Manufactured Runs (July 30, 2003)
There was some talk regarding "manufactured runs" on a message board. Those runs you can loosely define as any runner that scores a run, that would not have scored during the inning playing station-to-station baseball, if not for a non-hit, non-walk, non-HBP play during the inning. Don't know if I covered the entire legal argument there, but basically I mean: single, steal, double, out, out, out would be a manufactured run.
Manufactured runs, as is proposed here, is problematic. For example, you get a single, you steal the base, the batter hits a double, and you score. Next 3 batters strike out. Now, if you were fast enough to steal, you might have been fast enough to score from 1b on a double. Does the SB contribute to the manufactured run? Well, maybe half of the time it did.
So, the best thing to do, I suppose, is assume "station-to-station" baseball, and assume that runners will only move the same number of bases as the hit or walk. In the above instance, the runner "manufactured" the run. This is possible to do, but it's a little work.
In the end, what you'll end up with is simply Linear Weights by the 24 base-out states. You steal the base, but don't score. You manufactured the base, but not the run. Do this long enough, and you'll end up manufacturing the run. How many? Exactly as proposed by Linear Weights: .18 runs per steal (or whatever it is).
Worse, what about manufacturing outs? Where's the penalty for aggressive running behavior?
All you really have to do is take all those things that are non-hits and non-walks (SB, CS, PO, BK, WP, PB, outs-advancing runners, etc, etc) and calculate the Linear Weights totals for that. That will give you the estimated number of runs manufactured.
Even better, just as you can create Linear Weights by the 24 base out states, and Linear Weights by batting order, and Linear Weights by park, you can create Linear Weights by the 24 base out states, by batting order, for the Montreal Expos, 1987. You will get pretty much exactly what the runs that were manufactured by their non-hits, non-walks.
--posted by TangoTiger at 11:41 AM EDT