As expected, the stolen bases weren’t all on Will Smith
November 11, 2023
As expected, the stolen bases weren’t all on Will Smith
4 comments
I’ve been waiting for a while for this data to finally be released. And there’s now actual quanitfiable evidence to show that defending the running game wasn’t ENTIRELY on LAD catchers.
If you click on the “Dodgers” tab in the link, you can then go to the “pitchers” category to see which individual pitchers were the worst at holding runners. It’s not a coincidence that we got better overall as we lost our two worst pitchers at this.
I think it’s also interesting because if you look at these stats for pitchers across the league, you can also see who’s the best at holding runners individually. It could be another tool to see what pitchers we could go after, if the other stuff fits (**cough cough** Dylan Cease **cough cough**)
Barnes was one of the better defenders in the league prior to 2023, but this season there were times he looked worse than Smith. Our staff just didn’t adjust well to the new stolen base-friendlier rules. Hopefully a year of data will help the front office figure out a new approach.
4 comments
I’ve been waiting for a while for this data to finally be released. And there’s now actual quanitfiable evidence to show that defending the running game wasn’t ENTIRELY on LAD catchers.
If you click on the “Dodgers” tab in the link, you can then go to the “pitchers” category to see which individual pitchers were the worst at holding runners. It’s not a coincidence that we got better overall as we lost our two worst pitchers at this.
I think it’s also interesting because if you look at these stats for pitchers across the league, you can also see who’s the best at holding runners individually. It could be another tool to see what pitchers we could go after, if the other stuff fits (**cough cough** Dylan Cease **cough cough**)
Barnes was one of the better defenders in the league prior to 2023, but this season there were times he looked worse than Smith. Our staff just didn’t adjust well to the new stolen base-friendlier rules. Hopefully a year of data will help the front office figure out a new approach.
Really good read on this
https://www.mlb.com/news/baseball-savant-metric-pitcher-stolen-base-prevention
Well I could have told you that!