What would you do

nixxy311 · Jun 12, 2017

We had a similar play but we were up by 7 - last inning, runners 1st and 3rd, 2 outs. Pretty sure our coach basically announced that he was going to have our catcher throw to 2nd. Girl goes for the steal and SS gets the ball and tags her stealing but I guess it wasn't hard enough or obvious enough so he calls her safe. (DD was the SS and every other person that had a view of the play confirmed she tagged her).
Didn't matter much anyway - the run did score but we go the next out anyway to end the game. Sad we didn't get the shutout though - ended 7-1 :/
(We also have a run limit per inning so there was no chance of them coming back anyway)

Il softball fan · Jun 12, 2017

Unless you have a catcher you are confident in getting the out at second, I would let her have the base, and hold the runner on third.

Big Daddy Michigan · Jun 12, 2017

TMoney said:
In the scenario you describe, I let the runner have 2B. 25% chance of success is not worth the risk.

What risk? The only risk is the tying run scores, so I'll take the 25% chance to eliminate that risk, vs. giving the opposition a 100% chance to get her to second base.

The out is far more valuable than keeping the meaningless runner at third.

If you tweak the scenario a bit, Up 2 runner on 3rd, grounder to second base would you tell the 2b to hold the ball and keep the runner at 3rd or risk the throw to first to get the out. Of course not, so in the original situation where giving up second base is far more costly, why wouldn't you try to throw her out. Worst case scenario the tying run is on second just like she is if you let her have it for free.

The argument that you might throw it into the OF is pretty thin. If that's the case you should never throw a ground ball to first because it might get past F3 and the batter could end up on 3rd. Just hold all ground balls and pray for pop ups and Ks.

Big Daddy Michigan · Jun 12, 2017

TMD said:
Once saw a "Run Expectancy Matrix",

Do you have a link to it? I'd love to see it.

A veteran coach I know always threw to 2nd base, and in my youth I questioned it. He told me to keep track of the number of times both runners scored vs. the number of times the team successfully kept the runner on 3rd without allowing 1 run. At levels below college with zero out the runner scored 100% of the time, until last summer I watched a girl strike out the side. About 80% of the time both scored. I call it give up 2 to try to stop one.

With one out the numbers weren't much better.

It takes a combination of 2 strike outs or infield pop ups to make it work.

TMD · Jun 12, 2017

Big Daddy Michigan said:
Do you have a link to it? I'd love to see it.

Sorry, no link, but I did snag a quick shot of the table when I saw it. As I mentioned, this is for baseball, so while the exact numbers may not be accurate, I've got to believe the relative ratios are close for softball.

Note it shows a link to "Retrosheet", which I assume is Retrosheet, but I can't find the original page there.

TMoney · Jun 13, 2017

Big Daddy Michigan said:
What risk? The only risk is the tying run scores, so I'll take the 25% chance to eliminate that risk, vs. giving the opposition a 100% chance to get her to second base.

The out is far more valuable than keeping the meaningless runner at third.

If you tweak the scenario a bit, Up 2 runner on 3rd, grounder to second base would you tell the 2b to hold the ball and keep the runner at 3rd or risk the throw to first to get the out. Of course not, so in the original situation where giving up second base is far more costly, why wouldn't you try to throw her out. Worst case scenario the tying run is on second just like she is if you let her have it for free.

The argument that you might throw it into the OF is pretty thin. If that's the case you should never throw a ground ball to first because it might get past F3 and the batter could end up on 3rd. Just hold all ground balls and pray for pop ups and Ks.

Your scenario is comparing apples and oranges. OP's scenario stated a 25% chance of success at throwing out the runner at 2B. I would hope throwing a runner out a first on a ground ball would be better than 25%. In the original scenario, and frankly the only on that matters, if I don't thow to 2B, I have a 100% chance that no runs will score on that play, and we're still up by 2!

canyonjoe · Jun 13, 2017

TMoney said:
Your scenario is comparing apples and oranges. OP's scenario stated a 25% chance of success at throwing out the runner at 2B. I would hope throwing a runner out a first on a ground ball would be better than 25%. In the original scenario, and frankly the only on that matters, if I don't thow to 2B, I have a 100% chance that no runs will score on that play, and we're still up by 2!

Except the only way you don't win is the if the girl on 1st doesn't score. It's the last inning so that is really the run that matters unless you are worried about tiebreakers. If you aren't out of time it's a different story.

Big Daddy Michigan · Jun 20, 2017

TMoney said:
Your scenario is comparing apples and oranges. OP's scenario stated a 25% chance of success at throwing out the runner at 2B. I would hope throwing a runner out a first on a ground ball would be better than 25%. In the original scenario, and frankly the only on that matters, if I don't thow to 2B, I have a 100% chance that no runs will score on that play, and we're still up by 2!

Sacrifice a meaningless run for a chance at an out or sacrifice a meaningless run for a chance at an out.

90210 · Jun 20, 2017

Big Daddy is obviously correct, and it makes me worried for the future that so many people disagree.

What would you do

Welcome to Discuss Fastpitch

Your FREE Account is waiting to the Best Softball Community on the Web.

nixxy311

Il softball fan

Big Daddy Michigan

Big Daddy Michigan

TMD

TMoney

canyonjoe

Big Daddy Michigan

90210

Similar threads

Latest posts

Members online

Forum statistics

Share this page

Online statistics

Forum statistics