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June 15, 2005

Is Small Ball Also Smart Ball?

Hitting Approach and Run-Scoring Consistency

by Sean Ehrlich

The Chicago White Sox’ apparent off-season change in philosophy has generated considerable buzz. The traditional baseball community has largely lauded the decision to play "small ball," while the performance analysis community has largely questioned, if not ridiculed, it. In particular, the decision to trade Carlos Lee for Scott Podsednik has been considerably scrutinized and attacked.

The performance analysis community's opposition to small ball is long documented: sacrifice hits are, almost always, wasted outs while stolen bases are only useful when the player can steal with a high enough success rate. One of the most basic tenets of the performance analysis community is that playing small ball should decrease the number of runs scored by giving up precious outs.

The defense of small ball by the traditional baseball community seems a little more nebulous. A lot of the commentators and writers who speak and write glowingly of small ball seem to be yearning for what they think of as the golden days, before expansion, before bandbox ballparks, and before steroids. Or they seem to believe small ball emphasizes the fundamentals, or that it's more beautiful. It is pointless to argue with nostalgia and aesthetics (though that does not always stop me), but some have defended small ball as not only more enjoyable baseball, but as winning baseball, with the Sox' fast start taken as evidence to prove the theory.

The crux of this defense is that small ball will lead to more consistent run scoring than the take-and-rake approach of walks and homers. Waiting for a home run, it is argued, only leads to runs when the home runs come. On the other hand, runs can always be manufactured if you have people good at manufacturing runs. Quoted in a St. Paul Pioneer Press story about how the White Sox are trying to emulate the Twins approach that defeated them year after year, Willie Harris, a good small-baller himself forced out of a starting job by the off-season moves to bring in better small-ballers, nicely summed up the argument. "To me," he said, "a small-ball team is more consistent. You're going to have small ball every day as opposed to the home run, which won't be there every time."

This argument certainly has intuitive appeal: get the leadoff guy on first, have him steal second, bunt him to third, make contact, bring him home. Of course, the White Sox might struggle getting the guy on first, especially if their on-base woes continue (although they are no longer on a record-setting pace for not walking, they currently rank in the bottom third of the league in OBP and total walks), and their stolen base efficiency is far from outstanding (currently less than 70%), but if you put together a good small ball team, they should be able to reliably push across a few runs a game. On the other hand, even a good home run hitter is only going to hit one out once every four games or so. The best did not even average one home run every other game.

The second part of the argument—that consistent run scoring should lead to more victories than inconsistent run scoring—also makes intuitive sense: if two teams average five runs a game, but one scores exactly five a game and one alternates scoring 10 and none, the first team, unless they reside in Coors Field or have the Yankees’ pitching staff, should be in every game but the second team will definitely lose at least half of theirs.