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Arizona Diamondbacks base running success highlights Boston Red Sox failures

By Evan Marinofsky

Apr 28, 2017; Phoenix, AZ, USA; Arizona Diamondbacks outfielder A.J. Pollock (11) is congratulated by outfielder David Peralta (6) and manager Torey Lovullo (17) after scoring a run against the Colorado Rockies in the third inning at Chase Field. Mandatory Credit: Jennifer Stewart-USA TODAY Sports
Apr 28, 2017; Phoenix, AZ, USA; Arizona Diamondbacks outfielder A.J. Pollock (11) is congratulated by outfielder David Peralta (6) and manager Torey Lovullo (17) after scoring a run against the Colorado Rockies in the third inning at Chase Field. Mandatory Credit: Jennifer Stewart-USA TODAY Sports /
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The Arizona Diamondbacks have been one of baseball’s great success stories to this point in the season. They sit at 42-26 in the NL West, which is good for one game out of first place. Players such as Paul Goldschmidt and Jake Lamb are having career years while Zack Greinke is starting to pay dividends.

An article on The Ringer highlighted the Arizona Diamondbacks pristine ability to run the bases. The article pitches the idea that they are the best base runners in baseball and may be the best ever. Ben Lindbergh, the author of the piece, presents many reasons as to why the Diamondbacks are so good at base running.

Despite it being overlooked, base running is an essential part of baseball. Advancing bases in creative and innovative ways leads to more runs. But, advancing bases does come with a cost. Extending for an extra base and failing leads to more outs and less runs.

There doesn’t need to be a statistic to prove that.

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The bottom line is that the Diamondbacks have been successful at base running while the Boston Red Sox have not been.

After reading that last sentence, you’re probably wondering what the Red Sox have to do with this. In reality, the success that the Diamondbacks have had with base running is very telling with regard to moves the Red Sox didn’t make.

The Diamondbacks hired former Red Sox bench coach Torey Lovullo prior to this season. With the Red Sox, Lovullo thrived as bench coach and as manager. When John Farrell went down with cancer in August of the 2015 season, Lovullo took over as manager. During that time, Lovullo coached to a .636 winning percentage, which was much better than Farrell’s .439 up to that point.

In a podcast, former Red Sox third baseman Travis Shaw talked about the players on the team liking Lovullo a lot more than Farrell.

With all of these aspects, you’d think the Red Sox would have fired Farrell and promoted Lovullo to manager. It would have made sense: The players like Lovullo more and Lovullo is a better in-game manager.

But as the baseball world has come to realize, when something makes sense, the Red Sox don’t do it.

The Red Sox instead kept Farrell as manager and let Lovullo go to Arizona. The Diamondbacks have gone from the bottom of the NL West last season to right near the top; the Red Sox were projected to be owners of first place in the AL East. Instead, they sit a game back of the New York Yankees.

Farrell has been known as a notoriously bad in-game manager. The base running success of the Diamondbacks only enforces this fact.

There aren’t many statistics to measure base running. However, there is one, and it’s called BsR — it measures stolen bases, times caught stealing, a team’s ability to take extra bases on non-stealing plays, staying out of double plays, and avoiding other outs on the bases. The Diamondbacks rank number one in the league in this category with a whopping 19.4.

The Red Sox rank 18th with a -2.9.

The Red Sox have been making countless base running blunders as of late. In this latest series with the Philadelphia Phillies, the Red Sox made a ton of mistakes on the base paths, some coming in extra innings. Last night, a weak ground ball was hit to Jose Altuve at second base. Chris Young, who was on third at the time, got caught between third and home. This all took place with the Red Sox up 2-1 in the top of the ninth.

The Diamondbacks rank fifth in the majors in runs with 344 while the Red Sox rank 13th with 313.

Next: This Important Red Sox reliever is now done for the season.

If the Red Sox had kept Lovullo, fired Farrell, and promoted Lovullo to manager, they would have scored more runs and had a manager who wasn’t just good in the clubhouse, but good on the field too.

Oh, but wait: Farrell isn’t good in the clubhouse either.

All in all, the Diamondbacks tremendous base running skills are a large sign that the Red Sox made a huge mistake in never making him the manager of their team.

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