The Impact of Coaches in Baseball

In baseball, coaches directly influence the game in (at least) three key areas: intentional walks, sacrifice bunts, and stolen bases. Baseball TV France wanted to measure the effectiveness of strategies in these three domains.

Quentin Becquey, Coach of the Rouen Huskies, Coach of the Year 2025

• Sacrifice Bunts

The Boucaniers, as in previous seasons, are big users of sacrifice bunts. Their selfless play is well-known. They lead Division 1 with 25 SH, nine more than the next two teams, Béziers and Savigny. The goal of a bunt is to advance a runner and score a run; otherwise, there’s little point in giving up an out. Therefore, a sacrifice can be considered successful when a run is scored as a result. For the Boucaniers, it’s a bit more complicated, with a success rate of just 48% (compared to the Division 1 average of 57%). The best in this category are Rouen with 73%. Notably, the Barracudas, who rely more on power hitting, have rarely used this tactic.

Béziers, 16 SH, 50% success rate

La Rochelle 25 SH, 48% success rate

Montpellier 4 SH, 50% success rate

PUC 10 SH, 60% success rate

Rouen 15 SH, 73% success rate

Savigny 16 SH, 69% success rate

Sénart 14 SH, 64% success rate

Toulouse 12 SH, 42% success rate

Ivan Acuna, Player-Coach of the Savigny Lions

• Intentional Walks, IBB

This is the opposite of a sacrifice bunt. Here, the goal is to prevent a batter from driving in runs. Therefore, an intentional walk is successful when no runs are scored and the following batters are retired. The champions of intentional walks, by a wide margin, are the Pirates, who have issued 24. And since their batters have been walked 12 times, Béziers has been involved in more than half of the intentional walks. Hungry for intentional walks, the Pirates are effective with the best success rate, 67%, tied with Sénart (56% average for Division 1). La Rochelle uses this strategy the least, though they did use it twice last weekend.

Béziers 24 IBB, 67% success rate

La Rochelle 5 IBB, 60% success rate

Montpellier 8 IBB, 75% success rate

PUC 6 IBB, 17% success rate

Rouen 9 IBB, 56% success rate

Savigny 5 IBB, 40% success rate

Sénart 6 IBB, 67% success rate

Toulouse 7 IBB, 29% success rate

Patrice Biones, Coach of the La Rochelle Boucaniers

• Stolen Bases

Yes, sometimes runners go rogue, or there are permanent green lights for the fastest players. But stolen bases remain mostly the coach’s call. And it’s the strategy that works best: 80% success rate (even 83% for stolen bases from third). The co-leaders in the championship are the most aggressive: 47 stolen bases for Montpellier, 45 for Savigny, more than a third of the SB for these two teams. But the most effective are the Templiers ahead of the Pirates.

• SB

Béziers 36 SB, 86% success rate

La Rochelle 24 SB, 77% success rate

Montpellier 47 SB, 80% success rate

PUC 31 SB, 77% success rate

Rouen 19 SB, 82% success rate

Savigny 45 SB, 80% success rate

Sénart SB, 88% success rate

Toulouse 27 SB, 71% success rate

Lionel Texidor, Coach of the Béziers Pirates

• The Effectiveness of Coaches

For fun, we wanted to compare the success rates. By taking the overall averages of each category and adjusting the performance of each team, we get a calculation base where 100 is the average, with anything above indicating a positive success rate and anything below indicating a negative success rate. For those familiar with advanced stats, it’s the same kind of calculation used to establish OPS+ or ERA+. This allows us to compare performances relative to the league.
What we can’t know is whether the negative numbers are due to coaches giving good strategies that are poorly executed by the players, or whether the positive numbers are due to players saving poor coaching decisions with their technical performance…

Béziers 105

La Rochelle 96

Montpellier 107

PUC 77

Rouen 110

Savigny 97

Toulouse 84

Sénart 101

F. Colombier

Photo Credit: RS Club