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Called Third Strike
crashburnalley.com — ... much they could have done with the curves Burnett was putting on the black, low and outside with pinpoint precision. The Phillies did not go quietly, however. Facing Mariano Rivera in the ninth inning with one out, Jimmy Rollins had a rare — for this season anyway — professional at-bat in which he saw eleven pitches and eventually worked a walk. Shane Victorino followed up with a single through the first and second basemen to put runners on first and second with one out. Using the run expectancy matrix on Baseball Prospectus, we would expect about one run there. However, the ...

Should Jeter have bunted?
The Hardball Times — It's a popular topic. Let's ignore the decision to bunt with two strikes - even Jeter admits that was a mistake - and look at the decision to start the PA bunting. So what's the most salient fact about Derek Jeter bunting? He reaches base safely a third of the time when he lays down a bunt fair. This shouldn't surprise anyone - Jeter is a gifted singles hitter who is also perenially one of the league leaders in reaching base on an error. So let's look at run expectancy. As Bee notes: According to run expectation, with runners on first and second and no out, a team is expected to approximately ...

Rating the Managers by Intentional Walks
FJB — The intentional walk is one of the more more overused moves in MLB. The goal of this post is to identify which managers most frequently overuse the free pass. (I did a similar post last season that you can view by clicking here ...