Let’s Watch Billy Hamilton Make a Run Happen

One of the big conversations taking place in baseball right now concerns whether or not Billy Hamilton is going to hit enough to stick as an actual long-term regular. It’s a justifiable worry, because Hamilton didn’t exactly tear up the minors, and he hasn’t looked fantastic in his limited exposure to the majors. We won’t know for a while whether Hamilton can do enough at the plate, but it’s good to have the occasional reminder of why he’s being held to a lower baseline than others. Wednesday’s fifth inning of a game between the Reds and Cardinals provided such a reminder.

It wouldn’t be fair to say that Hamilton made a run happen entirely on his own. He required assistance from the pitcher, his teammates, and the rest of the opposition. But with no other player in baseball would a run have been scored, given the sequence you’re about to observe, in .gif form.

I almost wrote that, “innocently enough, Hamilton led off with a first-pitch single.” But as we have already come to know, there’s nothing innocent about a Billy Hamilton single with no one on base in front of him. Shelby Miller threw a fastball down the middle and Hamilton slapped it.

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That’s the boring part. That’s the part Hamilton has to do in order to really get into his strength. Up next was Brandon Phillips, and the Cardinals opted for a pitch-out. Hamilton didn’t budge. The next pitch was a cutter, for a strike, and Hamilton budged.

HamiltonSB.gif.opt

Hamilton got an unbelievable jump, and I timed him at about 3.1 seconds. It’s important to note that the Cardinals’ catcher was Yadier Molina. It’s important to note that Molina didn’t even fake an attempt of a throw. Billy Hamilton took off against the best defensive catcher in baseball, and the best defensive catcher in baseball was like, “welp.” Granted, steals are really more against the pitcher than they are against the catcher, but I’d love to know the last time Molina didn’t even think about making a throw.

The next pitch was another cutter, which Phillips lifted in play into relatively shallow right field. Hamilton did some more budging.

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Jon Jay had everything lined up, but Hamilton would’ve been safe even if the throw had been on target. I timed Hamilton at about 3.4 seconds, and that’s tagging up, remember, where you can’t get a lead. Hamilton got himself to third with one out, and that’s the fly-ball advance no one’s going to remember tomorrow. (foreshadowing)

After Joey Votto walked, Jay Bruce came up and got a first-pitch fastball, high. He swung and made contact and lifted the ball a little bit beyond the infield dirt. Focus on those words — “a little bit beyond the infield dirt” — and remember that you’re reading an article about baserunning. Billy Hamilton doesn’t even make sense.

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Fine throw. Fine defensive effort all around. No matter. I timed Hamilton at about 3.3 seconds. Here’s another view of the same thing happening:

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And just as a still shot of how that pop-up developed:

sacflyhamilton

Jay Bruce hit a pop-up the second baseman could’ve caught. Bruce got credit for a sac fly and an RBI. With literally anybody else in the game, Bruce would’ve returned to the dugout knowing he’d screwed up. He still knew he screwed up, but that’s one of the things about Hamilton — he can erase other people’s mistakes. Billy Hamilton, by himself, turned Jay Bruce’s negative into a positive.

You’re looking at probably one of the most shallow sac flies in baseball history. It’s hard to imagine a sac fly more shallow. Let’s look at the most shallow sac flies from 2013, shall we? We’ll move in chronological order. These are the sac flies hit to what were considered infield zones.

2013sf1

Player fell down making the catch. Easy to advance when the player with the ball falls down.

2013sf2

Player had his back turned, momentum carrying him in the wrong direction. Ballsy baserunning, but it’s easier to advance when the defender’s moving away from you.

2013sf3

Player dropped the ball on the transfer. These days this wouldn’t even be a catch at all. Easy to advance when the ball’s on the ground.

2013sf4

Easy to advance when the defender is Starlin Castro. Castro, here, just zoned out, and didn’t even notice the runner was going until it was too late. In Castro’s defense, Darwin Barney also gave up on the play after the catch, and Barney is a tremendous and tremendously heads-up defensive player.

2013sf5

Player fell down making the catch again.

2013sf6

This time Eric Young just flat beat Norichika Aoki’s throw. Though Aoki slightly bobbled the baseball, he had forward momentum and his throw was accurate. Young just out-ran the play. In that way, Young pulled a Billy Hamilton just last September, but Aoki, at least, was still clearly in the outfield. An infielder couldn’t have caught the ball that Aoki caught, so the throw had to come from further away and every split-second matters.

Billy Hamilton’s bat got him on first, and Billy Hamilton’s legs got him to home, with limited help. If Bruce’s wasn’t the most shallow ordinary sac fly ever, it’s at least in the conversation, and that’s not a credit to Bruce — that’s all on the baserunner, who didn’t even need to take advantage of a mistake. One of the things with Hamilton is people always operate under the assumption that he’s going to try to advance. He advances almost all the time despite that, being sort of the baserunning version of Mariano Rivera’s cutter. Yeah, it’s going to happen. What are you going to do about it?

Over his career, Rickey Henderson scored 40% of the time he got on base. Michael Bourn and Jose Reyes are also at 40%. Jimmy Rollins, Carl Crawford, and Jacoby Ellsbury are at 39%. Juan Pierre, 38%. Ichiro Suzuki, 36%. Carlos Beltran, 35%. These are some of the game’s premier recent baserunners, and they’ve all scored at a well above-average clip, where lately the average has been about 29-30%. The question with Hamilton is all about how high that percentage can go. We can say with a high degree of confidence that Hamilton isn’t likely to be a true on-base threat. But an alternative to creating runs by getting on base is squeezing as many runs as you can out of the times you are on base. Hamilton promises to do all this with perhaps unprecedented efficiency, and that’s why the Reds are having him do what he’s doing. Hamilton isn’t going to create runs with his bat — the bat’s just going to put him in position to do what he knows.

No, it’s still not clear Hamilton’s ever going to hit enough. But remember that “enough” for Billy Hamilton is different from “enough” for Oscar Taveras or Jackie Bradley Jr. Wednesday provided a most conspicuous reminder. At the end of the day, Billy Hamilton’s going to settle for mostly singles, but, here’s a baseball riddle for you: when is a single not a single? You’ve read a few hundred words about the answer.





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.

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Hurtlockertwo
9 years ago

That Billy Hamilton is one fast MoFo. Love this.

tz
9 years ago
Reply to  Hurtlockertwo

He fricken scored on a ball that would have been called an infield fly, if the infield fly rule was applicable.

Dusty Baker
9 years ago
Reply to  tz

Thanks to Jay Bruce and his clutch RBI. TWTW.

sarcasmftw
9 years ago
Reply to  Dusty Baker

Yeah, Joey Votto needs to hit into more outs like that. Obviously.

Bronnt
9 years ago
Reply to  tz

This was more shallow than the infamous infield fly from the 2012 Wild Card game.

Bill
9 years ago
Reply to  Bronnt

Of course, Jeffrey Maier caught a fly ball shallower than that particular “infield” fly.

Balthazar
9 years ago
Reply to  Hurtlockertwo

Hamilton sure is. I remember the last era of great basestealers. I lived in Oakland when Ricky Henderson first notched 100 steals and many others on the team were running wild also. Omar Moreno, Miguel Dilone, Otis Nixon: none of them great players, and mostly well below average hitters. They could defend in the OF, though—and were incredibly disruptive once on base.

Not all of the great frequency basestealers had good success rates, which is really the thing to watch. Henderson didn’t have a good rate. When he set the major league record for steals, he was still caught 46 times if I recall, which is an enormous number of outs to give up on the basepaths. But he was so disruptive to the other team’s pitching staff he impacted the game in broader ways. Hamilton may well have this kind of impact. My personal favorite stealers are the high success rate guys, like Davy Lopes back just before Henderson came up who had a 7:1 rate, or Ichiro who has always had an outstand success rate. But a guy like Hamilton is just very exciting to watch play. I’m glad we’ll now have that privilege.

Jon L.
9 years ago
Reply to  Balthazar

They may have let Rickey run wild in his youth, but he calmed down as he got older (i.e., after that 130-steal season) to the tune of an 82.3% success rate over his last 1321 steal attempts.