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San Francisco has a long history of not being aggressive on the base paths. Might 2025 be the season that changes?
Heliot Ramos wants to
steal 15 bases in 2025. A reasonable goal for Ramos, who stole 6 in 121 games while struggling with plantar fasciitis that hobbled his base-path antics.
15 SBs is not a lot. It might also be more than you think. 75 players swiped 15 or more bags in 2024. MLB leaders Elly De La Cruz (67) and Shohei Ohtani (59) essentially eclipsed that mark four times last season.
A 15 stolen base total has never led the Majors — though it has led a league twice: once for the National League in 2020 with Trevor Story (doesn’t count), and once for the American League in 1950 with Dom DiMaggio (counts). Historically, last season’s 75 individual players with 15 SB is actually a pretty high total. In 1982 when Rickey Henderson swiped a record setting 130 bags 66 others reached the 15 SB mark. In 1976 when the Oakland A’s (pre-Henderson) stole 341 bases as a team (the second highest team total since 1900) 64 players stole 15 or more. John McGraw’s run-happy
New York Giants set the modern record with 346 SBs in 1911, and the Majors had 86 different players who reached 15. Eight of those suited up for The Little Napoleon. Continuing to bounce around the baseball timeline, in that sloggy 1950 season, only five players
across both leagues had 15 swipes.
Perhaps a statistically arbitrary amount, but the “15 mark”
feels significant. The foot of a sharp incline of speed; a baseline establishing intent and differentiating from an accumulation of opportunistic stray bags bagged over a full season. To steal 15 bases over season, as Ramos indicated, is a choice.
Obviously the relationship with the stolen base, like any aesthetic element, has changed over the years. Stealing a base is inherently a dicey endeavor. A bold and willful venture out from a safe harbor into the exposed unknown. Painting with a broad brush: stealing a base is often reflective of our nation’s temperament. The impulse to go, to take for no better reason than because
it — whatever
it is — is there to be taken. Man’s id in stirrups and cleats.
Stealing is a prime illustration of that industrious nature of “the American spirit” that was rampant in the early goings of the game and its modernization. Playing fast and loose, gambling on the base paths, in order to win/profit. The Black Sox scandal in 1919, the hard-ball, the temperance movement, the invention of the home run as spectacle, the Babe, all rang the bell of the stolen base to a certain degree. The worry of risk brought on by a global depression, another world war, and then the comfort brought on by post-war boom of urban flight, of toaster ovens and two-car garages, of the nuclear family and nuclear war helped set up the lukewarm base-stealing temperament of the 50’s. We had so much to lose now. Willie Mays, the last Giant to lead the league in stolen bases, needed just 27 to do it in 1959.
Then came the 60’s, a period of pitching dominance and much needed social upheaval and cultural revolution. Maury Wills stole 104 bases in 1962 (105 steals if you count his robbery of Mays for that year’s NL MVP trophy), and the threat of nuclear war nearly boiled over into reality over two weeks in October with the Cuban Missile Crisis. In 1965 Malcolm X was assassinated, activists marched from Selma to Montogomery and the Voting Rights Act passed, John Coltrane released A Love Supreme, John Lennon wrote a song about his feelings not about a girl, and Wills stole 94 bags then handed his mantel to Lou Brock, who stole his way through the hippie movement, the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr and Bobby Kennedy, the dissolution of The Beatles, the escalation of Vietnam. A month before Brock set the record for most stolen bases in a season with 118 in 1974, Richard Nixon resigned the presidency. What followed was a renaissance of base thievery that saw the success of St. Louis’s “Whitey Ball”, the arrival of “The Man of Steal” (who toppled Brock’s single-season mark within a decade) and lasted through the excesses of the Reagan Era, the fall of the Berlin Wall and dissolution of the Soviet Union that only tempered with the 1994 labor strike, the Wild Card expansion, the excessive bash-boom-bang of the steroid era, as well as the prevalance of “moneyball”, or data-driven strategy.
And now we find ourselves in the upswing of a new era. With the help of a 30-team league, wider bases and pick-off limits as well as an influx of information accessible to runners, base stealers are on the rise. In 2023 the MLB stole a total of 3,503 bags — more than a 1,000 steal increase from 2022.
This past season’s total of 3,617 bested the MLB record of 3,585 SBs set in 1987 by 32 bases.
I think it’s fair to say that in this burgeoning phase things are a little different. The stolen base has changed from a more unfettered approach to something more measured. Technology allows opposing pitchers’ pick-off moves to be slowed down and dissected into flinches and second fractions during pregame debriefings. First base coaches with stop watches whisper their latest intel to runners. Bumpers are up on the base paths with these new rule changes. The elements are being massaged in the runner’s favor. I see this reflected in the world of rampant sports betting, in which apps ease you into the habits, propping you up with a gentle hand on the small of your back as you float along on a lazy river of parlays. I imagine more people are betting more often and probably making more money (in smaller sums) than ever.
That’s not to say the gamble in betting or stealing bases isn’t non-existent. Leaving first is still a risk. The flair and zeal that someone like Rickey Henderson brought to the art echoes on in players like De La Cruz or Ronald Acuña Jr. Natural aggressiveness is both buoyed and tempered by calculations of risk analysis, and Ithink the best representative of this new era is Ohtani.
Ohtani makes base stealing look like buying a mutual fund. Taking second base as a considered, well-thought investment in the future, rather than a jailbreak. In a recent Thrasher Magazine, filmer Rhino made the apt observation that if Ohtani skated he would have the absolute worst style. Henderson was fast and looked fast — pants rolled up to flash the stirrups, the way he ducked down and shot his head forward pumping his arms as his jersey collar hung from his chest and flapped in the wind he generated. The act of stealing a base was reinvented each and every time Henderson did it. A stolen base as a riotous and righteous act of defiance, of inserting his own Rickey math on this game of numbers: 90 now equals 180, equals 270.
Ohtani’s long strides towards second do not register as speed, nor is his sprint speed anything to marvel at. He’s in the 70th percentile — faster than average but not blinding by any means, which feels appropriate. The era of the 70th percentile base-stealer is here.
Baseball is juggling both the reliance on advanced metrics and the need to entertain in this 21st century battle over attention. We have Brad Pitt as Billy Beane in one ear, saying “I pay you to get on first, not get thrown out at second”; and Dave Roberts’s swipe of second in Game 4 of the 2004 ALCS, or the first 50-50 season in Major League history. You can’t eliminate risk from the game, nor should you try. The stolen base is a facet of baseball that should be implemented. It’s a tool in the toolbox. That being said, gone are the days of Duane Kuiper stealing 19 bases while getting thrown out 18 times (1975). The 1913 New York Giants, who led the league with 296 stolen bases, were also caught 195 times, the equivalent of seven games and two innings worth of free outs
. That coin-flip success hasn’t cut the mustard for a long time.
The general rule of thumb has been a 70% success rate makes the risk of stealing “worth it.” 70% was the MLB’s rate of success over the 1987 season. Henderson stole 130 bases in ‘82 with a success rate of 75%. Last season, the league’s overall success rate jumped to 79%. The
Dodgers led all teams with an 85% SB%, aided by Ohtani’s 93.7% individual rate.
46 players posted an 80% or higher stolen base percentage (min 20 SB attempts) in 2024. 45 did it in 2023. The next highest single season total was 32 in 2012. Ohtani showed us that the times they are a-changin. There won’t be anyone stealing 100 bases, but there will be more players stealing more.
This bodes well for our
San Francisco Giants who have been for the better part of a century been a pretty reserved bunch on the bases. The franchise’s illustrious and free-wheelin’ days of thievin’ did not quite survive the first World War. After stealing 130 or more bases in every season from 1900 to 1921, the Giants only matched that mark five times in the hundred-plus years since, with all of those seasons falling between 1979 and 1995. San Francisco’s 1,767 SB total since Y2K is the lowest in the Majors. They are tied with Minnesota for the lowest since 2022 (189). The last time a Giants team stole more than a 100 bases in a season was in 2012 (118), which was also the last year
the roster boasted multiple players with 20+ stolen bases for the year (Angel Pagán- 29, Gregor Blanco- 26). It’s been
seventeen years since a Giant stole 30 or more bases (Dave Roberts 31 SB), and nearly thirty since someone cracked 40 (Barry Bonds in 1996).
The Giants’ history of stealing bases could be summed up by this clip. Our current President of Baseball Operations and previous captain, mouthing a breathless and wry
I’m so fast after crossing home plate, the terminus of a prolonged puttering around the bases.
Though under Posey’s helm, in this new era, the 2025 Giants might just be
so fast…or rather, fast
enough and intentional
enough and determined
enough to put together one of their most prolific base-stealing seasons in a decade.
100 steals? Maybe! Like Ramos’s goal, it’s a modest bar, but the Giants are a modest bunch helmed by a modest manager. Still there’s a clutch of decent base-runners on the roster that could turn themselves into decent base-
stealers.
San Francisco’s biggest offseason acquisition is proof that racking up steals doesn’t necessitate an alchemical transformation. You don’t have to happen upon a pair of Henderson’s old spikes hanging from a telephone wire to miraculously embody his speed to start stealing more bases.
Willy Adames highest single season stolen base total was 8 before he swiped 21 with the swipe-happy
Milwaukee Brewers last season. What changed? Adames certainly didn’t get faster. His sprint speed was in the 50th percentile last season. The 9.9 ft lead he gained on SB attempts was actually about
a foot shorter than his career average. After he stole his 20th base in September, putting him in the 20 HR - 20 SB club with teammate Jackson Chourio, Adames commented that he reached the milestone after coaches encouraged him at the start of the year to — get this —
steal more. Huh...makes a lot of sense. If you want to make something happen, commit to it; and honestly, for Adames, it didn’t even require that great of a commitment. He collected 21 bags on 25 attempts, or just 1.6% of his opportunities (Elly de la Cruz attempted a steal 8.7% time, Shohei went around 4.2%). So now that he got 20,
why not shoot for 25?
Matt Chapman experienced a similar conversion to Adames in 2024. A player with decent sprint speed (85th percentile), he stole only 11 bases in the seven years before he arrived in San Francisco. He more than doubled his career total in his first year as a Giant with 15, while his 17 attempts represented less than 2% of the opportunities he had.
Barring any serious regression from Chap and Willy, and Ramos achieving his preseason goal, the Giants are potentially looking at 50 steals between these three already, putting them within reach of the the lowly 68 SB mark they posted a year ago.
And there are still plenty of bags to mine from the projected everyday players.
Jung Hoo Lee might be the “Grandson of the Wind” but that patrilineal blood dilutes pretty fast. He’s really just a quarter
wind, and three-quarters bumbling earth-bound flesh. In the KBO, Lee never stole 15 bases, but he did steal at least 10 in his first five professional seasons. During that brief 37 game stint before his shoulder injury, Lee collected 2 steals on 5 attempts. Despite his history and limited success last year, Lee has got that breezy
swiftness in him (79th percentile sprint speed). More importantly, he’s got the moxie you’d expect to find in a base-stealer.
30 seems...high, but shoot for the moon and fall amongst the stars, Jung Hoo! Whether the goal is attained or not, the comment shows that stealing is a team-wide conversation this spring. A conscious effort to stolen base total makes a lot of sense for Lee given his excellent contact skills and projected high batting average.
The most obvious candidate to really beef up his stolen base total is Tyler Fitzgerald. San Francisco lost their most prolific base-stealer by releasing Thairo Estrada, but replacing him at second base with Fitzgerald will more than make-up for Estrada’s base-path absence. Fitz led the team with 17 stolen bases in 2024 across just 91 games. In terms of sprint speed, he is one of the fastest players in the Majors. He can take seconds against lefties and nab third. Pair that natural get-up-and-go with the information, the instincts, and the intent
and a full season — we’re looking at someone who actually might breeze past that 30 SB mark.
In terms of depth, the bench has some contenders as well. Brett Wisely, Casey Schmitt, Wade Meckler? 15 might feel like more of a stretch since their opportunities will be more limited by role — still they’ll be good for a handful.
The way Luis Matos is playing right now in the Cactus League, he’s going to find himself on base in the Majors very soon. We’d love to see him keep stroking doubles to the gap, but the reality is there will be a dip in power when the season gets underway, which means some extra base hits will turn into outs, and some will turn into singles. How could he make up the difference? Start getting more aggressive, Luis! He didn’t make any SB attempts in 2024, but went for 3 for 3 over 76 games. He’s another Ramos-like dude (not super fast, but fast enough) who would benefit from making that conscious choice to run more.
TBD what Grant McCray’s role will be on the Giants roster, but the kid can fly, and the only real competition to Fitzgerald in a 100M dash. His sprint speed registered in the 93rd percentile. He stole 5 bases on 5 attempts in 37 games in 2024, breaking for the next bag on 3.5% of his opportunities — the highest rate on the Giants (min. 100 SB opp). In an interview with a local news outlet, McCray said
he believed he could lead the league in stolen bases if he played every day. Again, that moxie! Some might dismiss that as arrogance, but you need that kind of confident energy to open the flood-gates and steal 40 or 50 or 60 bases.
Once on first, McCray is clearly itching to go — the problem is getting there. Based on last season’s performance, McCray only strikes out or hits home runs. He’s shown some improvements during Spring Training so far (.278 BA, 26% K%, 16% BB% over 49 PA) while laying down some bunts to help fill the hole in his swing. McCray’s opportunities in San Francisco will be limited, but like Fitzgerald, he won’t need as many opportunities as the average player to steal a lot of bases.
