FORT MYERS, Fla. — The Red Sox know they cannot replace David Ortiz’s bat. But it shouldn’t prove hard to upgrade on his legs.

Ortiz was very good at a very many things but, bless his heart, base running sure wasn’t one of them. Expanding its aggressiveness on the basepaths is one of the few ways Boston can actually capitalize on Ortiz’s absence.

“We may be a little different team this year,” first-base coach Ruben Amaro Jr. said. “Obviously Papi is not in the lineup. We’re not going to be relying on his power, and we may have to do some things a little bit differently. Getting an extra base and putting ourselves in scoring position is probably of paramount importance to us.”

Last season, the Red Sox were loath to run with Ortiz at the plate, Manager John Farrell said. That made sense.

Even a successful stolen base with Ortiz batting would tighten up the hole on the right side of the infield and make an opponent more apt to pitch around the slugger.

They won’t have such reservations this season.

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“We would like to run as much as possible,” Farrell said. “It’s part of every spring training, part of the mindset we create.”

For the most part, the Red Sox have been an efficient base-stealing team under Farrell, highlighted by their historic 87 percent success rate back (123 steals in 142 attemps) in 2013.

Both the bulk number of steals and the efficiency have come down since then, largely because Jacoby Ellsbury and Shane Victorino aren’t hitting one-two anymore.

Last year, Mookie Betts (26) and Xander Bogaerts (13) were the only Red Sox in double figures with steals. The team stole 83 bases overall (sixth-best in the league) at a success rate of about 78 percent. While they want to run more in 2017, they still want to run judiciously; think at least a 75 percent success rate, if not 80.

So how does a team balance an emphasis on aggressiveness without sacrificing that efficiency? Amaro pointed to right now as the time to learn your limits.

“The beauty of spring training for us is to be over-aggressive,” Amaro said.

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“For us, it’s about taking more chances now so we can find out what these guys can do – going first to third, second to home, first to home. Trying to get that extra 90 feet is a culture we’re trying to set. The guys’ mindsets are there; it’s just a matter of us consistently doing it.

“Just like anything else, it’s a confidence thing. Those guys are kind of like cat burglars. You have to try to have the mentality that it’s OK to get thrown out. The more they work on it, they more confident they’ll be.”

“It always comes down to understanding the situation, the scoreboard being a primary one where you’re not going to be risking further outs,” Farrell said.

But if the opportunity presents, we’re always going to look to be that aggressive.”

For the third spring in a row, Bogaerts has talked about running more himself – something that should be easier to enact if he hits further down in the order, as expected.

Already a terrific baserunner, he admits he’s not quite sure how to translate that into being a better base-stealer. This spring, he’s spent his time working on his jumps from first base.

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“For me, it’s just confidence and getting good jumps. I don’t practice stealing, but I practice jumps,” he said. “That first movement to second base is key.”

Without Ortiz anchoring the middle of the order, the Red Sox have a number of candidates to run. There’s Betts and Bogaerts, of course, but also Andrew Benintendi and even Jackie Bradley Jr.

Benintendi stole 41 bases in two seasons at Arkansas, and he swiped 17 last year at his three levels combined.

“If you’ve got well-above average speed with good instincts inside of given players, you’re going to be a little bit more liberal to give them the green light,” said Farrell.

Although baserunning measures are as nebulous as they are numerous, the Red Sox graded out in the top half of the league last season on the bases. Four years ago, their elite baserunning was a key component to the league’s best offense and an eventual championship. They believe it can play that role again.


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