Cutting Corners: Indians seek an advantage on the base paths

Written by: Michael Taylor on 25th March 2009

Cutting Corners: Indians seek an advantage on the base paths | read this item

Ok. So cutting corners may not have been the best expression to lead off in the title line. It implies cheating or gaining an edge without proper effort. But cutting corners is something that a runner is taught to do when rounding bases. They are to “cut” the inside corner of the bag and get a solid push off to keep in stride while making their move to the next base.

This is a basic skill learned by runners as young as Little League, but the Indians have sought out to do just these sorts of things – except more advanced obviously – in Spring Training to continue their goal of improving overall team baserunning.

As a team who philosophically has made an effort to be less dependent on waiting for a three-run homer, the Indians are looking to improve in areas that aid in scoring when stringing together just a few or more hits, or being able to move runners along to set up more scoring opportunities. It is all about being able to manufacture runs, which becomes important when, as a team, you may not be hitting on all cylinders as a group for stretches at a time.

You may not think that baserunning is that important as compared to other areas of the team, and you’d be right to an extent, but according to Baseball Prospectus, teams can gain or lose roughly two wins over the course of a season due to their ability to run the bases.

By using the general rule of thumb that 10 runs in added value is equal to one win, BP calculated the Mets, Rangers, and Twins to adding roughly 20 runs of value to their season total by running well in a stat called EqBRR – or Equivalent Base Running Runs; while the Cubs and Giants were just as bad subtracting 22 runs of value. Thus, using the rule, you can gain or lose roughly two games during a season. That is a four-game swing! So if a team is in a pennant race, something as simple as baserunning could make a significant difference in the end.

Where do the Indians rank in this listing? They finished 2008 in a respectable seventh place with 6.1 runs calculated in their favor, or about a half a win. This was a year after finishing with a negative 5.7 runs. So in essence, manager Eric Wedge and the coaching staff were able to improve team output in this skill set by one full victory.

The difference? A lot had to do with the Indians becoming more efficient in stealing bases.

They may have only stolen five more bases than 2007 (77 to 72), but they were caught twelve times less! According to BP, that difference in efficiency led to about an eight and a half run improvement in stolen bases alone, which takes up the majority of the overall total improvement.

This has been a trend in Wedge’s time as manager. In his first season as Indians skipper, stolen bases were just 58% successful – and it has been an uphill climb since to a plateau last year of a league-average 72%.

He has had to learn on the job when to send runners, and when to not. Take for example this Wedge quote from Spring Training 2007, “It’s like bunting. Usually there’s a real good time to do it.” Knowledge like this comes with experience, and of course some environmental adaptations.

No longer in this sabermetric day of the game are there guys just lining up at a starting block at first base waiting for the sound of a pistol to take off for second base. The running game is under a more controlled environment. A stolen base has an exact efficiency line that you need to achieve for it to be a success.

According to well-know sabermetric researcher Tom Tango, it is in general around 66.67%, dependent on situation. If you steal more than that percentage, you create positive value for the team. If it is under, you have hurt your chances at scoring.

Grady Sizemore is a key player in this for the Indians, as you’d expect. He stole a career-high 38 bases last year while only being caught five times for a 88.4% success rate. That alone was a major reason for the team success, but it is not the only way a player can impact their teams run production.

Other fundamentals such as knowing the team defense surrounding you on the field (knowing if they have great arms/range), performing correct slides, getting good jumps on balls hit into play, getting extra bases after excellent secondary leads, tagging up at appropriate times and much more. If you can do these things innings may become extended, enabling you to manufacture a few more runs over the course of the season.

This is what the Indians hope continues this year – after last season’s improvement, and a few roster alterations.

“We’ve gotten better with our baserunning the last couple years, but I still think we can take it another step or two,” Wedge said in February. “This is something I want to be a little more involved with this year.”

He has reason to believe that the Indians will again improve. Going back to Baseball Prospectus’ EqBRR statistic, the Indians have brought in Mark DeRosa to play full-time in the place of the Casey Blake/Andy Marte held job of a year ago. DeRosa was the Cubs top baserunner with a positive 3.78 runs last season. Blake and Marte combined for a negative 3.1 runs.

The Indians also will have a solid core of other baserunners besides Sizemore and DeRosa as the team continues to become younger and more athletic. Guys like Shin-Soo Choo and Ben Francisco came in last year to add value to the team, and Josh Barfield will be in the place of Franklin Gutierrez as the pinch-runner extraordinaire. In 2007 Barfield was a positive four runs for the Indians on the bases in about the same amount of time played as Gutierrez last year, who was a positive 1.4 runs.

Then you factor in Asdrubal Cabrera coming into camp this spring in much better shape than he did last season when he cost the Indians 1.9 runs on the bases. In 2007, when he first made his debut, he was a positive 2.5 runs in his 6-8 weeks of play. He is a much better runner than he led on last year.

Also you have the nearing talent at AAA Columbus with Trevor Crowe, Michael Brantley, and other athletic players such as Chris Gimenez. The Indians are slowly becoming a much more athletic and better baserunning team, despite the recurring low stolen base numbers that fans typically base their judgments on.

Time will tell if this Indians team will have enough improvement to add twenty full runs to their season output as the Twins did last year from the Central, but even if they make marginal advances again this year, it is a way to gain an advantage on your competition, even if it is by just cutting the corners of the bags.

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Topics: Asdrubal Cabrera, Baseball Prospectus, Baserunning, Ben Francisco, Chris Gimenez, EqBRR, Grady Sizemore, Josh Barfield, Mark DeRosa, Michael Brantley, Shin-Soo Choo, Trevor Crowe