"Run!": A Deep Dive on Third Base Coach Wavin' Willie Harris

[Jason Ross]

In Willie Harris's three-plus seasons as the third base coach of the Chicago Cubs, they have been the most aggressive team in baseball at trying to score--and they've been thrown out the most often. The outs--especially a few recent ones--have earned Harris a lot of criticism. Is that fair?

Image courtesy of © Melissa Tamez-USA TODAY Sports

In the ninth inning of Friday's loss to the Reds, with two runners on base, Seiya Suzuki laced a double down into the well in Wrigley Field's left-field corner. Pete Crow-Armstrong scored easily, making it a one-run game. Willie Harris sent Nick Madrigal (who began the play at first base) screaming around third. Madrigal was thrown out at the plate (fairly easily), sparking hot debates online about whether it was the right send or not. I'm here to defend Harris.

Before I get too deep into this, I think I should own up to something: I already have a predisposition for sending guys around third. I've run my adult league team for a decade, and I rarely trust an adult infielder or outfielder to throw a perfect strike to the plate. Considering my team isn't good enough normally not to take every chance we get to score, I wave guys home like crazy. And the results have been mixed: a bunch of them got thrown out. Much like I shouldn't trust an adult outfielder to throw a strike, maybe I shouldn't trust the knees of the 36-year-old third baseman I have rounding the bag, either. All of this is to say that I know my blind spots and my personal biases going into this.

The good news for me and my predisposition is that, when it comes to the belief that you should be sending guys home as often as you can, I'm not alone. Russell Carleton, an author of multiple books on baseball and a writer for Baseball Prospectus, is (at least) on that island with me. In his book "The Shift," the author spends a decent amount of time examining the 2014 non-send of Alex Gordon, which would eventually result in the defeat of the Kansas City Royals by the San Francisco Giants.

"I think that all third-base coaches should be fired and replaced with a sign on a stick that points to the left and says "RUN!"," Carleton wrote in that section. He then used charts, figures and data (which I will be relying on) to argue that third-base coaches, essentially, should be waving as many guys home as they can.

If Carleton and I are on an island in this belief, we have at least one more member in our little tribe: Harris. Much has been made about a tweet that was published after the game by twitter/X user Biblical Losses that highlights just how many runners the Cubs have had thrown out at home over Harris's tenure as the Cubs' third-base-coach. The tweet points out that in 2022, 2023, and 2024 (so far) the Cubs lead the league in runners thrown out at home, and since 2021 (Harris's first year with the Cubs), the team has had 74 instances of a runner being thrown out at home. On the surface, that number sounds bad, almost as if the Cubs have thrown away 74 runs over that span. But what if I told you context matters and that Willie Harris is doing the right thing?

---

The first thing we should do is zoom out...way, way out. For example, one thing that's probably very important to point out is that, since 2021, the Chicago Cubs have been one of the best baserunning teams in baseball. Over that span, they rank eighth in total BsR value, per FanGraphs. It should also be noted that as the Cubs' overall talent level on the roster has increased, their baserunning value has increased, going from the 17th-best team ('21), to the fourth-best team ('22), to the eighth-best team ('23 and '24). All of that cannot be laid on the feet of Willie Harris--this takes into account many things that Harris cannot influence--but clearly, whatever he's doing over at third isn't killing the team on the whole. But what about those pesky 74 outs at the plate?

Now is probably the time to talk about the success percentage of sending runners, and the number is, at least in my humble opinion, shockingly high. Using data provided from "The Shift", it almost doesn't matter what the situation is, how far the ball was hit, and everything in between; the success rate of sending a player home never dips under 94.4% (which, conveniently for this study, is the success rate of sending someone first to home on a double). That doesn't mean every send would have a success rate of 94.4% or better, if you sent a catcher from first to home on a routine single to left field, we know he doesn't have even a 5% chance to make it.

Carleton makes sure to say that "coaches are only sending the runners who they are pretty sure will make it," so this is a data set that is clearly going to be biased, in that it's generally gauging successes to begin with. Regardless, these numbers go to show that when coaches decide to press that button, they're almost always right to do so.

This, then, brings us back to Mr. Harris and his success rate. From 2021 to 2024, the Cubs have scored successfully on 95% of first-to-home sends. Over that span, the league has seen a success rate of 94.1%, which is right in the ballpark of the data provided by Carleton a fistful of years ago. This means that Harris is above the league average. What separates Harris, however, is just how aggressive he is, as the Cubs have the second-highest send rate, just behind the Tigers. Doing some very quick math, the Cubs have sent a runner from first to home three more times over that span than the league-average team.

They also are successful 95% of the time; that means they've scored roughly three more runs than should have been expected. On the other side of the ledger, the Cubs have had only six runners thrown out at home going first to home over that span, which is actually one fewer than the league average. Harris's philosophy is coming out on top here, both on success rate and not getting guys thrown out (that overall number be damned).

Where Harris seems to lose some ground is in second-to-home sends. For whatever reason, the Cubs are far less aggressive on second-to-home sends, as they rank just 23rd in send percentage in this situation, well below the league average. On top of that, the Cubs rank just 20th in second-to-home success rates, almost .5% below average. If there's a positive; the league averages 11.9 outs from second to home, and the Cubs have had 12 of these. So, despite the averages looking low, the Cubs are kind of carbon-neutral here. Looking at things as a whole, Harris is a net positive, not a net negative like "leading the league in outs at home" would make it sound.

---

it's probably worthwhile to look at some of the specific sends of which Harris has been a part. The first one I'd like to explore dates back to Jun. 15, 2021. The highly mediocre Chicago Cubs are visiting the New York Mets. In the ninth inning, with one out, down by one and a runner on first, Cubs second baseman Eric Sogard (remember when he was starting for the Cubs?) laced a hit into right-center. Jake Marisnick (remember when he was starting for the Cubs?) is easily nailed at home from a relay starting with Kevin Pillar and assisted by infielder Luis Guillorme.

On the surface, it looks like a bad send, because of how soundly the ball beats Marisnick to the plate. But adding some context probably helps explain the situation: the hitter who was due up next was groundball machine Jason Heyward (sporting a 50% ground ball rate on the season); it's unlikely Heyward hits the game-tying sacrifice fly. On the mound was Seth Lugo: a pitcher who had a fairly low ground ball rate on the season, but traditionally, got roughly 45% of ground balls over the course of his career at the time. As well, the Mets' second baseman and relay man, was Guillorme, whose arm strength was in the 26th percentile on the season. Marisnick, who was tearing past third base on his way to score, on the season, was in the 90th percentile for sprint speed. Now, add it all up. Was that really as bad of a send as the video makes it seem? I don't think so. 

---

For a different result (but in a similar situation), let's look at a game from early last season. The Chicago Cubs are trailing the Miami Marlins 2-0 at home, entering the ninth inning. Cody Bellinger, with Ian Happ on first base, rips a Sandy Alcántara pitch into left-center, where Bryan De La Cruz tracks the baseball down. De La Cruz, using his above-average sprint speed (59th percentile) and above-average arm (68th percentile) gets the baseball to shortstop Jon Berti. Berti, doing everything he can with his 21st-percentile arm strength, throws the ball home, hoping to gun down Ian Happ and his 60th-percentile sprint speed, with the ball beating Happ but the throw being offline. Happ scores.

Bellinger would score on a Hoerner single, and the Cubs would go into extra innings (where, full disclosure, they lost, 5-4). This situation was shockingly similar to the previous one, and Harris's aggressiveness paid off big-time. Sure, Happ would have scored from third on Hoerner's single, but maybe Bellinger wouldn't have scored from second. Or maybe the pitches to Hoerner would have been different, and he never would have gotten that hit. What we can say for sure is this: the send was successful, and helped the Cubs extend the game.

---

So, that brings us to Friday afternoon. Harris sent Madrigal and his 38th-percentile speed around third base from first, trying to tie the game in the ninth inning. Cody Bellinger and his 54% fly-ball rate waited on deck. The Reds' left fielder, Spencer Steer, used his 82nd-percentile arm to get the ball to Elly De La Cruz's 92nd-percentile arm in shallow left field. Two perfect throws created a situation in which Madrigal was thrown out at home, and the Cubs eventually lost the game by one run.

Maybe Harris shouldn't have sent Madrigal: he's not particularly fast. Maybe it looks a little worse because Steer and De La Cruz are both plus throwers. But we also know this: when Harris starts waving guys home from first, he's successful 95% of the time, despite being the second-most aggressive sender in the league. All it took was one throw offline, such as what happened in the Marlins' example, and the game is tied. De La Cruz, as well, was tasked with throwing a perfect strike from well outside of the infield--not a particularly easy ask, regardless of where his arm strength places him amongst his peers.

In the moment, it's hard to blame Harris who has a ton of success. Let the 74 outs go. You're going to have more outs when you create more situations, and Harris creates more of these than almost anyone. Despite that, he's almost always right. It's easy to Monday-morning-quarterback this to death, but Harris's résumé speaks for itself, and I think he deserves the benefit of the doubt on the choice. If Madrigal scored, we'd all be calling him a genius, and the overall data would have supported his choice.

In the end, I think there's enough information here to support the decision to Willie Harris' aggressive nature. Yes, sometimes Nick Madrigal or Jake Marisnick are going to get hosed at home. Sometimes the throws are perfect, the runner just isn't fast enough, and you get caught out. But 95 out of 100 times, Willie Harris has been right to wave those arms in these exact types of situations. The Cubs, as well, are a team who needs to win on the margins, so being above-average here is probably important to the team. The next time the Cubs have a player attempting to score from first, I hope Harris's aggressive nature continues and, forgive me for speaking for Russell Carleton here, but I think both myself and Russell would be yelling "GO!" from our couches as well, watching Wavin' Willie work. 

---

What do you think of Cubs' third base coach Willie Harris? Do you think he should have held up Nick Madrigal? Or do you think he needs to tone down the sends? Let us know in the comment section below.

 

View full article

[UMFan83]

Thanks for doing the research on this.  For the record, that Biblical Losses dude (ok fine that's me) did add a response to the tweet you linked mentioning that despite the number of outs, their BsR is consistently high and surmised that we're likely just very aggressive at baserunning and that will lead to more outs, but of course everyone only picked up on the first tweet because it fit their rage for the Madrigal send. 

You took it 5 steps further with your analysis, good stuff.

[Jason Ross]

Just now, UMFan83 said:

Thanks for doing the research on this.  For the record, that Biblical Losses dude (ok fine that's me) did add a response to the tweet you linked mentioning that despite the number of outs, their BsR is consistently high and surmised that we're likely just very aggressive at baserunning and that will lead to more outs, but of course everyone only picked up on the first tweet because it fit their rage for the Madrigal send. 

You took it 5 steps further with your analysis, good stuff.

Appreciate it! This was sincerely one of my favorite articles I've written (thanks to Matt Trueblood on the book suggestion). Digging into the numbers on sends and the percentages was quite fascinating and coming to realize my preconceived notions of "send em!" seems to have statistical backing was both self-satisfying and just good information to have. 

[Jason Ross]

I just want to highlight this article one last time...

 

As the Cubs won on a double, hit to RF, where Willie Harris sent Morel around home from first, for the game winning run. Guy gets it.