Rounding the Bases Faster, With Math

An anonymous reader writes "The fastest route around the bases, mathematicians show, is one that perhaps no major-league ball player has ever run: It swings out a full 18.5 feet from the baseline, nearly forming a full circle. 'I would definitely experiment with it,' says former American Major League Baseball outfielder Doug Glanville, who last played with the Philadelphia Phillies. 'There's no question in my mind that runners could be more efficient.'"

Comments

Maybe for a home run...

[guyminuslife]

The main reason why they've calculated a circular path is because of the delays that sharp turns introduce. As far as I can tell, this path makes sense if and only if you're trying to run from home to home. If you're going for a single, or a double, or a triple, you'd have different ideal path.

So even in theory, this doesn't really pan out: nobody in MLB makes it to home-plate on an outfield hit. You could probably come up with more effective routes for doubles and triples, but on the other hand, it's probably hard to tell if you've hit a triple right as you start running. If you make a hit that would be a triple, but follow a route like it's a single and then change your mind as the ball gets played, you'll probably still end up with a single or a double. If you start running for a triple on a base hit that's only really going to get you a single, it could slow you down enough to get you out. I'm more in the hedge-your-bets camp, and I'm betting that, on that basis, this isn't an effective way to go.

Re:Hitting the brakes slows you down.

[compro01]

You can be called out if you stray too far from the base line.

I cannot find anything in the rules saying that. Only thing I can find at all related is rule 7.08 (a) (1), which only applies if they move away from the base line to avoid being tagged.

AFAICT, they can run where ever they like as long as they don't interfere with the fielders.

Re:Hitting the brakes slows you down.

[Attila Dimedici]

There is something to what you say. However, what an experienced batter won't know is how the fielder will choose to play the ball. That means that the batter doesn't know if it will be over the fielder's head or not. Additionally, that knowledge of where the ball will land is really only true in his home park. Over the course of this past baseball season, I saw several occasions where a home team batter got an extra base because of where the ball landed that on another night a visiting team batter did not. The reason for this was that the home team batter knew that the ball hit to that spot would take a tricky bounce while the visiting team batter did not. This was compounded by the fact that the home team fielder also knew that the ball would take a tricky bounce and the visiting team fielder did not (I only noticed this particular occurrence because the announcers pointed it out, but in future games after that I noticed that the home team fielders consistently fielded balls hit to that area better than visiting team fielders).