Coaches' Impact on the Game

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/Bunts

The Boucaniers, as in previous seasons, are big users of bunts. Their sense of sacrifice is well-known. They lead Division 1 with 25 SH, 9 more than the next two teams, Béziers and Savigny. The goal of a bunt is to allow your team to score by advancing a runner; otherwise, there’s not much point in giving up an out. Therefore, a sacrifice can be considered successful when a run is scored as a result. And that’s where it gets complicated for the Boucaniers, who have a success rate of just 48% (while the D1 average is 57%), with Rouen leading the way at 73%. Notably, the Barracudas, who rely more on power, 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 SH. Here, the goal is to prevent a batter from producing. Therefore, an IBB is successful when no runs are scored, and the following batters are retired. The champions of IBBs, by a wide margin, are the Pirates, who have issued 24 to their opponents. And since their batters have been walked 12 times, Béziers has been involved in more than half of the IBBs. Hungry for IBBs, the Pirates are effective with the best success rate, 67%, tied with Sénart (56% average for D1). La Rochelle uses this strategy the least, and yet, they used 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 do their own thing, 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 up to 83% for stolen bases from third base). The co-leaders of 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

Coaches’ Effectiveness

For fun, we wanted to compare the success rates. By taking the overall averages of each category and adjusting the performances 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, when the numbers are negative, is whether the coaches are giving good strategies that are poorly executed by the players, or when the numbers are positive, if the players are saving poor coaching decisions with their technical performances…

Béziers 105

La Rochelle 96

Montpellier 107

PUC 77

Rouen 110

Savigny 97

Toulouse 84

Sénart 101

F. Colombier

Photo Credit: RS Club