Against runners, Angels falling down on the job
No team has allowed more stolen bases, but blame the pitchers, not the catchers, Maddon says.
If you’ve noticed the Angels have given up an inordinate number of stolen bases during the first 14 games of the season, you’re not alone.
Manager Joe Maddon said this week in a video call that he and coaches have been addressing the problem since pitchers and catchers first gathered for spring training in February. They made it a focus during training camp last month too.
But the effort hasn’t translated into success. During the first two weeks of the season, Angels opponents have swiped 16 bases.
No other team has been as generous.
This isn’t unfamiliar territory for the Angels. Limiting stolen bases wasn’t their forte last year, when they gave up an American League-high 99.
They have begun the 2020 season where they ended 2019 despite a mostly new catching tandem of Jason Castro and Max Stassi, who played in only 20 Angels games last year.
The blame doesn’t lie with the catchers, who have caught four would-be stealers and generally made strong throws to the bases when they couldn’t beat the runners.
Controlling an opponent’s running game is the duty of the pitcher.
“Everybody’s always worried about pitchers having good [pickoff] moves to first base,” Maddon said. “I just prefer they get the ball quicker to the plate.”
Maddon said it’s important to work on streamlining release mechanics and teaching an effective slide step at the beginning of pitchers’ professional careers. Otherwise, problems manifest at the major league level.
“A lot of times in the minor leagues, they permit pitchers to be as slow as they’d like to be, and try to explain that as ‘I don’t want to take the stuff away,’ ” Maddon said. “Well, I think that when they are quicker to the plate, when that foot gets up and down, your arm gets quicker. It gets where it wants to be sooner. You normally see better command, and the ability to control the running game. … It’s something that we really have to emphasize in the future.”
Until they’ve successfully reprogrammed the instincts of their pitchers, the Angels can at least take comfort in whom they’ve got behind the plate.
Castro and Stassi boast strong arms and roughly league-average pop times, a metric that represents the time between when a pitch hits the catcher’s mitt and his throw reaches the fielder’s glove.
Stassi’s pop time of 2.04 seconds last year lagged a tad behind Castros’s 2.0 seconds, which is considered elite.
On a steal of second base by Seattle outfielder Kyle Lewis on Wednesday night, Stassi performed better than the MLB average of 2.01 seconds. It took him 1.96 seconds to deliver the ball into the glove of shortstop David Fletcher. Stassi had another throw reach second base in 1.97 seconds, according to live MLB data provided to broadcasters.
For comparison: JT Realmuto, one of the game’s best defensive catchers, led baseball with a pop time of 1.89 seconds last year.
“Our catchers have thrown well,” Maddon said. “Their feet have been really good. I think J-Mo [catchers coach José Molina] has done a nice job with them. We just got to get the ball to them a little bit more quickly and then we’ll have better results.”
The Angels made progress limiting steals in Friday’s 4-3 loss to the Rangers.
Before the fourth inning, Stassi threw out two Rangers trying to steal second. But Stassi’s strong throw in the sixth — 1.99 seconds pop time, according to the Fox Sports West broadcast — didn’t arrive in time to catch Isiah KinerFalefa.
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