The Importance of Base Running

Baseball is a game of many facets, many of which are often ignored, simply because they are not easy to judge statistically. Because of this, hitting and pitching are often overvalued while other parts like defense (beyond errors and fielding percent), managing, a catcher’s ability to call a game and base running (beyond steals) are simply set aside. One of the benefits of tracking every single game, however, is that I have been able to keep track of a few stats that traditional sites don’t. In this case, it is time to look at how true base running aggressiveness and efficiency can effect a team.

To begin, the primary stats I keep that others don’t are extra bases (a judgement call, but generally any time a player advances more bases than expected such as going from first to third on a single) and tag outs. In general, stolen bases and their success rate have been the only considerations when evaluating a base runner, but steals have made up just 19% of all base advancements for the Indians since 2008 (when I started keeping track). In addition, stealing bases is much more difficult than advancing on a hit or wild pitch, yet yields the same result. In the seven years recorded, base stealers have been safe 73.5% of the time while runners taking an extra base have been safe 88.7%. In addition, the bases often taken with an extra base are generally more valuable as the runner moves from first to third or second to home rather than just first to second. At each base, a steal becomes a higher risk and lowers the chance of being successful.

With the basics out of the way, we can now look at who exactly has been taking extra bases for the Indians over the past seven seasons. To the right is the list of the top ten (actually 12 due to ties) along with their total games played and steals. While the first three names are easy to guess, due to their successes stealing, the rest of the list is not as obvious (this is not simply due to opportunities either as eleven other players played in at least 200 games). Of particular note are those particularly adverse to stealing, like Travis Hafner, Jamey Carroll and Jhonny Peralta. Just because these players were not fast enough to take huge risks on the base paths, does not mean they were unable to be of use. On the low end, Andy Marte and Ryan Garko combined for a total of 61 extra bases and one steal, despite playing in 426 games.

As these are simple counting stats at this point, they are of limited value, having much to do with opportunity and nothing to do with success rate. Comparing the players by opportunity should show which players are the most aggressive and comparing success rate should show the most intelligent. Unlike simply counting steals or triples, this is not trying to find out who is the fastest, but the most valuable on the base paths. To start, we will look at the total success rate of the top runners (with at least 50 attempts) on the chart below.

The chart above goes back to 2008 and again shows that the best base runners are not always the fastest. In particular, Swisher has only played two seasons and stolen one base, yet has taken 59 other extra bases and only been tagged out on the base paths four times total between either situation. Considering that players like Swisher, along with Carroll and Peralta again, can take extra bases at such a great rate (near 90%), there is little reason for these players to even attempt a steal (the three combined for 16 steals and eight caught over the period). Why take a 50% risk when the player will likely take that extra base anyway and do so at a much higher success rate. In addition to the plodders are some less risk averse players like Michael Brantley and Drew Stubbs, showing that these players are actually doing a great job on the base paths, not just trying more often than others. On the 2014 squad, there were three players who took the shot gun approach, running with reckless abandon. These were Mike Aviles, (76.8% overall success rate), Asdrubal Cabrera (81.5%) and Jason Kipnis (82.6%). Of course, even their rates are high enough to warrant their effort, well above the ~72% stolen base rate necessary to make the risk worth chancing for the team.

The second part of this equation is the aggressiveness of the base runner and to find this, we must find out how many opportunities to run he had. Without information on every situation, I simply subtracted triples and home runs from total hits entirely (no chance to take an extra base), counting doubles for a single chance with singles and walks counting for two. Obviously, there won’t be a real opportunity in each situation, but this provides an equal footing for all players. Using this, the average player took 0.186 extra bases per opportunity with a range from Victor Martinez at 0.098 to Drew Stubbs at 0.329 (meaning Stubbs was more than three times as likely to attempt an extra base in any situation). The chart to the right shows the Indians top ten most aggressive base runners since 2008 with the final column showing how many extra bases (including steals) they could be expected to take in any full season (Brantley lead the team with 85 in 2014, so 98 for a full season of Stubbs wouldn’t be out of the question).

As expected, this group includes none of the larger players, instead being filled with players who at least believe they are fast. While this doesn’t take success into account, there is little question that Jose Ramirez, Ben Francisco and Franklin Gutierrez have been among the most daring base runners for the Tribe in the past decade. This also shows that the initial chart showing extra base totals was a little misleading as Carlos Santana has had more chances to take an extra base than any other player in the past eight years (1,655) yet attempts to take an extra base less often than the average player at .132 and is safe just 85% of the time.

Going into the 2015 season, this is one aspect of the game that the Indians shouldn’t have to worry about. While they may not be as good at the plate as expected, Michael Bourn and Nick Swisher have done just what was needed on the bases and for the most part, the rest of the team has as well. While there is room for some improvement (Kipnis and Aviles could tone things down a bit), for the most part, players take chances at the rate they should. Players under contract for 2015 with significant are listed below and hopefully, this will provide fans with a new way to look at base running.