The Art of Stealing Bases
 

I was just wondering why the stolen base has become something of a lost art in baseball? I know it can't be because players aren't as fast. Is it because of managers being too conservative? Players just not willing to take as many risks or not knowing how to run? I remeber back in the late 70's and early 80's when we had guys like Rickey Henderson and Vince Coleman going over 100 a few times and also guys like Ron LeFlore, Willie Wilson, Tim Raines, and Eric Davis who all went 80+. How about 1980 when Henderson stole 100 to lead the league, beating out LeFlore with 97 and Omar Moreno with 96?

Also, why aren't there more guys that can run and hit homers? I don't mean those 30/30 or even the 40/40 guys. To me, 30 or 40 steals isn't impressive. Since 1900, I looked at all the guys that have stolen at least 80 in a season. Only three of those guys hit more than 10 homers in the same season:

Henderson 87 steals, 28 homers
Eric Davis 80 steals, 27 homers
Henderson 80 steals, 24 homers
Raines 90 steals, 11 homers
Henderson 130 steals, 10 homers

Looking at it, Eric Davis was a pretty unique player. Not many had the speed to steal 80, the power to hit 37 homers, the ability to hit for a decent average, and the ability to be a Gold Glove outfielder.

saw lou brock as a kid at dodger stadium prob. 1971 or 72? it was great.

Most stolen bases are stolen off the pitcher not the catchers. In the 70's/80's pitchers had such high leg kicks that it made it much easier for the runners. Now with shorter deliveries and things like the slide step it makes things much harder on the runners.

Do they emphasze stolen bases that much in the DR, Venezualua, etc? The swing from African American players to Central America the past 20 years has been very big and I wonder if that has anything to do with it. When Alexi Ramirez, who is very fast, came to the Sox from Cuba he had to be "taught" how to steal bases. He's still not there yet.

With ballparks getting smaller, the balls being juiced, the players being juiced, it just seems that small ball has taken a back seat. When CF is 400 yards away, not 460, it's harder to justify manufacturing runs.

Didn't 2007 have the highest stolen base success rate since it has been a recorded statistic?

The best base stealers are going to be the shorter, quicker guys who are less likely to have power. It's the same reason that 20 meters into a 100 meter dash a guy like Maurice Greene would be ahead of Usain Bolt.

Then you have the power hitters generally in the middle of the lineup and guys in the middle of the lineup don't run as much.

Carl Crawford is on pace for 65 steals and 15 homers and Ian Kinsler has a shot at 30/30. That's not to bad.

It's not bad at all. Neither one. But when you have 87 steals and 28 homers or 80/27, 65/15 isn't much. Then again, one of those that did that before is a hall of famer and I thought the other one (Davis) had the potential to be before the injuries. I don't get impressed with 30 or 40 steals though. That's one every four or five games. Blah.

An interesting read......Giving Billy Martin major credit for his SB accomplishments.

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/baseb...rson-hof_N.htm

"Henderson also says he thinks the record will never be broken. Not in today's game.

Too many stopwatches. Too much caution. Too little trust in the baserunner.

"They came up with that stopwatch and you drill it in a guy that (when the) clock is such and such time, you can run," says Henderson, who from 1979 to 2003 played on nine major league teams. "Hey, wait a minute, you're telling me I can't beat the guy? So they drill that into kids' heads … These kids, maybe, don't want to get that dirty. As a football player, I loved getting hit and loved getting in the dirt, so it didn't bother me. Now the kids, they're coming up, 'Oh, I'm hurt. I'm this.' Come on, man."

Advanced statistical analysis has shown that it isnt worth losing an out for a base. You also dont see much sacrificing outside of the pitcher anymore either. Especially in the roids era where so many players had plus power.

Anybody see Pujols try to steal a double out of a single tonite? That's like the last guy in the league to try to do that on, and he was out by a whole lot.

The thing is it has been shown that you need at least a 67-70% success rate to break even on the number of runs you will score. Now this is understandable for 95%+ of the guys out there but there are guys like Ellsbury (85.1% career), Ichiro (81.6%), Beltran (88.3%), Crawford (82.8%), Kinsler (89.1%), and Bartlett (83.2%) that could clearly run far more and help their team. Now I can understand why Beltran might not run more now that he's in NY but he clearly should have run more in KC and these other guys don't have the excuses of being a high paid heart of the lineup player. They should all be running more.

Ellsbury (40 steals in 80 games this year) and Bartlett have hardly had a career, Ichiro is 35 year old, Crawford is regularly over 50 steals, and Kinsler plays in Texas with solid power behind him and has a hard time staying healthy. Not to mention that they would all find their % diminish as they are now stealing at optimium opportunities.

Since 1900, there have been 23 recorded seasons of 80 steals or more. The four between 1910-12 don't have the number of times caught stealing but the other 19 do. The success rates:

Henderson-130 steals/42 thrown out-75.6%
Brock-118/33-78.1
Coleman-110/25-81.5
Coleman-109/22-83.2
Henderson-108/19-85.0
Coleman-107/14-88.4
Wills-104/13-88.9
Henderson-100/26-79.4
LeFlore-97/19-83.6
Cobb-96/38-71.6
Moreno-96/33-74.4
Wills-94/31-75.2
Henderson-93/13-87.7
Raines-90/14-86.5
Henderson-87/18-82.9
Wilson-83/12-87.4
Coleman-81/27-75.0
Davis-80/11-87.9
Henderson-80/10-88.9

Further analysis.

I looked to see what the run % was of all the 80+ base stealers. I took runs scored/plate appearances. Then I did the same thing with the yearly league leaders (both leagues) from 2000-2008.

Henderson-130 steals.....75.6 success rate.......18.1 run %
Brock-118........78.1..........15.0
Coleman-110......81.5........15.5
Coleman-109......83.2........17.2
Henderson-108....85.0.......16.9
Coleman-107.......88.4.......14.0
Wills-104............88.9.......17.1
Henderson-100....79.4.......15.4
LeFlore-97.........83.6........16.2
Cobb-96............71.6........20.6
Moreno-96.........74.4........11.7
Wills-94.............75.2........13.0
Henderson-93......87.7.......18.2
Raines-90...........86.5.........18.5
Milan-88............n/a..........15.6
Henderson-87......82.9........18.5
Cobb-83............n/a..........22.5
Wilson-83..........87.4.........17.7
Bescher-81.......n/a............14.8
Coleman-81.......75.0..........11.3
Collins-81..........n/a...........12.3
Davis-80...........87.9..........19.9
Henderson-80....88.9..........22.3

2000
NL-Luis Castillo-62...............73.8.....16.1
AL-Johnny Damon-46...........83.6......18.4

2001
NL-Juan Pierre-46................73.0.....15.8
NL-Jimmy Rollins-46..............85.2.....13.5
AL-Ichiro Suzuki-56..............80.0.....17.2

2002
NL-Luis Castillo-48..............76.2......12.9
AL-Alfonso Soriano-41.........75.9......17.3

2003
NL-Juan Pierre-65...............76.5......13.4
AL-Carl Crawford-55............84.6......12.1

2004
NL-Scott Posednik-70...........84.3....11.9
AL-Carl Crawford-59.............79.7.....15.5

2005
NL-Jose Reyes-60................80.0.....13.5
AL-Chone Figgins-62...........78.5......15.7

2006
NL-Jose Reyes-64...............79.0.....17.4
AL-Carl Crawford-58............86.6......13.7

2007
NL-Jose Reyes-78................78.8....15.6
AL-Carl Crawford-50.............83.3....14.9
AL-Brian Roberts-50............87.7......14.4

2008
NL-Willy Taveras-68.............90.7......11.9
AL-Jacoby Ellsbury-50..........82.0......16.1

From those comparisons, I noticed a couple of things. For the guys that stole 80+, they often had a better success rate of stealing and scored runs at a higher percentage.

The 80+ guys had 12 of 19 seasons where the success rate was 80% or more. The leaders from this decade have 11/20. You would think that with guys being more selective these days and picking their spots, the success rates would go up. The run % were higher for those big base stealers too.

15%+
80s-17 of 23 seasons
2000s-11 of 20 seasons

18%+
80s-8 of 23 seasons
2000s-1 of 20 seasons

Cannon says that studies show that it isn't worth losing an out for a base but the guys that took more chances and stole more bases scored runs at a higher percentage were able to do so without sacrificing their success rates and were putting themselves in scoring position and scoring more runs than these guys are today.

Cannon is just the messenger. There are many, much smarter guys that have proven it. I am smart enough to know that your hypothesis is quite flawed and your results are basically meaningless.



The Sabermatricians analyzed all the historical records they could get their hands on to determine how individual players scored runs and helped their team win. They determined that the most important thing a batter could do was keep from getting out. Stealing bases and sacrifice bunting do not help a team score runs. A batter's most important responsibility to his team is to get on base -- be it by hit or walk. This conclusion is not based on opinion or tradition; it's supported by evidence from actual games.

From The Book blogs

Have you guys ever done a study (or know of someone who has done a study) on the optimal stolen base percentage for a given player? I don’t know the exact number, but let’s say the break-even stolen base percentage is 67%. If a player steals at a rate of 60% with 20 attempts, then the right thing for him to do is to reduce the number of attempts, specifically the tougher attempts against better throwing catchers or tricky pitchers with good moves to first. That’s a pretty easy one. But I also think if a player steals at a rate of 84% (I’m thinking of Tim Raines), he probably didn’t attempt enough steals. Surely ther were situations where he would have had a 73% chance of success, but he didn’t make an attempt for whatever reason (fear of failure? fear of lowering his SB%? saving his legs/body against the brutalness of sliding head-first into second?) whether reasonable or not, he didn’t.

So, a player specific question I’m interested in is: did Tim Raines attempt enough Stolen Bases in his career? Given his talents and success rate, was he playing suboptimally by not attempting enough steals? I think there are a ton of factors that needs to be considered, including stealing 2nd vs stealing 3rd, game situations, possibly helping the batter hit better by staying at first, protecting his body in a long season/career, etc. etc.


The best way to get me to quote a reader is by saying “Tim Raines”. Yes, I have thought about that. Not so much Tim Raines, since he attempted quite alot of SB, but more about Carlos Beltran, who has an even higher SB success rate than Raines, but attempts far fewer bases.

I would guess that the “beating up the body” is the best reason to err on the side of caution. That perhaps a player, be it Raines, Rickey, Coleman, Beltran, Ichiro, etc, could attempt more steals on situations where they think they would be successful 75% of the time, but they don’t do it, because the extra cost on their bodies. If you make the SB worth +.02 wins and the CS as -.04 wins, then a 75% success rate means adding .005 wins per attempt. If there are 20 such attempts that these runners are giving up, they are giving up 0.1 wins in a season (i.e., 1 run). I think it’s worth giving up that run, if it means not having to have their bodies pound against the dirt an extra 20 times on a play that is a bit over break-even.

Of course the most important responsibility is to get on base. But we are talking about once a runner is on base. Sacrifice bunting doesn't even belong in this conversation because it has nothing to do with whether or not attempting to steal is worth it or not. It's almost always a guaranteed out for the batter. That's giving up an out almost 100% of the time. A guy that steals bases at an 75%+ rate is not giving up an out almost 100% of the time.

The intent is the same, to move the runner over. While it is surely not the same the 2 are part of a theory of small ball that go hand in hand.

The theory is the same but the way they are carried out is far different. In one, you are going to be successful 75% of the time without giving up an out and in the other, you are almost 100% of the time going to give up an out and it's probably less than 75% of the time that the runner advances without being the sacrificee.

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/ar...articleid=2607


"A runner on first with no one out is worth .9116 runs. A successful steal of second base with no one out would bump that to 1.1811 runs, a gain of .2695 expected runs. If that runner is caught, however, the expectation--now with one out and no one on base--drops to .2783, a loss of .6333 expected runs. That loss is about 2.3 times the gain.

Not all steals come with a runner on first and no one out, of course, and there's a lot of math that goes into the 75% conclusion. Michael Wolverton covers the concept in this excellent piece. The main point is that in considering stealing bases, you have to consider both the benefit and the cost. In all but the most specific situations, outs are more valuable than bases, which is why the break-even point for successful base-stealing is so high. "

that number seems appropriate for people who only convert 50% of the time.. @ 75% it seems like it should be half of that.

All of that would be fine if the chances of successfully stealing a base were 50/50. Sure, if the guy is only 50/50, you don't want him running wild on the bases. But when your success rate is 75%, and usually up around 85% for the best base stealers, that throws those expected run numbers out of the window. If the chances of getting an out and a base are even (as with a 50% base stealer or in the case of sacrifice bunts), then it's not worth it. When the chances of getting that same base without giving up an out is 80%, I think it's worth it. The numbers giving expected runs are based on all base runners being equal. They aren't.

It has nothing to do with the runner, just the avg run expectation between no outs and a runner on versus one out and no runner on

That isnt truye. It is simply run expectation of a man on and no outs versus no one on and one out. You may believe the average player is in the 50% range but that isnt true. In 2009 there have been 1900 SB and just 694 CS. In 2008 2739 sb and 1035 cs. In 2007 2918 sb and 1002 CS. In 1980 during the SB era the numbers are 3294 and 1610.

Interesting stuff guys.

I really dont have anything to add although I do have a question. Does anyone have the stats on double steals of second and third?

If you are an 85% base stealer your expected runs from attempting a steal is (0.85*1.1811) + (0.15*0.2783) which equals 1.04568 runs which is considerable higher than 0.9116 runs if you don't attempt a steal. Even at 75% it would be .9554 expected runs. At 70% they are equal. So basically if you have a 70% chance of stealing you won't help or hurt your team in the long run. Having more than a 70% chance will help your team, less than 70% will hurt your team. Yet there are a considerable amount of players well over 75% that should be running more.

Your math is not valid

How do you possibly come to that conclusion? It's 100% valid. It's a simple calculation of expected value.

Why not?

the paragraph you posted before is implying a 50% success rate.

this even proves snipers math is correct

"which is why the break-even point for successful base-stealing is so high"

aka 70-75%. a person who steals at an 85% clip would be above the break even point.

You are only using the no out scenario and there are three scenarios that are in play in your sb%.

No there is no implication of anything. There is no indication of HOW the runners got to the bases, just their chance of scoring under different scenarios.

However in running more their overall % will drop, quite possibly to below the break even point.

(0.85*1.1811) + (0.15*0.2783)

That is the 85% chance of the steal plus the 15% chance of getting out. In the 85% chance the steal is successful your expected values of runs is 1.1811. In the 15% chance the steal is successful your expected value of runs is 0.2783. It factors in both possibilities if you attempt a steal.

For a 75% base stealer:

(0.75*1.1811) + (0.25*0.2783)

The break even point is the 70% base stealer;

(0.70*1.1811) + (0.30*0.2783)

That equals .91026 which is almost identical to the .9116 expected runs if you don't attempt the steal.

yes with no outs and a man on first which isnt the only scenario that an 85 or 75% stealer will face.

No one is saying they should be stealing home with one out.

Or second with two.

How can you not mention the pitcher n' catcher involved? Some of these teams really struggle at throwing runners out at 2nd.