The Most Fascinating Stolen Base That Didn’t Matter
The Cubs just won Game 5 of the World Series, forcing the series back to Cleveland. There were some really obvious high-drama moments from the game, and we’ll talk about them very soon. But right now, I want to talk about a stolen base that had no impact on the outcome of the game whatsoever.
In the bottom of the eighth inning, Jason Heyward singled off Cody Allen, then promptly stole second base to put himself in scoring position. But Javier Baez then did what Javier Baez does, striking out on a pitch that went about 59 feet, which forced Aroldis Chapman to the plate. Being a reliever and all, Aroldis Chapman doesn’t hit much — he had two career plate appearances in the big leagues before tonight — and thus he was pretty unlikely to get a hit, especially off an elite reliever like Allen.
So Jason Heyward decided to steal third. And I was surprised.
That was a really weird SB attempt. Almost no upside for being safe, but if out, P leads off bottom 9 if game gets tied.
— David Cameron (@DCameronFG) October 31, 2016
In general, going from second to third base with two outs is not worth the risk of getting thrown out; a hit that scores you from third probably also scores you from second, so my initial reaction was based on the normal risk/reward calculations that deter most runners from stealing third with two outs. But as a bunch of people pointed out in response to my tweet, this was actually way more interesting than that. Sam Miller even took the polar opposite position.
That might be the cleverest stolen base attempt I've ever seen
— Sam Miller (@SamMillerBB) October 31, 2016
The argument for Sam’s position can be pretty easily summed up as weighing the odds of a throwing error by Yan Gomes or a subsequent wild pitch/passed ball that would allow Heyward to score from third against the odds of a hit by Chapman. And given Chapman’s lack of experience at the plate, the odds of Gomes airmailing the throw into left field were probably higher than the odds of Chapman not making an out, not even accounting for the chances Allen bounces a curveball or gets called for a balk or something. So by baiting Gomes into a throw, Heyward likely increased his chances of scoring versus if he just stood on second base, which is why Sam rightly called it clever.
But what about the bottom of the 9th? In response to the idea that having Chapman due up to lead off the 9th was an additional downside of getting thrown out, a lot of people responded that there’s no way Chapman would be hitting in that spot anyway; the scenario would only come about if he blew the lead, and there’s no way he’d be going back out for the 10th if that happened. And because Joe Maddon hadn’t used Kyle Schwarber yet, having Chapman’s spot due up really just means you had Schwarber due up to lead off if the Cubs needed to score more runs.
But I’m not sure that’s entirely a neutral factor, because if Chapman makes the last out of the inning, then you get to go Fowler-Bryant-Rizzo in the 9th, almost certainly against Andrew Miller. That group has a better chance of scoring off Miller than Schwarber-Fowler-Bryant. Swapping out a guaranteed Rizzo AB for a Schwarber AB isn’t as bad as sending a pitcher up to the plate or anything, but it’s still a downgrade. And it would force Maddon to burn Schwarber in a bad situation, where if Chapman had made the last out of the inning, Schwarber could be used to pinch hit for the pitcher’s spot the next time it came up if the game went extra innings, and Miller may not be on the mound at that point, given that this would be his third straight day working.
But that’s a lot of what ifs and maybes, with the potential cost coming only under a very particular set of circumstances. In the end, I think Sam is right; the chance of getting Gomes to throw one into left field was probably worth it, since the difference between a 3-2 lead and a 4-2 lead at that point is huge. This was definitely not your average attempt at stealing third with two outs. For Heyward to (potentially, since we don’t really know for sure) work through all that in real time is crazy, and a credit to his baseball instincts.
Dave is the Managing Editor of FanGraphs.
An important addition here is I believe it was Gomes catching and not Perez? His throws to second looked pretty weak and it was clear once he came on that the Cubs didn’t think too highly of his arm. I’ll be glad heading back to Cleveland that the chance of Gomes seeing the field is for the most part eliminated.
This article is the most quintessential Fangraphs article I’ve ever read. I don’t follow twitter during games but I sort of knew someone would write about this steal. And I absolutely love it.
Yeah you know it is a good one when two smart, good baseball writers come to opposite gut feel conclusions.
Not possible Gary Jones gave Heyward the “steal” sign?
Interesting aspect of these type of pieces is that if Heyward is asked why he stole third, he’d likely give a straight-forward answer like “I had a good lead”.
This hypothetical posed by Cameron and Miller is perhaps the weakest hypothetical however. “Airmailing a throw ” is much less likely than two other hypotheticals: balk, squeeze bunt.
Would Allen balk? Maybe but very unlikely. His mechanics are not whacky and hasn’t commited a balk this year (someone please check his career). Now, a squeeze bunt. Sounds very Maddon-like, huh? Heyward is a great base runner and Chapman may have the ability to put one down without messing up. It’s risky but sounds like the best hypothetical to me.
In the end, I think Heyward stole third because he can. That’s it. No more thinking beyond that unless someone can tell me Maddon wanted Heyward to run then we can get into the reasons why. Baseball is simple and probably is simplier in the World Series because it comes down to: don’t make mistakes and you’ll likely win.
This hypothetical banter is fun though but really doesn’t mean anything. Yolo
Squeeze bunt with Chapman up with 2 outs? Really?
Cody Allen has never balked in his major league career. He did balk twice in Low-A in 2011 but I wouldn’t read much into that.
What is a bit more interesting is over the past 4 seasons Cody has thrown 25 wild pitches over 277 regular season innings. That’s once every 11 innings or so which seems high. (The AL had one roughly every 24 innings this year.) He only threw 3 this year and has never uncorked one in the post-season, but on the whole the possibility of a wild pitch would be higher than usual especially with only recently off the DL Yan Gomes out there.
But, yeah, two out suicide squeeze by a pitcher with 3 career PAs? Really?
He stole on the 2-0 pitch, right? I do believe that Allen was more focused on not getting to 3 balls on the pitcher.
It’s also quite likely it’s a combination of all of the above suggested.
Speaking of steals, I couldn’t understand why Davis waited until after Kipnis flied out and there were two outs to steal 3rd. Trying to score on the foul-out to Zobrist would have been iffy, but with Chapman pitching, it probably would’ve been worth it. Kipnis saw 5 pitches, so the opportunities were there…
My best guess is that Davis saw a much better chance of being successful in his steal of 3rd when he did go versus when Kipnis was batting. It’s easier to steal 3rd with a RH hitter at the plate (Lindor) because that makes the throw to 3rd tougher for the catcher. I also noticed on the replay that Bryant was playing a long distance away from 3rd when Davis did steal, and Bryant’s positioning may also have influenced Davis’ decision to go when he did.
My best guess is that Davis saw a much better chance of being successful in his steal of 3rd when he did go versus when Kipnis was batting. It’s easier to steal 3rd with a RH hitter at the plate (Lindor) because that makes the throw to 3rd tougher for the catcher. I also noticed on the replay that Bryant was playing a long distance away from 3rd when Davis did steal, and Bryant’s positioning may have influenced Davis’ decision to go when he did.
My apologies for the double post.
Why is Miller a certainty in the bottom of the ninth? That would be his third straight day pitching after having thrown 27 and 17 pitches the day before. The fact that he wasn’t used earlier in the game to keep it close may indicate he wasn’t necessarily available for a full inning of work.
Also, wouldn’t the pitcher replacing Allen need to be announced before the Cubs would have to replace Chapman/pitcher spot with a pinch-hitter? With the Cubs having used only one pinch hitter (Montero), there would be plenty of options available on the bench.
Finally, even if Schwarber takes the AB and Miller pitches a 1-2-3 inning, Rizzo is then guaranteed to appear in the bottom of the 10th against probably-not-Andrew-Miller.
Agreed, I don’t think Miller comes in last night unless the Indians have a lead and there’s absolutely no way Chapman would have been hitting in the ninth.
This completes Heyward’s transformation into becoming Billy Hamilton
Billy Hamilton (294 wOBA, 78 wRC+) takes offense at being compared to Jason Heyward (282 wOBA, 72 wRC+)
You can add infield single and fielding error to the list of events which may make it worthwhile to steal 3rd with two outs. Had Chapman been able to put the ball in play, odds are the batted ball wouldn’t have been hit hard. Thus, any event in which Chapman reached first base presumably had a disproportionately higher chance of resulting from an infield single or a fielding error compared to the average batter.
Adding to this apparently Chapman can absolutely fly so an infield hit wouldn’t be out of the question.
Too bad he didn’t fly to first base on that infield single when he forgot to cover.
It takes a big man to admit when he’s wrong Dave. I hope going forward you are a much stronger proponent of the stolen base as an offensive tactic.
We will all be stronger proponents of stealing third with a relief pitcher batting with 2 outs late in a World Series game. Of course, that depends on the speed and base-stealing abilities of the runner, the strength of the catcher’s arm, who is up after the reliever, and what pinch-hitters are available. But if this exact situation comes up again in Game 6 or 7 (and it might, I suppose), yes, everyone’s reaction will be different.
“…Fowler-Bryant-Rizzo in the 9th, almost certainly against Andrew Miller. That group has a better chance of scoring off Miller than Schwarber-Fowler-Bryant.”
There’s 0 evidence to support this.
Rizzo 1 for 10 with 6 K’s for his career (including this postseason). Schwarber is 0 for 1 with a K & a BB.
Seriously? Rizzo isn’t obviously better than Schwarber? Talk about goofy nit-picking.
I think it has more to do with Rizzo’s impressive career numbers as a hitter and the fact that Schwarber is less proven than Rizzo, coming off a 6 month layoff, and was cold off the bench the last 2 days.
All you would need is one of Schwaber/Fowler/Bryant to reach base, and Rizzo would bat anyway. Not sure why all this petty squabbling on this non-issue. Odds of Rizzo hitting a 2-out, nobody on HR is less than a run scoring from a variety of other possible scenarios.
I actually thought Heyward would even attempt to steal home on the very next pitch when I watched the game live. While Chapman doesn’t look completely out of place at the plate, what would be Heyward’s odds of taking home relative to Chapman’s ability to get a hit?
A lot of out-of-the-ordinary plays have to be executed for Heyward to be thrown out. (1) Allen would have to not balk, (2) he would either have to step off and throw home, or he would have to deliver a good pitch to Gomes, (3) Gomes would have to catch the ball cleanly, (4) Gomes would have to come forward and apply the tag.
Or he could’ve tried the old “take home on the throw back to the pitcher” play. That always worked in little league.
My thought on that steal was that it at least gives him a chance to score if there is a past ball, wild pitch or Chapman happens to make contact and its a swinging bunt. The other thing I thought was it basically guarantees Allen throws a fastball on the next pitch. There was almost no way he would mess around with potentially throwing a curveball in the dirt with the Chapman up and two strikes on him. Probably gave Chapman the best possible scenario if he was going to make contact.
“Swapping out a guaranteed Rizzo AB for a Schwarber AB isn’t as bad as sending a pitcher up to the plate or anything, but it’s still a downgrade.”
Arguably* a downgrade.
Rizzo has wRC+s of 155, 145, and 145 the last three seasons. Schwarber has a wRC+ of 129 over 278 big-league, regular-season at bats.
He’s assuming Miller would be pitching and in that case it would absolutely be a downgrade but still a lot of assuming.
On the question of whether he thought it through or not, he has done a similar thing before: http://m.mlb.com/gameday/blue-jays-vs-braves/2012/06/08/318606#game_tab=wrap,game=318606,game_state=final
That’s actually a pretty significant difference, in that he stole third with one out in a tie game.
I was thinking about all of the points made in the article while watching the game and was not surprised at all when Heyward stole third. But it’s a lot easier to run all these scenarios through your head when you’re sitting on your couch than when you’re actually standing on 2B in a WS game. But maybe Heyward did weigh all of that, and more power to him if he did. But I think someone would need to ask him what went through his head when he stole third. Unfortunately, that’s not something an on-field reporter is going to ask right after the game, and is not likely to be asked in a post-game press conference either, since it didn’t directly affect the outcome of the game.
Isn’t it a faulty assumption to think your trade off is really just Schwarber vs. Rizzo? The mostly likely scenario to score a run is via a base runner, then RBI, yes? So if you have a base runner, you’re going to get a Rizzo at-bat no matter what, right?
Also, important to note Cody Allen led RPs in Wild Pitches in ’15 and ’13, improving the case that he has significantly more value at 3B.
I’d rather keep Ramirez at 3B and Allen in the bullpen, but that’s just me. 🙂
I thought it was a good steal of both 2nd and 3rd, I just thought the steal of 3rd should have come on the very next pitch with Baez still hitting. If Heyward somehow got to third with Baez still hitting, the safety squeeze would have been almost guaranteed the way Baez was whiffing.
Even with two outs, the steal still makes a ton of sense. Maybe they throw it away, maybe there is a WP/PB, maybe a balk, you never really know and I don’t think there was a ton of risk. If he gets caught and then Chapman blows the save you need to burn a hitter for the pitcher spot in the bottom half but that’s not a big deal.
I also agree with the comment about Heyward potentially attempting a steal of home if he got to 3rd safely. With a reliever hitting, maybe the pitcher/catcher fall asleep or get a little complacent. Again, at that point, you might as well do whatever you can to steal the run because the likelihood of Chapman getting it in is next to 0.
This is poor journalism. I was glad to be informed on the topic, but I’m dubious as to the method. The substance of this article almost wholly relies on Miller’s insight, which was only partially cited. In the end it’s more or less made clear that Miller made the key observation, but the way it’s outfitted with Cameron’s self-involved bluster and own-quote (however possibly self-deprecating) is tedious. There is the general air of Jeff Sullivan’s compositional mannerisms, but without the emotional restraint or deeper quality of research.