If there’s one thing the Toronto Blue Jays have been known for in recent years it’s their power. Since Jose Bautista’s breakout in 2010 the team has hit 1043 home runs, 41 more than anyone else in baseball.
Playing at the hitter-friendly Rogers Centre and employing prolific sluggers like Bautista, Edwin Encarnacion, and Josh Donaldson has helped forge this identity and they have not strayed from it in 2015.
So far, the Blue Jays rank sixth in home runs, first in doubles, and fourth in slugging percentage on the way to a MLB-best 5.41 runs per game.
The offence has undoubtedly been driven by its big bats, but there is another factor in its success that has gone widely overlooked: stellar base running.
Entering the season the Blue Jays had two major base-stealing threats in Jose Reyes and Dalton Pompey. Neither remains on the current team and yet the Blue Jays have been surprisingly successful on the basepaths.
| Statistic | Blue Jays | MLB Rank |
|---|---|---|
| Stolen Bases | 21 | T-11th |
| Caught Stealing | 2 | 2nd |
| Stolen Base Efficiency | 91% | 2nd |
| Base Running Runs | 7.6 | 1st |
| Outs on the bases | 9 | T-3rd |
This team simply does not have the speed on the bases to be among the league-leaders in steals, but they have been both aggressive and efficient.
One example of this base-running acumen has come in the form of scoring from second on singles. Last season third base coach Luis Rivera was criticized for being too conservative, but this year has been a different story.
When a single’s hit with a man on second, the average MLB team has stopped runners at third 12 times and scored 21 runs. Rivera and the Blue Jays have plated a league-best 34 runners in this situation, putting up only nine stop signs.
A recent example of an aggressive call by Rivera in this scenario came during the Blue Jays’ recent homestand when he sent the relatively slow Chris Colabello home on a sharp single to left field by Donaldson.
On the surface this looked like a poor decision by the Blue Jays. Colabello was barely around third when Hanley Ramirez gathered the ball, so a good throw likely would have had him at the plate.
Fortunately for the Blue Jays, the throw was not good or close to it. Sending Colabello was a gamble against the arm of Ramirez, a player who came into the season without a single inning of pro experience in the outfield. The Blue Jays took a chance because they figured they could beat a guy learning a new position, and they were right.
This play was not the first time the team victimized the questionable arms of the Boston outfield. In April, Rivera tested Brock Holt — a utility player with one career outfield assist — by sending Devon Travis home on a fairly shallow sacrifice fly.
Bautista pokes the ball to right field and Holt catches it in stride ready to let fly. Travis is a solid runner, but he’s not a burner and once again a stronger throw likely would have resulted in an out. But the toss comes in short and to the right of the plate allowing Travis to score.
An enormous component of effective base running is targeting the opponents’ weak spots. Running on outfielders with poor arms is one application of that idea, but the most obvious is running on pitchers who are too slow to the plate.
One of the ways to steal bases as efficiently as the Blue Jays have is to pick on vulnerable pitchers. Travis got his first MLB steal going after Ubaldo Jimenez, a hurler who has allowed 95 stolen bases since 2011 — the second-highest total in baseball.
What’s interesting about this attempt is how modest Travis’s lead is. Both of his feet are firmly on the dirt when Jimenez goes into his motion, but because the right-hander’s delivery is so deliberate he gives his catcher very little chance to nab the runner.
Sometimes the Blue Jays’ success on the bases can’t be linked to a superior strategic decision, and instead it’s just a matter of forcing the other team to make a play.
In Cleveland earlier this month, Kevin Pillar appeared dead to rights, but scored since Indians catcher Roberto Perez dropped the ball.
As it turns out, Pillar might not even have needed Perez’s gaffe as he pulled off an acrobatic slide-and-roll maneuver.
Over and over again the Blue Jays have shown a willingness to push the envelope on the base paths and so far it’s paid off. The current squad doesn’t have the wheels to swipe too many bags, but they’ve shown by taking calculated risks they can be as effective on the bases as anyone.
The Blue Jays’ power may be largely responsible for their impressive run totals, but when it comes to finding ways to score this is not a one-dimensional team.
