As stolen bases continue to rise league wide, I will be here every Wednesday to help you track important stolen base trends so you can find more speed for your fantasy teams.
Stealing a base is as much about the opposing pitcher and catcher as it is the actual base runner themself. So, being able to spot which teams and pitchers specifically are being run on most frequently will help you to figure out who can swipe some bags over the next week.
Last week, I recommended targeting Gary Sánchez with Adley Rutschman on the injured list. Then, Sánchez himself got injured as well and the Orioles have moved on to Alex Jackson, their sixth different starting catcher of the season. Those are the breaks.
Before we get to this week’s important trends, here is the stolen base leaderboard over the past seven days.
There are lots of interesting players down this board.
Cedric Mullins is waking up after a cold streak and could be reinvigorated later this month when he’s likely traded to a contender.
Tyler Freeman has become a fantasy star on the Rockies with a .340 batting average and now 12 total stolen bases out of the leadoff spot.
Evan Carter has swiped eight bags in just over a month since returning from injury and is quietly morphing back into a fantasy star.
Caleb Durbin has a .404 on-base percentage over his last month of play and that’s finally translating to the stolen bases we expected of him.
Now, here is the overall stolen base leaderboard on the season.
José Caballero continues to lead this list, but I’m concerned Ha-Seong Kim’s return may eat into his playing time.
Chandler Simpson has come back from the minor leagues with a vengeance stealing five bases in 14 games.
Next, here are some players that we’d hoped would be more aggressive or efficient on the base paths.
It’s amazing that Tommy Edman has transformed from a slappy speedster to more of a power hitter. The Dodgers haven’t attempted many stolen bases as a team this year anyway.
Remember when Masyn Winn said his goal was to steal 30-40 bases? That doesn’t seem like it will come true.
Now, let’s go over the most important stolen base trends over the past week.
Fantasy Baseball Stolen Base Targets
Three of the usual suspects – the Marlins, Astros, and Rays – were heavily run on over the past week.
The Marlins lead the league in stolen bases allowed with a whopping 114! That’s 19 more than the next closest team and they’ve only caught 14 would-be base stealers, so opposing teams have a league-best 88% success rate against them.
That trend continued this week as they allowed seven stolen bases and only caught one runner. Agustín Ramírez was behind the plate for four of those steals and has been bad defensively to put it mildly. He ranks near or at the bottom of the league in defensive rating, defensive run value, and defensive runs saved. Whichever metric you prefer, Ramírez grades out as a terrible backstop.
That being said, he’s an incredible hitter.
So good that he’s likely to get some votes for Rookie of the Year and the Marlins stick him at designated hitter when he doesn’t catch. They also likely want him to develop defensively, so he’ll keep getting chances there. When he does, try to stream stolen bases against him any way possible.
Next up, the Astros allowed a league-worst nine stolen bases over the past week. Seven of those came with Yainer Diaz catching. He and Victor Caratini often split time there, but Caratini has been playing more first base with Christian Walker on the paternity list.
In the end, both Diaz and Caratini are poor in the run game with 13% and 12% caught stealing rates respectively.
A new trend to watch though, Hunter Brown had four bases stolen with him on the mound between his two starts. It’s often difficult to steal a base on Brown simply because it’s hard to reach first base. Outs are precious against a pitcher who’s one of the league leaders in ERA.
Yet, he grades out poorly in Baseball Savant’s net bases prevented, so maybe this is a chink in his armor that the rest of the league has been searching for.
Lastly, the Rays allowed eight stolen bases over the past week. The battery of Ryan Pepiot and Matt Thaiss were responsible for three of those. Otherwise, there was no discernible trend to spot.
Ultra-Efficient Mets
Despite not being a particularly fast team, the Mets know when and how to steal a base.
Davy Andrews of FanGraphs wrote a great piece about their base stealing efficiency a few weeks ago and the trend has continued. They have the 11th-most stolen bases as a team with 70, but are first with an 88% success rate. That’s while they are also the second-slowest team according to Baseball Savant.
They’ve stolen 12 consecutive bases without being ‘caught’ and I’m putting ‘caught’ in de facto air quotes because that caught stealing was technically a pick-off attempt where Juan Soto scampered to second base and was tagged out there.
The last time they were genuinely caught stealing was on June 12th, almost an entire month ago!
Francisco Lindor leads them with 14 SB and has only been caught twice. The most recent was on May 20th.
Luisangel Acuña stole 11 before recently being sent down, Soto and Tyrone Taylor have 10, and Brandon Nimmo nine. Each has only been caught once.
Eight other players have stolen at least one base and only Starling Marte and Pete Alonso have been caught multiple times. This squad is a marvel in base stealing efficiency.
