Is anyone else worried that we are going to be TOO aggressive on the basepaths?

[adambr2]

Maybe it's just spring training, but I've been starting to notice some troubling trends. Jeff Suppan sprinting towards 2nd base only to get caught stealing. Runners rounding 2nd and getting thrown out easily at 3rd. All this getting praised as good, aggressive baserunning.

 

I am worried about the approach we are taking. Stolen bases are fun and a good weapon to have. People love the aggressive base stealer and the clever hit and run. But overused, these can get a baseball team completely off track and run them out of innings. Just like the inning we ran ourself out of against Colorado yesterday. Yes, it's spring training, but we completely ran ourselves out of an inning because of over-aggression.

 

We have more speed on the team now, but we're not a team built to win by stealing and hit and runs. We're going to hit a lot of homeruns and get a lot of extra basehits. I don't want to see those extra basehits ruin extra runs because we had Prince or Kendall trying to steal second base on the previous AB.

 

Ned and Co, please, use the speed on our team wisely. I'm not going to turn this into Yost-bashing, but I feel like there have been times in the past when he'll continue to try to do something that might work once (bunting with 2 strikes with a position player, for instance) and continue to go for it until it inevitably fails a few times. Don't start a trend like this on the basepaths, please. You might be able to catch the other team off guard and sneak Bush over to 2nd base one time this year, but that doesn't mean that you should do it with Sheeter next time he's pitching.

 

We have enough talent on this team to win. We don't need to try anything out of the ordinary to win baseball games or try to do things well that we might not be so good at.

[trwi7]

Yes I've brought this up several times at other places. This needs to stop in the regular season because they are constantly running into outs.

[splitterpfj]

Yes, this concerns me, it seems like every spring Ned has a renewed commitment to stealing bases. Maybe I'm imagining that, but it does seem like he always starts the year with a lot of double steals, hit-and-runs, etc, then backs off because it isn't working.

[TooLiveBrew]

Yep, concerned. Ned drives me crazy.

[DrWood]

steals are great. caught stealing sucks. If they are running in situations where they figure they have a 85+% chance of success, run.

[endaround]

Yep its worrisome, especially with Gwynn batting second. We're likely to see a bunch of hit an runs. Hopefully when Cameron comes back his reputation for King will kill that. Of course the fact that Gwynn Ks a lot will be ignored.

[TooLiveBrew]

What are you talking about?! He puts the ball in play! He's not a power hitter, therefore he MUST be a contact hitter!

[JJHardy7]

It's worrisome if it continues into the regular season. Hopefully they're just being more aggressive with it in the spring because they can. The Brewers will be hurting a bit for runs if they do this and there will be more solo HRs.

[adambr2]

Yep its worrisome, especially with Gwynn batting second. We're likely to see a bunch of hit an runs. Hopefully when Cameron comes back his reputation for King will kill that. Of course the fact that Gwynn Ks a lot will be ignored.

It blows me away every time I am discussing Gwynn with a friend and they maintain that Gwynn "always puts the bat on the ball".

 

No, he doesn't. He strikes out a lot for a slap hitter. Baseball is chock full of generalizations, one being that players with no power always make contact.