Blue Jays' poor baserunning hampering run production

When the Toronto Blue Jays fell 11-4 to the Texas Rangers on Thursday, the primary storyline to emerge from the game was the club’s baffling inability to reach .500.

The Blue Jays’ failed pursuit of an even record is certainly a concern to fans and the team alike, but the way they lost should worry both more. Ultimately, .500 is just an arbitrary benchmark whereas the combination of poor hitting, pitching, fielding and baserunning reflects the biggest concerns this club faces.

Perhaps the play most emblematic of the poor performance came in the third inning when Jose Bautista made the questionable decision to steal third with two outs and Justin Smoak at the dish. Suffice it to say the risk did not pay off.

Making the third out at third base is a classic example of “bad baseball” – something you’d hope not to see from one of your team’s veterans. You can envision Bautista thinking that an 0-2 count would elicit the kind of breaking ball in the dirt that makes nabbing third significantly easier – and he wound up being right about that – but it didn’t justify the gamble.

Smoak has been one of the best hitters in baseball this year and you just can’t chance taking the bat out of his hands in that spot. It’s a notion that’s especially true when you’re a 36-year-old who’s hardly Billy Hamilton-esque.

The ugly play highlights an issue that has been haunting the Blue Jays all year: poor baserunning dragging down the offence. As it stands, the team currently ranks 28th in FanGraphs’ baserunning metric BsR at -10.7 – ahead of just the Seattle Mariners and Detroit Tigers. In 41 seasons the worst number the Blue Jays have posted is -15.8 in 1980, meaning the 2017 squad is well on their way to being the worst baserunning squad in franchise history.

As it happens, getting thrown out trying to steal isn’t this group’s primary problem. The Blue Jays have attempted just 38 stolen bases this year and have converted on 29 of those tries – good for a solid 76.3 percent success rate.

Where their issue lies is avoiding the station-to-station assembly line. The Blue Jays currently rank dead last in baseball in Extra Bases Taken Percentage with a 32 percent mark. No one in the game goes first to third on a single, second to home on a single, or first to home on a double, less than these Blue Jays.

Extra Bases Taken Percentage has taken some flak in the past, because it doesn’t account for outs made, but when those are considered things don’t look that much better for the Blue Jays. The team has made 24 outs on the bases which is the 11th highest number in baseball. So, they are extraordinarily conservative when it comes to taking the extra bag, yet make more outs than the average team on the basepaths.

The Blue Jays were never built to be burners, this lineup is about as heavy on sluggers in their 30s as they come. They also added one of the slowest men in baseball – Kendrys Morales – in the offseason which has not helped matters. With Morales in tow, plays like this are going to happen:

With two outs Morales runs on contact, and this softly hit ball bounces at least six times in the outfield before Kevin Kiermaier gets it and yet the big designated hitter is still out on the play. Not many guys have the ability not to score in that situation.

Some of the problems the Blue Jays have encountered are an inevitable byproduct of their team construction, but that doesn’t entirely excuse their base-running performance. A great deal of baserunning is about awareness and risk management.

If the Arizona Diamondbacks can be the best team in the league in this area with 6-foot-3 225-pound first baseman Paul Goldschmidt leading the charge, the Blue Jays can be better. Considering they are the 23rd best hitting team in baseball by wRC+, they certainly need to be.

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