guys from earlier eras. But unlike Javy, I think Furcal really did induce a lot of errors.
One example, Furcal in 2003 had 25 steals in 27 tries, obviously awesome but to the point, he had an amazing 11.1 BsR that year, which beats Baez’s entire career to date. Looks like Furcal is 39th all time, and damn.. Trout is already 37th. Jose Reyes 14th, Brett Gardner 21st, BHam 34th.
BSR totals before 2002 don’t include the UBR numbers (because we don’t have the data), so it doesn’t work as a pure apples-to-apples comparison, as far as career totals go.
Jose Ramirez is 175 as of right now. Not much chance to catch Trout!
This reminds me of the discussion around Juan Pierre before and during the ’03 World Series, where he was such a threat to bunt or run that the narrative was that he was in the opponent’s head and making them play tight. Who knows if that was actually anything, but watching it at the time, it sure felt that way.
The best part of Baez scoring in the Pirate clip above, he reached first on an infield error and I believe he advanced to second on the throwing error.
At one point in the game he stat line read, 1PA 0-1 CS R
1 at-bat, credited for 2 outs, and a run scored.
it’s called exit velo
I can’t find or cite the source, but I remember about ten years ago a credible study looked at whether there’s a correlation between certain players and inducing errors (at the major league level).
The study concluded there is no discernible positive correlation, which surprised me. I would have thought certain players would be more likely to induce errors by virtue of having a higher exit velocity or running speed. I think the study focused on reaching base, not advancing once on base.
Interestingly, the study did find a negative correlation for some hitters, presumably those who were slow runners or more likely to hit easy popups and fly balls.
Can anyone point to that study? Or better yet, to a more recent study?
There’s a Retrosheet study, from about 10 years ago, stating that forcing errors is unequivocally a skill:
https://www.retrosheet.org/Research/RuaneT/error_art.htm
Tom Tango’s written about Jeter’s preternatural RoE skills (12 per 162), as well.
An RoE actually has a higher run expectancy than a single (per Tango’s wOBA), so RoE above average should definitely be accounted for in long-term career evaluations…just like how we accept that Ricky Nolasco isn’t actually just as good as Tom Glavine, haha.
Javier Baez, 2018 MVP. He’s the best player on the best team in the NL. Without him, the CHC might be in 3rd place.
By that same rationale neither JD Martinez nor Mookie Betts deserve MVP because the Red Sox would still finish in 1st without one or the other.
They should just cancel the award in the AL as no single player will have been necessary for their team to make the playoffs.
El Mago
A few of these examples were common situations. I agree that Baez is a talented and aggressive baserunner, this seems like a reach. I can’t seem to grasp how we can categorize this as a true skill, these outcomes have a strong reliance on who’s attempting the putouts and the defenses simply lagging (Austin Hedges being the only somewhat elite defensive player in these examples).
If you think FG is finally jumping the shark with this article, not so fast… Google “The Francisco Lindor Effect Is Ridiculous”… You will not be disappointed.
I know I’m going to get downvotes for this, but enough of the fluff articles, especially when they’re just pumping up Baez’s putrid MVP case. This is a player who has been mediocre for his entire career, who – if you believe the StatCast data – has been extremely fortunate on his batted balls this season. He ranks between Mike Moustakas and Curtis Granderson in xwOBA.
How many articles have there been on deGrom, who is leading the NL in WAR by quite a bit? From what I can tell, there haven’t been any since the Mets decided to not trade him at the deadline. FanGraphs was very important in making the argument that Trout deserved the MVP over Cabrera, and they need to be more active in making this argument for deGrom (or at least Carpenter) this year.
Also, even though I like Chris Hayes, a Chris Hayes tweet should not be reasoning to write an article. Especially because there’s actually zero evidence that Baez has any such skill at forcing errors.
DeGrom is leading Scherzer by only 0.1 WAR when you add in offensive WAR.
Am I the only one who read this article and found that Baez actually doesn’t have any such error-forcing skill at all, and that the data points to it being more-so noise than anything? Is this really the best analysis FanGraphs is capable of?