Tim KurkjianApr 8, 2026, 07:00 AM ETCloseSenior writer ESPN Magazine/ESPN.com Analyst/reporter ESPN television Has covered baseball since 1981Multiple Authors
To be clear: None of this is to blame Isiah Kiner-Falefa for the Game 7 loss. That epic game contained so many moving parts, so many other chances for the Blue Jays and Los Angeles Dodgers to win or lose. Kiner-Falefa’s lead off third base that night was just one of many elements that will be dissected for the next 50 years.
That play, however, inspired another examination of baserunning in the major leagues, which is spectacularly awful given the remarkable talent in the game today. The players are bigger, faster, stronger and better than ever, yet, paradoxically, they run the bases more improperly than at any time in perhaps the past half-century.
“The coaches wanted a shorter lead and a smaller secondary lead,” Kiner-Falefa said. “It’s organizational policy. I did what I was told. It was not the sole reason that we lost the game. It was a great learning experience. If I could do it over again, I’d have gotten a couple of steps out. I do what the organization wants.”
After the drama of Toronto’s Game 7, though, players and front office executives alike are learning just how high the stakes can be.
MIKE ROBERTS IS 76 years old. He is demonstrating the proper way to take a lead, a secondary lead and how to run the bases. And he is barefoot.
“I don’t know anyone else that teaches that way, the equipment man has to throw my socks away at the end of spring training,” Mike Roberts said. “It’s like taking yoga on the beach. It’s like Rocky sprinting on the beach. It gives you a better feel of the ground. …
“I want them to feel the ground, to come out of the ground like a catcher coming off his knees to throw. I started this back years ago with [former major leaguers] Walt [Weiss] and B.J. [Surhoff] at Carolina in the early ’80s. I was taught this by [former Florida Southern coach] Hal Smeltzly. He was a phenomenal infield instructor. We would take infield with no gloves and no shoes on. You get in a flow, kind of like yoga.”
Hall of Famer Johnny Bench, arguably the best defensive catcher ever, also said players today should rely more on their guts.
“It is an instinctive thing. You don’t need anyone to tell you [what to do on the bases],” he said. “I see players doing these things today, and say, ‘What are they thinking?’ They don’t even think. They don’t know baserunning. They don’t know anything. These guys today are so good. They are phenomenal. But for them not to be able to read a ball … ”
Though Kiner-Falefa said he was reacting to the Blue Jays’ directives in Game 7, Molitor also said he would have read the situation differently.
Kiner-Falefa’s out wasn’t the only baserunning blunder by the Blue Jays in the Fall Classic. Toronto lost Game 6 in part because Addison Barger, who was the potential tying run, was doubled off second base on a line drive to Dodgers left fielder Enrique Hernandez, a stunning end to any game. It was the first game in the history of the postseason that ended on a 7-4 putout.
Brian Roberts, Mike’s son, stole 285 bases in his 13-year big league career, at an 80% success rate. Mike says Brian “is the most instinctive baserunner I’ve ever seen.” Mike believes Brian is the first player in the modern era to leave his feet — literally hop — while taking a lead with the ball still in the pitcher’s hand.
Brian Roberts said he started doing the jump lead in college, but he used it only at first base. When he got to pro ball with the Orioles, a coach, Joe Tanner, helped him perfect it.
Roberts stole third base 83 times in 93 attempts, an 89.2% success rate. Last season, Pittsburgh’s Double-A team, Altoona, that Roberts instructed, went 19-for-19 in steals of third base.
“Others can disagree, but there is a way that you can be safe 100% of the time stealing third base,” Mike Roberts said. “Brian understood how to be safe at third because you do not run if you’re not sure you will be safe. I’ve been teaching in pro ball, and the biggest struggle is getting the players to buy into this concept.”
WHEN MIKE ROBERTS WORKS with a team like the Blue Jays, he focuses on many things, but key among them, he said, are “momentum, timing and using baseball IQ and the knowing positioning of the defense.”
“Great baserunners have great feet and a little daredevil in them,” he said. “I’d like to see baseball do more momentum leads where you really work on timing. A great example is a defensive back who is trying to block a field goal. They start 10, 15 feet away from the line of scrimmage, they run horizontally to gain momentum, and when the ball is snapped, they are flying.
“I’d love to see baseball go more momentum leads versus just shuffle your feet horizontally, then run. Momentum leads can lead to much better baserunning and base stealing. And still everyone will be OK, not get picked off. When you don’t have a bat in your hand or a glove on your hand, every player is a sprinter. We need more of a sprinter’s mentality. We are coming out of the blocks. And we are cheating a little just by coming out of the blocks.”
The momentum lead has been extended into what Yankees manager Aaron Boone calls a “vault lead,” which is done extensively by Yankees shortstop Anthony Volpe, who starts his move to second base on stolen base attempts by leaving the ground with both feet. (“Brian’s feet never left the ground like that,” Mike Roberts said.)
Mike Roberts uses what he calls “the double clap drill” in instructing baserunners. It is a rhythmic clap, one after the other. On the first clap, the new-school runner goes. On the second clap, the old-school guy goes.
“When I was an old-fashioned baseball player playing pro ball in the ’70s, I’d take my 11-, 12-, 13-foot maximum lead at first,” Roberts said. “When Brian came along in 2003, he takes a 6-foot lead, he’s going to be half the distance I am, but he’s going to shuffle lead, time the pitcher. In the double clap drill, on the first clap, the momentum runner starts. On the second clap, the old-fashioned runner, Mike Roberts, starts to run. Brian is going to fly by me because he’s got momentum. …
“Mookie and Javy have great anticipation,” Roberts said. “You don’t get antsy when you anticipate. That leads to activation. That leads to acceleration. The three A’s of baserunning.”
It is an art perfected by the greatest baserunners, including Jackie Robinson, Lou Brock and Rickey Henderson — the greatest base stealer of all time.
Bench said the best baserunner he ever saw was ex-Dodger Davey Lopes, who was adept at getting a good lead and reading the pitcher. Bench also played every day with Joe Morgan, who, in his back-to-back MVP seasons in 1975 and 1976, stole 127 bases and was caught only 19 times. No one took a bigger lead than Morgan. In the old days of AstroTurf fields with the sliding cutouts around the bases, Morgan would often get both his feet on the second-base side of the cutout, a lead of roughly 15 feet.
“Joe knew exactly the lead,” Bench said. “He kept a diary. He knew the pitchers, what move they had. The timing. He knew all of that. He wrote it in his book every night. When you say he got a huge lead, he had already measured that lead. He knew before the game. That is the preparation that most guys don’t have.”
“Tony Gwynn was great, too,” Maddon said. “He would get a good lead at second base, and the pitcher would look back at the runner. The moment the pitcher looked back at the plate, Tony would take a hop toward third base to disguise the extra lead he was getting. That kind of thing was very popular back then.”
WHEN ROBINSON, BROCK, Lopes, Henderson, Gwynn, Molitor and Morgan played, great baserunning was essential to scoring runs, not like it is today.
“I didn’t change anything last year, I didn’t change the way I took a lead, I just took a chance, that’s all,” Naylor said. “What’s the expression? You don’t make 100% of the shots that you don’t take. That’s it.”
“Dave is the best,” said former major league manager Tony La Russa. “He has been doing this since the mid-’80s. After every game, he watches tape on every movement that every player takes on the bases. It’s amazing.”
McKay agreed that baserunning, including the art of taking a lead, was stressed more this spring. He said Milwaukee Brewers manager Pat Murphy is among others who are starting to follow the Diamondbacks’ model.
“That way, this [new teaching, new emphasis] will catch on with the front office people who take the examples of Soto and Naylor, and the instincts of Mookie Betts and Javy Baez on the bases,” Mike Roberts said. “Everyone can be a better baserunner. Everyone in the major leagues can be an above-average baserunner.”
Clearly, the increased emphasis on baserunning is coming from what happened to the Blue Jays in Game 6, but even more in Game 7 when the Blue Jays, in part, lost in the World Series by roughly the size of a hyphen.
It is not the fault of the players; it is more the fault of the industry. Kiner-Falefa entered Game 7 in the ninth inning as a pinch runner for Bo Bichette. When Kiner-Falefa reached third base, the bases were loaded with one out, Daulton Varsho was at the plate and the score was tied at 4. The discussion among the Toronto coaches and players had occurred long before this moment. Two things cannot happen to the man on third: He cannot get doubled off on a line drive and he cannot get picked off on a throw from the catcher (known as a back pick). Given those warnings, Kiner-Falefa took a short lead off third. He also did not get a good secondary lead, which is defined as the lead the runner takes after (or right before) the pitcher goes into his motion. Varsho hit a hard one-hop grounder to Dodgers second baseman Miguel Rojas, who slipped slightly while catching the ball but still had time to force out Kiner-Falefa by an inch at the plate.
“Baserunning is not taught at the level it had been — it has become more in vogue lately because of the new rules [bigger bases, the three-engagement rule],” former major league manager Joe Maddon said. “I know baserunning wasn’t even taught in many minor league organizations because, analytically, they did not want you running. They don’t want you to get picked off. So, the information given to these players over the last decade may be minimal based on the analytics. Because if you get picked off or make an out on the bases, that might be the mortal sin. I cannot even classify it as a venal sin, that might need to be mortal in the analytic journals.”