A thread on Baseball Think Factory alerted me to Bob Wickman’s intentional balk against the Twins. Man (Michael Cuddyer) on second, he thought the man was stealing signs, balked him to third. As Tangotiger sums it up:
Down by 2, man on 2b, 2 out, chance of winning is .052. Move him to 3B, and it’s .053. That’s a +.001 win change, or the equivalent of +.01 run change in a random situation. i.e., virtually useless.
…
If Wickman believed just a bit about that sign stealing, it was definitely a great move on his part.
Not to mention the possible benefit of confusing the heck out of the Twins, if the balk was done so deliberately…
I love weird tactical moves like this, almost as much as I love the hidden-ball trick. And I think there’s an advantage in screwing with the batter’s mind, since it’s a weird move. Of course, Stewart ended up walking and stealing second, so the effect seems to have been lost. But still.
Now if Wickman did an intentional balk when there are men on 2nd and 3rd in a 2-run game, that would take some serious cojones…