Base Stealers -- Who's Who On the Base Paths in the Major Leagues

    I have written about base stealers in the major leagues before. One reason (that I think about it) is because as a kid I valued speed, and my favorite players were fast and could steal bases. This was Tim Raines his rookie year since I was ten years-old.

    In the following decades there have been some changes in baseball, which includes increase of power and home runs, likely the lowering of hitting for average and on base percentage, and also the decrease of stolen bases.

    In the history of the major leagues, starting in the later 1800s when the official statistics of the game have been recorded, I believe the hay day of large numbers of stolen bases was from 1900 until 1920. This would explain why Ty Cobb and Billy Hamilton are among the top five in that category of all time now in 2025. After 1920 or so, as I learned from the Ken Burns baseball documentary, the home run became a bigger phenomenon for the reasons of keeping the baseball cleaner and refreshed, combined with the change of the bounciness of the ball. Runners of the base paths did not count as much as the home run increased for those decades, thus there was the surge of home run hitters like Babe Ruth and later Ted Williams, Mickey Mantle, and Hank Aaron.

    Interestingly per my time, when I became more acutely aware of the sport and its players, and by default the patterns and trends of it, the 1980s featured some of the best and fastest baseball runners and stolen base leaders of all time: Rickey Henderson, the by far best stolen base statistical leader of all time, which will likely never be surpassed, my guy Tim Raines, and a couple other blazers like Vince Coleman, and maybe Willie Wilson and Otis Nixon. Even though the latter three did not hit for great average, their speed compensated for their below average batting skills.

    Lou Brock was the stolen base leader of his time, the 1960s into the 1970s. There have always been the best stolen base leaders of each generation, but I believe the three best decades of stolen bases were those: 1900-1920, and the 1980s. Power and the home run have led to the paucity of more stolen bases in both cases. The 1990s brought a time of many more home runs, which also, for the record, showed the proliferation of PEDs (Performance Enhancing Drugs), which lead to many more home run hitters and historically high numbers, by guys like Sammy Sosa, Alex Rodriguez, Rafael Palmeiro, and Mark Mcguire. And of course, the best of all time, Barry Bonds. However, none of them have achieved placement in the Hall of Fame because it is perceived that they cheated to attain their status among the home run hitters.

    Sosa, Bonds, Arod, could run, and steal, but these acts did not have as much effect because of their effectiveness as hitters from home plate. 

    Part of the reason I am analyzing stolen bases the period after 2024 is Shohei Ohtani. This guy sort of exploded out of nowhere. We knew he was an elite hitter and pitcher. This is amazing in itself. To be great at both the batter's box and the mound is astounding. But this past season he stole 59! About seven years into his major league career, after starting in Japan, his previous high was maybe 20, which is likely a normal number for many players, even the ones who are not necessarily known as power or even superior hitters for average. There are exceptions. Mike Trout, Bryce Harper, Manny Machado, Jose Altuve, and a good list of others are complete five tool players who accrue high numbers of home runs, hitting for average, and stolen bases. But usually a player is either a great power hitter or they play "small ball", where they hit and walk for average and then are typically speedier on the bases.

    Trea Turner is incredibly fast. He steals bases more than hits home runs, for example. The better example of a small ball wonder was Ichiro Suzuki. He was a hits machine, did not hit many homers, and was fast enough to rack up many stolen bases, more than the average right fielder, for sure.

    Ohtani is now 28-29. Will he back up last season as an elite stolen base runner? Will others in the current generation ever approach the top ten in stolen base stats again?

    It does not seem likely. 

    Next post I will look at the best stolen base runners among the top 1,000 of all time, and we might project how they will finish in the history books. Again, though, the greatest years of base stealing is likely done with.

    Long live the stolen base. The art of speed and connivery. Craftiness and artful dodging, planning on generating runs by exploiting the defense and situation.