Stolen Bases

[DOUGHBOYS]

Last year, after the season was over, I was intrigued by numbers in the stolen base department.

The numbers were not smaller or larger by a great degree. They just looked funny.

The top 17 base stealers all had small single numbers, following their 'tens' number.

Here's the list-



Ellsbury-70

Bourn- 61

Crawford-60

Figgins-42

Upton-42

Morgan-42

R Davis-41

Kemp-34

Andrus-33

Rollins-31

Kinsler-31

Jeter-30

Abreu-30

Podsednik-30

Pierre-30

Roberts-30

Bartlett-30



Farther down the list, there were seven players with an 'even' 25 and nine players who finished with 20 stolen bases.



Stolen bases are unlike most stats in baseball. A player can go out of his way to steal a base for any reason(Just ask Nyjer Morgan). A player cannot go out of his way to get a certain hit (bunt excluded), although some players have stopped at certain bases in order to qualify for 'a cycle'.



It is either very coincidental that the stolen base numbers ended as they did, or very agent-driven. My vote would go to the latter.



With less than four weeks left in the season, here are some guys that need to reach the next plateau of 'tens'.

Be it 'coincidence' or something else.



Juan Pierre needs six stolen bases for 60.

Michael Bourn, four more for 50.

Carl Crawford and Rajai Davis have some work to do with eight more stolen bases to get to 50.



I can see Carlos Gonzalez trying to steal seven bases to become a 30-30 guy.



Chris Young will need three stolen bases to have a chance at 30-30.



Austin Jackson is eight away from 30. It would not surprise me, to see him running crazy during September to brighten ROY chances.



Abreu, Wright, Kemp, and Rollins were all expected to have more stolen bases. Expect them all to have a good blackjack number of 20 or 21 when October ends.



Hunter Pence and Choo will want to be 20-20 guys. They too, will settle around 20.



Evan Longoria may even make a 'mad dash' at 20 stolen bases.

Whooda thunk before the season began that Longoria's steal attempts would match his home runs?

They do.



They say speed never comes back.

If that is the case, do not think of Damon or Torii Hunter next year in the quest for stolen bases. Each has nine, and both will probably settle for just a double digit number this year.



Say goodbye to another former base stealer. Alfonso Soriano has five, yes, five stolen bases this year. Chipper Jones has five!





Last, two guys who could have had more stolen bases but were stopped in their tracks by red lights.

Alcides Escobar and Rickey Weeks have 10 and nine stolen bases.

Once leaving Ken Macha's red light district next year, those numbers should escalate.

[Rainiers]

Since reading this post, I kept track of the stolen base totals for the base stealers on my Classic team.



The number of steals my main five guys had on September 11:



Reyes. 29

Crowe. 15

Stubbs. 24

Kalish. 3

Pennington 24





During the week leading up to the 18th of September, they stole bases pretty much at their normal pace, +/- 1 base per

week, to give them new totals:



Reyes 29+1=30

Crowe 15+1=16

Stubbs 24+1=25

Kalish 3+1= 4

Pennington 24+0=24



It's the last two weeks of the year where it got interesting.



When you add the numers for week 26 and 27, this I what you get for their year-end steal totals:



Reyes 30+0+0=30

Crowe 16+2+2=20

Stubbs 25+1+4=30

Kalish 4+2+4=10

Pennington 24+2+3=29



Reyes stopped stealing base three weeks ago ..at 30.



Crowe, Stubbs, and Kalish all made a huge effort to end up

where they did....on the last day of the season they had four

stolen bases between them.



Pennington was the only one not to make it to a round number, but it wasn't for a lack of trying...



[ October 03, 2010, 09:15 PM: Message edited by: robertkirk ]