What's Left?

Now that I finally got a satisfactory data set to help me figure out the coefficients, there are only a few minor issues to resolve...and an immensely challenging next step.

Baserunning: Somewhere along the line, I've had to invoke probabilities for a runner advancing 1st to 3rd on a single, 2nd to home on a single, and 1st to home on a double (situations where the runner may advance more bases than the batter).

Up to this point, I've pulled those numbers directly out of my ass. I believe in the latest version I assumed runners go 1st to 3rd 30% of the time; 2nd to home 50% of the time; and 1st to home 40% of the time.

What I'd like to find is league-wide data on how often a runner on first advances to 3rd on a single (as opposed to just 2nd), etc. But I have no idea where or how that information would be kept.

That would provide a minor improvement to Bases Advanced, but would be nowhere near as significant (and complicated!) as the following.

Productive Outs: Yeah, that's right. I want to figure out a way to calculate how many bases "random" teammates would advance on a player's non-strikeouts. How many bases is the average out worth?

Not all outs are created equal. A long flyout is much more likely to advance a hypothetical teammate than a ground ball to short (which, at the wrong times, could be turned into a double play). And, presumably, some players have penchants for making certain kinds of outs over others. For example, David Ortiz tends to fly out to medium-depth center field, while Jacoby Ellsbury pounds the ball into the ground right at the second baseman.

Is there any conceivable way to create a model, possibly based on ground ball/fly ball/line drive percentages on outs, to calculate how many bases theoretical teammates advance on a particular hitter's outs, given those out-making idiosyncrasies.

For example, I could assume a runner on 3rd advances on 30% of fly balls, 50% of ground balls, and 10% of line drive outs. (Like the baserunning numbers above, I'd really like to find a better way to pin down these figures than "out of my ass".) Then I could calculate how many fly ball outs, ground ball outs, and line drive outs have been made by that hitter, and multiply by the probability that a runner will be on 3rd in a random plate appearance, as before. And so on.

Christ this is going to be hard.