Tim Benz: 'Gentlemen' on the base paths, Pirates race to the NL lead in stolen bases
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Among all the other things that have been going right for the Pittsburgh Pirates so far in 2023, they’ve also quietly become one of the best base-stealing teams in baseball.
During their 2-0 win over the Cincinnati Reds on Sunday, the Pirates stole three bases, giving them 25 on the season (in 30 attempts). That’s the most steals in the National League, even with fleet-footed shortstop Oneil Cruz sidelined most of the year. He had three stolen bases under his belt before breaking his ankle on April 9.
The Pirates’ success at stealing bases certainly has something to do with roster construction. Players such as Cruz, Bryan Reynolds, Ji Hwan Bae and Ke’Bryan Hayes all have speed. But manager Derek Shelton also credits the amount of study and training the players and staff have put into the skill of running.
“The evolution of that is really taking steps forward because people are paying attention to it now,” Shelton said. “It’s not just, ‘OK, you’re fast.’ It’s what your first step is because we can measure it. In the Statcast era , we can tell you if your first step is good. Or if your first step is bad. It used to be (that) guys stole bases because they were fast. But some of them had a bad drop-step. Some of them took a negative step. Some of them walked into it. Now we can measure all these things and have conversations about it.”
Shelton praised Tarrik Brock (first base coach/baserunning coach) and strength coach Terence Brannic for the team’s improvement when it comes to getting the most out of their players on the bases. A year ago, with 89 steals for a full season, the Pirates ranked in the middle of the pack (14th) in Major League Baseball.
“T-Brock is really good at it,” Shelton said. “He does a really good job of not only studying when we should run and how we should run, but he has a son (T.J.) that is an Olympic caliber sprinter, who ran at TCU. So he spent a ton of time around a lot of elite coaches in terms of how they run, what the explosion should be, what your first step is going to be. So we are very fortunate that some of his track background can come in there.”
Shelton admits that when Brock and Brannic talk about running, “it sounds like a foreign language” to him. But the players must be getting the message, especially when it comes to trying to win the race to a steal in the first four steps. An art Brock is trying to teach and one the Pirates are absorbing.
“He gives us a lot of tips,” Bae said before Sunday’s game. “He knows what we have to do. We just follow him.”
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Brock says the biggest rule to getting a good jump is to avoid putting any hard rules on runners at all.
“It’s based upon each runner. It’s like hitting. There are no absolutes when it comes to hitting. Everybody stands differently. It’s just what is best for them where they can get their left foot across their right foot and keep it as low to the ground as possible and get going from that standpoint,” Brock said Thursday before the start of the Pirates’ sweep of the Reds.
Similarly, Brock says if one of the Pirates is going to steal a base, he doesn’t want them to be rigidly locked on any single aspect of reading the pitcher’s delivery, being wed to the pitch clock or committing to stealing just because a pitcher has thrown over to the base twice.
Plus, he wants the Pirates to show good manners in the process.
“Base stealing is like being a gentleman,” Brock said. “If they give it to you on time, then you take it on time. If they give it to you on a sequence, you take it on a sequence. If they give it to you on movement, you take it on movement.”
Be a gentleman? While stealing a base?
Good day, sir! I’ll be pick-pocketing these 90 feet from you. Many thanks and salutations. Please extend my best wishes to all of your kin.
Bae leads the Pirates with five steals. Not far behind him is veteran Andrew McCutchen with three. McCutchen hasn’t had a season with more than eight steals since 2018. He says Brock’s influence is beyond just technique.
“It’s understanding the strategies, understanding what the pitchers are doing. Giving the hitter a chance to see pitches. There is a lot involved with it. Having all the information we can get on the pitcher, his pick-offs, moves to the plate,” McCutchen said.
McCutchen said another tactic that Brock has drilled into the Pirates runners is to use the new MLB rules to their advantage, whether that’s using the pitch clock as a timing aid or manipulating the pitchers’ allotted amount of disengagements and pick-off attempts — which are now down to two per batter.
“Maybe trying to get (the pitcher) to pick early, so you can have a little bit more leeway to get to the next base,” McCutchen said.
Under the new rules, if a pitcher decides to throw over to a base a third time during an at bat, he needs to get the runner out. Otherwise, the runner is given the next base. That’s why Brock wants his base runners to bait pitchers into early disengagements when they can.
“You get more lead. I know he’s not going to pick a third time,” Bae said with a dismissive laugh.
And then you are going, Ji Hwan?
“Oh yeah,” he said with a bit of a smirk.
Maybe not gentlemanly. But effective.
As the first-place Pirates have been in most aspects of their game so far in 2023.
Source: TribLIVE
