Outs on The Bases
You are sitting somewhere watching your favorite team play baseball and witness a player on said team have delusions of grandeur attempting to stretch a double into a triple they had no chance of achieving. You may scream a few profanities in the air after witnessing such futility, but there is, in fact, a specific idiom in the MLB.com glossary for such actions: TOOTBLAN.
TOOTBLAN is an acronym spun up by Cubs blogger Tony Jewell 15 years ago which stands for thrown out on the bases like a nincompoop. The lasting power of this acronym is a testament to the frequency of these events, but much like everything else in baseball, we have actual data to measure the frequency of such events. Baseball-Reference.com has a Team Baserunning/Misc report which allows us to see just how many times a team is giving away outs on the bases.
Baseball Reference defines outs on the bases as such:
Runner is put out while making a baserunning play. Example plays: out advancing on a fly ball, out attempting to reach another base on a hit, doubled off on a line drive, or out attempting to advance on a wild pitch or passed ball. Does not include pickoffs, caught stealings, or force plays.
A member of the Joe Sheehan Newsletter Slack Community asked recently, “I do wonder if the Reds will look at how many baserunning outs they’ve made this year as it seems like they’re TOOTBLANing every game. My curiousity got the better of me, so I have decided to dive into the aforementioned baserunning report to see how teams did in 2022 and see how they are doing in 2023 to judge whether Cincinnati may adjust their ways in the future or just go full LEROOOOOOOY Jenkins!
The league average team total for outs on the bases in the 2022 season was 47. The Tampa Bay Rays had the most instances at 73 while the Seattle Mariners had the fewest at 31.
This season, the league average team total for outs on the bases as games begin on September 9th is 40. Cincinnati is indeed leading the league in TOOTBLANing with 61 outs on the bases followed by Cleveland and Tampa Bay tied at 54 apiece. Tampa Bay should finish the season with fewer outs on the bases than they had in 2022 when Yandy Diaz and Randy Arozarena were in a neck-and-neck battle for the TOOTBLAN championship, but they continue to push the envelope on the bases figuring the rewards outweigh the risks.
Tampa Bay is no doubt emboldened by the fact their 5.3 runs per game is the fourth-highest total in the league behind Atlanta, Los Angeles, and Texas. Cleveland was better than the league average last season, but has decided to make up for its loss of power in the lineup with a more aggressive approach on the bases this season to help solve their perpetual scoring problem as the club is 28th in runs per game this season ahead of only Detroit and Oakland. Finally, the Chicago Cubs have continued their aggressiveness as one of the three teams who are set to finish in the top ten for the most outs on the bases in both 2022 and 2023.
Conversely, Los Angeles and Houston have had a complete turnaround in this area after finishing with the second and third-highest outs on the bases totals in the 2022 season. The Astros currently have the fifth-lowest total in this season while the Dodgers have the third-lowest total as both teams are in excellent position for strong post-season pushes.
The table below shows each team’s outs on the bases ranking in 2022 and 2023:
In short, some teams do in fact course correct after seeing the errors of their ways while others may believe the rewards outweigh the risks. It should also be noted that the three teams who continue to push the envelope on the bases are teams infused with younger players and two of them are self-labeled small-market clubs which do not pursue the expensive contracts associated with proven power hitters.
