Since June 12th (44 games the Yankees as a team has only attempted 11 stolen bases (7-11) Young (3-4) Teixeira (1-1) Gregorius (1-1) Pirela (1-1) Rodriquez (1-1) Headley (0-1) Drew (0-1) Ellsbury (0-1) since his return July 8th (24 games) Gardner (0-0) in his last 44 games. Last attempt was June 12th. The running games has pretty much been halted due to the middle of the order (71 HRs) Not wanting to take a chance of getting thrown out (Ellsbury/Gardner) with A-Rod, Tex & McCann coming up behind them. Do you agree with this approach or disagree?
...to be fair, for the most part, they've been scoring a ton of runs recently and with ARod and Tex hitting bombs left and right, I don't see taking the bats out of their hands...in many situations, even if Gardner or Ells does steal 2B the opposing team is much more likely to simply intentionally walk some of the bashers. ...yeah, they could run more but I have no doubt when a SB is really needed, Gardner and/or Ellsbury can deliver.
In the last month or so I've seen several situations where getting someone in scoring position would've helped score a run & NOTHING!
While they have been mashing the ball, I definitely feel they should be running more... ESPECIALLY Ellsbury & Gardner
girardi banned ice cream from the clubhouse for health reasons , now he has banned base stealing so no one gets hurt!
They're not running at all. Call me crazy but I think getting some extra runners in scoring position once in a while wouldn't hurt. JMO.
...with all of the positives on offense, I'm not gonna second guess the low number of base stealing attempts. ...and again, if Gardner/Ells steals a base with 1 0r 2 out the opposing team is simply gonna walk ARod/Tex...you can try to assert that Gardner/Ells may have scored from 2B on a single but you can also conversely assert that some of the HRs hit by the "bashers" may have ended up being solo shots, if they happened at all, instead of 2-3 run HRs. http://www.nj.com/yankees/index.ssf/2015/07/why_have_the_yankees_stopped_stealing_bases.html http://m.mlb.com/news/article/141606838/stolen-bases-not-a-priority-for-yankees http://yankees.lhblogs.com/2015/08/06/pregame-notes-258/ http://www.lohud.com/story/sports/m...yankees-have-stopped-stealing-bases/31246543/
Here's my only argument with all that, if Ellsbury steals a base Gardner is next up with a runner in scoring position. If Gardner steals a base yes they may walk A-Rod but who the hell would walk A-Rod & take there chance with Teixeira? If there were only one threat I could agree with holding Gardner but opposing pitchers have to deal with 2 threats. Now I'm not saying to run with abandonment but when you're in a game where there's very little scoring getting a player into scoring position would be very helpful.
Yeah there's a difference between taking the bat out of your sluggers hands and not running at all. With those numbers it's like they forgot that you can steal bases at this level.
...Ellsbury is not that far removed from a leg injury...as far as your scenario with walking ARod in order to face Tex, what if Gardner is on 1B and they pitch to ARod and he makes an out ?...there's then not much of a reason for Gardner to attempt to steal because the opposing team then has no reason to pitch to Tex. ...and the opposing team does not have to "intentionally" walk them. They can also unintentionally walk them by throwing "junk" and possibly get them to go fishing by swinging at a bad pitch. ...there's many arguments that can be made for both cases, but I just don't see it as a problem at this point, one way or the other. Plus, as one of the linked articles pointed out, the way ARod and Tex have been hitting HRs, Gardner/Ells are still "in scoring position" when the bashers go yard, whether they're on 1B or 2B. ...also, Ells and Gardner are hitting about .213 and .240 during July and August...so that's part of the equation too.
... since the AS break the Yanx have lost only 6 times and only 3 of those losses (2-1, 7-6. 4-3) were close games where Gardner/Ells stealing "may" have made a difference. And out of those games there was only ONE instance where either of them even had an opportunity to steal a base. ...so what we're talking about here is ONE instance of a SB opportunity since the AS break that may have resulted in a run. And that lone instance is even debatable because Gardner singled right behind Ellsbury...Gardner and Ells now on 1B and 2B with nobody out and guess what?...yup, the next 3 batters failed to get them home. ...fwiw, I only went as far back as the AS break because I felt 20 games was enough and to be honest, I didn't feel like going back any further.
