Statcast’s New Baserunning Metric Highlights Twins Roster Construction Flaw

If one watched the Twins play more than just a few games, there is absolutely no surprise about their poor base-running. Neither should anyone be surprised by the poor fielding. While I do not believe that the front office and/or Baldelli openly relish in crappy defense and a plodding team, the focus away from either of those skills is clearly a hallmark of recent Twins teams. Due to an overall positive winning percentage in recent years there are those, most notably the front office but also including a sizable portion of their fans, who can consistently insist that defense and base running are overrated towards a goal of winning games. Improvement in running the bases is going to need to come from new faces. Perhaps fewer mistakes while running the bases might help obscure slowness and alleviate any focus towards this matter. 

1 hour ago, tony&rodney said:

If one watched the Twins play more than just a few games, there is absolutely no surprise about their poor base-running. Neither should anyone be surprised by the poor fielding. While I do not believe that the front office and/or Baldelli openly relish in crappy defense and a plodding team, the focus away from either of those skills is clearly a hallmark of recent Twins teams. Due to an overall positive winning percentage in recent years there are those, most notably the front office but also including a sizable portion of their fans, who can consistently insist that defense and base running are overrated towards a goal of winning games. Improvement in running the bases is going to need to come from new faces. Perhaps fewer mistakes while running the bases might help obscure slowness and alleviate any focus towards this matter. 

When your worst baserunners are costing the team 2 runs and your best is adding 3 runs over the course of an entire season it's pretty easy to dismiss baserunning as a way to add value to the team. If a slow player hits 2 dingers more than a fast player, the slower player is worth more.

Just another in a long line of junk from Statcast.

21 minutes ago, DJL44 said:

When your worst baserunners are costing the team 2 runs and your best is adding 3 runs over the course of an entire season it's pretty easy to dismiss baserunning as a way to add value to the team. If a slow player hits 2 dingers more than a fast player, the slower player is worth more.

1 run can mean a win vs a loss; 1 game can mean the difference from going or not going into the Post Season.

Chugging around the field trying to field a ball like a dray horse pulling a wagon, means more bases for the opposing runners and too often more runs for the opposing team.

Your analogy does not work.

1 hour ago, mikelink45 said:

All I could think of when I was reading this was Aaron Sabato.  No surprise that a dinged-up player like Lewis would lose speed.  Baserunning and speed just don't seem to be part of the team DNA and that is a big miss as the game evolves.  

As much as I enjoyed the mid-sixties Twins and the 1950s Braves I also loved Whitey Herzog's St Louis Cardinals, the Royals in 2015, the A's in the Rickey Henderson years, the Go-go White Sox of Aparicio, 

And power did not mean lack of speed - Aaron had 240 SB, Mays had 300, and Barry Bonds had 514.  

I have looked at Statcast's 

Sprint Speed Leaderboard and it is not a surprise to see all the playoff teams above us - the Twins rank 18.  

I enjoy much more a game when a player is taking that extra base, stealing a base & shaking up the pitcher. What is boring to me is a player hits a HR when it doesn't matter & strikes out when it does which happens far too often for the Twins. What's not fair is too many people look at OPS, a player gets a bunch of singles & steal a bunch of bases which is just as good as hitting doubles, triples or even a HRs but according to OPS it's just a single. We have to valuate more baserunning & athletic pure hitting. Focus on fast athletic hitters who have these qualities.

Martin will improve his BRV as he settles in & is put in better situations to shine.

Maybe Borrego will be better at judging whether or not to take the extra base than what was done in the past. Maybe they need to work in spring training more on base running. Maybe the minor leagues ought to be focused on learning nuances of the game. 

3 hours ago, RpR said:

1 run can mean a win vs a loss; 1 game can mean the difference from going or not going into the Post Season.

Chugging around the field trying to field a ball like a dray horse pulling a wagon, means more bases for the opposing runners and too often more runs for the opposing team.

Your analogy does not work.

You're not arguing with me. You're arguing with the Statcast baserunning metrics. Typically 10 runs = 1 WAR.  The metrics say the difference between the best and worst baserunners is 0.5 WAR. That seems low to me, and it is lower than other baserunning calculators (including other calculators from Statcast) which see a 1 -2 WAR difference between worst and best over the length of a season. The standard deviation of this metric is really low.

Most of value in baserunning is not running into extra outs. Getting caught stealing or trying to take the extra base is one of the biggest killers of rallies. Slow and fast players are regressed to the mean by the fact that you only have to be fast enough to make it to the next base and in most situations the player can't be fast enough to take two bases instead of one. Plus, with as much scoring by HR as there is in modern MLB the main thing that matters is being on base.

Hmm, the 1962 Twins had 185 HR  and 33 SB, while th 2024 Twins had 183 HR and 65 SB yet the the 1962 Twins were 91-71-1 where the 2024 Twins were 82-80, seems '61 Twins were slower with only 2 more home runs but won more games with 32 less stolen bases.

Odd as the 1962 Twins had a team WAR of 23.1 , including pitcher batting, but the 2024 Twins with a DH and all those team saving rookies, so many want called up  to displace the veteran, only had a 17 WAR.

I guess the plodding 1962 Twins just played the game better.  1st base Vic Power, only had a .421 SLG and  .737 OPS but wait Carlos Santana only had a .420 SLG  and  .749 OPS, so First Base was near the same for hitting.

Now maybe Early Battey's 44% caught stealing and 15 pick-offs and in the few games Zimmerman played haveing a 50% pick-off rate shows that a top defensive catcher is more than most here want to admit.

The 2024 total team defense --  Caught Stealing vs Stolen Bases was 22/112;   1962 CS vs SB 32/42.

I believe the Twins plodding on the bases, and going after hit balls is a problem, but far lessor one than it seems.

38 minutes ago, stringer bell said:

There is much to agree with on both sides of the argument. Yes, it is true that base running isn't really the game changer that some seem to proclaim once a player gets picked off or thrown out trying to advance. However, stealing a run here and there with good base running will probably change more games than one or two games a season. It is pretty apparent to me that the hidden problem with the Twins base running (failure to take extra bases) is a bigger problem than stolen base volume on the offensive side. 

When the Twins are in the field, limiting stolen bases can and should be a priority. It seemed that the team did much better limiting stolen bases in '23 than '24 despite having the same catchers in both seasons. I think part of that is the Twins allowed more base runners and there were more runners on base in what I would call running situations in 2024. Another factor is the preponderance of right handed pitching--it remains accurate that running on right handed pitchers is easier than lefties.

The Twins really lack speed as a team and I would hope that adding speed in future acquisitions would be a priority. I do buy that some players without great speed can still be athletic and be assets on the base paths, but it would be nice to have more than two or three guys with above-average speed. 

 

Caught Stealing/Stolen Bases:

2023 -- 30/94

2024 -- 22/112

Both Jeffers and Vazquez were above average last year ; this year Jeffers was 7 percent below average in caught stealing and Vazquez was 8 percent.

Vazquez fielding percentage was higher I imagine due to wild pitches and passed balls.

1 hour ago, RpR said:

Caught Stealing/Stolen Bases:

2023 -- 30/94

2024 -- 22/112

Both Jeffers and Vazquez were above average last year ; this year Jeffers was 7 percent below average in caught stealing and Vazquez was 8 percent.

Vazquez fielding percentage was higher I imagine due to wild pitches and passed balls.

Twins pitchers were terrible at holding runners. They didn't even try.

5 minutes ago, Danchat said:

I wonder how much injuries accounts for some of the underachieving baserunners. Buxton doesn't steal a whole lot anymore as he's risking an injury every time he does it... and Willi Castro, one of a couple who were healthy for most the year, had a bad stolen base rate at only 14 steals in 25 attempts. 

I believe pitchers/catchers learn unintentional signals by runners and learn when they are going to try.

Good article. I'm one of those fans that misses the excitement of stolen bases, and just speed on the base paths in general. And of course just better baserunning. Everybody is raving about Ohtani's 2024 season, combining power and speed, but what amazes me is the surge he had in stolen bases, and doing it without hardly every getting caught. What happened? I checked his stats and he basically averaged between 10 and 20 stolen bases for his first 6 seasons before exploding for 59 stolen bases last season. And he only got caught 4 times, the same number of times he got caught while stealing only 10 bases in 2018. We need to find the Dodgers base running coach and hire that guy!

The lineup is not built to steal bases. I just want them to reduce the baserunning outs do to mental mistakes. The Twins don’t seem to care about that which confuses me. One of the first SABR concepts Bill James emphasized was outs are important - you only get 27. of course he was talking about hitting but it would certainly apply to baserunning. If you are a sled (which most of the Twins are) just play station to station baseball and don’t get thrown out. 

18 hours ago, DJL44 said:

When your worst baserunners are costing the team 2 runs and your best is adding 3 runs over the course of an entire season it's pretty easy to dismiss baserunning as a way to add value to the team. If a slow player hits 2 dingers more than a fast player, the slower player is worth more.

This is referring to the Twins themselves, not against other players in the league.  Base running is not inherently about speed.  I have point to Paul Molitor as one of the best base runners of all time, not because of his speed but because he knew how to steal, when to steal, and how to get those extra bases. Sure, he was not the slowest in his career, but he stoles bases at a 79% clip.  He stole 504 in his career. 

Ricky Henderson stole at 81% clip.  Many more than Molitor, but percent nearly the same.  Lou Brock, the second in all time number behind Henderson had only a 75% success rate. Elly De La Cruz, known to be the fastest runner in baseball right now, or top couple.  Is at 80% clip.

The point is, simply being fast does not always make you a good base stealer.  The Twins, under current management, has decided going station to station and not risking out on bases is way they want to go.  

Ant free agent they add has to be able to hit right handed pitching. If they can’t hit right handed pitching let’s not lock them into a roster spot for the season.

That last point about Ohtani and not pitching last year and how that affected his SB attempts is excellent chpetitt19.  If he pitches this year, and all indications are he will, I doubt he steals over 20 bases.  It's why I think the Dodgers would be wise just to have him HIT.  He's such a unique offensive player that if they got 50 HR's and 35-40 SB's again this year from him, with that lineup but zero innings pitched I think they would repeat as World Series Champions.  I get that he's a remarkable unicorn doing both, but I'd take that kind of offensive production any time I could.

I also missed the style of baseball where the running game was evident and baseball had truly gotten stale without it with the preponderance of the "three outcomes."  Still, we can all see how slow the Twins have been to embrace the opportunities the recent rule changes presented.  In 2023 Rocco's Twins didn't even attempt to steal bases until Willi Castro started getting a LOT of playing time.  And that didn't happen until practically June.  The Guardians had tons of SB's by the end of May and Rocco's crew had attempted something like 5 stolen bases.  We were WAY LATE in taking advantage of the rule change.  It was almost like the Twins weren't aware there had been a rule change.

Buxton NEVER runs anymore from a SB standpoint.  They're too worried about him injuring himself because he's never really mastered the art of sliding.  A guy with Buxton's speed and ability should fall out of bed and get 20 SB's per season.  I'm not surprised Martin rated well.  That was his game in college and the minors.  I WAS surprised that Margot was rated on the plus side.  He just seemed really slow in outfield all season.

Just take a look at the body Royce Lewis has now.  For a guy that when drafted, had a run tool rated very close to Buxton he's just way to "thick" to have anywhere near his old athleticism.  It's why he cannot play SS anymore and doesn't have the "cannon" of an arm like he did when drafted #1 overall.  That's fine for hitting HR's, but no wonder he's looking to "get looser" in 2025.  He's bulked up to the point his muscles are no longer "free and easy" like they once were.  He's stronger for sure.  But he's not nearly as flexible and it's why he continually has issues with muscle pulls (aka soft tissue problems).

Many years ago, baseball players had an aversion to heavy weight training.  They felt it bound up and tightened their muscles too much, leading to an excess of muscle pulls and arm issues.  Maybe it was foolish that ballplayers in "the old days" eschewed lifting weights.  But maybe it wasn't.  Flexibility has always been valuable, as has strength.  Finding the right balance is the key.

It also makes a lot of sense that hulking HR hitters aren't always going to be the best defenders.  Let's agree that Willie Mays and Hank Aaron were "special."  They were not "common" in any way.  But for every Rocky Colovito...a slugger who was a good defender with a cannon for an arm, there were 20 Harmon Killebrew-esque sluggers who were not above average defenders. 

The Twins need to get some better "defenders" and by default, younger and more athletic.  Some of them might be in-house.  Some may need to come from outside the organization.  Maybe with a infusion of this type of player, Rocco will be more open to being aggressive on the bases.  I don't know.  Rocco debuted in 2019 and waiting for the 3-run HR is really his comfort zone.  And with Tommy Watkins back for another season of getting guys pegged out at home and third I'm not optimistic.