Using Simulation to Estimate the Impact of Baserunning Ability in Baseball

In baseball, an offensive team's run scoring ability is dependent not only upon the batting skills of its players, but also their baserunning abilities. Using a Monte Carlo simulation based on actual statistics of real players, we estimate the magnitude of the effect of baserunning skills upon a team's run scoring ability. Our results largely confirm previous non-academic estimates that the impact of baserunning upon a team's run scoring ability is typically less than ±25 runs per season. However, we show using simple heuristic algorithms, that a team composed of the best (worst) nine baserunners could gain (lose) as many as 70 (55), runs per season due to baserunning.