Gerardo Parra: Stop Trying To Steal

Gerardo Parra is probably one of the most underrated players in baseball. He’s been on the Diamondbacks roster since 2009, but they never saw fit to give him a regular job, keeping him as a part-time reserve and injury fill-in, despite the fact that his production suggested he was good enough for a starting role. Finally, this year, a series of injuries to Adam Eaton, Cody Ross, and Jason Kubel have forced Kirk Gibson to put Parra in the line-up everyday, and he’s responded with his best performance to date. Through 335 plate appearances, he has a 133 wRC+ and UZR continues to rate him as an elite defensive outfielder, so he’s already at +3.1 WAR with half a season left to play.

However, in the midst of Parra’s excellent overall performance, there’s one glaring problem; he’s threatening to post one of the worst base stealing seasons in recent history.

Parra has attempted 15 stolen bases this year, but he’s only been successful on six of those 15 attempts, a dreadful 40% stolen base rate. The Major League average this season is 73%. Despite the fact that Parra ranks 19th in the majors in stolen base attempts, he’s #1 in getting caught stealing, and is the only player running on a regular basis who isn’t succeeding at a high rate. For reference, here are the 20 players who have attempted at least 15 stolen bases this year, along with their success rate:

Rk Player SB SB Attempts SB%
1 Everth Cabrera 31 38 82%
2 Jacoby Ellsbury 32 35 91%
3 Starling Marte 22 30 73%
4 Nate McLouth 24 28 86%
5 Jean Segura 23 25 92%
6 Ben Revere 20 24 83%
7 Juan Pierre 18 23 78%
8 Jason Kipnis 17 22 77%
9 Mike Trout 18 21 86%
10 Jose Altuve 17 21 81%
11 Alexei Ramirez 16 19 84%
12 Andrew McCutchen 15 19 79%
13 Alex Rios 13 18 72%
14 Elvis Andrus 16 18 89%
15 Carlos Gomez 15 18 83%
16 Michael Bourn 11 16 69%
17 Brett Gardner 11 16 69%
18 Coco Crisp 13 16 81%
19 Gerardo Parra 6 15 40%
20 Rajai Davis 14 15 93%

As a group, the other 19 highly aggressive base stealers are succeeding at an 82% clip, and only three of the other 19 — Rios, Gardner, and Bourn — have a success rate below the league average. Generally, guys who run a lot are good at it, which is why they run a lot in the first place.

Parra, though, has been a disaster stealing bases this year, and by wSB — which is the runs a player has added or lost through base stealing — he’s already cost the Diamondbacks 2.6 runs through his base stealing efforts. At -2.6 wSB in half a season, Parra is on pace to easily dethrone Luis Castillo’s -4.1 mark from 2003 — he was 21 for 40 in base stealing that year — as the worst wSB season of the last 12 years, which is as far back as our play by play data goes.

Using Baseball Reference’s Play Index, we can spotlight other terrible baserunning seasons before 2002, however. If we go back to 1990, which was when the crazy baserunning of the 1980s started to fade away, we can look at the success rate of every player in a season where they attempted at least 15 steals. Using that query, we find seven players that have stolen at a lower success rate than Parra’s 40% clip in a season where they tried fairly regularly, with Jay Payton’s 31% success rate in 16 attempts back in 2000 ranking as the most futile SB% season since the beginning of the 1990s.

For sheer recklessness during this period though, the actual leader might be Greg Gagne back in 1994; he was just 10 for 27 in base stealing. No other player during that time has attempted 20+ steals while succeeding at a rate below 40%. In terms of all time base running futility, 1987 Will Clark is tough to beat, as he went just 5 for 22, a hilariously putrid 23% success rate that stands as the lowest mark of any player in the last 100 years for a player who attempted at least 20 steals.

Parra’s not going to be quite that awful, but we’re only halfway through the season and he’s already tried to swipe 15 bases despite the fact that he’s terrible at it. Even before this season, Parra had a career 68% success rate, and his terrible performance this year has lowered that down to 62%. Put simply, a player who gets thrown out 38% of the time they try to steal should just stop trying. Outs are too valuable to simply be given away, and the occasional successful advancement doesn’t outweigh the cost of giving outs away.

Gerardo Parra is an excellent player, and one of the main reasons the Diamondbacks are in first place this season. But, really, there’s no reason he should still be allowed to try and steal second base with any kind of regularity. It’s time for Gibson to give Parra a firm red light before he runs himself into the kinds of history books you don’t want to be associated with.





Dave is the Managing Editor of FanGraphs.

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Kevin Towers
10 years ago

I make him steal because I want to see grit. I want to see his will to win. My strategies for success can be found here: https://twitter.com/WhatWouldKTDo

Enjoy!

The Real Kevin Towers
10 years ago
Reply to  Kevin Towers

You have a problem with first place?

stupid manager+good team=win
10 years ago

You can have a completely incompetent manager with amazing players and win the division.

Look at Leyland and Detroit–he’s not the brightest bulb in the store but any joe could win the AL Central with that team and the lack of competition they have.

The Real Kevin Towers
10 years ago

We’re talking about the GM, although I suppose he was choosing players to fit the manager, and his own philosophy. Not trying to suggest results > process. The Upton trade hasn’t worked out great thus far, but there I am looking a results again.

supporting evidence
10 years ago

See: Eric Wedge, Cleveland, 2007

Scraps
10 years ago

Again, Eric Wedge is/was not a GM.

scraps
10 years ago
Reply to  Kevin Towers

I assumed that WhatWouldKTDo was funny. #BoyWasIWrong

Some Douchebag
10 years ago
Reply to  scraps

I was hopeful that it “KT” was Ken Tremendous.

AC_Butcha_AC
10 years ago
Reply to  Kevin Towers

Too bad we have wSB data going back to 1871!!!!

Guess Dave got confused by UBR, which actually just goes back to 2002.

In fact, Will Clark was absolutely horrendous in 1987 with a wSB of -6.5. Easily the worst season in terms of Stolen Base value since WWII.

The worst season ever belongs to Duffy Lewis of the 1914 Red Sox. Costing them a staggering 8.7 runs via SB-attempts.

Wow
10 years ago
Reply to  Kevin Towers

Wow, you use an overused and arguably incorrect narrative and still keep going with it.

This may be the lowest level of baseball fandom.

Scraps
10 years ago
Reply to  Wow

Twitter?

Seriously, I can’t tell who you are replying to.

Wow
10 years ago
Reply to  Scraps

Yes. I clicked reply on his post but it buried it down here. His Twitter is pathetic and it’s just another pompous fan that is running with an overused narrative.

Scraps
10 years ago
Reply to  Scraps

Got it, Wow.

Pat
10 years ago
Reply to  Kevin Towers

Still a much better GM than Colletti will ever be.