It's certainly true that some players have better instincts than others, but I think that many of the "instincts" are a result of combining aggressiveness with experience. I have noticed that the experience doesn't even necessarily have to be from your own game. Even just watching the game more seems to really improve a player's instincts in the moment at a later time. When I was coaching boys I noticed that the players with older siblings who played the same sport often had much better instincts than those who did not.Can/should base running instincts be taught? I will give one example I have seen many times. Line drive basehit over ss head. LFer has to move left to field ball in play. Base runner slows down her pace in order to time the LFer's fielding attempt in order to keep her momentum go towards 2nd base and pounces on any bobble or misplayed ball and takes 2nd. Same play can happen with base runner going from 1st to 3rd. This is in contrast to the runner taught to "go hard" and rounds base aggressively and comes to a complete stop and in frozen on the fielders bobble and either retreats to the bag or worse, gets thrown out trying to advance.
Does anybody teach/ coach runners to keep momentum (maybe even slow pace) to time a fielders possible misplay?
These types of base runners are also very good at the dreaded delay steal. They are hunters of the next base.