Do the Astros need to improve baserunning?

Statcast indicates the Astros aren’t very good at baserunning. Will the Astros address this in 2025?

Baserunning is a component of teams’ ability to score runs. But it’s a smaller component than the more obvious skills like walks, hits, extra base hits, and home runs. For this reason, baserunning proficiency is sometimes overlooked. Although we usually focus on stealing bases as the main aspect of base running, in fact a larger facet of base running is advancing bases on batted balls and turning singles into extra bases.

According to Statcast, the Astros are one of worst teams in baseball at advancing runners on batted balls. I realized this when I saw this recent tweet by Tango, one of the architects of statcast, which pointed out that the Yankees are the worst base running team and the Astros are right behind them as the second or third worst.

During the regular season, the rankings of the bottom ten base running teams on batted balls, according to Baseball Savant is shown below:

Baseball Savant

The Detroit Tigers, the victor over the Astros in the playoffs, are ranked second best (behind the Diamondbacks) in base running. And the ability of the Tigers to advance runners with base running was noticeable in that series. On the playoff stage, base running can become even more important, particularly in low scoring games. For example, in the World Series, this facet of the game is apparent, with a Top Ten base running team—the Dodgers—facing the very worst base running team, the Yankees.

This isn’t to say that base running determines whether a team will be good or not. Based on the statcast leaderboard,six of the top ten base running teams (Tigers, Dodgers, Padres, Phillies, Brewers, Royals) made the playoffs and four of the bottom ten teams (Yankees, Astros, Mets, Braves) also made the playoffs. It’s possible to be very bad at running the bases and still win a playoff spot, but it’s also helpful to be in the top third of base running.

Good base running teams can improve the efficiency of scoring runs. Taking extra bases is more efficient than station-station base running. In the game threads this year, we saw a lot of complaints about the Astros’ inability to score, even when they get a hit with runners in scoring position (RISP). I’m not sure how real this problem was in 2024, but the Statcast metric lends credibility to the complaints.

Both the Yankees and Astros are aging teams, which likely reduces base running efficacy. But “age” is not the only factor affecting base running skill. There are older players who are quite good at taking extra bases. And some younger players seem to lack awareness on the bases, making them poor base runners.

My previous articles have discussed an apparent decline in the Astros’ extra base power over the past few years. Teams with declining ISO and home run power probably need a higher base running ranking to compensate for the declining extra base hitting.

The Astros are ranked 28th in the base running metric that includes stolen bases (-12.8 runs). Given this poor ranking, I doubt it is a coincidence that the Astros are less efficient at translating hits with RISP into runs. The Astros are ranked 6th in batting average (.267) with RISP. But the Astros are only ranked 14th in scoring runs with RISP. A large part of this discrepancy likely is due to lessor extra base power with RISP. The Astros’ ISO with RISP is ranked 21st. But it also makes sense that the poor base running rank also contributed to less efficient run scoring.

In 2024 most of the Astros’ offensive players were negatives in terms of base running. Only two players are positives in running the bases: Jake Meyers and Jeremy Pena.

Baseball Savant 2024

When stolen bases are included in the baserunning metric, late season additions Ben Gamel and Jason Heyward provided positive contributions (0.3 and 0.2 runs) in a small sample. Otherwise, the player results are poor and demonstrate why the Astros rank so low in baserunning prowess.

So, how could the Astros attempt to improve their base running ranking in 2025?

• Perhaps more intensive efforts at base running practice in spring training? Several years ago the Astros brought Cesar Cedeno, who was a base running legend, into spring training to coach the Astros on base running. Jeff Bagwell is another ex-Astros player whom is regarded as a great base runner. At the beginning of the 2024 season, Manager Joe Espada said he wanted to create the Astros’ identity as a good, aggressive base running team. But this may have been primarly an aspirational goal. The Astros’ base running ranking indicates that the execution was lacking.
• In 2024, Gary Pettis was the third base coach and base running coach. The Astros did not renew his contract. I’m not saying that the decision to cut Pettis loose is due to the Astros’ baserunning issues. But this coaching change may reset the Astros’ effort at changing the quality of their base running. The Astros will replace him with third base coach Tony Perezchica. Perezchica’s role as third base coach will directly affect base running advances. It’s unclear whether he will also have a role in coaching base runners generally. (Perezchica will also hold the title of “run prevention coordinator.”) But it’s worth noting that the Statcast metric ranks Perezchica’s former team, the Diamondbacks, as No 1 in base running.
• Another approach is to acquire players with good base running skills. Dana Brown’’s late season signings of Gamel and Heyward provides an example of acquistions that seemingly improved the base running. If Alex Bregman does not return in 2025, base running ability could enter into the consideration of a replacement. Enrique Hernandez, Isiah Kiner-Felefa, Matt Vierling , and Abraham Toro are third basemen with good base running numbers who possibly could be acquired. (I’m providing this more as an illustration, rather than advocating any particular trade.)
• An infusion of young players on the roster could help improve the base running capability, since it would improve team speed. If Dezenzo platoons at 1b, he probably would improve the base running at that position. Pedro Leon has tremendous talent and should be a player who can improve the team’s base running. Unfortunately, Leon had some blunders on the bases in his limited appearances last year and he ended up a net negative for the Astros’ base running. Perhaps the Astros could improve his base running with more focused coaching in the spring Jacob Melton could earn a call up at some point next season and he might be a candidate to improve the base running.