LOS ANGELES — Kendall George has been so prolific running the bases in Low-A that when I asked Dodgers manager Dave Roberts on Sunday very generally if he’s seen what the minor league outfielder is doing lately, he immediately knew what I was getting at.
“If you’re referring to him running wild on the bases, yes I have,” Roberts said.
George on Monday was named Midwest League player of the week after running roughshod for Great Lakes on the road against the Wisconsin Timber Rattlers. He had nine hits and six walks in six games, hitting .391/.517/.478 with eight runs scored and a whopping 14 stolen bases.
He wasn’t thrown out trying to steal during the week though he was picked off on Sunday, which snapped a streak of six straight games with a steal and
a four-game streak of stealing at least three bases in each contest. George on Sunday
though made up for it with three hits, including a game-winning RBI triple in the eighth inning.
“He set a goal to play fearlessly on both sides of the ball, and he certainly is. He took some major steps forward in the efficiency of his jumps about a month ago, that really stood out,” explained Will Rhymes, the Dodgers vice president of player development. “He’s been dialed in with our staff there on pitcher tells and the nuance of base stealing. He’s gained a ton of confidence and it’s just snowballed as all of these improvements have been put into action.”
On the season, George is hitting .270/.388/.353 with a 118 wRC+ and more walks (73) than strikeouts (71). The Dodgers’ first-round draft pick from 2023 has 34 extra-base hits in three minor league seasons over 975 plate appearances, with an isolated power (slugging percentage minus batting average) of just .065. But his speed stands out, both in the outfield and on the bases with 135 career steals in 212 games.
“He’s a bat-to-ball guy, he’s got to get on base. He’s not going to slug, he needs to hit the ball all over the field, be a tough out, and he needs to continue to get better in center field,” Roberts said. “But once he gets on the bases, he’s a threat.”
George on Thursday broke
Dee Strange-Gordon’s Great Lakes record of 73 stolen bases in a season.
But George wasn’t done, ending the week at 82 steals in 98 games on the season, the most by any Dodgers minor leaguer since Tom Goodwin stole 82 in 1990. The last Dodgers minor leaguer with more steals in a season was Alan Wiggins, who stole 120 bases for Low-A Lodi in 1980 to set the franchise minor league record.
George’s pace for the last month and a half has been staggering, with 51 steals since the beginning of July alone, in only 38 games. I asked Roberts — himself a prolific base stealer with 243 career steals, averaging 38 steals from 2002-07 — if he’d ever seen anything like George the last seven weeks.
“There was a guy named Billy Hamilton I kind of remember,” Roberts said, “but what Kendall is doing is pretty special.”
Hamilton set a minor league record by stealing 155 bases in 2012 between High-A and Double-A, and stole 326 bases over 11 major league seasons through 2023, including 56, 57, 58, and 59 steals in each of his first four full seasons with the Reds.
Great Lakes has three more weeks left on the schedule, and even if George duplicates last week three more times isn’t going to get near 155 steals. But another Hamilton season might be a better comp. In 2011, Hamilton stole 103 bases in 135 games for Dayton as a 20-year-old in the Midwest League, the same age and league for George this year, though now it’s a High-A circuit.
It would take, on average, a steal per game for George to reach 100 stolen bases this season, which doesn’t seem all that farfetched. Especially if he gets on base anywhere near the. 429 clip George has posted over his last 38 games.
“It’s been really fun to watch how much he’s improved,” Rhymes said. “When [Mike] Sirota went down and [Josue] De Paula missed a little time, the offense had to manufacture runs in a different way and he’s really stepped up to lead the offense.”
