SoxAce Posted December 23, 2009 Share Posted December 23, 2009 It'll also feel good to have pretty much everyone in the lineup that can go from 1st to 3rd, or 2nd to home now. I like what we did eliminating the "station to station." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heads22 Posted December 23, 2009 Share Posted December 23, 2009 Fathom, who is logged in under your account? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
knightni Posted December 23, 2009 Share Posted December 23, 2009 QUOTE (SoxAce @ Dec 23, 2009 -> 01:19 AM) It'll also feel good to have pretty much everyone in the lineup that can go from 1st to 3rd, or 2nd to home now. I like what we did eliminating the "station to station." Unless Thome comes back. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fathom Posted December 23, 2009 Share Posted December 23, 2009 QUOTE (Heads22 @ Dec 23, 2009 -> 07:20 AM) Fathom, who is logged in under your account? I'm always more optimistic in the offseason Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
qwerty Posted December 23, 2009 Share Posted December 23, 2009 QUOTE (fathom @ Dec 23, 2009 -> 12:08 AM) They've talked about that a lot on Baseball Tonight, as Teahen has a handful of inside-the-parkers the past few years. He has hit two inside the park home runs in his career, both during 2008. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mark Teahen has a reputation as an exceptional base runner, but this season, he's been awful. The Royals lack team speed, to be sure. Their fastest guys are Bloomquist and Crisp and, surprise, they have graded out as the team's top base runners. Mostly, that's due to stolen bases but they also haven't hurt the team when it comes to taking the extra base. Speed isn't everything -- instincts and smarts are also essential to good base running. Through baseball history, there have been many outstanding base runners who weren't partcularly fleet afoot. Teahen and, to a lesser extent, David DeJesus have generally added value to their games by running the bases well. Teahen was +7 last season and is +52 for his career. DeJesus was -8 last year, but is +25 in his career, even though he is probably the worst base-stealing leadoff guy I've ever seen. So what's going on here? Is it overaggressiveness on the part of the base coaches? Is it a general philosphy by Trey Hillman to put opponents under pressure? Is it poor instruction on the part of base running coach Rusty Kuntz? Heck, I don't know, but I'm going to try to find out. Because the Royals lack speed, you'd figure the approach on the bases paths would be conservative. It is. The Royals have attempted to take an extra base 41 times this season, the fewest in baseball. By contrast, the Mets have tried for 85 extra advances this season. However, despite the conservative approach, KC has been gunned down 16 times on the bases. Only four teams have been thrown out more. After the game, I asked Teahen how he'd assess the Royals' success on the basepaths, and he didn't really see it as an issue, nor did he indicate that Hillman or any of the coaches have taken anybody to task. He termed the team's collective approach as "selectively aggressive." "I'm a guy that goes first to third or will try to stretch a single into a double," Teahen said. "I've been thrown out a couple of times this year, where in the past that hasn't really happened. I think maybe other teams are maybe just more conscious of me taking the extra base. "We just have to stay aggressive, because we don't have a ton of power." And, really, what can the Royals do? They don't have speed, outside of Crisp and Bloomquist. They can't completely stop trying to take extra bases, but they can be smarter. (It seems like some of the decisions on when to send guys home by third base coach Dave Owen have been a bit suspect.) But this is a roster with holes, and speed -- one of the five basic tools scouts look at -- is something you can't coach up. This is a problem that really has no solution. Well, except a different roster. http://uponfurtherreview.kansascity.com/?q=node/1078 Truly though... almost every article... even down to posts on message boards, suggest he is damn good. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SoxAce Posted December 23, 2009 Share Posted December 23, 2009 QUOTE (knightni @ Dec 23, 2009 -> 12:20 AM) Unless Thome comes back. Well if I can stomach Konerko's constant GIDP in most rallies and station to station running (though he is at least a productive hitter) than I can gladly take Thome back too. A.J. gets a pass since he has a terrific baseball I.Q. and can surprise at times on the speed, cause of his terrific reads as a baserunner. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
qwerty Posted December 23, 2009 Share Posted December 23, 2009 (edited) QUOTE (fathom @ Dec 23, 2009 -> 12:16 AM) I think the additions of Pierre and Teahen, as well as the subtraction of Podsednik, is going to have an amazingly positive influence on our baserunning. Well our EqBRR was 25th in the league last season... gonna be extremely hard to do worse this season. Equivalent Base Running Runs. Measures the number of runs contributed by a player's advancement on the bases, above what would be expected based on the number and quality of the baserunning opportunities with which the player is presented, park-adjusted and based on a multi-year run expectancy table. EqBRR is calculated as the sum of various baserunning components: Equivalent Ground Advancement Runs (EqGAR), Equivalent Stolen Base Runs (EqSBR), Equivalent Air Advancement Runs (EqAAR), Equivalent Hit Advancement Runs (EqHAR) and Equivalent Other Advancement Runs (EqOAR). The order of teams EqBRR can be seen here... and EQSBR for that matter. http://baseballprospectus.com/statistics/s...x.php?cid=69923 Edited December 23, 2009 by qwerty Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lostfan Posted December 23, 2009 Share Posted December 23, 2009 QUOTE (SoxAce @ Dec 23, 2009 -> 01:31 AM) Well if I can stomach Konerko's constant GIDP in most rallies and station to station running (though he is at least a productive hitter) than I can gladly take Thome back too. A.J. gets a pass since he has a terrific baseball I.Q. and can surprise at times on the speed, cause of his terrific reads as a baserunner. Every now and then AJ does something that makes me scratch my head, like he will round first on a single, slow down, then speed up and try to take 2nd and get tagged out by 4 steps. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caulfield12 Posted December 23, 2009 Share Posted December 23, 2009 Well, let's just agree to think of Teahen as the new Jose Valentin on the basepaths then, although he's certainly not fast, perhaps he has what is called "baseball quickness" and instincts/anticipation. The strange thing is that I lived in Kansas City until 2005 and then 2006-2007 and have no strong recollection of Mark Teahen as a baserunner, so I'll just defer to what others have said. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SoxFan1 Posted December 23, 2009 Share Posted December 23, 2009 http://mlb.mlb.com/media/video.jsp?content_id=7145175 "I'm on the South Side now! It's been about three years in the making; we've been trying to make this happen." I'm really anxious to see him play everyday. I've always liked the guy and I know he and Ozzie have a good relationship so we'll see what happens. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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