Back on July 21st, the Yankees were embroiled in the second “Run Bobby Meacham Out of Town” movement of my life. The first such occasion, which took place back in 1985, was engendered by his shaky defensive play. The second was motivated by his double-jointed, Ray Bolger-as-the-Scarecrow arm as Joe Girardi’s third base coach. Runners were being cut down at home plate like Mark Lee sprinting into the Turkish guns in “Gallipoli,” or so it seemed. At that time, I asked our own Bil Burke to get the real numbers so that we could see what the truth was. We ran the results here. With the season over, the Yankees still gnashing their teeth over the makeup of their coaching staff, and the possibility of a controversial send playing a large role in the postseason outcome, I asked Bil to run the final numbers. As you can see, things have changed:
As with last time, OAH is the total number of outs at home. The next three columns show what base the runner started from: B = Batter, which is to say home plate; F = First base, S = Second base, T = Third.
On July 21, most teams had played 99 or 100 games. In the 40 percent of the season remaining, the Rays ramped up its aggressive baserunning, while the Phillies, tied with the Angels at the time of our first look, seem to have adopted a more conservative approach–although it should be noted, just like last time, that we have only a partial picture here. Maybe the Phillies sent fewer runners; maybe they sent the same or a greater number, but they were more successful. The same applies to the other teams.
One clue to the answer is to see how our final OAH (Out at Home) totals here correspond to the overall numbers in our team “Equivalent Base Running Runs” metric, introduced in last year’s BP Annual and recently added to our statistics reports:
Altogether, the numbers suggest that the Yankees have bigger fish to fry than Meacham, who became a little more discerning towards the end of the season, and that in any case, baserunning isn’t one of the team’s chief problems. Given that Boston, Tampa, and the two Chicagos made it into the playoffs with weak or negative numbers would suggest that it’s better to have baserunners and lose a few than to have no baserunners at all.
Subjectively, the worst third base coaching I remember was Willie Randolph with the Yankees. There was one year when he was getting speedster Jorge Posada thrown out at home constantly. Statistics aside, seeing HoHo barrelling towards you at third should make the "STOP!" neurons fire in most people's brains.
Can you check how bad the Yankees have been historically? - Specifically whatever year you had HoHo with his worst baserunning metrics.
This was always proof to me why I never wanted Randolph as Yankee manager. - Timo Seppa
How did Navarro do within this? I had as my catcher and I felt like he personally boosted many OFs in the OFA category (highlighted of course by the All-Star game). I'm left to think of the running the bases analysis that died when Dan Fox moved on.
That and seeing Maddon insist that Perez is Navarro's personal runner and not to be used for anyone else.
There were really ten guys thrown out trying to stretch triples into inside-the-park homeruns this year? That seems like an inordinantly high number, it seems like such a rare occurence that I wouldn't have thought there were even that many attempts all season. Is there an easy way to see how many successful ITP-HRs there were, and can you draw any conclusions (based on run expectations) whether coaches are better off just holding most runners to stand-up triples?
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Subjectively, the worst third base coaching I remember was Willie Randolph with the Yankees. There was one year when he was getting speedster Jorge Posada thrown out at home constantly. Statistics aside, seeing HoHo barrelling towards you at third should make the "STOP!" neurons fire in most people's brains.
Can you check how bad the Yankees have been historically? - Specifically whatever year you had HoHo with his worst baserunning metrics.
This was always proof to me why I never wanted Randolph as Yankee manager. - Timo Seppa