We Like to Run

by Matt Bishoff on Jun 10, 2008 11:23 PM EDT

The Rays have jumped out to a great start this season, but the best jump may be that of first to second. The Rays currently lead all of baseball in stolen bases with 72. The next closest team in the American League is the Red Sox with 58. The Rays are currently the only team in baseball that is averaging over one stolen base per game. Although we have the most stolen bases, we have also been thrown out more than any other team in the AL with 25. Our SB% is sitting at 74% which is right on the league average. The team has racked up the attempts by trying to run against a team as much as possible when they have a weak arm behind the plate.

The team has made four stolen base attempts in a single game five times this year. The chart above shows these five games. As can be seen, in three of these five games the catchers CS% was well below the league average of 26%. The only game in which the team ran poorly was against the Cardinals and the strong-armed Yadier Molina. This was by far our worst game on the basepaths, as this was the difference between a win and a loss. Through these five games we stole a total of 14 bases. The Detroit Tigers currently have 21 stolen bases through 63 games.

Although the team has been running like mad men, they have for the most part been taking calculated risks. Also, our leadoff guy only has three stolen bases and in the future we could possibly be running even more.

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I would have guessed

A lower success rate. Guess I’ll stop shaking my head at Staats/Magrane every time they call for Crawford/Upton to steal (which is pretty much every time they reach base).

by GomesSweetGomes on Jun 11, 2008 12:13 AM EDT reply actions

Not to be a hater, but early in the season I can remember quite a few late inning situations where we should have ran but didn’t. It seems like the majority of the team has a green light to go whenever, but rarely get the sign that they need to go.

BJ has been caught 7 times whereas Carl has been caught 4 times. However, it is important to note there has been a couple bad calls against Upton plus at least one pick off.

by matthan on Jun 11, 2008 12:45 AM EDT reply actions

I am pretty sure the SB% has improved

dramatically since the first few weeks. It seems to me at one point we were successful about 60% of the time, or maybe a bit better, so if we are now at 74% there has been some real improvement. In fact, earlier in the year the base-running was generally awful, simply reckless, but it seems more calculated recently. I am not sure how we are doing on getting picked off. And there have been some really bad calls against, including the Upton out call last night, but I would not put too much focus on that. I doubt we are as observant when we get the break on the call.

by bobr on Jun 11, 2008 6:45 AM EDT reply actions