You Mean the Minnesota Twins Could Have Been Stealing Bases the Whole Time?

[Greggory Masterson]

Image courtesy of © Raymond Carlin III-Imagn Images

You read that right. This September, the Twins have stolen 34 bases. The next-highest total for a team is 25, by the Baltimore Orioles. And it’s not like the Twins have been inefficient, either. They’ve only been caught six times, successfully stealing 85% of the time, which ranks them as the ninth-most efficient team in the league during that period. Since the trade deadline, they have the second-most stolen bases, at 57. They've been caught only 12 times, an 83% success rate, which ranks eighth in efficiency. Only the New York Yankees have stolen more bases since the deadline (58).

Granted, part of the runaway by the Twins (pun intended) could be chalked up to some teams taking their foot off the gas at the end of the season, opting to take fewer risks now that their teams are either out of contention or locked into a playoff spot, but to have 36% more stolen bases than the second-highest team over the course of a month is notable—especially for a team like the Twins.

From the 2024 season back to 2018, the Twins have ranked 30th, 24th, 30th, 25th, 30th, 30th, and 27th, in that order, in stolen bases per year. Over the past 10 seasons, the Twins rank dead last in baseball in stolen bases. This year? They’ve snuck up to 15th, with 112 steals, 57 of those (over half) coming in August and September. Those 112 are the most bases the team has stolen since 2012, and if they steal four more in their final three games, they’ll be tied for their second-highest total since 2000.

That’s a heck of a development. After the trade deadline, the team has made a concerted effort to lean more heavily into the running game—a move that has been echoed around the league, due to rule changes regarding pickoffs and base sizes. But beyond the league-wide shift toward running more, the Twins’ formula—slugging teams to death—hasn’t worked. As a whole, the team is below-average offensively (.708 OPS and 97 wRC+, both 17th in MLB), which necessitates that they attempt to score runs some other way, or at least vary their approach.

A lot of this effort has been spearheaded by Byron Buxton, who is 24-for-24 stealing bases this season and has accounted for 21% of the team’s total stolen bases in his healthiest year since 2017. However, only seven of those have come in August and September. Royce Lewis has been the standout in this late-season effort, going 11-for-12 since the deadline, more than doubling his career steals total, and Austin Martin, the belle of the post-deadline ball, is 11-for-14. Luke Keaschall has also helped in the effort, going 9-for-12, and Kody Clemens (perfect on five attempts) and Matt Wallner (four of five) have sneakily added to the total.

Actually, almost all of the Twins who have played a game since the deadline have attempted a steal—the lone exception being depth catcher Jhonny Pereda. Yes, even Carson McCusker and Ryan Jeffers have tried to steal (unsuccessfully), and lead-footed Christian Vázquez and Brooks Lee have both been successful in their only steal attempts. Some of these attempts are failed pickoffs that the opposing teams have thrown away after successfully catching the newly aggressive Twins leaning, but that’s baked into every team’s throwing numbers. It’s been fun to watch everyone get the green light.

Yes, much of this effort has been spearheaded by the fastest guys still on this team. But some of those fast guys are new additions—like Keaschall and Martin—who replaced other fast guys like Harrison Bader and Willi Castro, and they’ve been given the green light far more often than even the fastest guys have in the past.

And the slow guys? Sure, they’re allowed to run now, too, though that’s not necessarily a new development. Last season, Trevor Larnach, Carlos Santana, Jeffers, Vázquez, Wallner, and Lee, among the slowest players in baseball (with the exception of Wallner, who is more middle-of-the-pack but with poor acceleration) managed to go 20-for-22 stealing bases, stealing off pitchers who stopped paying attention to them. I think this is where I’m supposed to say that the Mariners’ rotund first baseman Josh Naylor is 29-for-31 this season and that stealing bases isn’t all about being fast, or whatever.

The biggest development in this regard is probably Royce Lewis’s emergence as a base stealer. Once a prospect with 70-grade speed, Lewis has been slowed by repeated lower-body and core injuries, including tearing his ACL twice in a little over a year, to the point that he’s now in the bottom third of the league in sprint speed as a 26-year-old. Despite his speed, scouts had questions about his ability to consistently steal bases in the big leagues, and he wasn’t an electric base stealer before the injuries, successful on just 74% of his steal attempts between Single-A and Double-A.

For years, the reasoning for the Twins not utilizing the running game was that they were simply slow. Now, though, they're not exactly fast, but they're also not the slowest team in baseball. They've just been given the green light far more often. The other argument against them running was health, and that's reared its ugly head this season, with Buxton appearing shaken up after a couple of steals and Keaschall ending his season with an injured thumb that may require offseason surgery. So I guess they were onto something there.

Some of this success may be a gap in the scouting reports. If a team has spent a decade stealing almost no bases, they’re naturally going to see less attention from pitchers and catchers. You'd guess that by this point in the season, those would start to change, but they’ve only increased their number of steals and gotten more efficient as the season has gone on. It’s fascinating, and it may be the proof of concept that the team needs to lean more into the running game in 2026—if they can stomach the risk, when they may be trying to compete for real again.

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[LewFordLives]

In addition to stealing bases, the organization needs to come up with a plan to teach these guys how to bunt. They are not going to score a ton of runs and will be in a lot of close games. One run in a handful of games can make the difference in squeaking into the playoffs.

[rdehring]

Finally, this team is running.  Love it!

[mikelink45]

Did someone show the team the rule book after they had lost all hope?  

9.07 Stolen Bases and Caught Stealing

---

The Official Scorer shall credit a stolen base to a runner whenever the runner advances one base unaided by a hit, a putout, an error, a force-out, a fielder’s choice, a passed ball, a wild pitch or a balk, subject to the following:

(a) When a runner starts for the next base before the pitcher delivers the ball and the pitch results in what ordinarily is scored a wild pitch or passed ball, the Official Scorer shall credit the runner with a stolen base and shall not charge the misplay, unless, as a result of the misplay, the stealing runner advances an extra base, or another runner also advances, in which case the Official Scorer shall score the wild pitch or passed ball as well as the stolen base.

There is more, but it amazes me that the team only took half a decade to figure out that hitting the ball out of the park was not the only way to score and win.  But can this lesson be retained?

[Rod Carews Birthday]

Stolen bases are fun to watch, particularly when there isn’t much else going on.  However, all of this new-found running hasn’t helped the winning bottom line.  So for me, fun to watch, but we need some actual hitters.  

[Whitey333]

It is interesting that they run more.  Is it because they got rid of some of the non base stealing players?  We have younger and faster players now?  Is Baldelli just pissed off at the direction of the team and decided to do things his way?  Is it because Baldelli knows hes not coming back next year and he is finally managing he would like?  It is interesting.  But as one poster said they are still losing.

[Doctor Gast]

IMO, Twins are scared to veer off the analytical plan & the micro-managing that comes with it. Our roster has lot to be desired, our defense & learning to be acquired. Without the present running game, we'd be much worse than what we are now. Fundamentals like running bases, bunting & defense have to be incorporated into the '26 team.

[Sjoski]

Who would have loved to hear how the decision to finally run more came about.

Maybe it went down like this:

●●●

Falvey: “So, Rocco, we traded most of the bullpen away, a couple of decent bats. Any ideas on how we score runs now?”

 

Baldelli: “Well… what if… hear me out… we run?”

 

Falvey: “Run? Like… run fast? Around the bases?”

 

Baldelli: “Yeah, like stealing bases. It’s this ancient baseball trick. I read about it in an old manual from the 1980s.”

 

Falvey: “That sounds… risky. What if someone pulls a hamstring?”

 

Baldelli: “What if someone scores a run?”

 

Falvey: “…You might be on to something. Let’s try it. Worst case, people will say we waited seven years to discover legs.”

[Nshore]

Falvey and Baldelli must have finally fed some new statistics into their Fortran computer program half way through the season and came up with the revelation that it's better to have a runner on second base than first base.

[CRF]

It's like someone turned on a switch somewhere. All of a sudden, we're the runnin' Twinkies. It only took Rocco almost 7 years for the light bulb to come on. Sometimes...genius take time! 

[ashbury]

11 minutes ago, Bigfork Twins Guy said:

As an old Cobol and RPG programmer I had to chuckle at your Fortran reference.

We're all old.  The poster was just striving to be understood.

[jmlease1]

Fewer truly slow players, more aggression, some additional faster players, some improved health, and the result of the games not mattering as much allowing for increased risk & experimentation get us there.

Having Keaschall, Buxton, Martin, and a healthy Royce opens things up a lot more. Clearly they're looking at this as a way of scoring more runs and knowing that they can't count on slugging as much or afford to buy it, they're trying to get younger, faster, and more athletic. 

I'm fairly sure that Rocco is enjoying this and prefers to play more like this, but almost certainly didn't feel like he had the horses. And when Royce was still getting his legs under him, he would have gotten crushed if he'd been sending him in May and he pulled up lame.

They're still not a fast team and have a lot of meh baserunners. (Larnach, Jeffers, Vazquez, Lee, Wallner...these are guys that can be opportunistic but aren't going to grab 20-30 bags) Swapping Larnach for Jenkins would add some more opportunities. They're also still running into outs...and notably Keaschall got injured stealing a base. 

[DJL44]

58 minutes ago, jmlease1 said:

Having Keaschall, Buxton, Martin, and a healthy Royce opens things up a lot more.

Those are basically the only players who should be stealing bases regularly. Wallner and Clemens can pick their opportunities. Everyone else is sorta bad at it.

SB by notable Twins minor leaguers

Player name SB CS SB%

Kyle Debarge 66 8 89%

Kyler Fedko 38 8 83%

Yasser Mercedes 36 3 92%

Angel Del Rosario 32 8 80%

Kalai Rosario 32 7 82%

Dameury Pena 28 5 85%

Payton Eeles 27 8 77%

Brandon Winokur 26 4 87%

Kaelen Culpepper 25 4 86%

Walker Jenkins 17 4 81%

Emmanuel Rodriguez 10 3 77%

And on the other end of the scale

Gabriel Gonzalez 8 3 73%

Hendry Mendez 4 3 57%

Billy Amick 1 2 33%

 

Now I am understanding converting Mendez to 1B.

 

 

[Richie the Rally Goat]

And yet they lost 2/3 of their games during this time period….

[LA Vikes Fan]

Love the aggression and I think it helps the hitter too by distracting the pitcher and changing pitch sequencing to slow down the running game. I know we're still losing a lot but we all know why that is - one of the worst bullpens in baseball since the trade deadline. Amazingly enough when the bullpen performs well we win more. his aggressive style is the only way we can generate enough offense so I hope it continues into 2026. 

[Woof Bronzer]

2 hours ago, Richie the Rally Goat said:

And yet they lost 2/3 of their games during this time period….

They are net positive 45 bases due to steals since the trade deadline.  Are you saying this actually hurt the team?

[Richie the Rally Goat]

7 hours ago, Woof Bronzer said:

They are net positive 45 bases due to steals since the trade deadline.  Are you saying this actually hurt the team?

No, it just didn’t help very much, did it? In the risk vs reward judgement, high risk low reward, usually means it shouldn’t be a strategy to rely on.

akin to “my retirement plan is winning the lottery”

[Richie the Rally Goat]

9 hours ago, LA VIkes Fan said:

Love the aggression and I think it helps the hitter too by distracting the pitcher and changing pitch sequencing to slow down the running game. I know we're still losing a lot but we all know why that is - one of the worst bullpens in baseball since the trade deadline. Amazingly enough when the bullpen performs well we win more. his aggressive style is the only way we can generate enough offense so I hope it continues into 2026. 

I very much prefer to watch aggressive base stealing than the plodding station to station.

[JBK]

On 9/26/2025 at 11:24 AM, Sjoski said:

Who would have loved to hear how the decision to finally run more came about.

Maybe it went down like this:

●●●

Falvey: “So, Rocco, we traded most of the bullpen away, a couple of decent bats. Any ideas on how we score runs now?”

 

Baldelli: “Well… what if… hear me out… we run?”

 

Falvey: “Run? Like… run fast? Around the bases?”

 

Baldelli: “Yeah, like stealing bases. It’s this ancient baseball trick. I read about it in an old manual from the 1980s.”

 

Falvey: “That sounds… risky. What if someone pulls a hamstring?”

 

Baldelli: “What if someone scores a run?”

 

Falvey: “…You might be on to something. Let’s try it. Worst case, people will say we waited seven years to discover legs.”

That's EXACTLY how the conversation went

[DocBauer]

Could they have run more earlier in the season and been as successful? I think that's very much open to debate for a variety of reasons.

But having nothing to lose, having Keaschall back. Lewis' legs getting stronger, Martin taking another step, would surely have added to this sudden surge.

I like the ability to steal some bases. It's another way to score runs PROVIDED you can be successful at a high %. It can be a useful weapon. Otherwise, you are just giving away outs to the opposition.

But frankly, I'm more interested in better team speed in regard to better defensive range, and the ability to take extra bases and score successfully on base hits. 

My greatest worry is a team that finished dead last in AVG and OPS last season with the bases loaded and are dead last in AVG and 2nd to last in OPS over thr last 5 years. How is that even possible?

I'm just fine with more SB to have another weapon at our disposal. And it is an exciting form of baseball. But I'm more concerned with disappearing power and the worst hitting in the league over 5 years eith the bases loaded. How many games were lost right there?

[DJL44]

22 hours ago, Woof Bronzer said:

They are net positive 45 bases due to steals since the trade deadline.  Are you saying this actually hurt the team?

How many extra outs did they run for into? An out cancels out 3 steals.

[Greggory Masterson]

29 minutes ago, DJL44 said:

How many extra outs did they run for into? An out cancels out 3 steals.

They’ve stolen at a 83% clip, at least when I wrote this, which is far above the 72% current breakeven benchmark

[DJL44]

5 hours ago, Greggory Masterson said:

They’ve stolen at a 83% clip, at least when I wrote this, which is far above the 72% current breakeven benchmark

113 steals, 33 caught stealing for the season. That’s about 14 extra bases worth of added value or 5 runs above 0 SB and 0 CS.

[Jeff K]

On 9/26/2025 at 11:36 PM, Richie the Rally Goat said:

No, it just didn’t help very much, did it? In the risk vs reward judgement, high risk low reward, usually means it shouldn’t be a strategy to rely on.

akin to “my retirement plan is winning the lottery”

It just highlights that there is virtually no bullpen and we have too many hitters below the mendoza line and too many dh's in the field.

[rv78]

You Mean the Minnesota Twins Could Have Been Stealing Bases the Whole Time?

 

Yes, but don't you have to be able to get on base first? When you are below league average in almost every offensive catagory, stealing more bases isn't going to help much. Even if that player is standing at 2nd base instead of 1st base you still have to be able to HIT him in. The Twins need players that are better hitters. Almost 60% of their plate appearances this year went to players that hit below .250.  Conversely, Toronto, who had the best hitting in the majors this year, only had 33%. Almost half. Toronto has only stolen 75 bases compared to the Twins at 113. Oh and Home Runs? Twins = 188, Toronto = 186. If you want to fix the offense, change where it matters, not where it doesn't.

[David Maro]

This is a save my job idea by Rocco!! Let's be honest Wallner,Lee and Larnach are far from fast. You now see the whole team trying to take 2nd and even 3rd base. The big problem is they can't put the ball in play with runners in scoring position. Just like the other night when Clemens hit a triple with no outs. They struck out twice and flew out,that can't happen get the ball in play. 

[USAFChief]

How quickly people forget.

There's been multiple articles written (including here) about how Tingler had to suggest to Baldelli they actually run the bases.

[Woof Bronzer]

On 9/26/2025 at 10:36 PM, Richie the Rally Goat said:

No, it just didn’t help very much, did it? In the risk vs reward judgement, high risk low reward, usually means it shouldn’t be a strategy to rely on.

akin to “my retirement plan is winning the lottery”

They stole at an 85% clip, that's not high risk.  

They got 45 more bases in the 2nd half by stealing.  That's a good thing.  Nobody is saying "steal bases and then you'll magically win a World Series."  Nobody is saying stealing bases is the main strategy.  It's a small strategy but when paired with a bunch of other small strategies can create a small competitive advantage, which is what teams like the Twins need to find.  

[Derojo]

This is a big miss by Baldelli. The Twins had speed since spring training; too little too late. The owners need to go, really need to go, like yesterday. Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away. Then the Pohlad's came and really stayed...