A quick follow up on last night’s piece about the Mets stealing a critical base in the Game Three victory and their ability to do exactly that all series. The numbers back up the fact that it wasn’t just some random occurrence for the last three games, the Mets were able to exploit a weakness they saw in the Cubs and the inability of their pitchers to hold runners.
As I shared, catcher Miguel Montero said as much after last night’s loss. He talked about how he’s been forced to rush throws and it’s led to some errors. He tied a career-high with 10 throwing errors in 2015 and, while he’s been trending down the last few seasons, his 20 percent caught stealing rate was the worst of his career and the first time he’s been below league average since 2009. His eight points below league average was by far the worst of his career and though he’s a 31-year-old who plays a position that has a history of rapid deterioration of skills, it’s hard to believe this issue falls squarely on his shoulders.
“We gotta do a better job holding the runners,” Montero said last night. “You know, I don’t know, just trying to change something. Give me a chance.”
It isn’t a rare occurrence to see Montero respond so bluntly to a question. He’s always told it like it is, he’s the type who has rubbed teammates the wrong way in the past, but his honesty has served him well in Chicago.
So it’s safe to say this issue is on the Cubs staff (again, the numbers from my piece last night support this wholeheartedly), but as I was asked in the comments, why? Why are these pitchers so poor at holding runners on base? Is it just that the front office has collected the type of arms who are bad at this skill set? Does the organization preach a Greg Maddux-like philosophy of ignoring runners and just focusing on the the task at hand: the batter. Here’s Cubs manager Joe Maddon on the topic.
“We're always working diligently to become better at that,” Maddon said. “A lot of it is unload time to the plate. We've actually picked some guys off. I think some of the guys—some guys are normally better than others. It's something that, believe me, from the first day of spring training, when we get together with the pitchers and catchers, we try to work on that to get to be more efficient at holding runners. And part of that is just learning times, just holding the baseball. Sometimes the most effective thing to do as a pitcher is just to hold the ball and create different times where you unload to unsettle the runner.
“So I can't disagree that we've not been the best at that. It's something we're always looking forward to getting better with. But it's just a work in progress. No, we don't just say don't worry about the runner. We don't say that at all. We have to get better at it.”
Early in the year, much was made of Jon Lester’s inability to throw to first base and how runners were able to run rampant on him. It turned out the Cubs were able to actually use that to their advantage a bit. David Ross, Lester’s personal catcher and a 14-year veteran of the league, came into the season with 10 pick offs. Being well aware that runners were trying to cheat on Lester due to his inability to throw to first, the Cubs tried a variety of things, including throwing behind the runner with Ross. This led to Ross picking off a career-high six runners this season and collecting some easy, unexpected outs.
The Mets took advantage of three pitchers who are all poor at holding runners. They stole two bases on Lester, two on Jake Arrieta, and one on Trevor Cahill. Each has well in the black when it comes to TRAA, meaning baserunners can take off with ease.
“They've taken advantage of some pitchers being somewhat slow to the plate,” Maddon said of the Mets. “I think they probably scouted that. You’re always looking for a little nugget here or there that you might be able to utilize at that time of the year. But even having received nuggets, you still have to go out there and execute, and they've been able to execute their nuggets.”
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