April's Tiniest Edges

One little thing won a game; another little thing nearly did.

This is about perhaps the two smallest tactics from the first month of baseball.

1.
A reader named Rich was watching a Dodgers/Twins day game earlier this month. There was a play in which Freddie Freeman lined a ball into the right-field corner, and Shohei Ohtani was thrown out on a perfect relay throw home by Carlos Correa. Rich rewatched it, admiring Correa’s rocket throw coming down the first base line. Then he rewatched it again, impressed by how quickly Correa caught the ball, turned and fired in one movement. He says he rewatched it “several times,” marveling at Correa’s perfectly efficient motion, no wasted ticks whatsoever. And then the next day he woke up and it suddenly hit him: Correa!?!?!?

“Is it normal for shortstops to field relay throws home from the right fielder?” he asked me. “I’m struck by the fact that despite thousands of games viewed, I’m not sure the answer to the question. ¹Maybe it’s evidence of the complex beauty of baseball, or evidence of my lifelong subpar powers of observation.”

So. In 1982, the Brewers published their players' manual, which includes positioning protocols for all sorts of batted ball/baserunner combinations, including this specific one. No suggestion of the shortstop taking the throw is proposed.

My fingers. But which ones???

So that’s our starting point, and it confirms what Rich (and probably you) and I all thought: That, on a ball in the right field corner, the second baseman traditionally jogs over to be the relay man home, while the shortstop goes to cover second base in case of a possible play at that bag.

But that was long ago. There’s a more modern example you might be thinking of, the most famous ball ever hit down the right field line with a runner on first base: Terrence Long’s double in the 2001 ALDS. On that ball, as well, the Yankees’ second baseman went out to make the cut; the first baseman was positioned behind him as the second cut-off man in case the throw went high; and the shortstop was nowhere near it all. That’s why Derek Jeter was able to sprint into the frame late and make The Jeter Flip home.

So, Jeter, too, wasn’t relaying from right field. But that was pre-shifts. Once the shift became commonplace last decade, shortstops were often positioned much closer to right field when line drives were hit into the corner. Even after the most extreme shifts were curtailed starting in 2023, the shortstop still usually starts the play basically in the center of the diamond against left-handed batters. And if he’s the best arm, perhaps he becomes the default cut-off man for all plays to the outfield.

However, when I wrote last year about the extraordinary camerawork that the Rangers’ broadcast used to film a ball hit into the right-field corner with a runner on first base, we saw that the Rangers had their second baseman Marcus Semien taking the relay throw, with the shortstop Corey Seager casually going over to cover second base, just like the Brewers coaching staff taught them in the 1980s.

So there are really two questions left. One: Do the Twins regularly do this, because of Correa's strong and/or Edouard Julien's less-strong arm? The answer to that is, yes. They've had one more play exactly like this one in 2024, and Correa again took the cut.

The other question is, do any other shortstops do what Correa does? I checked the Mets, whose shortstop has similar stature as a defender, but Francisco Lindor doesn't take the cut on such plays. I checked the Pirates and Reds, whose shortstops have similar elite-elite arm strength, but neither Oneil Cruz nor Elly De La Cruz takes the cut. I checked the Tigers, and I even checked the Angels from 2016 to 2020, because Javy Báez and Andrelton Simmons are similarly aggressive and creative and exceptional defenders, but neither of them takes/took the throws from the right field corner.

So, while I didn’t check every team and every shortstop, it appears that Rich noticed something tiny but anamolous: Carlos Correa, the best defender on the diamond when the Twins are playing defense, has identified a previously unnoticed opportunity to have the ball in his hands. Furthermore, this extremely tiny advantage actually paid off, when he threw out Shohei Ohtani at home plate, an in a game the Twins would win by a single run, no less. Rich, berating himself for perhaps having “subpar powers of observation,” in fact noticed one of the smallest strategic decisions in baseball this year. Great job, Rich!

Carlos Correa was actually asked about this after the game by a beat writer with comparable powers of observation. Correa named two factors, one in a

serious voice: “Julien knows that when we're on the left-handed shift and the ball goes over there I always go, so we switch right away”

and one in a

laughing voice: “If Julien had a better arm then I would let him go get it. That’s what I tell him.”

Hahahahahaha. But—slightly awkward dying down of laughter—that’s also probably true. Correa throws about 10 mph harder than Julien, and he knows it.

2.
The Pirates and Giants were tied 0-0 in the top of the ninth inning. Oneil Cruz was on first base, nobody was out, the Giants’ closer Camilo Doval was pitching. Michael A. Taylor hit a line drive down toward the right-field corner.

Mike Yastrzemski definitely earned the praise he got on both broadcasts for his play, cutting the ball off and quickly getting it back to second base to hold Taylor to a single. What I want to propose is: Did he hold Taylor to a single?

Perhaps yes. But there are three possibilities here.

1. Taylor saw Yastrzemski make that great play and held at first, thinking he might not make it to second safely.

2. Taylor knew Oneil Cruz was heading to third, and he realized that there was no need to even risk going to second if he had any doubt whatsoever about his ability to make it safely. He could just steal second base instead, probably on the first pitch of the next at-bat, probably without a throw, because the modern trends in first-and-third defense are moving toward Little League-style surrender on that play. Runners who try to steal second in the first-and-third situation usually get the base freely, without a throw.

3. Taylor knew Oneil Cruz was heading to third, and he realized that it was actually slightly better for him to be on first base. Because once he reached second base, he could no longer steal second base, and the act of stealing second base would create the opportunity for the defense to do something crazy, like try to throw him (Taylor) out. If they did try to throw Taylor out, then Cruz would likely be able to come home to score the go-ahead run. Skunk In The Outfield logic.

It’s a stretch to think Taylor was deliberately plotting that third possibility in the moment, though it is possible. The second possibility is very easy for me to believe. If Taylor knows that second base is his for the taking, on a stolen base, whenever he wants it, there’s no reason for him to take any sort of risk taking it on a hustle double, even if he’s quite likely to make it safely.

And he was quite likely to make it safely. Yastrzemski’s throw was good and very accurate, but it took 7.65 seconds—from the crack of the bat—for him to get the ball into the shortstop’s glove at second base. Michael A. Taylor has been an 80th percentile runner for many years, and last year he reached second base on a hustle double in 7.45 seconds. Those two-tenths of a second represent a big difference in baserunning math, without even accounting for the extra tenth or couple tenths of a second it would take the defender to put down a tag.

Taylor did, in fact, steal second base on the very next pitch. There was no throw down. Neither part of this was surprising. The trend toward stealing second in first-and-third has accelerated even more this year, since I wrote about it over the offseason. The leaguewide percentage of first-and-thirds that led to stolen-base attempts, by time period:

• 2000s: 5.1 percent

• 2010s: 6.6 percent

• 2020s: 8.3 percent

• 2023: 10.1 percent

• 2024: 11.7 percent

And the leaguewide success rate has gone up even more, which suggests that the throw-through rate has probably gone down even more:

• 2023: 87 percent success

• 2024: 92 percent success

Of the vanishingly few runners (I believe it’s nine) who’ve been thrown out at second on first-and-third attempts this year, at least three turned out to be successful outcomes for the offense. In those three cases—and perhaps others, I’m not sure, baserunning is a real pain to query—the runner stealing second stopped halfway, intentionally got in a rundown, and the runner on third came home to score. The offense got what it wanted: A run.

So, taking all this together:

Michael A. Taylor hit what was probably a relatively safe double, but he held at first, setting up a first-and-third situation. He avoided taking even the sliiiiiiightest risk of running into an out on the hit. He knew that he faced practically zero risk of running into an out on a subsequent stolen base attempt. And if he did run into that out on a subsequent stolen base attempt, then it would likely mean Cruz scoring and the Pirates taking the lead in the ninth inning. He stole. There was no throw. He got to second, anyway.

Ultimately, Doval stranded both runners and the Pirates lost. Still. Smart play.

1. As you can see, Rich is a double-spacer and, yes, even in his short email to me there was one triple space.