Matt Joyce is not subtle about tipping his stolen base attempts

The Angels have not been a great baserunning team this season, to put it mildly. Through Friday, they’ve been thrown out on the bases like nincompoops an MLB-worst 26 times, and that doesn’t take into count the 13 times they’ve been caught stealing. A generally aggressive approach — their 46% extra-base taken rate is fifth in baseball — and the continued employment of Gary Disarcina seem to be the primary causes of their baserunning woes, but a lack of fundamentals has also contributed to the problem.

Take Matt Joyce.

Outside of his All-Star 2011 season, when he nabbed 13 bags in 14 attempts, Joyce has never been anyone’s idea of a stolen-base threat. He’s been slightly above-average on the base paths overall in his career — i.e. +7.7 BaseRunning Runs — but he’s been successful in just 48% of his 27 stolen-base attempts since 2012, including an 0-for-2 start to this year (plus a pick-off). Part of that is likely just Joyce slowing down with age, but it’s also the result of him letting everyone in the stadium know that he’s about to try swiping a base.

Here is a still of Mike Trout the moment before he breaks for second on a steal attempt:

Notice how he’s parallel with the baseline, his knees are directly over his feet, and his weight is (mostly) centered. His hips are listing ever-so-slightly toward second, but it’s nothing egregious. If I hadn’t already told this was a steal, you’d have no way of knowing it was. This is how it’s supposed to be.

Now here are stills of Matt Joyce at the same moment in his lead at two separate points in the season, from three different angles:

Notice how he’s not parallel to the baseline, his left knee is caved in under his body, and his weight is distributed mostly to his right side. His hips aren’t listing toward second but the rest of him is, making it incredibly difficult to get back to first on a throw over.

Not convinced? Perhaps this GIF from the above pick-off will allay your doubts:

See how he twists that knee in and then slowly tilts toward second? Yeah, that’s not good. That’s like Rule #1 of the “What Not To Do While Leading Off” handbook. He may as well shout out to the other team that he’s going, because he’s making it pretty obvious as it is.

All that said, it’s hard to fault Joyce for cheating some on his leads — the guy isn’t quick at all, and yet the Angels have asked him to run almost as frequently as Erick Aybar. You gotta do what you gotta do. What does bug me, though, it that he’s been doing it for going on at least two months now and the coaching staff still hasn’t seemed to notice. I don’t know about you, but that seems about as negligent as not realizing you’re about to send Albert Pujols and his grand piano home on a hard-hit ball to Yoenis Cespedes.

C’mon, guys. Get it together, please.