The Line Between Aggressive and Dumb
If you’ve watched the Mariners play the first two weeks of the season, you’ve seen the team’s speed create runs through stolen bases, forced errors, and taking home on shallow fly balls. You’ve also seen the team run themselves out of innings and make a load of inexplicable outs while trying to advance in situations where they had little chance of success.
So, it probably should not surprise you that the Mariners are tied for second in bases taken, They have advanced an extra 20 bases on fly balls, wild pitches, passed balls, and the like, and have added an additional 11 stolen bases to that total. Only the Dodgers have gotten more extra bases by running aggressively this year.
Also not a surprise? The Mariners lead the league in baserunning outs, having made nine while trying to take an extra base and six by getting caught stealing. In just 13 games, they have made a staggering 15 outs, taking at-bats away from their hitters and essentially canceling out all the good that the aggressiveness has done.
In most cases, taking an extra base is worth about a quarter of a run, but making an out on the bases costs a team about half a run. The out is essentially twice as bad as the advancement is good. So, when you’ve taken 31 bases but made 15 outs to do it, you’ve basically broken even, where the total overall value added to your offense by running has been no different than if the team had just played station to station baseball.
The argument that is usually made in favor of aggressive baserunning is that it puts pressure on the defense, but in reality, the M’s have routinely been taking pressure off of the defense by running themselves right out of rallies. There are few better things for a pitcher than having a runner in scoring position make an out, keeping him from having to throw high stress pitches out of the stretch. And the Mariners have made a lot of outs in situations where they already had the pitcher on the ropes, only to let him off the hook by getting thrown out.
For guys like Ichiro and Figgins, there should be a pretty long leash. They’ve proven to be two of the best baserunners in baseball over their careers, and they’ll add value through utilizing their speed throughout the year. But it’s the other guys that Wak has to rein in. Milton Bradley has already made three outs on the bases, while Casey Kotchman has made two (both on glaringly bad decisions this weekend). Bradley isn’t slow, but he’s got a long history of injuries that have routinely kept him off the field, and he’s not a good enough baserunner to justify the risk. Kotchman is one of the slowest guys in baseball, and simply shouldn’t be wandering away from a base he’s reached safely unless he can walk into the next one.
The top two guys can run and be aggressive. They have the ability to really add value through their wheels. The rest of the team, though, need to put the breaks on the craziness. The hitting isn’t good enough to overcome no-added-value baserunning, so the Mariners simply have to be smarter about picking their spots. Jack Wilson can’t get thrown out by 10 feet stealing second base anymore. For this team, guys on base are going to be a precious resource not to be wasted.
Let the top two guys run all they want, but the other seven, they need to show more restraint, and soon, because the Mariners can’t keep running themselves out of rallies like they have been through the first two weeks.
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Wowsers that was a massively hyper hyperlink….
I think it’s just lack of running experience as a team. I’m inclined to think that further into the season, they will get a hang of when they can and cannot run, who can and cannot run, and things will sort themselves out.
Hope I’m right.
If a player is safe on replay, are you still counting it as a caught stealing?
Not so sure about this. These guys are all MLB players and, therefore, have played a significant amount of baseball. By now, each player should know their own limitations and know when they can and cannot run.
You have to take into account that close plays are going to get called against you some amount of the time and for every break against you, you probably get a break going for you.
Well, just hypothesizing, but what if this is the learning curve of being aggressive?
It’s hard to tell the team to be aggressive and at the same time tell certain players they can’t be. Well, most of them anyways – I think Jr. would know better for instance.
You tell the players to be aggressive, and when they make a mistake, they learn. Again, yes, I know Kotchman made 2 errors on 2 consecutive days, but bear with me here.
Consider it as part of Wak’s belief system in that he is trusting the team to learn when and where to be aggressive. And that later on it will be much better.
While we can point at statistics all day and say that this should/shouldn’t be done, that this player can/can’t do that, etc. there are many more out there who continue to scoff at them – players included.
So you tell them to just try it and believe that the light will come on. For example, and yes I know it’s 6 games, but Rob has an OBP of .391. It might be progress.
You give them the ability to succeed/fail and the ability to learn. Again, just a hypothesis.
I agree with you Dave, but I’m curious if telling Jack Wilson that he probably shouldn’t be stealing any more fits within the ‘belief system’.
I think this is certainly possible but I think the point is that some of the guys being aggressive have no business doing so in the first place. Kotchman may get better at choosing his spots but he’s so slow that he shouldn’t be taking chances to begin with.
The thing with baseball is that every at-bat represents a completely different game situation. If Ichiro is on first than the team should be aggressive on the basepaths. If Wilson is up to bat than the team should consider sacrificing. But there’s no reason to take the exact same approach in every situation, which is what they seem to have been doing on the basepaths.
“Not so sure about this. These guys are all MLB players and, therefore, have played a significant amount of baseball. By now, each player should know their own limitations and know when they can and cannot run.”
But they have limited experience with their current place in the lineup. They don’t know their “optimal” aggressiveness yet. I’d figure that after a while of running themselves out of rallies, they’d become less aggressive.
I want to know who told Kotchman to start running. It really is one thing when Figgins or Ichiro decide to take a chance, but who in their right mind tells Kotchman to stop playing it so safe?
When you’re on the basepaths, it shouldn’t make a difference where you’re hitting in the lineup. What matters is how many guys are on base, which bases they’re on, and whether the round trip from the pitcher to the catcher to the target base is faster than your ability to move ninety feet.
Agree about Kotchman and Bradley, and eh, mostly about Wilson. But I give Guti a full pass to do whatever the hell he wants on the basepaths. He’s fast, makes good decisions, and is successful in 76% of his steal attempts 35/46 career). His high OBP amplifies the importance of aggressive baserunning, especially given the dropoff in our lineup from 1-2-3 to 4.
So how much of this is player initiative/aggressiveness, and how much of this running is called from the bench?
I listen to games on the radio, so I don’t have a good grasp of whether or not we have a windmill stationed in the 3b coaches box, or if someone thinks they see an opportunity and are wrong. for instance when in yesterday’s 2nd inning, we’ve got runners on 2b and 3b with one out, Casey singles, Griffey scores, then in Kotchman’s run-down between 1b and 2b, Byrnes takes off for home! who told him to do that? (he was out by what? 10 feet?).
I agree with the overall thought here, if we could remove (greatly limit) the aggressiveness by players not named Ichiro, Chone or Franklin, I bet those numbers look a lot better than 30 and 15.
Another example from yesterday’s game was Ichiro getting doubled off first after running on the pitch to Figgins in the sixth. After that Guti doubled and Ichiro would have tied the game had he still been on base. Statistically I don’t know if the hit and run was a good call in that situation, but no question it cost the Mariners a run yesterday.
Point well taken that aggression on the basepaths is a double-edged sword.
In the Kotchman/Byrnes debacle yesterday, I don’t think anything can be laid on the 3B coach. I wasn’t watching him, and would need a replay to be sure (I was at the game, not watching on TV), but I can’t see how he was a factor: it was Kotchman who decided to take the wide turn at 1st. He can’t even see the 3B coach at that point, and anyway the play on his ball in RF is in front of him. So he took a wide turn at 1st and got into a run-down. Byrnes held up at 3rd, and in fact feinted going for home once to try to draw a throw and get Kotchman out of the pickle. Only when Kotchman was obviously going to be out did he break for home in an effort to salvage the play. A pretty doomed effort, really, because the Tigers got the ball to the catcher long before he got there, and his only hope was to jar it loose.
Now, I suppose you could argue that Kotchman was assuming that Byrnes would round 3rd going full tilt — that was kind of what I was expecting to see, Byrnes on Griffey’s elderly heels — and so Kotchman could safely get to second while the throw went to the plate. So perhaps the 3B coach not being aggressive was a factor. But it was probably the right call, since Byrnes (for whatever reason) wasn’t on Griffey’s heels and might have been out at the plate. And ultimately Kotchman still has to be aware of what’s going on — including (a) RF in Safeco is shallow, and (b) he’s not fast enough to leg out a double hit there (unless it’s rattling around in the corner in a way that would yield an easy triple for Ichiro).
Perhaps it’s wishful thinking, but I do think they’ll get better at picking and choosing when to go for it (situational hitting and stealing bases alike).
The “belief system” might have guys feeling obligated early on to contribute to “making something happen”, especially after the slow start offensively. And, unfortunately, for guys who haven’t been asked to be aggressive before, it might only take one positive out of 4 or 5 negatives to convince themselves “I can do this!”
I’m hoping when the thrill of being aggressive runs out, the non-runners will settle down.
(And hopefully the coaches TOO will settle down.)
When Ichiro got doubled off, I don’t think it’s fair to call that a “hit and run”. Figgins had a full count. So it’s more of a straight steal, than a hit and run, since Figgins doesn’t have to swing to protect the runner. Ichiro looked home when the ball was hit, then turned and looked over his right shoulder to pick up the outfielder. That’s when he stopped and went back. If anything, Ichiro had a bad read on the ball off the bat and thought it would be down for a single.
As for Byrnes, that’s a pretty typical play. When there’s a run down, the player at third eases off the bag until he thinks he can break for home and score. Sure, it was poor execution in this case, but it’s probably all on Byrnes and not on the 3B coach.
Finally, in one of the pregame interviews, they interviewed Mike Brumley (the 3B coach). He mentioned that for years players have been told that when they are on base they should check the positioning of the outfielders. He said that some of the players “didn’t know what they were looking for”. So now they have a checklist of things to look for and what it means.
While I find this pretty shocking, it still sounds believable. So while all the players should know what aggressive means, I think they are still learning when to be agressive.
I agree with the fact that only certain people (i.e. Figgins, Ichiro, and Guti) should be given the green light to be aggressive but I wouldn’t necessarily just chalk all of our mistakes up to being aggressive. A lot of it has simply been stupid base running. Bradley, Lopez, Byrnes, and Kotchman have all gotten caught in some of the stupidest run downs I’ve seen in the last week. The decision making needs to be improved vastly by some of these guys and from then those certain people can work on being more aggressive.
I don’t know if anybody is still reading this thread, but I thought I’d mention a couple of positive things that I took from the game also. This was the first game I saw in person this year, and I always find it interesting to watch the stuff that doesn’t show up on TV, like how the fielders position themselves from batter to batter and pitch to pitch:
– Lopez is far more effective than he looks. He’s kind of the anti-Jeter, in that he looks less graceful than he actually is. He plays 3B with a lot of confidence; you’d never guess this was his first season at the position. No, he’s no Beltre, and he’s still learning, but I have to say this may be the best idea the braintrust had since trading for Gutierrez.
– Figgins is tiny. And ridiculously quick on his feet… so at 2B he’s kind of the anti-Lopez. We can only hope Ackley is all this plus a bigger bat.
– Kotchman has surprisingly good acceleration, but a low top speed. His first couple of steps towards the ball, or out of the batter’s box, are quick. But after that he’s got nothing.
– Wilson really is the quarterback of the defense. In the fourth inning, Snell got himself into a hole with back-to-back walks to Alex Avila and Scott Sizemore. At that point, Wilson called a mound conference and then did a lot of signalling around the infield. When Ramon Santiago bunted, the play went to 3rd where they got the out on the lead runner. Because of that, Austin Jackson’s subsequent fly to center was just an out, not a sacrifice. Wilson was nowhere near that play, but right there he saved a run.
– Byrnes… well, I was going to stick to positive stuff. In the outfield he’s hilarious, in a keystone cops kind of way. But I’d enjoy it more if he was playing for somebody else.
– Gutierrez is really fun to watch even when the ball isn’t leaving the infield. I spent a couple of innings standing back on the terrace next to the batter’s eye, just watching him. On each pitch he coils up like a spring and takes a half step with each swing of the bat. At first I thought he was picking his direction based on the handedness of the batter, but it’s a lot more nuanced than that because he was going different directions from pitch to pitch. I’m pretty sure he’s out in center field reading the signs from the catcher, among other things.
(This, btw, is why I think baseball is fascinating when a lot of people would complain “nothing is happening”)
Joser. First of all, I’ve been wondering for so long how you pronounce your name lol. Is it a spanish pronunciation where the “J” sounds like an “H”? or is does the “J” sound like a normal english “J”?
Second, I agree with everything you say except for
Personally, I really enjoy how Byrnes plays. He gives it his all and you can tell he is one of those guys that just really truly loves baseball. It’s nice to watch even if he isn’t the best player on the field. Although, I keep hoping that he will return to his 2007 form. I wouldn’t be that mad if he was on a different team, but I’m glad he’s a Mariner.
But really, thanks for the comment. That post is the exact reason why I spend the time to read the comments after I read the article. It’s really nice to hear from people who really know their stuff.
MLB Trade Rumors is reporting that The M’s signed Ramon Vazquez to a minor league deal. Looks like we finally got a solution to the having Tui play first and having no backup infielder dilemma.
Ramon Vazquez is AAA org filler. He probably won’t come up from Tacoma unless someone gets hurt.
In 1982, the M’s took one of their few positive marketing actions during the Argyros years and declared the 300 level “Perry’s Perch,” making all seats $3.00. For the rest of that season and (at higher prices) years afterward), we would sit directly above the plate, and see the different game you see up there: fielders shifting, people taking crouches, stretching between plays, reacting to leadoffs, everything. So much happens on a baseball field between pitches. Of course, Fox would rather show us some pretty girl in the stands with a “rally fries” sign. As if that is going to make viewers into lifelong baseball fans.
With regard to baserunning, I said in a post about a week ago tha the M’s would do better just doing station-to-station baseball, and Dave has once again proven me wrong (they’d have done just as well, apparently). Except that, as Dave also points out, the guys who are fragile (Bradley, Wilson, Griffey, Johnson, Kotchman) are also more prone to injury when engaging in aggressive baserunning. All the things you might have to do taking an extra base–diving back to a bag, sliding, plowing into a catcher, stopping and starting on the basepaths–are also things that increase your risk of injury. We have a badly constructed bench to deal even with day to day injuries right now, so why gamble?
The worst thing you can do if you’re a “running team” is be predictable by only allowing Ichiro and Figgins to run. The others are clearly rusty which is expected when the managers you’ve played for previously don’t allow a lot of running. Yah, so they’re pros, but an aggressive base-running strategy takes practice and unfortunately real games are the best place to practice it.
FWIW, I intended to post those fielding observations in the recap thread, not this one. Oh well.
Dave asked me that too the first time I met him. In fact I never say it out loud, or even pronounce it in my head, so it’s kind of ambiguous and left to the mind of the reader. However, it could be taken as kind of a bilingual pun: pronounced the way a Mexican would, you get a colloquial term for a Canadian, which is appropriate since I was born in Canada. Which makes it a kind of NAFTA nickname, if you will.
All of which is really too precious and clever for the simple fact that it’s just a contraction of my real name (my last name starts with “R”).