JABO: The Stolen Base Is Still Missing
One of the great things about baseball is that it’s always changing. The changes don’t happen quickly, in most cases, but the game being played today is quite a bit different from the one being played 10 years ago, and the one 10 years before that, and the one 10 years before that. Baseball has eras where no one could hit and eras where even a shortstop could launch 20 homers a year; it has had eras where starters pitched nearly every inning and eras where managers would bring in his specialist to counter the other team’s newly-inserted specialist.
The current era is all about pitching, as the rise of hard-throwers on every roster and an expanding strike zone have made this a great time to throw the ball for a living — so long as you can manage to keep from visiting Dr. Andrews, anyway — and a rough time to try and put up big offensive numbers. This is a drastic change from the style of play that we saw during the Steroid Era, where players used copious amounts of PEDs and offensive rates neared all-time highs. If you’ve been watching baseball for since we entered the 21st century, you’ve seen the game change in pretty dramatic ways, even while it is still the same sport.
Over the last 50 years, one of the most interesting changes has been the rise and fall of the popularity of the stolen base. Aggressive baserunning reached its peak in the 1980s, when teams like the St. Louis Cardinals featured line-ups of slap hitters who could run and field, while stars like Rickey Henderson and Tim Raines were also setting the standard for what leadoff hitters should be. But when home run rates surged in the 1990s, stolen bases were de-emphasized; why risk making an out when the next guy up can hit one over the fence?
Now, with the strike zone getting bigger and PED testing getting more sophisticated, offense is back to the levels we saw back in the 1980s, with teams averaging roughly 4.25 runs per game over the last five years. With runs being more scarce, it was thought that perhaps MLB would move back towards 1980s-style players, and we’d see a resurgence in stolen bases once again.
Read the rest at Just A Bit Outside.
Dave is the Managing Editor of FanGraphs.
Why are you furthering the “PEDs ONLY INCREASED THE OFFENSIVE OUTPUT” narrative, Dave? You’re smarter than that.
Is he?
I dunno. It does kind of read that way.
I think the problem is that it’s called the Steroid Era. If it was the crazy offense era, it wouldnt seem too much.
This line in particular seems to suggest that:
This is a drastic change from the style of play that we saw during the Steroid Era, where players used copious amounts of PEDs and offensive rates neared all-time highs.
In addition: Now, with the strike zone getting bigger and PED testing getting more sophisticated, offense is back to the levels we saw back in the 1980s
they sort of imply that PEDs = offensive explosion…
Baseball moves in cycles, it happens believe it or not. And they also juiced the ball so it would go farther.
no way!
Ron Washington effect? He ran his team right out of two division titles. Now he’s gone.
“With runs being more scarce, it was thought that perhaps MLB would move back towards 1980s-style players, and we’d see a resurgence in stolen bases once again.”
Teams are getting smarter. I think most understand that stolen bases != more offense except among the most successful base stealers. I’m not really buying the argument that waiting around for a home run is driving the dip in SB. I think that’s just a symptom of teams optimizing how they play the game.
I disagree with one point here. While it certainly doesn’t matter what base a runner is on when a home run occurs, it can matter in the case of a strikeout with less than two outs. There’s the risk of a strike out/caught stealing double play, but if the SB was successful, the result is the same as a sacrifice. Given how much of the current total of strikeouts + home runs is actually due to the rise in strikeouts, I’m not sure you can use this as reasoning for reduced stolen base attempts.
Perhaps this has something to do with improved defense? I have no way of knowing, but it seemed to me SB attempts resulted in more errors and a free extra base back in the 80s/early 90s. Are catcher throwing out rates better now?
I’m not a researcher, but someone who is might look into it? I dunno.
A problem with the Three True Outcomes: They’re all pretty dull.
Agreed, just waiting for the next HR is not exciting baseball. Look at Joc Peterson, he was all the rage until he became the two outcome guy (HR and lots of K’s), now he sits on the bench.
Dingers and K’s are not dull.
Maybe baseball in the 80’s was just its own unique animal. There seems to be little difference in stolen bases between the late 60’s, when offense was non-existent, and the early 2000’s, when home runs ruled the game.
maybe it was the cocaine?
I was a bit disappointed in this article. I was hoping for at least some analysis as to what the break-even point for successful SB% is, what it was like for the run-scoring in the 80’s, the 00’s and now, and how the actual SB% compares.
You can get that information from the FG Guts page, where the run value of CS is shown historically.
E.g., it reached a peak of -0.460 in 2000, vs. -0.392 currently. From 1963-1992, it was below -0.400 every year but two. As you would expect, it was very high in the Ruthian era, reaching a peak of -0.492 in 1930. In the early, pre-twentieth century days it was frequently even higher, sometimes much higher.
“…the number of reached-first-safely plays should serve as a decent proxy for stolen base opportunities over the years.”
Should it? In high-scoring eras there are likely more runners on second, which seems to make teams much less likely to run…
Base stealers tend to miss time due to injuries, so perhaps that’s why teams don’t let them loose.
An additional factor might be Astro-turf and all the other assorted-turfs. Cards, obviously, but I’m sure that overall teams ran more on the turf, and it’s usage isn’t all that far off from the graph.
Gah, non-possessive “its” for “it’s.” Sorry.
I wonder if stolen base ATTEMPTS might show up slightly differently. Is it possible that more people are getting thrown out, possibly due to those harder-throwing pitchers (and maybe harder throwing catchers)?
And maybe the increased chance of getting thrown out then induces everyone not to try.
I went back and looked at stolen base success % over the past few years, and I’m not sure if it tells us anything.
2015: 30% caught stealing
2014: 27%
2013: 28%
2012: 26%
2011: 28%
2010: 27%
2009: 27%
2008: 26%
2007: 26%
2006: 28%
The one thing I find interesting is that as stolen base attempts go down (as Dave shows here), the caught % is either staying the same, or (this year) going up.
I would expect that as fewer overall batters are attempting steals, you would see a greater concentration of attempts among the truly fast, great runners (Hamilton, Gordon, etc.). I would assume that would mean the caught % would go down. But it’s not.
I wonder if faster pitchers + better throwing catchers (which may be an anomaly) = fewer attempts and worse success rates?