In an article warning about over-estimating the Athletics chances of making the playoffs in 2011, Jonah Keri brings up the idea of cascading:

If there’s one reason for A’s fans to be optimistic, it’s the same reason I expressed concern about the Brewers’ chances last week: cascading. One of my favorite pet theories (I have many; don’t ask me about teams’ rigid bullpen usage unless we’re WAY off the record) is that no matter how much we try to adjust for the effect of defense on run prevention, we can’t fully capture its impact. When Mark Ellis ranges into the hole to snag a sharp grounder and end an inning, he’s preserving his pitcher’s pitch count, helping him avoid pitching deeper into an inning under duress, and allowing him to go deeper into games, with less injury risk. If Anderson, Cahill, Gonzalez and Braden stay healthy and go deep into games, that’s fewer innings for weak replacement starters, fewer innings for the bullpen’s weakest arms, and a clearer path to Andrew Bailey and the end of a ballgame.

Park factors may offer a similar cascading effect. If Dallas Braden knows he can get by without overpowering stuff, leave a ball up and know his ballpark will prevent an Earl Weaver Special, that can make it easier for him to get more outs earlier in the count, and reap the same health and bullpen benefits that a great defense provides. I would love to see more granular research on particular pitching staffs, their performance in relation to defense and home park, and if we’re missing something in our typical adjustments. At the risk of angering the small sample size gods, I think there’s plenty of interesting work left to be done.

The same thing happens with OBP. Replacing a low OBP player with a high OBP player not only helps the team at the position where new player takes over, but helps the rest of the team as well. By making fewer outs, the new player expands the offensive context for the rest of the team, meaning the other eight batters should score more than they would with the low OBP player in the lineup. Adding OBP should make the whole team better.

Many of the popular tools for run prediction right now are based on linear weights (WAR, for example, or wOBA). Run production is not linear, however. (It’s close to linear in the range that major league teams perform, so LW is a good approximation.) Runs are exponential in OBP (it acts like an interest rate). Power further multiplies the effect of OBP.

Jonah is noting this carries on further, by controlling how many lower talent players get used in a game. The Yankees offense in the late 1990s would push teams into their bullpens early by a combination of getting on base and selectivity pushing up starters pitch counts. Look how the team killed opponents in the fifth inning from 1996 to 2000, the period in which they won four World Championships. Keri is looking at the defensive side, which keeps good starters in the game longer and helps avoid middle relievers, usually the worst pitchers on the staff.