From the Handbook: Holding Runners

This is actually from a section entitled "Pitcher hitting, fielding and holding runners, and hitters pitching." And since we all already know Chris Gimenez pitched in six games last season, we'll narrow it down to something else a bit off beat -- holding runners.

Kyle Gibson pitched 158 innings for the Twins in 2017. Six runners attempted to steal off him; only one was successful.

There there's Jose Berrios -- 145 innings, nine attempts, six steals. Ervin Santana: 211 innings, 13 attempts. 11 successes.

To be sure, there isn't as much basestealing today as there was when I was young and artificial turf was in vogue. Managers wisely are less interested in one base in an era when there are twice as many homers hit and higher strikeout rates make "manufactured runs" less likely. And more precise data on "pop times" -- the time between the pitch hitting the catcher's glove and the catcher's throw to second hitting the infielder's glove -- and base runner speed gives managers a better handle on the real chance of a specific runner stealing a base successfully.

The result is that while basestealing attempts are down, success rates are up.

Unless you're running on Gibson. In which case, not only are attempts rather infrequent, success is even more rare.

Their feet are honest

Over the course of a 162-game schedule, every team suffers some galling losses. The Twins have taken their share, and particularly so since the All-Star break.

Monday's loss seemed particularly irritating because it typified so many of the roster's unsolved problems. Starting pitchers who struggle to put away hitters. Sloppy defense at shortstop. Shaky middle relief. Base stealing that verges on incompetence.

It's the latter that intrigues me this morning.  The Twins have stolen 55 bases on the season (two of them on Monday) and been caught stealing 36 times (three times on Monday), a success rate of  60.4 percent. The well-established math says anything under 67 percent is giving away runs.

Meanwhile, the Yankees -- old and slow -- have stolen 42 bases with 19 caught stealing, a 68.8 success rate. One of those steals came Monday night from Alex Rodriguez, the 40-year-old with the surgical hips, and led to a run.

Back in 1917, columnist Bugs Baer famously wrote of Ping Bodie's inability to steal: "Larceny was in his heart, but his feet were honest." That pretty much sums up Paul Molitor's Twins, who entered Monday tied for the third-most caught stealings in the American League.

I commented earlier this year on the irony of this: Molitor as a player was a particularly good percentage basestealer (504 steals for his career, 131 caught stealings for a 79.3% success rate), but, at least in his debut managerial season, his team would be better off not trying the play.

The Twins and stolen base attempts

Robinson Cano applies the tag as Eduardo Nunez is
caught trying to steal second base Sunday.

Paul Molitor, as a player, was an efficient and prolific base stealer -- 504 career steals, 131 caught stealings, a success rate of 79.3 percent.

Eighteen games into his managerial career, Molitor hasn't translated his expertise in that aspect to his team. When Eduardo Nunez was gunned down in the third inning Sunday, it was the sixth caught stealing of the season for the Twins with only five successful steals. Since the sabermetric consensus is that you need a success rate above 66 percent to get any gain from basestealing, the Twins would theoretically be better off if they didn't steal at all.

I shy from such tactical absolutes, but it should be obvious that the steal has not been an effective weapon for the Twins. Eleven attempts is rather low -- Ron Gardenhire's teams had a season low of 85 in 13 years, and the 2015 Twins at their April pace won't come close to that many -- and the success rate is abysmal.

So what's wrong? Well, the scarcity of attempts starts with the lack of opportunities. All managers recognize that they have players who should try to steal and players who shouldn't, and the question that divides them is which goes in which group. I think it safe to say on the 2015 Twins that Danny Santana, Jordan Schafer and Brian Dozier are in the "send-em" group and Kennys Vargas, Kurt Suzuki and Trevor Plouffe are in the "hold 'em" group. Even if the latter were reaching base, they wouldn't be stealing anyway.

Well, Santana has an on-base percentage of .222, Schafer .154, Dozier .300. They simply aren't on base enough to do much running

Those three as also a combined 3-for-6 on steals, so even when they have reached, they haven't done well.

It should be mentioned that a third of the games have come against Kansas City and Salvador Perez, and Perez is viewed as the best throwing catcher in the American League. That's probably depressed the attempts too.