Collette Calls: Taking Stock of Steals

Written by

Updated on May 8, 2018 10:45AM EST

A look at the stolen base leaderboard has most of the names we expected. It also contains some surprising names:

•Dee Gordon - 14
•Ender Inciarte - 13
•Trea Turner - 12
•Michael Taylor - 10
•Tim Anderson - 10
•A.J. Pollock - 8
•Lorenzo Cain - 8
•Starling Marte - 8
•Mallex Smith - 8

It also is missing some names from 2017's final leaderboard such as Billy Hamilton, Whit Merrifield, Jose Altuve, Byron Buxton, Elvis Andrus, Mookie Betts, Jose Reyes, Brett Gardner, Jose Peraza, Andrew Benintendi, Jean Segura and Wil Myers. Each of those stole at least 20 bases last year, so it would behoove us to check into how those players are doing this season while also looking into how some of the new names are popping up this year. Injuries are certainly playing a part for some of those missing names, while others are a bit more frustrating because they are playing but not running as they did in 2017.

There are multiple factors that go into whether a player will run. In no particular order, they include:

• Managerial influence
• Score of the game
• Hidden injury
• The situation on the basepaths
• Batter at the plate
• The pop time of the catcher behind the plate
• The move of the pitcher on the mound
• How quick the pitcher gets the

A look at the stolen base leaderboard has most of the names we expected. It also contains some surprising names:

•Dee Gordon - 14
•Ender Inciarte - 13
•Trea Turner - 12
•Michael Taylor - 10
•Tim Anderson - 10
•A.J. Pollock - 8
•Lorenzo Cain - 8
•Starling Marte - 8
•Mallex Smith - 8

There are multiple factors that go into whether a player will run. In no particular order, they include:

Players talk about stealing more bases in spring training nearly as often as pitchers discuss new pitches. Jackie Bradley Jr said he was going to run more this year, and yet we cannot yet grade him on his two steals because he has only been on base 27 percent of the time. Perhaps if he can get that on-base percentage up to his normal level, he will steal bases. Jose Abreu said a similar thing in camp, and is already one-third of the way to matching his 2017 total o of … three.

A number of the factors are tough to measure because they are rather subjective, but we do have an objective measure that we can look into at Baseball-Reference – Stolen Base Opportunities. SBO measures the plate appearances in which a baserunner was on first base or second base while the next base was open. It does not measure stolen base attempts of home, but they are so few and far between, we can forgive the stat. The league average for SBO is 439, and the table below shows where each team ranks regarding SBO and SBA shows how many stolen bases the team has attempted:

TEAM	SBO	SBA
HOU	504	16
NYY	491	17
ATL	480	33
LAD	478	17
CIN	477	18
KCR	468	19
BOS	466	21
WSN	463	40
PIT	457	22
OAK	453	10
PHI	447	25
TOR	445	20
TEX	443	21
DET	441	20
CLE	439	29
LAA	434	18
SFG	434	22
SDP	431	24
TBR	431	26
BAL	430	14
COL	429	28
MIA	417	14
CHC	414	11
MIL	412	33
NYM	412	19
SEA	412	26
STL	410	25
MIN	391	16
CHW	386	37
ARI	382	28

The Astros top the list of opportunities, but they are not running this year much to the disdain of Jose Altuve owners. Altuve has had 69 stolen base opportunities this season (8th in MLB), and yet has attempted only two stolen bases. In the past 30 games, Altuve has had a .366 on-base percentage but has only attempted a single stolen base and was thrown out by a mile by Welington Castillo. He has been on first base 40 times in that span (28 singles, 11 walks, 1 hit by pitch), but he is not running. I am unable to look up how many times the base in front of him was unoccupied in that time, but given that his 2018 overall SBO represents 14 percent of the team's overall total, I will assume he has had his opportunities. Maybe there is a hidden injury there for him that has him not running, but it is not what people signed up for this season.

Ender Inciarte has been a running fool this season, despite the club bouncing him around the lineup. Inciarte is in the top 30 for SBO at 59 this season, and has attempted 15 steals in those changes, converting 13 of the 15. Teammates Nick Markakis and Freddie Freeman are ahead of him on the SBO leaderboard, but the duo has attempted three steals with their chances. Manager Brian Snitker likes what he sees from Inciarte and is letting him run, this despite the fact that Inciarte's .324 on-base percentage is nearly 20 points below his career average. If Inciarte can get on base at his career rate, he could be in for one of the more surprising 40-steal seasons, if he stays healthy . That is a huge if given that Inciarte has only one season of avoiding the disabled list in his career.

Trea Turner and Michael Taylor each having double-digit steals is a mixture of influences. Turner's SBO total is tied with Jose Altuve for eighth in the league while Taylor's is 147th at 37. Turner was held back early by where he was hitting in the lineup, but Taylor is clearly making the most of his opportunities. Both players are being pushed by first-year manager Davey Martinez, who was part of the aggressive running games in Tampa Bay when the team had athletes such as Carl Crawford and Melvin Upton Jr. Turner and Taylor are rather similar to those two players in skills and risks, and Martinez must be having moments of deja vu the way he is letting these two run on the bases.

Tim Anderson led the White Sox in steals in 2017 with 15, and he is already two-thirds of the way there with approximately 80 percent of the season left to play. The White Sox have the second-worst SBO total in the league, and Anderson himself ranks 186th on the SBO leaderboard but has attempted 11 steals in his 31 SBOs, converting 10. Anderson is still not getting on base much in 2018, but his walk rate is at least tripled from where it was last year. When he is on base, he is running as he did in 2015 in Double-A where he swiped 49 bags in 125 games.

Billy Hamilton's absence from the leaderboard is as frustrating as Altuve's, if not more so because it is the sole reason any of us drafted Hamilton. His .306 on-base percentage is better than last season's figure of .299, but he has six stolen base attempts in 45 stolen base opportunities. Hamilton has more SBOs than Starling Marte, yet Marte has 11 attempts in 43 SBOs. Hamilton has been kept out of the lineup at times this year and has mostly been relegated to hitting behind the pitcher lately, attempting two steals since April 11. If you wanted to buy low on him, this is about as low as it gets. The opportunities have been there, but he is not moving at the rate he has historically moved on the bases:

SEASON	SBO	SBA	ATT%
2014	171	79	46
2015	114	65	57
2016	148	64	43
2017	216	72	33
2018	45	6	13

Some of that may come from game situations since the Reds have been blown out in some games and the sport frowns upon steals late in the game in those situations. The panic for Hamilton owners should be real, though, so if your team is hurting in steals and you can grab a difference maker at a discount in May, and he gets on one of his hot streaks, it would be worth your time to check in on Hamilton's price in your league.

We could almost lump in Jose Peraza here too, despite him being a 5-for-5 on the basepaths this season. Last season, he took advantage of 18 percent of his SBOs (31 of 174), but has only attempted a steal in eight of his 62 (8 percent) of his SBOs in 2018. Manager Jim Riggleman recently took over from Bryan Price as the skipper, but we do not truly know how much of a factor he is in the running game. The last full season we had Riggleman running a team was 2010 when he coached a Nationals team that attempted 151 steals, led by Nyjer Morgan's 51 attempts. The team's overall stolen base attempts were one of the more aggressive rates that season, so it does not appear the new skipper is negatively influencing the running game. Perhaps it has been a matter of matches and game situations.

Speaking of managerial influence, seeing both Mookie Betts and Andrew Benintendi on the list is worth commenting on given both are under new manager Alex Cora. Boston has had plenty of running opportunities this season, and Benintendi is easily pacing toward last year's total, but Betts is not. Betts did miss a few games with an ankle issue, but it is also tough to steal when you're jogging around the bases after hitting home runs. The team's stolen base attempt rate against its SBOs is down a single percentage point from six percent to five percent, so it does not appear the change of skippers will be a factor.

On the whole, the league is pacing about 50 stolen bases behind last year's total at this point of the season. The weather might be an influence, so it may be much ado about nothing now that warmer weather is finally showing up around the country. Jose Altuve and Billy Hamilton owners have decisions to make because the early season running struggles are real, and the only thing we have to hold out hope on is their historical rates because neither guy is in motion on the basepaths now.