Adventures in baserunning

The Twins on Sunday had an inning ended when both Ehire Adrianza and Mitch Garver got caught in rundowns. It is today a what-if play -- what it Joe Mauer had gotten to hit with men on the corners in that inning? Would it have changed the complexion of the game?

We don't know that alternative universe. We do know that in this universe the 2018 Twins have seemingly been prone to baserunning blunders.

So I decided to dive into Baseball Reference this morning to see what their numbers say about the Twins baserunning. A highlights (or lowlights, if you prefer):

*The Twins lead the American League in getting picked off, with 10. Nobody else has more than seven.

* The Twins are next to last in stolen base attempts (23). Only Oakland tries to steal less often.

* The Twins have the fifth worst stolen base percentage in the AL, at 72 percent.

* The Twins have been thrown out on the bases 23 times, which is exactly league average. Boston and Houston are 1-3 in this, but they have lots more baserunners. Tampa Bay is second in lost runners.

* The Twins are second in the AL in extra bases taken. They've gone first-to-third  or second-to-home on singles, or first to home on doubles, on 48 percent of such opportunities; only Texas, at 50 percent, is higher.

Specifically, the Twins have gone first to third on a single 38 times in 101 such opportunities; first to home on 23 of 51 doubles with a man on first; and second to home on 42 of 64 singles.

From the Handbook: Team baserunning

Strictly speaking, this is in the same section as the previous post, but I thought it worth its own post.

Baseball Info Systems' formula rates the 2017 Twins as the third best baserunning team in the majors, and just one base shy of second-place Cleveland. (Arizona was tops at + 103, then the Tribe with 83 and Minnesota at 82.)

This is a bit up from 2016, when BIS' data had the Twins a +61 and the sixth best baserunning team, and sharply up from 2015, when they lost 19 bases and were solidly in the bottom half.

Only one team (San Diego) grounded into fewer double plays than the Twins, and the Padres had more than 100 fewer chances to do so. As I said in the previous post, I don't know that I agree with working GIDP -- that's grounded into double plays, for yesterday's commenter -- into the baserunning formula, but it's there.

Twenty-two of the 30 teams were in positive territory as baserunners in 2017. And while the absolute worst baserunning teams (Detroit and Philadelphia) were bottom-dwellers in the standings, the Houston Astros -- who won 101 games and the World Series -- were -14 for the season, sixth worst.

From the Handbook: Baserunning

We all know Byron Buxton is fast. We also know that speed alone does not equal outstanding baserunning.

But as Baseball Info Systems figures such things, Buxton was the best baserunner in baseball in 2017, at +55 bases.

The essay that preceeds the numbers notes that Buxton gained at least 27 bases from both basestealing and from "bases gained" -- for example, going first to third on a single or advancing on a wild pitch -- making him "the most balanced of the leaders."

Plus he grounded into just one double play. I'm not completely sold on BIS' inclusion of GIDP in the baserunning metrics, but I don't make the rules for them.

Joe Mauer has long been viewed -- accurately for the most part -- as an outstanding baserunner without outstanding speed. He has become visibly slower in the past few years (he is 34, after all) and in 2017 he scored a -7 in BIS's metric. For his career -- the Handbook contains career baserunning totals for players with 1,000 career games started in 2002) Mauer is +86, which isn't close to being the active leader but is certainly no embarrassment.

From the Handbook: Joe Mauer's baserunning

Back, one more time (at least) to the Bill James Handbook series.

It used to be a given: Joe Mauer was never particularly fast, but he was a good baserunner.

He's older now, older and slower. And his baserunning is no longer a positive.

In 2013 -- Mauer's last season as a catcher, and his last as the Hall-of-Fame caliber hitter he had always been to that point -- Mauer was, by Baseball Info Systems' reckoning, a +15 as a baserunner. He was on first base for 31 singles and went to third on 12 of those. He went second to home on 10 of 18 opportunities. He scored from first three times on 11 doubles. And, most tellingly, he was never thrown out taking an extra base and never doubled off a base.

Mauer in 2016  was considerably less adept. He went first to third only five times in 23 opportunities. He was thrown out twice and doubled off once. All told. BIS has him at -2.

There are, to be sure, worse baserunners on the Twins than Mauer -- Trevor Plouffe, for example, was -14 last season, and Miguel Sano -4. And there's more involved than just speed: While Byron Buxton was a +28, Danny Santana was merely +1.

For his career, Mauer is still an impressive +93 -- astoundingly good for a catcher/first baseman. But it's slipping. Which should be no surprise. He'll turn 34 early next season, and the much-touted water system at Target Field does not include a fountain of youth.

From the Handbook: Overall baserunning

I commented on this -- specifically about base stealing, because the numbers were readily available -- during the season, but the difference between Paul Molitor the base runner and the team Paul Molitor managed in 2015 was remarkable.

Molitor's baserunning savvy was legendary. He was fast, certainly, but that was only part of it. He was aware and aggressive. He stole bases, and took extra bases, with extraordinary efficiency.

The 2015 Twins, not so much. And the quality of Minnesota's baserunning, as a team, was sharply lower than under Ron Gardenhire.

From the Bill James Handbooks, as compiled by Baseball Info Systems:

2013: Twins had an overall net gain of +30. They were +44 running the bases, -13 as base stealers. The base running score was third highest in baseball that year.
2014: Total, +109. On the bases, +82; stealing, +27. The total was second in baseball, the base running component first.
2015: Total, - 19. On the bases, -13, stealing, -6. Only seven teams had lower total scores.

Molitor had no connection to the major league team in 2013. In 2014 he was on the coaching staff and baserunning was a specific part of his portfolio. As manager in 2015, he doubtless delegated at least part of that aspect. But that's a stiff decline.

From the Handbook: Mauer's baserunning

Tradin' Terry Ryan had a quiet day Thursday -- his first without a transaction announcment this week -- so let's resume our glance through the Bill James Handbook 2016.

It has been a standard observation for years: Joe Mauer is not particularly fast, nor does he steal bases frequently, but he is an adept baserunner, often the best on the team. He reads balls well, he goes first to third, he is seldom caught taking the extra base or doubled off.

Until this year.

Baseball Info Systems, publisher of the Handbook, has been tracking baserunning since 2002, when Mauer was still a minor leaguer. By its calculations, Mauer is a +95 as a base runner for his career. (I wish I could say that that's 95 bases above average, or 95 runs, but BIS has a complex formula that doesn't lend its self to such a description. It's just +95.) Only 22 players, mostly obvious speesters such as Carl Crawford and Jose Reyes, scored better.

In 2013, Mauer was +13. In 2014,  +16. In 2015, -2.

Over the time BIS has been tracking base running, runners have gone first-to-third on 28 percent of singles. Mauer in 2013 was 12-for-31, about 39 percent; in 2014, 13-for-38, 34 percent. Last year, he was just 6 for 20. Now, 30 percent is still a bit above average, but it isn't what we've seen from Mauer in the past.

Mauer had one baserunning out in 2014, none in 2013. Last year, he was doubled off on linedrives twice and thrown out trying for the extra base twice for four outs.

Maybe it's age -- Mauer is no longer a 20-something, and the years behind the plate have taken a toll. Maybe it's a general approach to baserunning under the new regime; I'll write about this in a future post, but despite Paul Molitor's baserunning skill as a player, the Twins in general ran the bases less effectively in his first year as manager than they did under Ron Gardenhire. Whatever the cause, Mauer went from a clear baserunning plus to a slight detraction last season.

Random comments before the trading deadline

Giving away outs on the basepaths: Sam Fuld is
picked off first base by Danny Duffy in the fourth inning.

Well, that was a pretty ugly loss by the Twins Wednesday night in Kansas City. Two baserunners picked off. Another runner thrown out at the plate by, oh, maybe 15 feet or so.

The moment Brian Dozier took off I was yelling "No no no" at the TV set, and Scott Ullger should have doing the same, because it's possible Dozier could actually hear him. And then I remember the story from the 1975 World Series of Don Zimmer, third base coach for the Red Sox, yelling "No no no" and Denny Doyle hearing it as "Go go go."

Meanwhile, another day slips off the calendar toward the nonwaiver trading deadline, and still no action involving the Twins. I do believe something is going to happen before the deadline this afternoon. But I suspect it won't involve Kurt Suzuki or Josh Willingham. Maybe Kevin Correia (teams are always looking for pitching, although Correia is not a playoff-caliber starter). Most likely, one of the middle relievers -- Brian Duensing, Jared Burton and/or Casey Fien.

But I have a lousy record on guessing trade deadline stuff. Terry Ryan has done deadline deals, but most years he waits until August and the waiver period. That's when Justin Morneau moved last year. So while I expect something to happen today, I recognize that it might not -- and just because it didn't happen in July doesn't mean it won't happen in August.

A few other items:

• The word from the New Britain Rock Cats about J.O. Berrios: He's fine. No discomfort today. Nothing to see here. Alrighty then. Let's see when he starts next, and what happens when he does. I hope that's accurate. 
• Hudson Boyd, a high draft pick in 2011 who hasn't risen above Low A ball and has been relegated to relief work in Cedar Rapids, was suspended indefinitely for unspecified violation of team rules. The Twins had four picks by the end of the second round of that draft: Levi Michael, Boyd, Travis Harrison and Madison Boer. I'm not very optimistic about any of them at this point.
• I've been known, in years past, to hit Davenport, Iowa, to see a Midwest League game (home team: Quad Cities River Bandits). On Wednesday night, their game was interrupted when a possum invaded:

The @QCRiverBandits' game was briefly delayed today when an opossum took the field. Seriously. Photo: @QCBanditPhotog pic.twitter.com/rBlgFnZ8ih
— MiLB.com (@MiLB) July 31, 2014

That might have been more exciting to see than watching the Twins' base running tomfoolery.

Alex Presley and the stolen base

Alex Presley hit .283 for the Twins in September, but
he was an ineffective base stealer.

As a team, the 2013 Twins ran the bases well. They stole bases terribly.

Those assertions are supported by the baserunning stats in the 2014 Bill James Handbook.

Baseball Info Systems credits the Twins with a gain of 44 bases on baserunning. The formula, which excludes steals, encompasses extra bases on hits and fly balls and subtracts for baserunning outs. The Twins' 44 bases was third highest in the majors (behind only Tampa Bay and Oakland).

But basestealing? That was another matter. BIS has the Twins a -14 on steals. Only Arizona fared worse than Minnesota at stealing.

A fair chunk of Twins deficit is likely charged to Alex Presley, who came to the Twins from Pittsburgh in the Justin Morneau trade. Presley played center and led off pretty much every day in September, and he was 1-for-4 in steal attempts. He was 0-for-1 with the Pirates, and BIS has him as a -7 as a basestealer.

As a long-ago sportswriter quipped about a Brooklyn Dodger who similarly couldn't steal bases: There was larceny in his heart, but his feet were honest.

Were I running the Twins, I would be planning on a Presley-Darin Mastroianni platoon in center to open 2014. But I would be very wary of trying to steal bases, at least with Presley.

Presley seems to have the Greg Gagne basestealing glitch. Gagne, the Twins shortstop for their two World Series teams, was a fast man and a good baserunner, but he was simply unable to read pitchers to get the jump to steal. We frequently hear coaches assert that so-and-so will be a good basestealer when he learns to read pitchers, but it really appears to be something that can't be taught.

Whatever happened to the hook slide?

In the first inning Thursday night, Trevor Plouffe lined a hit to left-center and tried to stretch the single into a double. Curtis Granderson's throw was to the outfield side of second base, but Plouffe slid straight into the base, and Robinson Cano had just enough reach to tag him for the out.

And I thought — not for the first time — of the old hook slide, a neglected and apparently dead baserunning technique.

(This is not intended as a criticism of Plouffe specifically; I do plenty of that already. This is a general complaint.)

The classic, foot-first hook slide was a staple of Ty Cobb's. The runner, seeing that the infielder is positioned to one side of the base slides feet-first to the opposite side of the bag and "hooks" the corner of the base with his toe as he slides by. In the Plouffe play, he would have hooked the bag with his right foot, giving Cano little to tag.

A variation of this, which I do see on occasion, has the baserunner sliding around the base and reaching back with his hand(s) to grab the base.

I suspect the classic hook slide died out because

• feetfirst slides have largely given way to headfirst slides;
• baserunners are more concerned with trying to beat the throw to the base than with eluding a tag;
• the idea of reading where the throw is going and sliding accordingly to some degree conflict with the teaching of committing early to a slide (to avoid injury).

There are, Nick Punto's fantasies of physics not withstanding, two reasons to slide: to stop quickly without overrunning a base, and to elude a tag. The first point is relevant to first base only when retreating to the base, and not relevant at all to home plate. The second point is relevant to all bases, and since the hook slide is specifically designed to elude the tag, it ought to have a more prominent place in the baserunning bag of tricks than it currently has.

I think that, had Plouffe used a hook slide, he would have gotten his double. Maybe he would have scored on Joe Mauer's subsequent single; maybe the game would have gone in a different direction. 

Spring training mistake

Elvis Andrus stole third and
home in the first inning
Saturday.

It was just one run — albeit the first run, which is always big — in a game the Texas Rangers won by five, but it came on a delayed double steal.

I said last week after the Rangers twice scored runs from second base on ground ball outs that the Yankees don't often make what Joe Maddon called "spring training mistakes."

Allowing a delayed double steal probably qualifies as that.

---

Poll stuff: The question last week was why the Yankees have the Twins number. There were 46 responses.

Twenty-three (50 percent) say the Yankees are in the Twins' heads; 19 (41 percent) say the Yankees strengths match the Twins weaknesses; two (4 percent) blame luck and umpires; and two (4 percent) say the Yankees are simply the best team around.

New poll up.

The audacity of baserunning (revised)

There's a bit of Ring Lardner in me — not, I fear, the writing talent (I wish) but the love of the tactics of the deadball era — the bunt, the steal, the hit-and-run., of the pitching gem backed up (or spoiled) by a run poached by audacious baserunning.

Kelly Stoppach might be thinking: There's not
a lot I can do without the ball.

That was Game 5 Tuesday night, as the Rangers supported Cliff Lee's fine outing with two runs scored from second base on ground outs to first base.

"Spring training mistakes" is how Rays manager Joe Maddon described those runs — and the mistake in both cases was on pitcher David Price, who took throws at first base but didn't check the runner from second.

First inning, Elvis Andrus on second, one out. Andrus takes off for third and Josh Hamilton grounds to Carlos Pena. Pena flips to Price, and Andrus never stopped running. He scored without a play. That, judging from a replay I watched this morning on ESPN.com, was the fault of first baseman Carlos Pena, who treated the whole thing as a routine 3-1 putout. He needed to make Andrus stop; he didn't.

Andrus is fast. It's not surprising that he'd take an extra base. Vladimir Guerrero, on the other hand, has been limited to DH duties for years. He pulled off a somewhat similar play in the sixth inning, scoring from second when Tampa Bay didn't get the call on an attempted 3-6-1 double play. Price on this one appeared to take a moment to look at the umpire, and that moment was all the gimpy Guerrero needed.

Those plays called to mind the Nick Punto-Derek Jeter play in the 2009 ALDS, when Punto tried to poach a run from second on a grounder up the middle. I defended Punto's effort at the time and credited Jeter with anticipating it. Most people saw it, and still see it, as a brain cramp on Punto's part, which is fair enough, since it didn't work.

And that's the problem with audacious baserunning. It's wonderful when it works, but an alert defense can, and will, make it look really stupid. The Rangers would probably do well to remember in the ALCS that the Yankees aren't prone to spring training mistakes.

An irritating win

The Twins won. I must keep reminding myself of that fact; they won Tuesday's game.

But they demonstrated many of the irritating things about the 2010 edition — the things that so far keep them from being a truly top-flight team.

They gave away three runs in the first two innings in the field.

J.J. Hardy made a poor throw on the leadoff batter (photo); Michael Cuddyer, Brian Duensing and Orlando Hudson apparently conspired to turn the second batter's bunt into a single. (I was walking the dog and listening to the radio; Dan Gladden said all three went for the ball and nobody covered first.) That first-and-second, no-out situation turned into two (unearned) runs. In the second inning, Orlando Hudson bounced a DP throw past Cuddyer to allow another run to score.

In this case the shoddy defense is obvious in the box score; Duensing is showed with seven innings with no earned runs. Often it isn't. But for the second game in a row, defensive failures were prominent in Ron Gardenhire's post-game recap. If he keeps talking about this, eventually the broadcasters will realize: This is not a good defensive club.

Hudson failed on a second DP pivot later in the game, and Denard Span got turned around on a fly ball that went for a double. Neither resulted in runs. Still, it's part of the pattern of failing to convert outs there for the taking.

Jason Kubel got thrown out by approximately 17 feet at home plate to end the bottom of the seventh. Chris, a regular reader who follows the games via Internet play-byplay, keeps asking what's going on with the killed base runners. In this case I've no idea.

Bases loaded, two out, ground ball single to right field by Delmon Young, not hit all that sharply. Watching the game on TV, my immediate reaction was: Two runs. Except that it wasn't. I don't know if Scott Ullger waved Kubel around — FSN seldom shows replays that might explain a base running blunder — or if Kubel got a bad jump or if Casper Wells simply has a better arm than the Twins realized.

I know this: With two outs, I expect a base runner to score from second base on that ball. Kubel didn't come close.

But they won. They really did.

That's more like it

One day after an atrocious display of sloppy baseball, the Twins played (and won) an exceedingly crisp 2-1 game.

Francisco Liriano stuck out 11 and walked zero. Jon Rauch, who has been less-than-dominant while sticking up the saves, fanned the side in the ninth — 14 Ks for the Twins with no walks.

The lineup managed to bunch enough bleeders and bloops together in the seventh to scratch out their two runs. They got seven hits in the game against Tim Hudson; five of them came in the seventh.

A few random comments:

* Liriano got 15 swinging strikes. That's a lot. He struggled for a while after his 123-pitch outing on May 2, but in his last two games he's worked 15 innings, struck out 21, walked two and allowed two runs. I think he's recovered.

* The Twins could only play station-to-station on the base paths during their seventh inning rally. Nobody went second to home or first to third. Morneau's single was to left, and Mauer stopped at second. Cuddyer's was a swinging bunt. They didn't want to challenge Jason Heyward's arm on Kubel's single to right, and I don't think Cuddyer got a good read on Delmon Young's single to left.

But I was thinking yet again — beyond Denard Span and Nick Punto, this is not a lineup that's going to take a lot of extra bases. And we know how Span and Punto did on the bases Thursday.

* The interleague schedule appears unkind to the Twins. Atlanta is now 35-27; the Twins also play Colorado (31-30), the Mets (33-28), the Phillies (31-28) and Milwaukee (26-35). That's a combined 156-148.

The Tigers also have the Mets and the Braves, but the rest of their NL opponents are current opponent Pittsburgh (23-38), Washington (30-32) and Arizona (24-38), a combined 145-163.

An argument for Nick Punto

Bottom of the sixth inning Friday night, two outs, a man on third. J.J. Hardy, the Twins shortstop, hits a grounder to the right of Texas counterpart Elvis Andrus, who bobbles the ball, scoops it up, and bounces the throw to first, where Hardy is called out to end the inning.

And yes, the umpire missed the call, but you needed stop-motion replay to see that. The real takeaways from the play:

• Andrus has a gun;
• Hardy is not a fast runner.

We've seen plenty of indications of the latter point already this season. Hardy is mobile enough to be a quality shortstop defensively and he has a pair of 20-homer seasons on his stat sheet, but he's not going to be a first-to-third marvel on the bases, he's not going to steal bases (he has five steals in his career) and he's a chronic double play risk at the plate.

And when you look up and down the Twins lineup, that's the rule. There's not a lot of speed on this club.

As a general rule, there are four positions for "plus speed" — the scouting term for above-average runners: center field, shortstop, second base and left field. (Not right field — generally, if you have plus speed and throw well, you're a center fielder. If you can run but can't throw, you're a left fielder; throw but can't run, right field; can't do either, first base.)

The Twins have Denard Span in center — checkmark for plus speed there. They have Hardy at short, Orlando Hudson at second, and either Delmon Young or Jason Kubel in left. None of them are burners.

Joe Mauer, Justin Morneau and Michael Cuddyer aren't fast either. Catching is rapidly slowing Mauer; in 2008, Baseball Info Systems rated Mauer a plus 20 as a baserunner; in 2009, minus 1. This season's heel problem isn't going to help matters.

This is part of why the Twins hit into so many double plays. Not only is the batter generally slow to first base, the baserunner is seldom going to get to second fast enough to disrupt the pivot man.

Third base is generally regarded as a power position, a place where marginal speed (or no speed) can play. The Twins do not have an obvious top-drawer option at third base — there's no Brooks Robinson or even Scott Rolen lurking on the roster. They have a collection of marginal talents.

And given the lack of speed elsewhere, it makes sense to give preference to a marginal player who can run — Nick Punto (photo above) or Matt Tolbert or Alexi Casilla — over Brendan Harris, who runs like Hardy but doesn't hit as well.

None of them have the power to be an above-average major league hitter. A lot of us fans have trouble seeing past that. This team doesn't need another lead-foot. There might be one too many in the lineup already.

Out by a mile

The denouement of Sunday's game was another lesson in "be careful what you wish for." I had grumped here that third base coach Scott Ullger was too passive early in Friday's game. On Sunday, J.J. Hardy was ... well, the title to this post says it.

The postgame explanations from the Twins camp are consistent: With the drastic overshift on for Jim Thome, there was no way for Alexei Ramirez to get into position to take the Juan Pierre's throw, and neither Ullger nor Hardy expected Mark Teahen to vacate third base to serve as the relay man.

Hardy, as a shortstop, ought to know something about who handles relays.

I am loathe to criticize Ullger for sending Hardy. When I saw the ball hit the wall, I expected Hardy to be waved home. I did not expect to see an infielder with the ball as Hardy rounded third.

But then, I'm not sure what use Teahen would have been had he stuck to the "expected" role of covering third. The only base there could be a play on that ball was home.

A few points about the play that you won't see in the game stories, because it involves noting weaknesses of players:

*Juan Pierre made a strong throw from the warning track. Teahen may nor may not be the planned relay man; the point is that the throw got to him on the fly. I didn't think Pierre had that in him.

* Ullger may have learned something from that play about Hardy's baserunning speed. Yes, he's a middle infielder; no, he's not a burner. (For that matter, the same is true of Orlando Hudson.)

* Most third base coaches move well down the line to get an angle on the relay and the runner, giving them a chance to put up a late stop sign. Ullger didn't do that. Instead, he hung around third base — and was actually on third base as the play went on.

Jim Margalus of Sox Machine suspects Ullger was trying to fake Teahen into believing that he was the base runner. There's no question: Ullger shouldn't have been where he was. It's illegal.

Oh well. A 5-2 record on this road trip is nothing to be bummed about. My Sunday's post looked on the dark side of the Twins' record; today is henceforth for positive thoughts. It's the home opener, I have tickets, and I will not fret further about baserunning or Jose Mijares.

Passive aggressive Friday

The Twins opened Friday's game in Chicago with three straight singles, but didn't score. I thought at the time that Scott Ullger should have sent Denard Span home on the third single; instead, he held Span at third.

It's the flip side of all those home runs the Twins hit in Anaheim. Span's a fast runner, and Juan Pierre, the Chicago left fielder, has a rag arm. I think Span would have scored; I'm not even sure Pierre would have thrown home. Instead, Ullger took the more passive approach — bases loaded and Justin Morneau coming up, let's sit back and play for the crooked number.

And the Twins got nothing out of that inning.

Then there's the hyperaggressive approach Ozzie Guillen took in the bottom of the 11th. Trailing by a run, with one out already, he twice called for the hit-and-run with Omar Vizquel at the plate and Alex Rios on first. Vizquel fouled off the first one, swung and missed at the second, and Rios was an easy out.

Guillen ran them out of that inning.

And I understand, even applaud, the idea. It played to the strengths of the players involved. Vizquel is no power threat, he does make contact, Rios isn't slow. It could have worked, but it didn't, and I suppose Guillen's going to be pilloried in the Chicago papers for the move.

A Casey Stengel line comes to mind: Whadda want me to do, sit there and lose? Well, Guillen lost anyway, but at least he didn't lose asking Vizquel to be a slugger.

Twins best base runner

The weekly poll question is, of necessity, about opinion or prediction. There is little point in a blog poll that asks "Who holds the Twins record for home runs in a season." Those who don't know but can read the blog have immediate access to the definitive answer.

The baserunning question of the past week — Who is the best baserunner on the Twins — sounds like an opinion question. But there is now a factual answer, or at least an answer based on facts gleaned from play-by-play records of the games.

And the answer is not who you think he is, dear readers.

The 20 people who responded converged on two of the five choices offers. Eight apiece picked Joe Mauer or Denard Span — 40 percent for both. Three (15 percent) selected Alexi Casilla; one (5 percent) said Nick Punto (above). Carlos Gomez, traded during the week, got skunked.

But according to Baseball Info Systems, as published in the freshly-released Bill James Handbook 2010, it's Punto. Narrowly over Span, by a lot over Mauer.

Baserunning data traditionally have been limited to stolen bases and "implied" stats, such as triples and runs scored. The BIS analysis, in addition to stolen base rates, tracks how often each player goes first-to-third or second-to-home on singles and first to home on doubles, how often they move up an extra base, how often they get doubled off or thrown out, and even their tendency to ground into double plays.

Punto emerged this year with a net gain of 27 bases — 17 from baserunning, 10 from basestealing. Span's net gain was 24 bases (21 and 3), which, as I grasp the formula used to reach the final numbers, is close enough to be a virtual draw. The gap, even if precicely accurate, doesn't amount to a full run.

Casilla is +7 (-4 and +11) and Gomez is +9 (0 and 0). Both are held down by their part-time status; given their flaws as a baserunner (Casilla) and basestealer (Gomez), neither reaches the Punto/Span level.

And Mauer? A net deficit of a base (-3, +2). Which, for a catcher, is quite good. Mike Redmond, in a fraction of his playing time, was -14.

(Just picking a few other catchers out of the chart: Russell Martin, who has been known to hit at the top of the Dodger lineup, was -9; the World Series catchers, Jorge Posada of the Yankees and Carlos Ruiz of the Phillies, were -17 and -12, respectively; Yadier and Bengie, the flying Molina brothers, combined for a -43. Much-hyped rookie Matt Wieters — Mauer with power, as he was billed last year at this time — was -18 in half a season. Just 23, and he runs like a Molina.)

This is quite the change for Mauer, who was a +19 in the 2008 season. The system is a bit different, which might be part of it; but he's another year older now too, and there may have been a deliberate effort to avoid taking chances with him.

That Punto didn't rate with the respondents isn't overly surprising, considering that our final memory on him on the bases is of him getting trapped off third base in the concluding game of the playoff series with the Yankees. It probably doesn't help any to know that he was thrown out on the bases just once (other than caught stealings) during the regular season.

Fresh poll up.