You’ve surely heard the word “TOOTBLAN,” an acronym for Thrown Out On The Bases Like A Nincompoop, to describe a player’s poor baserunning mistakes.
The New York Yankees lead the league with 51 double plays grounded into, but they also lead the league with 26 outs made on the bases, 12 of those TOOTBLANs at home plate. Sunday’s loss to Detroit saw one of each, the double play killing a potential rally in the first and the out on the bases ending an eighth-inning rally.
With the latter, Gary Sanchez reached on an infield single, but when Zack Short’s throw skipped by Jonathan Schoop at first, Sanchez ran for second…and then stopped, ending up getting caught in an easy rundown for the final out of the eighth.
“I was aggressive out of the box, and when I noticed it was a bad throw, I tried to be aggressive again, but it ended up not being a good decision,” Sanchez said after the game through team interpreter Marlon Abreu. “It’s something that happens, and you have to understand it, turn the page, and make a better decision the next time.”
It happens, but it seems to happen too often to the Yankees and especially Sanchez, who has had a couple of questionable baserunning errors in the last week. This one cost the Yankees a chance at getting back in the game, as had he not run, Aaron Judge – the team leader in hits, average, home runs, extra-base hits, walks, average, on-base percentage, slugging, and OPS – would have come up with runners on the corners, one swing away from pulling the Yankees to within 6-5.
“To be honest, it’s tough when something like that happens in any situation, regardless of when it happens,” Sanchez said. “You’re trying to make the best decision for your team, no matter when it happens in the game or what the score is, and when you don’t, you feel bad about it because you’re being counterproductive.”
Sometimes, TOOTBLANs are “the right play in the moment” as manager Aaron Boone said, but he believes this one was just a mental error for his catcher.
“There are times when you may make an out on the bases from aggression, and it’s the right play in the moment, so you do need to be able to differentiate,” Boone said, “but that’s a case there of knowing the situation and understanding the score. You have to be aware of the ballpark and how it plays. These are things we certainly address, but that’s a mental error in that spot.”
It seems as if mental errors are another category the Yankees’ number is high in, and it’s one of those things that the skipper knows his team needs to button up ASAP with a tough homestand ahead.
After 53 games, the Yankees have grounded into as many double plays this year as they did last season and have double the amount of outs on the bases (13 in 2020), and both of their current totals are close to the league's worst totals in the 60-game 2020 season (53 GIDP by the Mets and Brewers, 27 OOB by the Indians and Cardinals).
Even worse, the Yankees' paces for 156 double plays and 79 outs on the bases would be well above the 146 GIDP (Houston) and 64 baserunning outs (Cubs) that were the league-worst marks in the last full season of 2019.
“A lot of times, we’ve put a lot of these mistakes behind us, but that part of the game needs to be cleaned up,” Boone said. “In a lot of cases they’re mental mistakes. All we can do is address them, and try to fix them as best we can, but we have to be better. We need to find a way to play cleaner baseball more consistently, because we’re about to go up against some good teams.”
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