Stolen Bases are Going Crazy

Stolen bases are way up in Major League Baseball this season, and there is a growing body of evidence to suggest MLB teams should try to steal EVEN MORE! After Ronald Acuna Jr.’s incredible 40-70 season in 2023, and not Shohei Ohtani’s 50-50 season, it is becoming increasingly clear pitchers and catchers are on the back foot when trying to catch baserunners. Moreover, the math suggests teams could stand to be more risky in the run game.
Brief history of SB rules: armorypitching...
Rachel Balkovec’s incentive game for MiL players: fishonfirst.co...
The Changing Caught-Stealing Calculus: blogs.fangraph...
The infographics on my Tableau Public profile: public.tableau...
Blame for the music and art belong to me.

[@loganmanderfield1162]

Using analytics during the regular season makes more sense because it is based on averages, but using it during the playoffs is a bit more iffy.

[@schrobilgens]

Great video!

[@BradleyWoodrum]

Thanks!

[@quiveringmoist7558]

Gee maybe making the bases bigger and the pick off rule change leads to more stolen bases

[@williamsmith3561]

Rickey Henderson would be proud of this analysis!

[@jasoncollette5872]

Nice to have you back out in front of the curtain!

[@BradleyWoodrum]

Thank you! I'm excited to be back!

[@williamsmith35]

Agreed!

[@Raphael_246]

I'll be a hater and say this is why Shohei Ohtani shouldn't automatically win MVP just because he's the first player to 50-50. You have to weight the steals backwards to history

[@brianmolloy9393]

But don't you want to "be profitable" and not just "break even"?

[@seraphsword]

I think one way to consider it is this: Would you rather buy one widget at $10 and sell if for $20 (i.e. 100% profit), or buy 100 widgets at $10 and sell them all for $17 apiece (70% profit)? If you're only willing to take the risk if you can get 100% back, you can wind up with less overall returns ($100 vs $700). It may be a clumsy comparison, but I think it's similar to the logic here, where taking more chances may lead to lower success per chance, but can still lead to more dollars in the bank (or runs on the scoreboard). Once you reach a volume where you're approaching break-even, you know you should scale back a bit. But at least you know what volume you can stay "profitable" at. Teams that are sitting at 80% success rate are likely leaving a lot of extra runs in their pockets, because they aren't taking enough chances.

[@brianmolloy9393]

​@@seraphsword I think that's mostly correct-ish but needs a deeper analysis...
Not all situations are 65% success situations
In poker, you dont draw for runner runner aces because its just not goign to happen.
If you are simply "shooting" for 65% steal rate then there are situations where you are stealing with 90% chance of success and times you are stealing with 20% success rate
And that is not to mention there are specific times when the spread btw getting caught and being successful will have a different run value.
eg might be (and this is a total guess at a situation) first and third one out.
Aaron Judge up and a bad runner is going to be a worse situation than Ohtani on first and Kiermeier up to bat, for example
Also the expected run calcs should depend a lot on who is on deck and so forth, not simply being team wide
For such an in depth analyis in the video and what sounds like someone on the inside, I would like to hear the answers to what seem to be fairly basic questions above...
...OR hear that those answers are proprietary

[@julianobrito5021]

nice video.

[@caseyapeterson]

WHAT YEAR IS IT

[@BradleyWoodrum]

😂

[@saulspeaks2557]

If you grew up in the 80s, we're not even back to normal yet. 😂

[@pauljaworski9386]

the new stolen base numbers need an asterisk. the pitchers can't hold the runners any more. they get one throw to first.

[@notstazzmann9429]

I love the Secret Base parity, 10/10

[@silasrobertshaw8122]

What abput non-organic likes?