The Threat of a Stolen Base Can Add Value to an At-Bat - New York Times
This would then mean the hitters in the line-ups of teams that steal bases are more valuable.
Maybe Vernon Wells wouldn't be hitting .200 if there was any semblence of a Toronto running game. Maybe JP should stop mettling.
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The Threat of a Stolen Base Can Add Value to an At-Bat
By DAVID LEONHARDT
Published: May 8, 2005
If you are watching the Mets this season and Carlos Beltran reaches first base, sit up and pay attention. You might see the most effective base stealer in baseball history practice his craft.
Stolen-Base Success RateSince his rookie season with the Royals in 1998, Beltran has succeeded on almost 89 percent of his steal attempts. No other player, retired or active, has had a success rate better than 85 percent.
Beltran is fast, of course. But he is also smart. He studies the opposing pitcher's windup and the catcher's arm strength. The quick first step that makes him a great outfielder also gives him a jump toward second base.
But he is the master of an increasingly lost art. In their long-running war with pitchers and catchers, many base runners have been laying down their weapons over the last two decades. Since the heyday of the stolen base in the mid-1980's, attempts have declined by 36 percent. The Oakland A's stole all of two bases in April.
With home runs much more common than they once were, many teams have decided that the reward of the extra base is not worth the risk. A simple cost-benefit analysis bears out their fears.
Having a runner on second base is obviously better than having a runner on first, but the gap is not enormous. A team with a runner on second and no one out will score about a quarter of a run more on average than a team with a runner on first and no one out, according to Baseball Prospectus, a Web site and scouting guide. So stealing second with no outs is worth about 0.25 runs.
Being thrown out - then having nobody on base with one out - reduces the number of runs a team can expect to score by 0.64. The out is more than two and a half times as bad as the steal is good. So to break even, a team needs to steal almost three bases for every one time it is caught. The caution of today's managers starts to look smart.
But a steal has a value beyond the additional base. Even the threat of a steal forces the first baseman to play on the bag, opening a hole on the right side of the infield. The shortstop often has to cheat toward second base. The pitcher and catcher watch the runner out of the corners of their eyes.
"The catcher has to be prepared to throw; the pitcher's focus is not on the hitter - they tend to make a lot more mistakes," said Tim Raines, the first-base coach for the White Sox. "Having a guy who can run on the base paths puts a lot more pressure on the defense."
Raines, one of the most effective base stealers in history (and fifth on the career list with 808), knows of what he speaks. Last year, the presence of a base-stealing threat on first base added about 15 points to a batter's average and a little bit of power as well, according to James Click of Baseball Prospectus.
So when Aramis Ramirez of the Cubs batted with the speedy Corey Patterson on first, Ramirez hit more like Vladimir Guerrero than like himself. Even if Patterson did not run, Ramirez received the benefits of the chaos created by the threat.
As it happens, the stolen-base success rate across baseball has lingered around 70 percent in recent years, roughly where it should be even if there were no ancillary benefits for the hitter. But those benefits are real, and the sharp drop in base stealing has probably reached the point of overreaction.
"I'd like to see more of it," said Raines, whose White Sox are among the league leaders in steals this year, thanks in part to the addition of Scott Podsednik, after being in the bottom half of the ranking last season.
Teams like the Athletics, the Reds, the Blue Jays and the Cubs (despite Patterson) now attempt so few stolen bases that they are making their own hitters' jobs more difficult. The Angels, the Twins and the Mets - who steal bases and do so at an above-average success rate - seem to have a more nuanced understanding of the value of stealing.
The Mets will be even better off if Beltran can return to his normal self. Through Friday's games, he had been thrown out twice in three attempts this season. But you can be pretty sure that Cliff Floyd, who hits behind Beltran, is still happy to see him dancing off first base.
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