Last season, the Cardinals finished 20th in the majors in stolen base attempts, but perhaps even more glaring was they finished 23rd in stolen base success rate.
They didn’t try to steal often, and when they did, they weren’t great at it.
The 2024 Cardinals? They need to attempt to steal more than in 2023. The roster and rule changes encourage it. And as this team looks for any edge it can steal, stealing bases at a high rate can help propel a club. Consider that last year, of the nine teams with the best stolen base success rates in baseball, seven cracked the postseason field.
And these 2024 Cardinals figure to have Masyn Winn all season. This human alone can skew the data — if, unlike last September, he actually gets on base a bit.
See, the Cardinals’ presumptive starting shortstop played three years in the minors. In 2021, Winn stole 32 bases in 98 games (and was caught stealing just five times). In 2022, he stole 43 bases in 119 games (again, caught stealing just five times). And in 2023, he stole 17 bases in 105 games (caught just twice).
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And in his 37 games in the majors in 2023, Winn averaged an elite sprint speed of 29.2 feet per second, good for the 92nd percentile in Major League Baseball (per Baseball Savant). But his .172 batting average and .230 on-base percentage resulted in just three stolen base attempts (he tallied two).
“Being a speed guy, I need to get at least 20-30 bags a year,†said Winn, who turns 22 in March. “So I think for me, that’ll be just an every-year thing. I mean, not too worried about it — speed for me is at least my concerns, I think.â€
Last year, the Cards stole 101 bases — the MLB average was 117. It’s back-of-the-napkin math, but if you added, say, 30 steals to the ºüÀêÊÓƵ total, the 131 would’ve pushed the Cards from 20th in stolen bases to 11th.
“(Stealing bases) helps the guys around me, helps the team,†Winn said while in town recently for the Winter Warm-up event. “I feel like when Rickey Henderson was running around everywhere, everybody was having a good time watching him run. And he’s putting his team in a great spot. So for me, whether it be in the eight spot or nine spot (in the lineup), if I get on base and get to second, with Tommy Edman and Lars Nootbaar coming up, I like our chances. So I think it does help the team a lot. Turning a single into a double is a big deal.â€
Of course, Edman will need to hold on to his end of the bargain and grab a bunch of bags, too. The switch-hitter and likely opening-day center fielder saw his OPS drop from .725 to .705 in 2023, but he still stole. In just 137 games, he swiped 27 bases (and was caught just four times). The 27 were 22nd-most in the majors. And the two years prior, Edman stole 32 and 30.
“We do have a lot of guys who can certainly steal a lot of bases,†Edman said. “It’ll be fun to see how we’re able to take advantage of all the data we collected last year. It definitely is cool because obviously we have some great hitters in the middle of our lineup and hopefully we have some guys who can be causing some chaos on the bases ahead of those guys — and let those guys get some good pitches to hit.â€
Data defines baseball in the 21st century. And in 2023, a whole different set was created because of rule changes regarding stolen bases. The limit of pick-off attempts, the ticking pitch clock and the bigger bases led to renaissance of steals.
In 2022, teams averaged 0.51 stolen bases per game — in 2023, it was 0.72, the highest in baseball since 1997, per FanGraphs. But the Cardinals only stole six more total bases in 2023 than 2022 — then again, they didn’t have the exact same personnel in 2023 as 2022.
With the rule chances, Edman explained, “It was a little bit of a learning process, too. Kind of figuring out what and how you can take advantage of pitchers, because there was no data on how pitchers reacted to the new rules last year. But this upcoming year, we’ll have a full year’s worth of data. So I think that this year we’ll almost be able to take better advantage over it than we did last year.
“I don’t really want to reveal too many details, but there are ways that you can kind of take advantage of the pitch clock winding down, the total number of step-offs and stuff like that. So I think we will take that into account this year. But I do think last year we were able to get a little bit more comfortable in our leads, just because of the total number of pick-offs that pitchers can do. So that definitely played a little bit of a factor into it. And it definitely allows for a better base-stealing environment.â€
On the 2023 Cards, Nootbaar actually finished tied for second in steals (with 11), even though he played in only 117 games. And while Paul Goldschmidt, by his lofty standards, had a down offensive year, the savvy stealer swiped 11 bases, too.
Jordan Walker had seven steals in, coincidentally, 117 games played like Nootbaar (and was caught stealing in four of his 11 attempts). The rookie Walker, though, is in the 81st percentile in sprint speed (Nootbaar is in just the 62nd and Goldschmidt is in the 27th). Here’s thinking Walker has the ability to be a 20-20 guy for the Cardinals in 2024.
Oh, and Victor Scott II, one of the Cards’ top outfield prospects, stole 94 bases in the minors last year.
And with Winn on the team all year, a more mature Walker, and a healthy Nootbaar and Edman, the Cardinals overall baserunning, not just stealing, should improve.
It sure needs to.
Per FanGraphs’ base-running metric, the Cardinals were fourth in 2021, 10th in 2022 but — 22nd in 2023.