Baserunning is a component of teams’ ability to score runs. But it’s a smaller component than the more obvious skills like walks, hits, extra base hits, and home runs. For this reason, baserunning proficiency is sometimes overlooked. Although we usually focus on stealing bases as the main aspect of base running, in fact a larger facet of base running is advancing bases on batted balls and turning singles into extra bases.
According to Statcast, the Astros are one of worst teams in baseball at advancing runners on batted balls. I realized this when I saw this recent tweet by Tango, one of the architects of statcast, which pointed out that the Yankees are the worst base running team and the Astros are right behind them as the second or third worst.