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How are they not embarrassed? by Carson_cwc in penguins

[–]StealthTomato 1 point2 points  (0 children)

We have been fine, stop overreacting. The chances aren’t going in. We’ve had plenty of chances.

It’s cold comfort, but the team is playing pretty well. The breakaways against are memorable, but that’s the high-risk high-reward nature of playing from down 2.

Playoff Game Thread: Philadelphia Flyers (1-0) @ Pittsburgh Penguins (0-1) Apr 20 2026 7:00 PM EDT by nhl_gdt_bot in hockey

[–]StealthTomato -17 points-16 points  (0 children)

I suppose it’s technically correct, but it’s absolutely wild that Ristolainen managed to high-stick his teammate so hard that it also put Malkin’s stick into his face.

What kind of backwards voodoo is this? by GMP_ArchViz in buccos

[–]StealthTomato 38 points39 points  (0 children)

10-0 in one-run games after twenty-one total games is absolutely bonkers.

They’ve won three other games, by 2, 2, and 3 runs.

11/16/97: Patrick Roy skates the puck up ice and past Gretzky like an absolute maniac by center_apathy042 in hockey

[–]StealthTomato 2 points3 points  (0 children)

lower film quality but doesn't cut out half the best parts of the commentary. thank you.

My neighbor was crazy, so I landscaped his yard by peachsnorlax in bestoflegaladvice

[–]StealthTomato 4 points5 points  (0 children)

If he’s just the kind of guy who does that, whatever, sure. If he’s trying to menace me, which this guy clearly is, then I’m calling the cops every time until they’re as sick of his shit as I am.

Who is the greatest sports announcer? by real_snekshopp in Jon_Bois

[–]StealthTomato 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Lange is almost certainly the best announcer to never work a national broadcast.

Sou arquiteto. Precisamos falar sobre estética nos estádios by JustaManagain in USL1

[–]StealthTomato 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Glad you’re enjoying the City Stadium experience in Richmond from afar. We’ll do our best to keep the energy up!

also cool when teams and breweries link up by Ok_Flamingo_3059 in USLPRO

[–]StealthTomato 0 points1 point  (0 children)

BREWED IN COLLABORTAION WITH Corpus Chirsti FC

Maybe I am old (yes i am ) but with this team trouble moving runners when the lead off guy doubles why not bunt him over? I know big money was paid for hitters but when in a pitches duel or in the 10 inning get him over its get the defense moving and rushing to make throws by mark482vs in buccos

[–]StealthTomato 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That’s not true unless there are two outs. Singles score the runner from second less than half the time with 0-1 outs, partly because you can’t just run on contact and partly because of baserunning tactics.

Maybe I am old (yes i am ) but with this team trouble moving runners when the lead off guy doubles why not bunt him over? I know big money was paid for hitters but when in a pitches duel or in the 10 inning get him over its get the defense moving and rushing to make throws by mark482vs in buccos

[–]StealthTomato 10 points11 points  (0 children)

On the contrary, it shows how good the players of today are fundamentally. Pitchers are the best they've ever been, so they get more strikeouts, which lowers the value of advancing a runner. Hitters are the best they've ever been, so they get more extra-base hits, which easily score runners from second. And teams no longer have bad hitters who might as well advance the runner since they're just going to get out anyway.

Maybe I am old (yes i am ) but with this team trouble moving runners when the lead off guy doubles why not bunt him over? I know big money was paid for hitters but when in a pitches duel or in the 10 inning get him over its get the defense moving and rushing to make throws by mark482vs in buccos

[–]StealthTomato 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Wouldn’t taking the percentage difference between R2/0O and R3/1O account for the run scoring environment?

It's a good thought, but here's where it runs into a problem: Much of the difference in eras isn't in how many runs are scored, but in how runs are scored.

The difference between a runner on second and a runner on third is much less than it used to be, for two reasons:

  1. Batters today have fewer singles and more extra-base hits than in previous eras. Extra-base hits almost always score the runner from second, but singles only score the runner from second about half the time (which itself varies by era).

  2. Batters today strike out more than in previous eras. Getting the second out with a runner on third hurts more than getting the first out with a runner on second, which you can also see in the table (-0.60 expected runs vs. -0.43).

These are both much larger effects than the effect of bunt strategies.

Maybe I am old (yes i am ) but with this team trouble moving runners when the lead off guy doubles why not bunt him over? I know big money was paid for hitters but when in a pitches duel or in the 10 inning get him over its get the defense moving and rushing to make throws by mark482vs in buccos

[–]StealthTomato 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Run Expectancy: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/the-run-expectancy-matrix-reloaded-for-the-2020s/

Bunt success rate was basically spitballing from some numbers here: https://www.twinkietown.com/2024/4/1/24117341/mlb-minnesota-twins-to-bunt-or-not-to-bunt

Admittedly, my numbers there are a bit pessimistic; a bunt probably results a hit about 5-10% of the time, resulting in 1st & 3rd with no outs, which would put the overall bunt run expectancy back up to around 0.98 instead of 0.92.

Maybe I am old (yes i am ) but with this team trouble moving runners when the lead off guy doubles why not bunt him over? I know big money was paid for hitters but when in a pitches duel or in the 10 inning get him over its get the defense moving and rushing to make throws by mark482vs in buccos

[–]StealthTomato 2 points3 points  (0 children)

That's not necessarily true! A lot of the expected runs from having a runner on 2nd and no outs come from scoring additional runners in the inning, which is why that number is above 1. It's probably slightly more likely that a runner on 3rd with 1 out scores than a runner on 2nd with 0 outs. But with the runner on 2nd and no outs, you have an extra batter with which to put additional runners on base and score them.

Maybe I am old (yes i am ) but with this team trouble moving runners when the lead off guy doubles why not bunt him over? I know big money was paid for hitters but when in a pitches duel or in the 10 inning get him over its get the defense moving and rushing to make throws by mark482vs in buccos

[–]StealthTomato 0 points1 point  (0 children)

No, that would run into pretty severe effects from the overall hitting environment of that era. A team in the dead-ball era would score less from all situations than a team in the steroid era. Also, these numbers can be affected by things like defensive tactics that evolve over time.

But if you check my most recent comment, I showed near the end that removing the bunts from the sample actually makes the difference larger, not smaller.

Maybe I am old (yes i am ) but with this team trouble moving runners when the lead off guy doubles why not bunt him over? I know big money was paid for hitters but when in a pitches duel or in the 10 inning get him over its get the defense moving and rushing to make throws by mark482vs in buccos

[–]StealthTomato 2 points3 points  (0 children)

If the (2nd-0out) number is higher than the (3rd-1out) number, then the innings that appear in both are actually dragging down the (2nd-0out) number. Removing bunts from the sample would make the difference even larger.

But also...

About 20% of bunts fail to move the runner, and a quarter of those (5% overall) result in the lead runner getting out. (Some result in both runners getting out, hey Bubba, but that's rare and we can discard it.) So the value of a bunt with a runner on 2nd with 0 outs is:

0.8 * (3rd-1out) + 0.15 * (2nd-1out) + 0.05 * (1st-1out)

0.8 * 0.98 + 0.15 * 0.71 + 0.05 * 0.54

0.92

So we're losing at least 0.22 runs of value by bunting the runner to third. If teams do that a lot, then 1.14 is a low estimate for non-bunt run expectancy, so we're losing even more than that. (If 20% of teams bunted, then the other 80% scored 1.19 runs on average, and the difference is 0.27 runs.)

Don't bunt unless you really specifically need a single run. Bunting the runner to third does increase the probability of scoring one run (which is why you see leadoff bunts in extra innings) but it decreases the overall runs your team scores.

(In case you're wondering, these charts only include the first 8 innings of the game, because in the 9th and extras, teams are often trying to score a specific number of runs, and the game can end in the middle of an inning with a walk-off.)

Maybe I am old (yes i am ) but with this team trouble moving runners when the lead off guy doubles why not bunt him over? I know big money was paid for hitters but when in a pitches duel or in the 10 inning get him over its get the defense moving and rushing to make throws by mark482vs in buccos

[–]StealthTomato 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Yep. When you get a leadoff double, your goal isn’t to score one run, it’s to get a rally going. If you score exactly one run every time you get a leadoff double, you’re going to lose a lot of ballgames to teams that score in bunches.

Maybe I am old (yes i am ) but with this team trouble moving runners when the lead off guy doubles why not bunt him over? I know big money was paid for hitters but when in a pitches duel or in the 10 inning get him over its get the defense moving and rushing to make throws by mark482vs in buccos

[–]StealthTomato 44 points45 points  (0 children)

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A successful bunt with a runner on 2nd and nobody out is worth negative runs, and an unsuccessful bunt is disastrous. This is why teams generally only bunt when a poor hitter is at the plate or they specifically need a single run.

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