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Quantifiable base running... for once!!!
Top 10 Base Runners in MLB Since 1954
This article made me reconsider how we evaluate baserunning, productive outs, "small ball", among other things. I started to look up the actual baserunning stats (currently, the complete PBP data extends back to 1950 only).
What are people's thoughts on the quantifiability of baserunning?
How about how we frame baserunners, and how we evaluate baserunning, as a skill?
Last edited by csh19792001; 02-10-2012 at 06:17 PM.
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PS- Not a coincidence that Willie Mays has BY FAR the greatest % "extra bases taken" in history (63%) of all the great modern players. To me, this is yet another piece of evidence lending to the conclusion that Mays is very likely the greatest baseball player that ever lived.
Willie's complete baserunning record
Last edited by csh19792001; 02-10-2012 at 06:19 PM.
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you don't even know how many guys were measured, and he was a whopping 2% ahead of Leflore.Originally Posted by csh19792001
And I guess you think that there were only eight guys better than Victorino? Once he was actually higher than 6th in the league in SB. Run-scoring %, extra bases taken % depend upon your teammates. Doubles don't necessarily indicate speed.
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His system is fatally flawed. You can't just look at SB%. You have to look at the frequency of steal attempts too.
Who is a better baserunner, a guy who can steal 17 out of 20 for 85% or a guy who can steal 85 out of 103 for 83% ?
The second guy stole 68 of 83 above what the first guy stole. Do you really believe that makes him a worse baserunner than the first guy?
Great baserunners can steal at a high rate even when the defense is working real hard to prevent the steal, like Wills, Brock, Henderson, etc......lots of guys can steal at a high percentage (McReynolds) when they only run at times when the defense is not paying much attention to them.
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Definitely not. Case in Point: Edgar Martinez ("Mr. Double") once had the best doubles rate all-time and he certainly was not speedy.
Go Bravos!
RS% is team dependent.
I actually think the XBT% has merit.....it is different from XBH%. It can be used as a rough estimate to see if a baserunner was good at outrunning outfield arms.
Why is Pick Off % not considered?
Chop! Chop! Chop!
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The categories mentioned rely too much on the ball park factor, teammates, and the players' power. Vince Coleman, imho has no peers for peak value except for maybe Tim Raines. Vince Coleman had no power whatsover. So he had a very low number of doubles. I think a stat that might be more accurate than the ones mentioned(other than of course SB%) would be the doubles/triples ratio. This still depends on the ball park and the players power. But this ratio is not subjective, like how many times a player STRETCHED a single into a double, etc. Here, Vince Coleman goes 176/89=1.977 for his career. This is a miniscule ratio. If we look at Vince's best 6 yr run from 1985-90, he stole 549 bases with SB% of 82.7. His 2b/3b ratio was 106/56=1.89. Tim Raines best 6 year run was from 1981-86. Here, he stole 454 bases with a SB% of 86.8. His 2b/3b ratio was 180/55=3.27. Similarly, Henderson's best 6 year run was from 1980-1985. Here, Rickey stole 540 bases and his SB% was 79.8. His 2b/3b ratio was 144/31 or 4.64. Deion Sanders played the equivalent of 4 seasons(only 2325 Plate appearances) and he stole 186 bases with a SB% of 74.6. His 2b/3b ratio was 72/43=1.67. The 2b/3b ratio really shows the player's speed. I'm sure there are counter examples to this ratio. I just thought of it off the top of my head. But I bet that you won't see an Edgar Martinez, Jim Thome, or any other slow runner with a ratio under 2.0. If we were to go back to Cobb's era when the ball parks were much bigger, then I'd like to also see the 3b/hr(inside the park) ratio.
Last edited by pheasant; 02-11-2012 at 01:55 PM.
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Getting back to Willie Mays, if we look at his peak years from 1954-1958, we'll see that he stole 141 bases with a SB% of 76.2%. His 2b/3b ratio was 106/56=1.89. Granted, parks were bigger then. But this is still a very small ratio. I'm convinced that Willie Mays was a great baserunner. To quantify all of this, I'd place 75% of the value on SB% and 25% of the value on 2b/3b ratio. Granted, the SB/3b ratio is more than 3/1. But good baserunning also stretch stretch some singles into doubles and can get some extra bases on wild pitches, passed balls, etc. Thus, I believe that stolen bases should carry about 3 times the vaue of the 2b/3b ratio. Actually, I should reverse this and call it a 3b/2b ratio. Also, we would still need to look at quantity as well. Thus, I'd weight this 50% for quantity and 50% for effectiveness. Effectiveness=.75xSB%+.25x3b/2b ratio. Based on all of this, Mays falls just short of Deion Sanders in his prime.
Last edited by pheasant; 02-11-2012 at 02:20 PM.
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I never send doubles had a strong positive correlation with speed, or hustle, necessarily. For a guy like Edgar, doubles were "trot into second, if I had any speed or aggressiveness I would go for third"....with a guy like Hal McRae, he was regularly stretching singles into doubles. He left the box thinking two. Pujols usually does that, but doesn't have the footspeed McRae did.
Speaking of aggresiveness and great baserunning, I was lamentably NOT shocked to see how low Ichiro's "extra bases taken percentage" is. I've watched the guy his entire career, and he's one of my all time favorities, but frankly, he does not play hard AT ALL, and doesn't hustle on the basepaths.
Last edited by csh19792001; 02-11-2012 at 03:23 PM.
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PO % is considered and measured directly. For the first time ever, we have complete baserunning stats back to 1950.
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Willie Wilson and the Lost Art of Baserunning
1/12/12 by Alan Barrington
Quick – Who is the greatest Royals hitter ever? That’s easy, the answer has to be George Brett. Baseball Reference has Brett listed as the 22nd greatest hitter of All-Time on their EloRater, and he’s in the Hall of Fame, so it’s a no brainer. Who is the greatest Royals fielder ever? Few would argue that it’s Frank White and his 8 Gold Glove awards. (He should have won more.) Now, how about the greatest Royals baserunner? Johnny Damon, Carlos Beltran, Tom Goodwin, Amos Otis and Freddie Patek all had tremendous talent, but without any doubt the answer has to be Willie Wilson. Willie excelled in what I believe is a long lost skill today, the fine art of tearing up the base paths and setting defenders’ nerves on edge.
When Willie Wilson started his career with the Royals, he was used as a pinch runner, much the same way that Jarrod Dyson has been used the past couple of years during the short periods of time he has spent in Kansas City. However, the difference between them is significant. Dyson is now 27-years-old and is never projected to hit very far above the Mendoza line. He’s a pinch runner and a late-inning defensive replacement, and in all likelihood, that’s all he’ll ever be. If you can’t get on the field, you’ll never be considered historically great no matter how quickly you cover the gaps or how fast you can circle the bases.
On the other hand, Willie Wilson was being used as a pinch runner in KC starting when he was 20-years-old, and was a regular player batting .315 with 83 stolen bases when he was 23-years-old. I’m sure you’ve seen pitchers get distracted by runners on the bases. If you look up “Pitcher Distractions” in the dictionary, you’ll find a picture of Willie Wilson standing on first base, leaning toward second. Then you’ll see a picture of him on second base. Then on third base. Then an image of the pitcher pulling his hair out. With the exception of the fact he didn’t hit the ball over the fence very often (although he did stroke 13 inside-the-park home runs, more than anyone in the majors since 1950), he was a complete player with a gift for running the bases as well or better than anyone in the history of the game.
In the 110 year existence of the American League, only three players have stolen more bases that Willie Wilson who had 668. You may have heard of two of these guys – Rickey Henderson and Ty Cobb. Rickey Henderson’s base stealing percentage was 80.8% compared to Willie’s 83.3%, so by this comparison Willie was more successful than the man with the greatest career number of base thefts in MLB history. I’m not certain Ty Cobb’s ranking on this list is completely legitimate. Baseball legend says he would slide into second base with his sharpened spikes in the air to intimidate any defender that dared to tag him out. Without his lethal shoes, Ty Cobb may have run the bases with no greater success than the rest of the mortals. The third guy is Eddie Collins who played in the early 1900’s during a completely different era. Willie Wilson is the only one of this group who is not in the Hall of Fame. Pretty lofty company I must say, and in my opinion, his overall baserunning skills may have been better than any of them.
When you compare Willie Wilson’s talent to all the greatest base stealers in the history of the game (with at least 400 career stolen bases), only Tim Raines has a greater stolen base percentage at 84.7% compared to Willie’s 83.3%. This is particularly impressive when you consider Vince Coleman once stole 50 consecutive bases without being thrown out.
As you know, there’s a lot more to baserunning than just stealing bases. In the Sabermetrics world, there’s a stat called “RSP” or Run Scoring Percent which is the percentage of times a baserunner eventually scores a run. Willie’s career run scoring percentage was 43% – an astounding number. For comparison, Albert Pujols is 32%, Ichiro Suzuki is 36%, Vladimir Guerrero is 30%, and Chipper Jones is 31%. Rickey Henderson, the all-time stolen base leader and Lou Brock were both 40%. The only player I can find with a higher percentage than Willie is Vince Coleman at 44%. How would you like to have a player on your team that scored 43% of the time he got on base? You’d like it a lot I’m quite certain.
In 2011, the Royals had a pretty good year at running the bases. Alex Gordon had a 33% RSP. Alcides Escobar had a very good year at 40%. Melky Cabrera had 38%. Jeff Francoeur had 29%. Do you think the Royals could use an everyday player with a CAREER average RSP of 43%?
In 1979, Willie’s first year as an everyday player, he had a run scoring percentage of 50%. 50%!! Exactly half of the time he got on base he came around to score. It’s almost unbelievable. And, it’s not as if he only got on base a handful of times giving us a small and inaccurate sample size – he had a .315 batting average in 154 games. And then, he doubled down the next year when he led the league in hits with 230, 15 triples, and 133 runs scored while achieving 50% again! Willie’s baserunning skills were a huge contributing factor to the Royals ALCS and World Series visits.
Willie’s speed was a weapon and it was wielded with great success on the Astroturf of what was once called Royals Stadium. There was no such thing as a routine ground ball when Willie made contact. He was a switch hitter and when swinging left handed he was next to impossible to throw out at first base. I loved seeing him slap the ball over the First or Third Baseman’s head and watching the outfielders run like crazy to get the ball back to the infield before Wilson could round the bases for one of his 133 career triples in a Royals uniform. Other than George Brett, no other Royal has half as many triples as Wilson.
I have a theory about Willie Wilson’s success that stems from my time playing softball. When I was a little younger, and a lot faster, I was a pretty reckless baserunner. I thought that if I ran with my head down as fast as I could and forced the other team into a hurried throw, there was a good chance they would make a mistake. So I just kept running and running until the ball was back on the infield and positioned between me and the next base. Most of the time my theory worked and I frequently ended up on third when most of my teammates had been screaming for me to stop at second.
Willie took this theory to the next level. There’s another stat called “ROE” or Reached on an Error which records the number of times a batter reaches base due to a fielder’s mistake. This statistic isn’t dependent on being a fast runner, because you can reach on an error whether or not you are fast. However, I believe Willie’s speed forced other teams into mental mistakes, to hurry their throws, to react too quickly and throw the ball away. During his career, Willie reached base on errors 107 times. Mickey Mantle also reached on an error 107 times in his career. Again, pretty lofty company.
One of the things I dislike about watching baseball highlights on TV is the constant barrage of home run replays. Borrr-innng. I want to see a double stretched into a triple, a dropped fly ball, a well turned double play, a diving catch, an umpire missing a bang-bang call, Jeff Francouer or Alex Gordon gunning down a runner at the plate, a Salvador Perez snap throw to pickoff a runner at first, or Alcides Escobar skidding into the grass of left field and rifling a throw to Eric Hosmer which he digs out of the dirt, spins, and tags the runner just before he crosses first base. That’s what I want to see on Baseball Tonight. Watching Willie Wilson create havoc with the defense night after night was one of the most exciting aspects of nearly every Royals game throughout the 80’s and one of the things I miss most about the Royals golden era.
The Royals have been blessed with several outstanding baserunners and base stealers throughout their history including the following players who led the American League:
1971 Amos Otis – 52 stolen bases
1977 Freddie Patek – 53
1979 Willie Wilson – 83
2000 Johnny Damon – 46
You might wonder how in the world Willie Wilson only led the American League on one occasion. I can answer that question with two words: Rickey Henderson. Rickey’s career almost exactly overlapped Willie’s, except that Rickey refused to retire and continued to play until he was 44-years-old, long after Wilson had hung up his cleats.
Willie Wilson possessed an astounding combination of hitting prowess and speed making him one of the key ingredients of the Royals championship teams. His career is somewhat tainted by his cocaine conviction with three of his Royals teammates, causing them to be the first active major leaguers to be sentenced to jail time, and his ill-conceived decision to ride the bench on the last day of the 1982 season to preserve his batting title over Robin Yount. (Yes his plan worked, but his “respect stock” definitely dropped a few points that day.) However, I suppose neither of these issues has anything to do with the fact that IMHO (and I realized I’m a tiny bit biased), Willie may very well have been the greatest baserunner in the history of the Major Leagues.
Thanks for visiting Kings of Kauffman. You can stay current on all the Kings of Kauffman content and news by following us on Twitter, Facebook, or by way of our RSS feed. You can also send your questions to our mailbag at KoKMailbag@gmail.com and follow Alan Barrington on Twitter to be notified each time he posts a story.
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Interesting methodology, pheasant...my main point with Mays is that he took the extra base 63% of the time. 1st-3rd on a single, scoring from first on a double, and scoring from second on a single.
This is particularly phenomenal because he played from age 19-42. His baserunning numbers are not only better than anyone else I've seen, the sheer number of extra bases he took was incredible. Mays was regularly above 65% per season (most guys never even approach that)...and several times around however around 75%.
I just went down the list of SB leaders since 1950, just to see who fell where:
Bert Campaneris: 60%
Willie Wilson: 58% (one year, he was on first 12 times when a double was hit, and scored all 12 times)
Rickey Henderson: 55%
Kenny Lofton: 55% *best % for a full season I've seen, 78% in 1993 he went 1st-3rd 29 of 36 times)
George Brett: 54%
Brett Butler: 54%
Maury Wills: 53%
Ozzie Smith: 53%
Lou Brock: 53%
Vince Coleman: 53%
Joe Morgan: 51%
Hank Aaron: 51%
Tim Raines: 50%
Active:
Juan Pierre 51%
Reyes: 51%
Rollins 48%
Crawford: 46%
Jeter: 46%
Ichiro: 41%
He of the windmill windup
Best baserunner of all time might be Ty Cobb, when you take into consideration the intimidation factor. How many pitchers/infielders did he rattle with his antics? And his greatness can never be measured in statistics, because (at least according to legend) Cobb sometimes would allow himself to get thrown out in a meaningless situation, with an eye toward fooling the competition at a later time when a game was on the line.
Rickey Henderson also gets intimidation points, although for a different reason. He just took up so much of the pitcher's concentration when he was on the basepaths. That sort of thing can never be quantified, but it's an important part of the game.
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With that small of a sample it does not mean every much. Could be there were two outs more often than not, could be there was a 3-2 count with two outs 7 times giving him a huge start. Could be some other players only took one base a few times because they were down 3-4 runs late in the game. If a leadof hitter without much power only gets 36 oppurtunities to go from 1B to 3B in a full season, most players probably only get about 20-25 chances. Not really enough to mean very much.
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From 1901 to Present, I'd list [in NO particular order]:
Tim Raines
Willie Wilson
Ty Cobb
Bert Campaneris
Luis Aparicio
Barry Bonds
Ron LeFlore
Carl Crawford
Kenny Lofton
Ichiro Suzuki
Amos Otis
Max Carey
Juan Pierre
Johnny Damon
Brett Butler
Honus Wagner
Davey Lopes
George Case
Bill Bruton
Lou Brock
Marquis Grissom
Omar Moreno
Richie Ashburn
Willie Mays
Kiki Cuyler
Of the current crop of players, Jacoby Ellsbury just hasn't put up that many seasons; but he has to be up there so far. The most exciting one-on-one, baserunner vs. picher and cartcher I have ever seen was Jackie Robinson; but his abbreviated career and late start did not allow him to pile up a large record in his prime. Another similarly limited [by segregation] player was Sam Jethroe, smart and swift as they ever were, and passed 30 when he got his shot.
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So, you're saying that Rickey henderson is not one of the 25 greatest base runners?
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Rickey Henderson, due to his huge quantity, takes #1 in my book. But I believe that Vince Coleman has the best peak value, based on my formula. George Brett should not make any list. He wasn't that fast or smart of a baserunner. His SB% was ony 67.4%, which is weak for a guy that stole only 201 bases for his entire career. Also, George Brett's 3b/2b ratio was 137/665 pr 20.6%, which is also weak.
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I was stating the 78% was the best I've seen for a single (full) season. That's merely a statement of fact.
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I consider baserunning separate than base stealing.
By that definition, Henderson was not the best baserunner in history, and not even close. In fact he didn't even run the bases nearly as hard as he could have; he mostly ran to pad his own SB stats, which he cared about more than anything else. If you doubt that, read what he's said about his baseunning totals....proclaiming himself as "The Greatest Ever" when he passed Brock, or his giant "1406" medallion necklace he wears in public to this day.
From 1979-2003, the "greatest baserunner of all time" hit as many triples as guys with HALF his PA's or less. Guys like Jose Offerman, Brady Anderson and Lloyd Moseby? Seriously? That's flat out pathetic. Sadly, the Rickey usually didn't go all out unless it padded his totals, and his double and triple totals prove it. You have guys like Brett Butler, Paul Molitor, and Robin Yount, who had nowhere near the raw speed but hustled on HELL of a lot more and were much better baserunners than Rickey Henderson ever was.Code:LEADERS 1979-2003 PLATE APPEARANCES PA 1 Rickey Henderson 13346 2 Cal Ripken 12883 3 Paul Molitor 11604 4 Eddie Murray 11461 5 Harold Baines 11092 6 Rafael Palmeiro 10973 7 Barry Bonds 10967 8 Wade Boggs 10740 9 Tim Raines 10359 10 Tony Gwynn 10232 11 Roberto Alomar 10210 12 Ozzie Smith 10110 13 Fred McGriff 10093 14 Chili Davis 9996 15 Craig Biggio 9990 16 Gary Gaetti 9817 17 Brett Butler 9545 18 Andre Dawson 9451 19 Robin Yount 9380 20 Lou Whitaker 9363 DOUBLES 2B 1 Cal Ripken 603 2 Paul Molitor 579 3 Wade Boggs 578 T4 Rafael Palmeiro 543 T4 Tony Gwynn 543 6 Barry Bonds 536 7 Craig Biggio 517 8 Mark Grace 511 9 Rickey Henderson 510 10 Eddie Murray 499 11 Roberto Alomar 498 12 George Brett 496 13 Edgar Martinez 492 14 Harold Baines 488 15 John Olerud 473 16 Robin Yount 465 17 Jeff Bagwell 455 18 Paul O'Neill 451 19 Andre Dawson 449 20 Andres Galarraga 444 TRIPLES 3B 1 Willie Wilson 145 2 Brett Butler 131 3 Lance Johnson 117 4 Tim Raines 113 5 Paul Molitor 110 6 Steve Finley 108 7 Robin Yount 103 8 Juan Samuel 102 9 Willie McGee 94 10 Tony Fernandez 92 11 Andy Van Slyke 91 12 Vince Coleman 89 13 Kenny Lofton 86 14 Tony Gwynn 85 15 George Brett 84 16 Andre Dawson 80 T17 Roberto Alomar 78 T17 Alfredo Griffin 78 19 Ryne Sandberg 76 T20 Delino DeShields 74 T20 Barry Bonds 74 T22 Barry Larkin 73 T22 Garry Templeton 73 24 Dave Martinez 72 T25 Mookie Wilson 71 T25 Devon White 71 T27 Omar Moreno 70 T27 Luis Polonia 70 T29 Jose Offerman 69 T29 Ozzie Guillen 69 31 Johnny Damon 68 T32 Jay Bell 67 T32 Brady Anderson 67 T34 Rickey Henderson 66 [/B] T34 Lloyd Moseby 66
Last edited by csh19792001; 02-12-2012 at 07:06 PM.
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If we exclude stolen bases, then I agree 100%. Rickey Henderson was not a top-notch baserunner. I did watch him play a lot also. I rarely remember him sliding into 3rd base, or even 2nd base for that matter. I don't ever remember him hustling as you mentioned. And I hated the way he hot dogged in the outfield by trying to spear the catch out of the air. I saw him blow it a few times, which was hilarious. Here are some speedburners that I drummed up. Willie Wilson and Vince Coleman were the two guys that came to my mind first. I remember watching Willie Wilson hit an inside the park homer once. That guy was aggressive and could really fly. Granted, Wilson and Coleman swung a toothpick up at the plate. Thus, the amount of their extra base hits is small in relation to their at-bats. But I don't think that should penalize their baserunning ability. These guys hit way too many ground balls to hit a lot of doubles. Thus, I look at 2b/3b ratio since stretching a double into a triple is what great baserunning is all about, in most instances. I.e, it's fairly rare to strech a single into a double. But I've seen guys like Willie stretch a double into a triple.And a speedy and good baserunner will have a lower than a 3/1 ratio in this department.
Here's a list that I came up with:
Players with a great 2b/3b ratio
Lance Johnson 175/117=1.50
Willie Wilson, 281/147=1.91
Omar Moreno 171/87=1.97
Vince Coleman 176/89=1.98
Brett Butler 277/131=2.11
Carl Crawford 244/112=2.18
Jose Reyes 222/99=2.24
Maury Wills 177/71=2.49
Last edited by pheasant; 02-12-2012 at 09:06 PM.
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Errr, no. I had Rickey Henderson right on top; and not wanting to state the obvious, I wanted to shuffle him into the middle of the pack, which I [DUH] forgot to do. Nice catch. However, I would make a distinction between base stealing and great all-around base running. Some great base runners were not renowned base stealers.
Last edited by leewileyfan; 02-12-2012 at 09:08 PM.
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Rickey was too busy drawing walks way more often than Offerman, Anderson and Moseby, plus he played in bad parks for triples (Oakland, Yankee Stadium) for most of his career.
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I think you are falling victim to the "white guys are hustlers" and "black guys are lazy" syndrome here. You picked out three white guys as your examples of great hustling baserunners and then say that the black guy, Henderson, dogged it.
Usually when a player is described as "scrappy, with a lot of heart" it's a white guy like Phil Garner or David Eckstein or Craig Counsell.
Usually when a player is described as selfish or dogging it, it's a black guy like Henderson, Barry Bonds, or Dick Allen.
Last edited by SavoyBG; 02-12-2012 at 10:44 PM.
xFIP?! I laugh at you!
And the "gamer" is almost always a white guy, too!
Strikeouts are boring! Besides that, they're fascist. Throw some ground balls - it's more democratic.-Crash Davis
http://sfgiants-forum.com/forum/index.php
It's Always Sunny
If a black guy doesn't want to be accused of not hustling then he should become a black guy who does hustle.
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