Stolen Base Efficiency

by Jason Vernon
2006-04-18

Stolen Base Efficiency
A little over two weeks into the season the Major League's stolen base efficiency is sitting at 73.2% -- the highest figure of the past twenty years. Only a couple of times in those twenty years has one of leagues broken 71% for the entire year. Most years the major league rate has bounced between 67% and 70%. The increase in base stealing efficiency is probably a result of the statistical revolution baseball has been undergoing for the past ten years or so. Run expectancy charts show that a stolen base is valuable only if you are successful between 70% and 75% of the time. Anything under the 70% rate is pretty much putting your team behind the eight ball over the course of the long season. It appears that field managers are finally getting this message and employing the stolen base more efficiently.

Three teams are perfect in the stolen base department so far this year - the Orioles, Padres and Giants. Interestingly, no one would picture these teams as being base stealing clubs, in particular the geriatric Giants. Another eleven teams break the 80% stealing efficiency mark! The team with the most steals is the Seattle Mariners who have swiped fourteen bags with Ichiro Suzuki's five and Adrian Beltre's surprising four stolen bases leading the way. Perhaps Beltre's compensating for his .143/.250/.143 line.

Ibanez's Success
Speaking of the Mariners, Raul Ibanez is looking to put up his third straight solid season in Seattle. He's off to a fine start at .315/.367/.481 and is well on his way to fully justifying the three year contract he corralled back in the fall of 2003. The signing was widely panned at the time but since that time Mariner General Manager Bill Bavasi has been proved right in his assertion that Ibanez could offer the M's a solid middle of the order bat. Ibanez put up lines of .304/.353/.472 in 2004 and .280/.355/.436 in 2005. This winter he was extended an additional two years at $11 million. While Ichiro Suzuki is considered the Mariners best player of the past couple of years, Ibanez is the team's soul and leader.

Milestone
On Sunday Alex Rodriguez passed his boyhood idol, Cal Ripken, on the all-time homerun list with number 432 of his career. This puts Rodriguez at 36th on the all-time list and on-track to top 500 in 2007.