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#Yankees made it a ‘point of emphasis’ to fix base running

“Yankees made it a ‘point of emphasis’ to fix base running”

Average isn’t quite so average when the alternative is dreadful. 

Try telling anyone who watched Gleyber Torres’ two mad dashes from second base on the last road trip that the Yankees’ base running this season has been merely average, as the advanced metrics suggest. An argument would ensue because metrics don’t have a memory and thus don’t account for how the Yankees were the second-worst base-running team in the majors last season. 

“It’s been a stronger point of emphasis from day one of spring training,” manager Aaron Boone said Friday, shortly after it was announced that a series opener against the White Sox at Yankee Stadium was rained out. “These guys have really bought into that, and they’re taking a lot of pride in everything — whether it’s stealing a base here or there, but really it starts from their secondary leads to how they get their first step.” 

The Yankees rank No. 14 with a score of 0.0 in BsR, which is defined by FanGraphs as an “all-encompassing base running statistic that turns stolen bases, caught stealings, and other base-running plays into runs above and below average.” On FanGraphs’ range of scores, eight is recognized as great, zero as average and negative-six as awful. 

So, what makes these Yankees look like lovers of a lost art? They scored a negative-15.1 in BsR last season. In other words, “awful” times 150 percent. 

“Whenever you can gain runs any way, that’s always huge, especially when you are trying to win a championship,” said center fielder Aaron Hicks, whose 0.9 BsR is tied for second on the team with pinch-runner extraordinaire Tim Locastro, behind Aaron Judge (1.1). “That’s what championship teams do.” 

For those who prefer the eye test to metrics, Torres scored two crucial runs in the last eight games without the ball reaching the outfield. 

Torres scored the second run on Judge’s tie-breaking two-out two-run infield single in the eighth inning of a win against the White Sox on May 12, as well as the second (and decisive) run on a wild pitch in Wednesday’s 3-2 win against the Orioles. 

“Gleyber has always had that aggressive streak in him on the bases,” Boone said. “He’s been kind of learning at the big-league level to harness some of that aggressiveness, but he has those instincts and that fearlessness on the base paths that a lot of times serves him well.” 

Torres scored from first base on an infield single by Hicks last season. But the highlight was outweighed by the multitude of times the Yankees ran into a double play, an out at home plate (22) or a loss. Those mistakes led to less aggressiveness and a station-to-station reliance, taking the extra base on hits at the third-lowest rate in MLB. 

These Yankees? The slugging giants don’t look so plodding, with the fourth-most bases taken (42) on fly balls and pitcher-catcher miscues, according to Baseball Reference. 

“It is different, just because of the things we’ve focused on,” Hicks said. “Stealing bases is key, number one, but also being able to speed your leads up, or go from first to third or first to home. Now, we have a team built around all of that, and it’s pretty nice. We have a good coaching staff teaching us how exactly to maximize the opportunities that are there.”

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