ANAHEIM, Calif. — It didn’t even take a particularly good throw to get Luis Rengifo at second as he attempted to stretch a single into a double.
This was the fifth inning in the Los Angeles Angels’ 4-3 loss Saturday to the Cleveland Guardians. A critical play in a close game. It should have been runners on first and third with no outs, the tying and lead runs on base. Instead, the first out was recorded. And the Angels never brought home that tying run.
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It was just another out on the bases for a team that leads MLB with 25. League average is 15. The Angels also were caught stealing twice that night.
“If you want to be a running team, you have to run,” manager Ron Washington said. “They have to learn how to do it. It’s something they’ve never done.
“The mistakes that we’re making on the basepaths, they’re not coaching mistakes. They’re decisions that the players are making.”
The Angels’ lack of base running follows a similar pattern of lacking fundamentals in almost all areas this season. And so too Washington’s placing the onus on the players and less so on himself or his staff when those mistakes occur.
In addition to leading the league in outs on the bases, the Angels also have the worst stolen-base percentage in the American League. They’ve stolen successfully just 69 percent of the time, with MLB average sitting at 78 percent. Stolen bases don’t count in the outs on the bases category.
The Angels were not a running team last year. Then-manager Phil Nevin was pretty open about that.
“We’re not really constructed to steal bases and move guys over,” he said at the outset of last season.
This new coaching staff, however, is taking the exact opposite approach.
And though there’s an understandable learning curve, the shift has often been to the Angels’ detriment.
“Anytime when you start to look at a change in mindset,” said Angels first-base coach Bo Porter, who also handles base running, “there’s going to be some growth mechanism that’s associated with that.
“If you go from one extreme to the next, there’s a common area where you’re going to find greater success. And there’s other areas where you’ll look and you’ll go, ‘OK, we’re going to have to have to really address the conceptual thought process of the decision-making.”
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The question for the Angels is how much of their mistakes can be attributed to growing pains. And how much of it is just bad mistakes that major leaguers shouldn’t make, regardless of experience.
That dichotomy can be seen in Jo Adell, who has mostly been a breakout player this season. However, April 10, while trailing 4-2 against the Tampa Bay Rays, he was out because he inexplicably overran the base while attempting to steal second.
That mistake isn’t necessarily a learning moment. It’s not part of growing his game. The true growing pains can be seen more in his other stolen-base attempts. His sprint speed is ranked in the 92nd percentile, and he’s one of the most naturally fast players in the sport. Still, Adell had attempted just 11 stolen bases in 178 MLB games before this season.
In 2024, he’s already attempted 14 steals. But he’s been caught six times. Adell is learning to translate his speed to smart base running on the fly, with mixed results so far.
“Base running is something that we’ve tried to do a better job of,” Adell said, “because it’s gotten us into some issues.”
Fast players getting caught stealing isn’t the issue, unless there’s no improvement. What’s more concerning are those confounding mistakes. In a 4-1 loss to the Pittsburgh Pirates on May 6, Nolan Schanuel, who leads the Angels in outs on the bases, didn’t slide at home when trying to score from first on a Mickey Moniak double.
It was a bad send by third-base coach Eric Young Sr. But still, Schanuel had a good chance to score if he’d slid. And sliding on close plays shouldn’t be something that needs to be taught at the big-league level.
“If you’re not pushing the envelope and playing it safe, you’re probably not going to make mistakes,” Porter said. “But you’re also not going to make plays that actually give you a better chance to create run-scoring opportunities. It’s a fine line.”
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The team hopes it all translates at some point. Zach Neto has six stolen bases, and six times getting caught. His sprint speed is in the 72nd percentile. So, in theory, as he gets more experience on the bases, he’ll improve.
Then there’s Mike Trout, who had cut stolen bases out of his game the previous five seasons. He started it again this season and was 6-of-7 before his meniscus injury earlier this month. This coaching staff unlocked something for him that had been missing.
Rengifo has 12 stolen bases, compared with three unsuccessful attempts. He’d never stolen more than six in a season. Clearly, letting him loose has been a good thing. But his base-running instincts overall have a way to go.
“The game tells you, when you have an opportunity, you take the base,” Rengifo said. “They say to be aggressive on the bases, and you take advantage. Sometimes we’re going to make mistakes, but we’ll learn.”
The Angels are 20-33, trending toward what appears to be yet another lost season. Significant changes are needed to the roster and organization to find success after a decade of missing the postseason.
But there is some value in those young players developing skills on the bases. If and when a winning team is built in Anaheim, it would be helpful if players like Adell, Neto, Rengifo and Schanuel were strong in this area. And the Angels staff is throwing them in the fire.
The question now is just how much these growing pains are leading toward better base running. Because through two months this season, there’s been little improvement. And a lot of head-scratching plays.
(Top photo: John Cordes / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)