Houston Astros: Awesome offense allows cautious approach on basepaths

The Houston Astros are by far and away the best offense in baseball and making their way to one of the best offenses of all time. They lead the league in runs scored, batting average, hits, on-base percentage, slugging percentage, OPS, and have struck out the fewest times of any team in the major leagues.

The Houston Astros prolific offense gives them an advantage in a part of the game that gets over looked. And that’s the approach a team has on the basepaths. While the Astros lead every offensive category involving a bat, they are ninth in steals in the majors.

The new style of baseball is limited attempts at stealing a base. You don’t want to run yourself out of an inning. And that is evidenced by the current league leader in stolen bases being Billy Hamilton with 38 swipes. Back in the hey day of stolen bases in the 1980’s, players who were primarily base stealers regularly stole 50-60. That was standard.

The prolific ones got up to 70-80 regularly including some absurdly ridiculous seasons where 100 stolen bases were cracked. Rickey Henderson and Vince Coleman had three 100 steal seasons each during the 1980’s. If you think Joe Dimaggio’s hit streak or Ted Williams .400 batting average will never be broken, trust me you’ll never see another 100 steal season in the Major Leagues either.

A cautious approach on the base paths is quite popular these days. Now with the free spirits the Astros have like George Springer and Jose Altuve, they’re going to take risks because they play aggressive and also, let’s face it, it’s fun to run.

But with the big boppers up and down this lineup, the Astros have the luxury of being able to play it safe knowing full well the guy behind them can knock them in. You don’t need to take the chance of being thrown out on a stolen base or stretching for an extra base.

Unless in a dire situation, like down one late in the game and you want to put a runner in scoring position from first or with less than two outs move the runner from second to third with a steal to get into sacrifice fly position, the Astros don’t need to press the issue.

You’re forced to take more chances if your six-nine hitters (an issue the Astros had last year) don’t inspire confidence in their ability to get the runner home.

And that is a great position to be in. The necessity of calculated risks is lessened by having top to bottom solid hitters who have the ability to make contact, but also the ability to take a walk knowing that if the pitcher chooses not to pitch to them, he has to pitch to the next guy in the lineup who is just as dangerous.

If you’re a team that struggles offensively, if you’re down 3-0 in the fifth inning, you may feel the need to press the issue on the base paths if you get a runner on to scratch away from that lead knowing full well your offense can’t put up crooked numbers. You’re forced to take more chances if your six-nine hitters (an issue the Astros had last year) don’t inspire confidence in their ability to get the runner home.

We saw how much the Astros made mistakes being overly-aggressive on the base paths last year, and the bottom part of the order’s lack of ability to bring people home contributed to that. Now with the depth of the lineup and its solid approach at the plate, the team is still aggressive on the base paths, but not to the level of recklessness we saw last year.

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Now if a runner is on first and a double is hit in the gap, you don’t have to send the runner home unless you are absolutely positive he will score. Same with sacrifice flies and knowing that even with two outs, the next guy can bring you home from third so don’t go for it unless you have it.

The Astros are still aggressive baserunners because they’re young, athletic, and brash. But when playoff time comes, it is nice to know that in close games, they don’t need to take a chance of being thrown out at any base because their lineup provides them the luxury of taking that safe approach.

There’s no need for an Astros runner to ever be thrown out on the base paths because that means they took a very unnecessary risk with the depth of this lineup and its ability to knock people in and knock pitchers around. Other teams are forced to rely on scratching and clawing with sacrifice bunts, stolen bases and risky attempts at steals.

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The Astros have shown this year they are capable of playing small ball. But the fact that 1-9 they have the most dangerous lineup in baseball and can explode for big innings, small ball is a secondary resort. And forcing the issue on the base paths isn’t a necessity. Something that will be very important in close games not just for the regular season, but come October. And in playoff baseball, you take every advantage you can get. The ability to play patient on the base paths is just one more advantage this absurdly talented team will have.

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