On Tuesday night, I joked the Yankees seem to make at least one terrible base-running play per homestand this year. That came after Martin Prado got caught in a rundown between first and second on what should have been a double. You remember the play. Carlos Beltran got a bad read from second base and only advanced to third, forcing Brian McCann to stop at second. Prado had his head down and was running hard on what should have been a two-bagger over the left fielder’s head. Blah.
The stats says the Yankees are a slightly below-average base-running team this year — FanGraphs puts them at -1.3 runs on the bases, 18th out of 30 teams — and although I said they seem to make a terrible base-running play once per homestand, that is only in my estimation. They managed to one-up Tuesday night’s gaffe with a dandy of a 2-6-3-4-5-3 double play in the first inning of last night’s game. To the action footage:
On top of that, Beltran got thrown out at the plate to end the seventh inning. It was an awful send by third base coach Robbie Thomson and Beltran was out by a mile. We’ve seen that happen more than a few teams this year as well.
I don’t even get upset about this stuff anymore. Maybe I still would if the Yankees were closer to the wildcard spot, but right now? Whatever. Part of me is annoyed by it and part of me is legitimately curious to see what they’re going to do next. Base-running mistakes have a way of making you laugh. We’ve seen plenty of these base-running blunders all year and I’m sure we’ll see another two or three before the season lets out.
After hilarious base-running mistakes in back-to-back games, I wanted to see where exactly the Yankees sit in outs on the bases this season. Surely near the top, right? Well, no. Baseball Reference says they’ve made only 40 outs on the bases in 2014, the eighth fewest in baseball. The Angels have made the most (66), the Giants the fewest (27). The Yankees are tied with nine other teams with seven outs at first base, the ninth most in baseball. Their eight outs at second base are tied for the third fewest and their five outs at third are tied for the second fewest, but their 20 outs at the plate are the third most.
As for the individual culprits, Brett Gardner and Jacoby Ellsbury lead the team with six and seven outs on the bases, respectively. That makes sense though, right? They’re the two speedsters who push the envelope, and sometimes they’re going to get thrown out. That’s life. Derek Jeter has made five outs on the bases and then there’s a bunch of guys with one or two. Kelly Johnson managed to get thrown out on the bases four times with New York, including three times at home.
“How many times have you seen it happen this year, where we’ve run ourselves out of an inning?” said hitting coach Kevin Long to Bryan Hoch prior to yesterday’s game/base-running mistakes. The Yankees’ base-running mistakes have resulted in -1.25 WPA this year, so they have essentially cost themselves a win with these base-running goofs. Sometimes they don’t matter all that much, but sometimes they really hurt.
I’m not sure there’s anything more simultaneously funny and annoying as a good TOOTBLAN. The Yankees have struggled offensively all year and at times it’s been obvious they were pressing at the plate. Just about the entire team. That can carry over onto the bases and players will, as they say, try to do too much. They get overly aggressive and make bad mistakes, like we’ve seen the last two nights. Sometimes you get thrown out on the bases because the defense makes a perfect play, it happens. The 2014 Yankees have shown they have a knack for hilariously bad base-running mistakes though. That alone hasn’t sunk their season, but it’s cost them.
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