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Ben and Sam answer listener emails about trading within the division, stats on baseball broadcasts, Mike Trout, and more.

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rawagman
12/13
Stats I want tracked - pickoff attempts. They are recorded in gameday, but I know of no group that compiles the numbers and their affect on play. I spent a season once painstakingly tracking every pickoff attempt made while "my team" (Toronto) was on the basepaths. There was some interesting data, but I do not have the time to track for other teams - or even to do it again. I think we can learn loads about game strategy by delving into this.

Stats I want to see on TV - 20/80 scouting numbers for both pitchers and hitters. As these would be MLB'ers, present grades would suffice.
bornyank1
12/13
Throws to first are recorded in Retrosheet, though I don't think it distinguishes between casual throws and real pickoff attempts. Russell Carleton has written a bunch of stuff that draws on that data:

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=22155
http://statspeakmvn.wordpress.com/2007/03/31/on-throwing-to-first-part-i/
http://statspeakmvn.wordpress.com/2007/04/06/on-throwing-to-first-part-ii/

And there was this at BP a few years ago:
http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=9431
rawagman
12/13
Those articles assess the impact of pickoff throws on the running. In my (albeit admittedly limited sample) study, I found an affect on the batters.
Namely, there were two types of pickoff throws. One is against guys deemed as running threats. When pickoffs were attempted at against running threats, the batters performed better.
When pickoffs were attempted against non-runners, the batters' went slightly down. Would love to know if this is a real effect.
bornyank1
12/13
Interesting. The last article I linked there shows the impact on batters, but not broken down that way.