Stealthy and Wise

I have an article just published over at the Baseball Analysts website discussing a significant increase this season, and in recent seasons, in stolen base success rate in the majors. http://baseballanalysts.com/archives/2007/09/stealthy_and_wi.php

The trend discussed in my article is one the Mets have helped lead. Back in 2004, before the arrival of Willie Randolph and Carlos Beltran, and before the emergence of Jose Reyes as a major base stealing threat, the Mets suddenly jumped tremendously in their stolen base success rate. The team record for stolen base percentage before 2004 had been 76.4%, set back in 1987. In 2004 the Mets leapt to an 82.3% success rate (after a routine 69.3% figure the previous year), and it has hovered around 80% since then. This season, the Mets are a handful of successful SBs above even their 2004 rate record: through last night's game the Mets are at an 82.5% rate.

One way to put the Mets current SB success rate in perspective is to note that the Mets have already obliterated by a large margin the team record for stolen bases in a season. The 2007 Mets have 184 SBs through 145 games, a pace that would produce about 205 SBs for the season, compared to the previous full season franchise record of 159 SBs back in 1987. Yet the Mets are getting caught stealing at a rate which would produce only 43 or 44 outs caught stealing for the season, which is fewer than the team had in 1987, and is actually one of the lower numbers in team history. Just for an amusing comparison, the 1969 World Series winning team was caught stealing 43 times, about the same as what is expected this season. But compared to the current 200+ SB pace the 2007 Mets are on, the '69 Mets stole 66 bases all season long.