The Baserunners That Sprint Speed Overlooks

I’ve always been fascinated by players whose skill sets don’t match their physical makeup. Look at Mookie Betts, a prolific slugger at a mere 5-foot-9. Conversely, there’s Oneil Cruz, a legit shortstop towering over the infield at 6-foot-7. Spencer Strider is one of the smallest starters in the league, and Zach Eflin is one of the tallest, yet the former is the power pitcher, and the latter thrives on finesse. Don’t get me wrong: It’s fun to watch Aaron Judge sock dingers, too. Still, I’ll always have a soft spot for the players who don’t fit the prototype. I suppose a childhood filled with sports movies has conditioned me to root for the underdog.

In the same vein, I’m a fan of slow runners who nonetheless wreak havoc on the basepaths. These players aren’t nearly as common as their opposite; there are far more fast runners who struggle to contribute on the bases. After all, it’s much easier to fail at something despite possessing a natural advantage than to succeed without one. We’ve all met a tall person who stinks at basketball, but you can count the number of average-height players in the NBA on one thumb. And indeed, the scarcity of such players is a big part of what makes them so easy to root for.

Of the 50 slowest runners by sprint speed in 2023, only six have provided positive value on the bases, and only one has a BsR that wouldn’t round down to zero: Ji Man Choi, who has been worth all of 0.6 BsR. Similarly, of the 50 most valuable runners by BsR, only four have a sprint speed below the MLB average of 27 feet per second: Freddie Freeman, Kyle Tucker, Jose Altuve, and Josh Rojas. Of those four, only Freeman and Rojas have accrued positive baserunning value according to every other major source; Tucker has been below average per Baseball Prospectus, and Altuve has negative scores at both BP and Baseball Savant.

BsR remains my metric of choice, but my point is to highlight just how few players with below-average speed have positive baserunning numbers across the board. Out of 225 qualified runners with a sprint speed below 27 ft/sec, only two are consensus plus baserunners. Freeman and Rojas prove that speed isn’t everything, but the other 223 players show that it’s still pretty darned important.

My colleague Esteban Rivera recently covered Freeman’s excellent baserunning in depth. Rojas is performing even better, albeit in a smaller sample size. He has played only 85 games, and due to his poor on-base percentage, he has had far fewer baserunning opportunities. Nevertheless, his 2.9 BsR puts him within 1.3 runs of Freeman.

His success is no fluke either: Rojas ranks eighth overall in BsR since the start of the 2021 campaign, and while he has gotten slower over the last two years, he was never blisteringly fast to begin with. According to the numbers at Baseball Savant, he possesses a strong sense of when to advance. Since his rookie season, he has been safe on 135 of 138 advancement attempts. This year, he’s been safe on all ten of his stolen base attempts, too, including his first successful steal of home. His legs didn’t beat the throw, but he pulled off a miraculous deke to avoid the tag and get his hand on the plate:

I may have thrown Tucker and Altuve under the bus earlier to make a point, but their BsR figures are too good to ignore. As a 26-year-old Gold Glove-winning outfielder, Tucker doesn’t seem like he should be so slow, yet he and Freeman have comparable sprint speeds and home-to-first times. But Tucker has an even higher BsR this season despite fewer opportunities; he is on pace for 5.3 BsR over 650 PA, and Freeman is on pace for only 4.4. Moreover, Freeman has earned nearly a full run of baserunning value by avoiding double plays, but Tucker has lost almost an entire run for the same reason. Avoiding double plays can be a sign of good baserunning, but for these guys, I’m inclined to believe it has more to do with Freeman’s much lower groundball rate. You can swipe a bag with your baseball IQ, but it’s much harder to think your way out of a double play.

Like Rojas, Tucker has an excellent sense of when to advance, per Baseball Savant. Indeed, when his sprint speed dropped last season, he adjusted by advancing less often, thereby maintaining his pristine success rate. In addition, he gets good jumps. While his 90-foot split time ranks in the 47th percentile, his 20-foot time ranks in the 74th. That’s partly because he’s left-handed and therefore bats closer to first base. Even among lefties, though, he moves well in those first 20 feet.

I’d argue that Tucker is great at sliding, too, although I don’t have empirical evidence to support my claim; the eye test will have to do. He knows how to avoid a tag, and he often slides right at the last minute, giving him more time to build up momentum. When you combine a good lead, a good jump, and a good slide, pure foot speed isn’t quite as consequential:

As for Altuve, I’m skeptical of his low sprint speed. For one thing, it dropped a tremendous amount this season, going from 28.1 ft/sec to 26.4 ft/sec. Considering he hasn’t suffered any major leg injuries recently, it’s unusual that it fell so dramatically between his age-32 and 33 seasons. Furthermore, while he ranks in the 28th percentile for sprint speed, his home-to-first time ranks in the 57th percentile, and his 90-foot time ranks in the 64th. No qualified runner has a larger gap between his sprint speed and 90-foot split ranking.

On top of that, Altuve has recorded seven bolts (any run with a sprint speed of at least 30 ft/sec) in just 69 games. No other player with a sprint speed below 27 ft/sec has recorded more than a single bolt, and the vast majority haven’t bolted at all. The fact that he can run that fast — something no one else with his sprint speed can do — is convincing evidence that his sprint speed doesn’t accurately reflect how well he runs. Altuve modulates his speed far more than the average player; he knows when to step on the gas and when to slam on the brakes. If he can keep it up, it’s a useful skill for a veteran entering his mid-30s.

This got me thinking about other players who might be undersold by their sprint speed — a whole new category of underdogs to root for. After a quick scroll through the sprint speed and bolt leaderboards, two more names stood out: Ronald Acuña Jr. and Tim Anderson, the only players with a sprint speed below 28 ft/sec and more than 10 bolts.

It makes sense why both Acuña and Anderson are playing things safe. In the not-so-distant past, they each had excellent sprint speeds. Acuña, though, suffered a serious ACL injury in 2021, and Anderson has spent time on the IL with one leg ailment or another in each of the past five seasons. These days, their sprint speeds are closer to average than elite, but they’re still capable of turning on the jets when they need to. Acuña has a top-10 BsR this year, and Anderson has been a plus baserunner as long as you ignore his dreadful 21.7% GIDP rate.

I also compared every qualified runner by sprint speed and home-to-first time. The two numbers are closely connected, but it’s far from a perfect correlation; plenty of players have a better home-to-first time than sprint speed, and vice versa. Four runners in particular deserve special recognition: Jeff McNeil, Ozzie Albies, Shohei Ohtani, and Cody Bellinger. None of the four has a particularly impressive sprint speed, but they all rank among the top 25 players (out of nearly 500) in the time they take to get from home plate to first base. (Albies, a switch-hitter, only ranks so highly from the left side.) Home-to-first time is a critical measurement of speed, and by this measurement, they’re four of the fastest runners in the game:

Albies, Ohtani, and Bellinger grade out as strong baserunners, and even McNeil, despite a neutral BsR this season, uses his under-the-radar speed to his advantage. Throughout his career, he has demonstrated an aptitude for avoiding double plays, legging out infield hits, and stretching singles into doubles:

Speed seems like it should be one of the easiest tools to measure; just grab a stopwatch, right? The thing is, speed isn’t actually a single skill, nor is there a single unit with which to measure it. You can track the distance covered in a given amount of time or the time it takes to cover a given distance. You can measure maximum speed, average speed, or something in between. The runners who reach the top speeds aren’t necessarily the ones who get to first base the quickest, nor are the ones who make it to first so quickly guaranteed to advance to second, third, or home at equally high speeds. On top of that, pure speed doesn’t technically matter at all. As long as a baserunner advances frequently and successfully, the number on the stopwatch doesn’t mean a lick.

Sprint speed has become the primary metric for assessing speed, and for good reason. It’s easy to find, easy to understand, and has the catchiest name, too. But when sprint speed is the go-to, a small subset of players are bound to be overlooked. Those who don’t fit a specific mold miss out on the credit they deserve for their baserunning prowess.

Stats and rankings as of September 7.