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Calculating baserunning break-even points

About a week ago, the Rays went on a little journey through bad baserunning. First, Kevin Kiermaier failed to slide into second while attempting to steal. Then Ji-Man Choi was thrown out tagging up and trying to go to third on a fly ball to left field.

These baserunning blunders were upsetting. But more upsetting was the discovery, made while discussing the plays with my fellow DRaysBay writers, that I could no longer do basic algebra. Arithmetic was hard for me, too.

I was trying to calculate the necessary expected success rate to break even on asking Kiermaier to steal second, and first I was getting a 60% value that I knew was too low.