The Yankees are in a free fall and Vladimir Guerrero Jr stole the first base of his big league career. These two items are connected and not just through this belated note. Let’s dig in. But first, watch him run!
Some important context:
The Yankees won 103 games last year. They were an unkillable juggernaut that was only bested by the devious, cheating Houston Astros. The 2020 Yankees are scraping by, at or near .500 with a tenous grip on a playoff spot. Yankees fans are scoreboard watching Orioles and Mariners games in early September, the most damning sentence a baseball scribe can write.
This doesn’t have anything to do with Vlad Jr stealing aside from being important context: the Yankees are bad and we should all feel good about it.Vladimir Guerrero Jr is not a fast or especially good base runner. This space has covered his great love of Outs at length. His footspeed has decreased year-over-year, not a promising trend for a 21-year old athlete, and he’s one of the least valuable base runners in the game by Fangraphs’ calculations.
Prior to Monday’s game, Vlad Jr attempted just one stolen base in his career. He was thrown out by James McCann of the Chicago White Sox. I wouldn’t classifiy this as a straight steal attempt but rather a “stay out of the double play because the batter (Justin Smoak) is somehow even slower” kind of steal. Other than that, Vlad Jr stays put.
Yankees pitcher Adam Ottavino is terrible at holding runners on base. For his career, would-be base stealers have been successful 88% of the time. That is a Trout-esque clip at which to swipe bags.
With the Blue Jays down a run at a crucial juncture of an important game, Guerrero reached first and looked to get himself into scoring position. Despite annecdotal reports that the Yanks weren’t holding him on, the YES broadcast shows first baseman Luke Voit “holding on” his Blue Jays counterpart.
True, he isn’t camped out on the bag, glove extended for a potential pick off throw. This is a more relaxed approximation of holding runners, one that seems to be in vogue at the moment. Voit could easily receive a throw over from Ottavino and apply a tag as it’s not as though he’s playing behind the runner at first.
That said, this defensive urgency rates as about a 2 out of 10. Entirely reasonable for a slow-footed trailing runner, but still in the vinicity should he need to make a play.
As runners do against Ottavino, Vlad Jr got a great jump. He’s off to the races while the pitcher is still in the middle of his delivery.
With the pitch delivered—a typical Ottavino frisbee slider that sails high and out of the zone—Vlad Jr is nearly there. He’s going to beat the ball to the bag!
He’s in, he’s safe and, let’s be honest, he’s looking a little smug about it. As is his right. You only get to steal your first bag but once.
The opposite is smug would be Dan Shulman, whose call is heard in the Twitter video above.
Dan: “and stealing second base…is Vladimir Guerrero Jr!”
Buck: “Wow. I’m as surprised as you are.”
Dan: “Everybody’s surprised!”
Buck: [iconic horse laugh] He caught the Yankees flat-footed. I don’t think they expected that.
The Yankees broadcast suggested they, perhaps, did expect the Blue Jays to run on Ottavino. While lamenting that holding runners is something Ottavino “worked on during Spring Training,” they also note that Blue Jays are “very aggressive on the bases” and gave the club/player credit for knowing their opposition.
“Good scouting report for the Blue Jays and they did not hesitate.”
A momentous occasion and something to remember when we’re braying for the blood of ill-advised base runners. Creating opportunities is something good teams must do when they’re facing great ones.
If the Toronto Blue Jays hope to shock the world this October, it’s going to take more opportuntistic and heads-up plays like this one to make it happen. They can’t expect to go toe-to-toe with the best the American League has to offer. Maybe with a few more big bois rumbling down the base lines, they can make some more of their own luck.