One Base Advancement Events
One Base Advancement Events are Wild Pitches, Passed Balls, Balks and Stolen Bases. I put them together because their consequences are essentially the same, and can be temporarily measured as being the same, and (b) it is, in several different ways, easier to deal with the data. You’ve got one good-sized wild animal to keep track of, rather than a bunch of squirrels and possums and skunks and rabbits. In "Balks" as an individual category, one team is six standard deviations worse than the norm; in passed balls, one team is eight standard deviations worse than the norm. But when you put them all together, no team is five standard deviations worse than the norm, so everybody is on the school bus. I think that I just mixed my metaphors, and now have lions and skunks on the school bus with the children, so let’s hope that nobody gets hurt.
The worst team ever in this category is the 1915 Philadelphia A’s; remember them? They allowed 295 stolen bases, threw 68 Wild Pitches, had 17 Passed Balls and committed 4 balks, a total of 384 one-base advancement events. This is .06647 one base advancements per batter faced, or basically one for each 15 batters faced.
Somebody at this point is going to say that the 1915 Philadelphia A’s allowed a large number of runners to advance because they had a large number of runners on base, so shouldn’t you be basing their advancement on their runners on base, rather than batters faced?
It’s a judgment call. We’re just asking "How Many" here, not "why’. First we have to measure the fact; then we can place the fact in context. The number of runners on base is not a major variable in the number who move up; it’s a minor component.
On the other end of the scale, the team which allowed the fewest runners to move up would be the 1944 Cincinnati Reds, who allowed only 45 runners to advance—31 stolen bases allowed, 9 Wild Pitches, 5 Passed Balls, no Balks. Comparing the two teams, the 1915 Athletics had 32% more runners on base by way of hit, walk or hit batsman (2232 to 1695), but had eight and a half times as many opposing runners who moved up a base.
The 1944 Reds allowed 45 one-base advancements, and are thus credited with 383 base advancements prevented, which actually is NOT the record; several other teams slip past them because they played longer schedules. The 1915 A’s allowed 384 one-base advancements, and are thus credited with 45 prevented; 384-45, and 45-383. The Reds were managed by Bill McKechnie, who was an absolute fanatic about defense. His team finished 89-73 although they were next-to-last in the league in runs scored, some of which was because of the park.