Why the Twins' Slowest Runners Have Been Their Best Basestealers This Season

[Greggory Masterson]

The Twins have spent years being one of the slowest teams in the league. They still are, but that hasn’t stopped them from sneaking their way from first to second, over and over again.

Image courtesy of © Bruce Kluckhohn-USA TODAY Sports

The Twins are not fast. The team is in the bottom third of the league in terms of stolen bases and caught-stealing percentage. They’ve been at the bottom of the league in steals for years. It’s by design—they don’t employ fast players. But the other stat can’t be blamed on the team’s slowest guys.

The Twins’ most prolific speed guys also lead the team in steals: Willi Castro (12), Austin Martin (7), and Byron Buxton (6). Those are low numbers, but it gets worse. Castro (60% success rate) and Martin (70%) have been inefficient, probably giving away more runs than they’re taking while trying to steal. Buxton (75%), previously the most efficient base stealer in baseball history, has been technically neutral, but below the ever-rising league average.

The three of them have stolen a combined 25 bases in 37 tries, an inefficient 68-percent success rate. The rule of thumb is that a player or team should successfully steal around 75 percent of the time, and since last year's rule changes, the league is closer to 80%.

Beyond that trio, the Twins don’t have much in the way of stolen base threats. Max Kepler and Manuel Margot ran very well when they were younger, but neither have attempted many steals in their career and neither has ever been especially successful. Edouard Julien stole many bases in the minors, but much of that success was based on gaming the pitch clock in the lower levels. Due to reduced speed and injury risk, Royce Lewis hasn’t attempted a stolen base since 2023.

And yet, Twins who aren’t named Castro, Martin, and Buxton are a combined 36 for 44 (82%) on stolen bases. They’re 33 for 36 (92%) if you exclude Kyle Farmer’s season-long baserunning shenanigans (three for eight stealing bases and several other TOOTBLANS).

How are they doing it? Sheer cunning.

Julien (6), Margot (4), Carlos Santana (4), Trevor Larnach (4), Ryan Jeffers (3), Matt Wallner (3), Brooks Lee (3), and Kepler (1) have each stolen bases without being thrown out this season. Christian Vázquez (3 steals) has been caught once, and José Miranda (2) twice. That’s not a list of names that make pitchers sweat while they’re in the stretch, yet they’ve managed to gain ground for the team with remarkable efficiency.

That last sentence probably contained the key: they’re not making pitchers sweat. If you were a pitcher and Carlos Santana was standing at first base, how much attention would you give him? Probably not much. He’s no Rickey Henderson. He’s not even Gunnar Henderson.

But Santana has stolen 17 bases in a row, dating back to 2018. Move over Byron Buxton; there’s a new efficiency king in town.

The Twins have become remarkably good at stealing off the pitcher this season. It’s a skill that even the fastest players in baseball need to learn to be successful. Good jumps can make good runners great and great runners elite. Heck, Rod Carew himself has referenced how Billy Martin taught him how to steal home in 1969, and he responded by setting the all-time record for stealing home in a season.

Stealing off the pitcher doesn’t make a slow runner a good runner, but gaining an extra 90 feet can be the difference between scoring a run and a man left on; it’s incredibly valuable. Sometimes, stealing off the pitcher means that the pitcher’s delivery doesn’t allow the catcher to get a throw down to second in time to catch a base stealer. Other times, stealing off the pitcher comes down to recognizing the pitcher isn’t paying attention at all.

The latter is where the Twins have excelled in 2024. A lackadaisical pitcher, all but forgetting that a baserunner is on, can almost gift a runner, regardless of speed, a free base—assuming that the runner picks up on the pitcher’s lack of attention. Observant runners and good base coaches can make that happen.

Many times this year, slower Twins runners like Santana, Wallner, and Larnach have walked out to big leads and run on first motion as the pitcher delivers from the stretch. One of the benefits of being speed-challenged is that the pitcher often doesn’t waste effort on a throwover, which allows for running on first motion.

The pitch clock also serves as a cue at times. A few times this year, a runner has been able to anticipate the ball being delivered because of the clock approaching one and can take off for a second before the ball is even delivered.

This practice is a recent development for Minnesota. Excluding their “speed guys” in 2023 (Castro, Buxton, Lewis, Michael A. Taylor, Andrew Stevenson), they went 21 for 31 (68%). In 2022, excluding their speed guys (Buxton, Nick Gordon, Gilberto Celestino), they went 22 for 34 (65%). In 2021, excluding their speed guys (Jorge Polanco, Kepler, Gordon, Buxton), they went 14 for 21 (67%).

No, this new trick isn’t the difference between a great running team and a poor one, but it is a little thing that helps to win games. And for a team that has been panned for not doing the little things in recent years, it’s a pleasant development. They’re a slow team that runs better than their raw speed would suggest. It should be a notch in the players’ and the coaches’ belts.

And maybe if they do it enough, it will provide another thing that pitchers must keep in mind when a tottering corner bat reaches first base in the playoffs. It’s the little things, and their slower players have been providing more value via stealing bases than their fast players this season.

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[Karbo]

I think there's been an improvement going 1st to 3rd on hits, but they need to learn how to steal more. Make the pitchers think about the runners and he's more likely to make a mistake.

[Doctor Wu]

Man, I sure miss Otis Nixon!

[mikelink45]

I love the fast game - steals, hit and run, taking an extra base. 

As we struggle in this recent set of games against good teams we can see where a little pressure, a few extra bags might allow us to win a few more games.

Guardians - 121

Royals - 108

Twins - 62

Could that be reflected in the standings????

 

[Eris]

Base running and stealing are skills. They can be improved if teams / players work at it. 

[terrydactyls]

My "speed" was often mentioned alongside words such as glacial and hourglass.  But I was able to take many extra bases just by keeping focused on what was going on.  If I saw an outfielder that routinely lobbed the ball back to the infield, I would round first at a non-threating pace and then "sprint" for second when he lobbed the ball back in.  Being observant doesn't demand speed.

[Parker Hageman]

The Twins have incorporated the vault lead with some of their runners:

 

You can see Andrew Stevenson here trying to time it with the A's last year. Essentially, it's about timing the landing and going when the pitcher delivers. 

I wish the broadcast showed more of the player's jumps for those bases in the examples from the article above. 

A few years ago I was interviewing Terry Ryan for Twins Daily's offseason handbook. We were talking about Dozier's 21 steals and how he wasn't fast while Escobar was thrown out in both his attempts and was verifiably faster than Dozier. Ryan's point was that there was definitely a learning curve on how to take bases.

 

[LambchoP]

Twins do need to improve their base stealing. Not only that but bunting and going first to third. Being aggressive on the base paths without running into a ton of outs. Austin Martin is the second fastest on the team, I'd like to see them give him the green light almost Everytime. Especially with him getting on base a ton lately, and especially since the whole team has a propensity to hit into double plays. I think some young guys coming up could help with our speed problems. Keirsey Jr, Emmanuel Rodriguez and Eeles all steal bases in the minors. Putting pressure on some of the opposing pitchers can only do good right?

[bean5302]

I don't expect the Twins to get better at stealing basis, but then again, I didn't expect them to focus on reducing strikeouts, either. A lot of the fundamentals which were calling cards of the old scrappy Twins teams are not viewed as valuable under the current front office.

[Andrew Bryz-Gornia]

34 minutes ago, bean5302 said:

I don't expect the Twins to get better at stealing basis, but then again, I didn't expect them to focus on reducing strikeouts, either. A lot of the fundamentals which were calling cards of the old scrappy Twins teams are not viewed as valuable under the current front office.

The Twins have the 10th-lowest strikeout rate this season. https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders/major-league?pos=all&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=0&type=8&season=2024&month=0&season1=2024&ind=0&team=0%2Cts&rost=&age=&filter=&players=0&sortcol=9&sortdir=asc&pagenum=1

[bean5302]

Just now, Andrew Bryz-Gornia said:

The Twins have the 10th-lowest strikeout rate this season. https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders/major-league?pos=all&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=0&type=8&season=2024&month=0&season1=2024&ind=0&team=0%2Cts&rost=&age=&filter=&players=0&sortcol=9&sortdir=asc&pagenum=1

Indeed. I was pointing out how sometimes things are unpredictable in terms of this team's strategy. I didn't expect them to focus on reducing strikeouts like they did, and in a big way, especially after so many comments about how K's didn't really matter to the team last year.

[Trov]

One of the best base stealers, success rate wise, was not a speedster.  Paul Molitor stole at a 79.3 success rate.  He stole 504 caught 131. He even Stole 38 baes his time with Twins, his age 39 through 41 seasons.  He was caught 12 time, for a success rate of 76%.  Pretty good for a guy his age. 

Rickey Henderson, the total stolen base record holder, had a 80.7 success rate over his career. Henderson had a success rate age 40 and beyond of 71.7.  Henderson stole nearly 3 times as many bases as Molitor and clearly was better at it overall, being he had higher success rate, and a lot more overall, but Molitor was 39th over his career in total stolen bases.

Molitor was never going to be accused of being a speedster by any means, but he knew when and how to steal.  He used his brain and picked the right spots.  I have to imagine he would have been even better with a pitch clock.

Too often slower guys do get forgotten by pitchers and some guys never jump on it.