Comments on: Hargrove wants less, more aggressive baserunning

By: mln

mln — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 17:00:24 +0000

Hargrove wants less, more brains. Or something like that.

By: Jim Thomsen

Jim Thomsen — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 08:33:42 +0000

(Matt Damon voice-over)

“Here’s the thing … if you can’t spot the sucker in your first half hour in the game, then you ARE the sucker.”

By: James T

James T — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 07:31:02 +0000

Be aggressive but don’t ever make an out on anything other than an exceptional play? Kind of sounds like the attitude of pitching coaches that Jim Bouton lampooned in Ball Four. “Don’t walk him. But don’t give him anything to hit.”

By: Ralph Malph

Ralph Malph — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 06:48:09 +0000

Sometimes even a great baserunner looks at a fly ball and thinks it’s going to drop and starts to take off. The fact that Ichiro moved off 2nd base once — or twice — on a ball that he initially thought was a base hit but then realized it was going to be caught doesn’t make him a bad base runner. Not to mention the question of whether it was his decision or the coaches. That’s exactly why eyeball impressions are so often wrong.

By: Spanky

Spanky — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 06:10:26 +0000

[Piniella]

By: gwangung

gwangung — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 04:28:59 +0000

You may be confusing baserunning with base stealing. There were a few times last year (including twice in one inning) when Ichiro could have advanced or scored if he had simply waited to tag. Great base stealer? Of course. Baserunner? Not exactly.

On the other hand, when he’s stealing bases, it’s more or less him. If he’s running the bases, he has to rely on the coaches…and Grover….

By: DMZ

DMZ — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 04:28:15 +0000

I see Hargrove with a cartoon thought balloon over his head that reads “duh”.

By: _David_

_David_ — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 04:27:11 +0000

Derek, do you see Hargrove thinking: “I want to stress agressive baserunning, but learn from the problems we had last year and teach better judgement and to run efficiently”? -or- “We want to run agressively, last year we had some problems, but I really think it can work so we’re going to try it again”?

By: Ralph

Ralph — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 04:19:15 +0000

Grover should ask Ichiro about quality baserunning (even though he won’t). Ichiro gets blasted about his “cautious” baserunning approach (usually by the same crowd that can’t stand the fact that he speaks in Japanese to the media), but I have never seen him thrown out doing something dumb at an inopportune time.

You may be confusing baserunning with base stealing. There were a few times last year (including twice in one inning) when Ichiro could have advanced or scored if he had simply waited to tag. Great base stealer? Of course. Baserunner? Not exactly.

By: DMZ

DMZ — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 02:58:20 +0000

Where you’re reading his comments as “I want everyone to run… if you think you’ve got a chance, go” and “Why is everyone out by 20 feet… this is so frustrating”, I’m reading a more rational “I haven’t given up on aggressive baserunning, we just need to get better at it.” I’m willing to agree to disagree on the issue and I won’t press my point any further, but I did want to point out that there are other ways to interpret the quote.

Ahhhh. No. That was intended to be a summary of his year-and-a-couple days philosophy, where he preached, got crappy results, quietly stopped doing it because it wasn’t working (with the team then doing better on the basepaths), ending with him returning to preaching it all over again.