Base Stealing Decline

[bigboydan]

Have you guys noticed the decline is bases stolen or is it just me?

Maury Wills and Rickey Henderson were the state of the art bag swipers. Juan Pierre is a good base stealer but I just don't see this as an important part of the game anymore. A good base stealing team can drive opposing pitching staffs crazy. It puts so much pressure on the pitcher. If I were to go about a creative way to create offense on a low budget, I just might try and do it with a bunch of speed merchants.

[Illusion]

If Scott Podsednick would have stayed healthy in the second half last season he would have stolen 80-90 bases. I think he finished somewhere around 60.

[Willie Bee]

Steals are down from 'the good old days,' and it's easy to point at the old adage about not wanting to run your way out of an inning with all of the long ball hitters each lineup has now as opposed to pre-1993.

But steals are inching up a little now. Here's a chart from the National League since expanding to 16 teams beginning in the 1998 season:

YEAR . R/G . . HR/G . . SB/G . . SB%
2005 . 8.894 . 1.989. . 1.040. . 70.7
2004 . 9.280 . 2.198. . 1.032. . 71.7
2003 . 9.224 . 2.091. . 0.999. . 68.9
2002 . 8.900 . 2.005. . 1.170. . 68.3
2001 . 9.403 . 2.278. . 1.123. . 66.5
2000 .10.008 . 2.318. . 1.254. . 68.8
1999 .10.008 . 2.233. . 1.512. . 70.2
1998 . 9.193 . 1.976. . 1.240. . 68.2

With homers reaching their peak in the 1999-2001 seasons, it's a bit odd to see steals begin to drop off as well from 2001-03. I think what happened was teams have been a bit slow to adjust back to using speed more than power. Still strange to see that when homers were way up in 99-00, so were steals.

More importantly is seeing the success ratio of steals moving up the past two years and back over 70% for the league. Teams are running a little more often and with greater success.

And something you didn't hardly see at all from 1999-2001, moving baserunners up with sacs, is also on the increase the past couple of seasons.