Based solely on Jose Trevino’s arm strength and pop time, it might not have been all that surprising that the Red Sox stole nine bases off him and the Yankees pitching staff on Sunday night.
But no other team had used Trevino in that way, which begs the question: Did the Red Sox expose a Yankees weakness and provide a blueprint that other teams could replicate, or was the Yankees’ run game just poorly executed overall?
“There are a couple of teams where that’s their DNA and that’s their style of play,” manager Aaron Boone said. “Obviously, the Red Sox have some fast guys and they play that style. We’ve played a few similar teams and we’ll prepare in a similar way and we have a lot of confidence in how we handle and control the running game.” [Sunday,] We just couldn’t get it done.”
Before Sunday, the Yankees repeatedly said that controlling the bases is a team effort, not just the catcher’s.
As of Monday, they had prevented stolen bases 25 percent of the time (16 of 65 attempts), which was 10th best in the major leagues.
According to Baseball Savant, Trevino has some of the best pitch framing in the game, but he’s on the other end of the spectrum when it comes to arm strength.
Among 61 qualified catchers, Trevino’s speed on the throw to second base was the lowest at 71.3 mph, while teammate Austin Wells’s 79.1 mph was 28th.
Trevino’s pop time of 2.07 seconds was the fourth slowest, while Wells was 30th in 1.97 seconds.
But in Baseball Savant’s “Above Average in Catchers Stopped Stolen Bases” (a measure of catchers who increase the number of stolen bases they stop compared to the average catcher’s projections that take into account runners and pitchers), Trevino is more of a middle-of-the-pack catcher, tied for 38th at minus-1.
Wells finished tied for 46th at minus-2.
There were several factors working in the Red Sox’s favor in Sunday’s blowout.
Most notable were the team’s three fastest players — Jarren Duran, David Hamilton and Sedan Raffaella — who each ranked in the top 50 in the game in sprint speed, reached base a combined nine times and stole bases seven times.
Boone noted the Red Sox “had some leads and were in the right mix” and played to their advantage, but defended the Yankees’ overall strategy.
Now they need to make sure it’s just a one-off incident and not a sign of things to come.
“It’s something we do very well as a team,” Boone said. “Again, it’s a team effort — pitchers, catchers, infielders — how we control it, overthrowing, different presentations. It’s something we take a lot of pride in here and have done a good job of, but sometimes things happen and we have to do a better job of it.”
In the initial voting results released Monday, Aaron Judge led all major league players in All-Star voting with 1,366,315 votes.
Juan Soto received 1,252,020 votes, ranking second among major leaguers.
Giancarlo Stanton was second among AL designated hitters, Trevino was third among AL catchers, Anthony Volpe was third among AL shortstops, Anthony Rizzo was fourth among AL first basemen, Oswaldo Cabrera was fourth among AL third basemen, Alex Verdugo was sixth among AL outfielders, and Gleyber Torres was seventh among AL second basemen.
The top two vote-getters at each position (top six for outfielders) will advance to the next voting stage.
