Brewers Use Discretion with Stolen Bases

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Photo via William Contreras - Instagram

William Contreras running

William Contreras

Baserunning was one of the major differences in the Brewers’ lone win over the Cubs in their weekend series, and it certainly wasn’t the first time this season where they have used their team speed to push the envelope in a close game.

The Brewers trailed 1-0 in the top of the eighth inning when four consecutive batters singled, then stole second base off Cubs reliever Adbert Alzolay and catcher Miguel Amaya. The group that did it included noted speedster Jackson Chourio, but also a pair of below average runners in Jake Bauers (who Baseball Savant has in the 12th percentile for baserunning value) and William Contreras (first percentile). 

Their successes are a point of evidence toward a growing understanding around the game: Given increased athleticism around the sport, recent MLB rule changes and teams appearing to de-emphasize slowing down the running game, most players could successfully steal much more often. They’re just not regularly trying to do so.

Attempting to quantify the value of stolen bases was one of the first targets of baseball’s statistical revolution and multiple attempts over the decades since have largely settled on a break-even rate of around 67% (although, as was also the case with bunting, much of that math was done in a higher-scoring era). After Sunday’s games MLB teams had a success rate of about 79% this season, with only two teams (the Giants and Rockies) falling below two thirds success. The Brewers are 45-for-52 in steal attempts and have one of the game’s best percentages at 87%. Brice Turang has stolen 14 bases without getting caught a single time, and only one Brewer has been caught stealing more than once.

Competitive Advantage

Those numbers could suggest that teams in general and the Brewers specifically could gain value by running more often, and MLB teams don’t usually ignore opportunities to gain a competitive advantage. When it comes to stolen bases, however, there’s more to the story than just the benefit of a base and the risk of an out.

By percentage, Phillies shortstop is one of the most successful base stealers in MLB history. Since being traded from the Nationals to the Dodgers during the 2021 season he’s stolen 78 bases and been caught just five times (a 94% success rate), and in 2023 he went 30-for-30. Over that same span he’s had at least 361 occasions where he singled, walked or was hit by a pitch and did not attempt a steal. In a 2023 piece about MLB’s new rules at The Athletic, Turner acknowledged that maximizing his steals is a lower priority than staying healthy.

“Like I’ve said in the past, I can steal a ton,” Turner told Jayson Stark. “But for me, it’s not about stealing the base. It’s more about scoring the run. And it’s more about being on the field. You know, asking people to steal 70 or 100 bases like guys used to do, I don’t know how they did it and stayed on the field.” There were also similar pieces about Turner in the Washington Post in 2019 and the Philadelphia Inquirer in 2023 (and we did one about Christian Yelich in 2019).

While they’re not running all the time, the Brewers are one of baseball’s best teams at using the stolen base to their advantage in key situations. They’re 10-for-11 stealing bases this season in situations Baseball Reference describes as “Late & Close,” with only the Royals succeeding more often. Thirty three of the Brewers’ 52 stolen base attempts have come in situations where the game was either tied or the margin was just one run, while only five have come in situations where one team led by five or more. 

Major League Baseball may never see another player reach 100 steals in a season or see stolen base attempts return to their peak in the 1980’s, where National League teams attempted 1.3 steals per game. Team speed and rule changes have added an extra element of intrigue to the late innings, however, and the Brewers are using that to their advantage.