Rise in steals shows MLB is on right path

MAJOR League Baseball is famous for clinging to its past, reflecting a storied heritage that fans cherish. But that can be an obstacle when change is needed and decision-makers are reluctant to act or take risks.

The league finally made some highly publicized changes this year responding to fan complaints that games were too slow and boring. The new rules speed up play and encourage more action within games — and thank goodness for that.

Early results have been positive, but this is only the beginning. It will take years for the impact of the new rules to be fully felt as they flow through into the decision-making of teams and players.

Fans have reason to argue and debate about baseball again, and the sport feels fresh for the first time in years.

The most noteworthy change this offseason was the introduction of a pitch clock to eliminate delays in the game. It’s had an immediate impact on the nature of play this season, with the average game time falling to levels last seen in the 1980s.

On the field, the most noticeable difference between the first week of the 2023 season and recent years is that teams are stealing more bases and having more success when they do. Based on that success, they should be amping up those efforts.

Studies have shown that a 67 percent success rate is the point at which attempting to steal bases neither helps nor hurts a team. For the past 20 years, teams have averaged around a 72 percent success rate, a little better than break-even.

So far this season, teams are averaging a whopping 83 percent success rate — the kind of efficiency that the best base runners in history had in their best seasons. It’s possible that it’s now too easy to steal bases, and it suggests the possibility of a very different approach to game strategy.

The stolen-base success rate might have increased by only 11 percentage points, but it triples the expected value of each attempt. When a runner steals a base, that’s expected to generate an additional 0.3 runs on average for the team based on being one base closer to scoring. Getting caught stealing deducts 0.6 runs since the team loses its base runner and registers an additional out.

So at a 72 percent success rate, the expected value of a stolen base attempt would be 0.05 runs — fairly marginal for the risk — whereas an 83 percent success rate would be expected to yield an average of 0.15 runs.

Baseball has a long season and is a game with small margins between success and failure. Teams that win 85 out of 162 games will usually miss the playoffs, whereas teams that win an additional two or three games will usually make it.

That might mean scoring an extra 20 runs in a season, or just three runs a month. If stolen-base attempts are now worth 0.15 runs on average, a team that attempts one extra stolen base a game could end up scoring an extra 24 runs over the course of a season.

That could be the difference between popping champagne and managers getting fired.

To the extent stolen bases are now something akin to a three-point shot in basketball, it will take time for that new reality to be reflected in managers’ strategic decisions for their teams. It will also take time for a new generation of amateur players to develop the skills that will now be more prized by the professionals.

Too often in recent years it felt like, when it came to strategy, baseball was a “solved problem.” Find pitchers who throw really hard and generate a lot of strikeouts, and find hitters who hit home runs even if they strike out a lot.

Things became too stagnant and predictable.

There is opportunity for different approaches again. Should fresh imbalances appear, there is a new conviction that the league is again nimble enough to tweak the rules.

And we can see a future where baseball becomes a better, more innovative entertainment product rather than just a sport stuck in its past.