Last week I introduced the idea of a Probabilistic Model of Steals. In that post, I looked at how the stage of the game, represented by the inning, changed the probability of attempting a steal, and the success rate on those attempts. Subsequent posts examined outs, the score difference and the combination of all three. This posts looks at running against pitchers, comparing actual stolen base attempts against the expected number of attempts based on the model.

To review, I’m only concerned with the pure steal situation, only a runner on first. I define score difference from the point of view of the offensive player (Offensive score – defensive score). In looking at the data, a lead of seven runs in either direction seemed to be the point where teams really stopped running, so any lead of seven runs or greater is either placed in the 7 or -7 bin. I also put all extra innings in the 10 bin for that category, since each extra inning starts the same, with the score tied. The data is from 1996 through 2008. The following table displays all pitchers with at least 1000 steal situations against them defined by the three parameters. The pitchers are ranked by the ratio of actual steals to expected steals, times 100. A ratio of 100 means that runners stole exactly as often as expected against the pitcher. A ratio over 100 means runners attempt steals more often than expected, under 100, less often. There are 107 pitchers in the study:

At the top of the list are a number of pitchers one might expect, left-handers with good moves to first base like Mulholland and Rogers. I’m a bit surprised Andy Pettitte doesn’t rank higher, but I think it’s a combination of two things. Pettitte pitched in a lot more stolen base situations than many of the others at the top of the list, so the larger sample size might bring him back closer to average. The bigger factor, however, may be his high number of pickoffs. Most pickoffs are actually scored as caught stealings, since the runner often heads toward second base hoping for an error. Note the low success of runners against Pettitte.

Chris Carpenter is simply amazing at not only stopping the running game, but also preventing a stolen bag once a runner commits. Part of that is having Yadier Molina as a catcher, but Carpenter’s only had Molina behind the plate for part of his career. We’ll look into that relationship in more detail in a later post. I’m hoping this research eventually leads to a way to distinguish between catcher defense of the steal and pitcher defense of the steal.

At the other end of the scale, where runners attempt steals more often than expected against pitchers, lie three of the greatest hurlers of the period, Roger Clemens, Greg Maddux and Randy Johnson. These three appeared to pitch to a philosophy that the stolen base didn’t matter. They paid little attention to base runners, concentrating on getting the out at the plate. If the hitter makes an out, the chance of the runner scoring drops close to zero.

I’m not surprised the two easiest pitchers to steal on were knuckleballer Tim Wakefield and windup artist Hideo Nomo. The slow speed of Wakefield’s pitches combined with the difficulty of catching them makes Tim an easy target. Nomo’s back arch delivery allowed runners to get an extra step as well.

The next post concentrates on the catchers. As always, I’m interested in your feedback. You can follow the series here.

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