ATLANTA — Coming into the season, one of the Yankees’ points of emphasis was becoming a better baserunning team.
Technically, they have done that by virtue of not ranking dead last — as they did last season — in the publicly available baserunning metrics.
But too often, especially of late during an 12-19 skid, the Yankees have been hurt by fundamental mistakes on the bases, with Friday night serving as the latest example.
Jorbit Vivas committed the most recent crime, slowing down on his way to third base while trying to tag up on a fly ball to right field, only for Ronald Acuña Jr. to throw him out. It turned into an inning-ending double play instead of Aaron Judge coming to the plate as the tying run in a game the Yankees trailed 3-0.
Manager Aaron Boone said after the game that it was a play that “just can’t happen,” but it was another costly miscue for a team that hasn’t played very crisp baseball over the past six weeks.
“I think you got a handful of really good base runners and you have a couple guys that it’s a struggle for,” Boone said. “So you got to lean into it and work.
“Sometimes, playing here, the noise, you get a little tight. You got to strike that balance. That’s the last thing I want us to be is fearful running the bases or tight.”
Boone said because the Yankees have a high-scoring offense — they entered Sunday scoring 5.27 runs per game, good for third highest in the majors — they “tend to be more safe” on the bases.
But he said that was “the big problem” for them last year, playing it “too safe all the time” and not trying to take extra bases often enough.
“A lot of that is our personnel last year,” Boone said. “We are a much more athletic group capable of getting extra bases. But we go on a losing streak and you make a mistake on the bases, that’s going to get highlighted. I think throughout the year, there’s been a lot of really good out there as well. We got to continue to play aggressive, but also play smart and not be afraid.
“Once you’re out there, you got to be instinctive. Sometimes when you’ve lost some games and maybe you’ve made a mistake that’s lent itself to the game, you get a little reluctant. I felt like even there were a couple situations [Friday] where we were a little reluctant on the bases. You don’t want that either.”
Entering Saturday, the Yankees ranked 24th in the majors with a minus-4.3 BsR — FanGraphs’ baserunning metric that evaluates stolen bases, caught stealings, taking extra bases and being thrown out on the bases.
Last year, the Yankees were last in the majors with a minus-17.1 BsR.
By Baseball Savant’s Baserunning Runs metric — measuring the value of steals and taking extra bases — the Yankees were tied for 17th with minus-one. Last year, they again ranked last with minus-16.
The Yankees’ 21 outs on the bases were tied for the fourth fewest in the majors, but that figure does not include pickoffs or caught stealings. So it would not include, say, Ben Rice getting picked off of third base with Judge at the plate in Detroit in April; Jasson Domínguez forgetting how many strikes there were and getting picked off between second and third in Boston in June; Rice getting picked off of second base the next day; or Austin Wells taking off too early as the trail runner on a 3-2 pitch, resulting in the third out of an inning against the Angels later that week.
Boone has rarely benched players for baserunning miscues, and said he did not consider doing so with Vivas on Friday.
“That’s not a case of somebody dogging it down the line,” Boone said. “That’s a case of him pulling up incorrectly, a mistake that obviously can’t happen. Now, if we’re making over and over mental mistakes and things like that — but to me, in that moment, for a kid that plays his butt off all the time, that’s not a situation [to pull him]. That’s a conversation and a little bit of an embarrassing moment that you hope you learn and grow from.
“But you’d be pulling guys a lot of times for different things.”
