SB Leaders, Laggards
Fantasy baseball players love stolen bases. Sometimes, that affinity leads to well-justified draft picks — who doesn’t want five-tool force Carl Crawford wreaking havoc on the base paths for their team? Other times, that need for speed results in owners employing a latter-day Omar Moreno, a guy who racks up big stolen base totals but couldn’t hit water if he fell out of a boat. There’s yet another type of player who garners a reputation as a “speed guy,” while perhaps not actually helping his team or fantasy owners when he scampers toward second or third base. He might have a shiny SB total, but he’s costing the club runs by getting caught too often.
Today, I’d like to focus on which players have been the most and least efficient when attempting a stolen base. To judge efficiency, I rounded up all players with at least 15 stolen base attempts in 2010 and ranked them in terms of their run value on SB tries. According to Tom Tango, a stolen base is worth about +0.19 runs. A caught stealing subtracts roughly 0.46 runs. So, by looking at a player’s SB and CS figures, we can get a feel for whether he’s helping or hurting when he tries to steal. This matters in fantasy, too — those CS’s cost owners runs scored and provide other batters with fewer chances to drive in runs.
Here are the players who have added value when testing the pitcher and catcher:
And here are the guys who haven’t provided any value or have actually cost their teams runs by getting nabbed too much:
Those looking to add speed to a fantasy roster should look at more than raw SB totals. When a player bolts and gets caught red-handed, there’s a price to be paid.
8
What does the run value total for a player’s stolen bases matter to my fantasy team, unless my league is awesome enough to use SB Runs as a statistic?
It matters in fantasy because those runs not being scored are almost always going to not-be-scored by the guy who’s running.
So, for example, assume a guy scores 50% of the time he gets on base. If he gets on base 100 times, he scores 50 runs. If he gets caught stealing ten times, he only scores 45 runs. Most leagues count runs scored as a stat, so those extra CS’s cost you runs.
bagofries,
As mentioned in the article, the guys who get caught stealing a lot can cost runs scored and RBI opportunities for other hitters. I grant you that fantasy leagues won’t have a SB runs category, but I think it’s very useful to know who’s efficient and inefficient when they steal.
From a fantasy point of view, I’m fine with Kemp’s 15 stolen bases even if him running costs me 2.5 runs.
If your league uses negative point categories, you wouldn’t be ok with the 12 caught stealings (and hence, the -2.5 SB runs).
If most H2H leagues work like mine you get 2 points for a SB and -1 for a CS which, even taking into account the runs added/negated by the SB/CS, overvalues stolen bases by so much when compared to real baseball that this info is still practically useless. So says a Kemp owner in a league that uses negative point categories.
What about the cost of having a SB type player on your roster? Who is worth haiving for SB and can hold their own in other catagories and who kills you so much in other catagories you cant afford to have them on your team no matter how many bags they steal.
Unless you have a few guys from the same ballclub on your fantasy team, from an RBI standpoint, it’s not going to matter to you if they’re caught trying to steal. I mean Pods has been caught 12 times which would lead to maybe 6 fewer runs scored (considering the Royals offense) than if he hadn’t been caught at all. Those 6 runs sacrificed are much less valuable than the 29 SBs he has accumulated to fantasy owners.
From a real life standpoint, players probably shouldn’t be getting the green light unless they’re successful at least 70% of the time. But from a fantasy standpoint, I just care that he’s able to get those SBs somehow. I’m much less concerned about his efficiency as long as it doesn’t lead to fewer SB attempts in the future.
This doesn’t have to do with fantasy really, just a question. When you say that a successful SB attempt is worth 0.19 runs do you mean that on average it does? I would imagine that a steal in certain situations is more meaningful than others.
of course — this is a broad linear weight, basically an average across all possible outcomes.
thanks for clarifying this
5 of the guys on the second list are on my fantasy team, and 2 more were on it at other points in the season. I’m worried that the number of times Torii Hunter or David Wright has been caught stealing will lead to fewer opportunities in the future, but I’d still rather they be happy if they were stealing 2 bases for attempt in which they’re caught stealing, so aggression is welcome. I would think that by the time one gets to baserunning efficiency in the evaluation of a player’s fantasy value, in very few instances have numbers for power, average and stolen base attempts not already provided sufficient data to distinguish between different tiers. In short, this doesn’t seem likely to be a high priority. As long as players like Abreu, Hunter and Aybar are managed by Mike Scioscia, I could care less how many times they’re caught stealing, as long as they keep getting opportunities.
I do like the idea of scoring net rather than gross steals as a way of bringing fantasy value closer to real value.
“…rather they were…” instead of “rather they be happy if they were.” My proofreader’s out for an early dinner…
Add Stolen Bases to the short list of things B.J. is better at than Justin…
Span has been picked off 6 times, but caught only once. The numbers here do not reflect that
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