When we conduct baseball analysis, or at least when we assess a specific player’s contributions to a team, we usually concentrate on three things: offense, pitching, and defense. However, we tend to forget that baserunning is also an essential part of the game, and it counts towards a player’s WAR. Simply put, there are ways to quantify how much a runner contributes to its team on the basepaths.
We love analyzing the Yankees, but I feel that more often than not, we leave baserunning out of our assessment and, instead, concentrate on home runs, strikeouts, UZR, DRS, and other things.