BP Unfiltered: Glenn Burke, Historically Significant Baserunner

On Effectively Wild the other day, I attempted to find the worst pinch-runner of all-time. This is not to be confused with Michael Baumann’s search for the worst runners who made pinch-running appearances. Rather, I sought the worst pinch-runner of the subset of players who pinch-ran often enough that we’d consider pinch-running to be part of their value to a team, one of the skills listed on their resumes. Specifically, players in the top 500 all-time in pinch-running appearances.

An answer emerged, and it was an answer that pleased me: Glenn Burke, a man who has been credited in some circles for inventing the high five, and in others for being the first kinda-sorta-openly gay ballplayer, but in none for what I posited he should now also be famous for: Being the all-time worst pinch-runner. But, of course, it was just one Play Index search, a blunt tool for a very important question. So I thought I’d give this conclusion a more thorough review.

First, the way I determined Burke was the worst. I took our top 500 pinch-runners and sorted them by pinch-run stolen bases per pinch-running appearance, and pinch-run run scored by pinch-running appearance, and by SB success rate in pinch-running appearances. I also looked at how many PA each batter got per pinch-running appearance, mostly so I could see whose SB numbers were skewed by stolen bases later in the same game, but also as a sorta proxy for which pinch-runners were most valuable as options to let stay in the game.

Burke, who stole two bases in 38 pinch-running appearances, was below average in stolen base frequency. Worse, with five caught-stealings, he is in the 10^th percentile for success rate. With a run scored in only 16 percent of his pinch-running appearances, he’s seventh worst out of our 500. Worse still, he’s in the 30^th percentile of plate appearances per, suggesting his managers felt they had to burn him rather than let him stay in a game. (For good reason: He had a career .217 TAv, and in about a season’s worth of innings was a -10 defender according to FRAA.)

But maybe all those are misleading—maybe he was mostly coming into blowouts to save the legs of veterans, for instance; maybe he was the all-time greatest goer of first to third—so I looked at each of his 38 pinch-running appearances to see if they shed light on things.

Here’s what we’ve got:

1. The blowout factor.
Not much of a factor. I count two games where it was explicitly garbage time, and in neither game did he advance (or have a chance to advance). In three others, he came into games leading by four or five runs—once in the third inning, apparently as an injury replacement; he would score on a sacrifice fly. One more when he was up three, but as the trail runner in a bases-loaded, none-out situation. So call it, generously, six games where his legs were called upon for their freshness rather than their tactical advantage.

2. The stolen base attempts.
These don’t look any better in the details. The least-damaging CS, when his team was up one in the eighth, costing .02 WPA, came against Phil Niekro, who was (by TRAA and SRAA) probably the third or fourth easiest pitcher to run against at that time. The other four: Go-ahead run, bottom eighth, on first, two outs: -.05 WPA; Tying run, eighth inning, two outs: -.07 WPA; Go-ahead run, seventh inning, on first, nobody out: -.09 WPA; and Tying run, ninth inning, one out: -.15 WPA, the third biggest play of that game.

Meanwhile, his two successes came with a two-run lead in one game, and with the go-ahead run already on third base with one out in another; heaven helps us all if he’d been thrown out in that latter one. The two bags contributed a total of just .03 WPA, which means that when Burke just started running he cost his team, on average, 1/20^th of a victory.

3. Those non-stolen base attempts.
Maybe he got smarter; most of those stolen base attempts came “early” in his career, ironic quotes invoked to point out that his entire career was pretty early in his career. But the problem with being smart enough to not try to steal is that your team has to figure out another way to advance you. So, in his final 15 or so PR appearances, he was mostly called on to play the role of Guy Sacrificed Over. He did admirably on these opportunities, running right to the next base even though some part of him was surely screaming at himself “go give the second baseman a high five!” Indeed, Burke’s greatest baserunning moment came in a sac bunt situation—two, in fact. Starting the play on first base, he was safe at second when the pitcher threw wildly to try to force him out. Then, on the next batter, there was another bunt and again the pitcher tried to force him out; Burke beat it. These plays produced .26 WPA, so good job Burke. (Though we have no real idea of knowing if he was a factor in the pitcher’s error or not.)

4. But his worst game.
Burke entered the ninth inning of a game in August 1978 as the tying run on second base. He went to third on a sacrifice bunt. Then he tagged and attempted to score on a flyball to center field. He was out, and the ballgame ended. He cost his team .15 WPA by not staying put; once he took off, he cost them .54 WPA by not being safe.

5. Otherwise, he’s a pretty inconsequential baserunner, through little fault of his own. He advanced on a wild pitch once. He went first to third on a single to center, but not on a single to left. He was never picked off. Four times he was forced out at second, but without seeing them we don’t know whether he was the hero (breaking up a double play) or just a step too slow to be useful. In maybe a quarter of games no advance was possible—barring a stolen base, or a wild pitch opportunity that was never recorded because it wasn’t pursued—and the role of pinch-runner could have just as effectively been played by Ben Glurke, a 58-year-old mortgage broker in Victorville.

None of this is dramatic, but 40 years ago when it was happening much of it was. The excitement when the pinch-runner enters as the tying run, the excitement when he takes off, the thrill as the cloud of dust goes up at second base, the dejection when the umpire signals out. Burke probably cost his teams a couple runs in 38 pinch-running appearances, and those couple runs came at the time his team most needed a couple runs. Burke's life is probably best summed up as "pioneer." His contribution to baseball is probably best summed up as "high fiver." His performance as a player, though, is best summed up as "actually the worst pinch-runner in history." Up high, down low, to the side, too slow.