First or Last Out at Third

"It has long been an axiom of mine that the little things are infinitely the most important."
-Arthur Conan Doyle

I was watching an out-of-town Tigers game on MLB Network last week.  Two of my favorite broadcasters were doing the game - Mario Impemba and Rod Allen (Tigers feed).  After an over-ambitious (and slightly ignorant) player was the 1st out at third base they brought up a popular baseball axiom - "Never be the first or last out at third base".  As viewers/fans, we probably hear this often from broadcasters yet they never really let us know why.  In the words of the great Desi Arnaz - "Please 'splain"...

The explanations are actually fairly simple for this common baseball precept.  We're going to reference the "Run Expectancy Matrix" below.  The table represents the average number of runs that scored, for a specific base/out situation.  Take a look at it for a sec and get familiar with it.  

OK let's cover the first circumstance - "Never be the 1st out at third."  With no outs, the scoring chance is almost the same from second base as it is from third base.  The player on second can get to third via a sac-bunt or sac-fly thus putting him a great position to score from a variety of ways.  From second base the player can also score by a hit (just as he could if he was on third).  Do you get it now why you shouldn't be the first out at third?

Now on to "Never be the 3rd out at third base".  Basically there are three reasons:

1. You're the final out.  That's it - dunzo!!  Back to the dugout and collect you glove.
2. The run expectancy matrix says so.  With 2 outs the average runs scored are almost the same with a player on 2nd base as it is with a player on 3rd base.
3. With two outs the scenarios to get you home are almost identical from 2nd or 3rd. With 2 outs the sac-fly is out of the equation so a base-hit is the only way to get you home either way. 

Baseball has many of these little adages.  I hope this post cleared up one of them for you.

Thanks for Reading!
-Tom