Sorry about not being around for all you Razzballeroos last week. When life gets busy, my secondary loves of fantasy baseball and gambling take a backseat to real life youth baseball and travel. Sometimes it’s tough to find an hour or two to put together the dynamic articles you know and love when it comes to finding stolen bases out there on the waiver wire.
Today we will finish up our mid-season exercise by looking at some good underlying metrics when streaming or picking up stolen base targets. So far we’ve glanced at catcher throwing rankings and sprint speed. Today we are going to look specifically at the pitchers who struggle in holding runners close to the bag and getting their delivery quickly to the plate to avoid allowing large jumps.
The good ones are usually, but not always guys who limit traffic on the basepaths. The bad ones are usually bad at holding guys tight, and have a high WHIP. There are exceptions, however. Take Tyler Glasnow for instance and his 0.93 WHIP, he has allowed 31 stolen bases the last two seasons which is good for .139 SB/IP. Why is this you ask? Tyler has a poor move to first and is extremely slow in his delivery to home with runners on base. He is well above league average which for starters which checks in around .68 SB/IP. So if you are looking for steals in daily leagues, finding those guys who allow upwards of .85 SB/IP are the main targets.
Let’s take a look at my Top 10 guys who need a lesson from Elton John and Britney Spears in holding closer.
We’re going David Letterman Top 10 style.
#10 Hunter Brown – Dude is rocking a .119 SB/IP with opponents being 73.7% successful against him on the basepaths.
#9 Marcus Stroman – Got a .125 SB/IP and a 93.5% SB success rate against.
#8 Matt Waldron – .126 SB/IP, plus an 89.5% success rate against.
#7 Kevin Gausman – Another guy you wouldn’t expect, but he’s got a .127 SB/IP and an 89.7% success rate against.
#6 Hunter Greene – For as fast as he throws you’d think there would be less, but he’s got a big leg kick. Checking in at .134 SB/IP and 84.8% success rate against.
#5 Tyler Glasnow – Our above Example with a .139 SB/IP ratio and a 86.1% success rate against.
#4 Patrick Corbin – Lefties can suck at keeping guys close too. PC has a .146 SB/IP and an 85.1% success rate against. Keibert Ruiz catching for him doesn’t help.
#3 Ryan Feltner – Half your games in Coors and not able to keep guys close is not a good mix. Feltner has a .162 SB/IP and a 87.5% success rate against.
#2 Roansy Contreras – No Angels in the catchers arms can help his .168 SB/IP and 94.4% success rate against.
#1 And finally our top target who shows up almost every week in our Speed Dials segment, with a .189 SB/IP and an 87.0% success rate against Andre Pallante.
Here’s Our Stolen Base Leaderboard through Sunday June 30th.
Still a few solid SAGNOF targets left on the SB leaderboard who are playing almost everyday. You can still find David Hamilton, Jacob Young and Pete Crow-Armstrong out on waiver wires.
The Speed Dials:
We hit 2 of 4 Speed Dials….Well actually we only hit one individual player, but he stole two bases so I feel like that counts for two. And I’m the one writing the article and doing the research so what I say goes.
Overall, that means we are now 11 for 48 on the season. Remember these are exact dates to pick up and stream steals guys in daily leagues. Reminder these stats and analysis includes 2023 and 2024 data.
Dodgers vs Diamondbacks – Wednesday July 3rd
Chris Taylor – Tough day to find a solid waiver wire target vs this set of pitchers. I went with Taylor facing lefty Jordan Montgomery so he should be in the lineup. Monty is allowing runners to succeed at a 95.7% clip the last two seasons and has really struggled to limit base runners in 2024. Taylor is still slightly above average in MLB sprint speed at 28.1 Ft/Second. The Diamondbacks have the top throwing catcher over the last two years in Gabriel Moreno on the IL, which means Tucker Barnhart will likely be behind the dish, he succeeds at cutting down runners at 19% and is 42nd on the overall leaderboard.
Pirates vs Cardinals – Thursday July 4th
Jack Suwinski – Here we go with the Pirates facing our #1 running target Andre Pallante I am counting on Captain Jack to take us home tonight. You’ve already seen how bad Pallante is, so let’s look at Jack. He has a solid Sprint speed at 28.3 Ft/Sec and is at 85.7% stealing bases the last two seasons. Willson Contreras being back does help the Cards as he cuts runners down at 30% and is #7 overall for catcher throwing the last two years.
Cardinals vs Nationals – Friday July 5th
Masyn Winn – Patrick Corbin and his dismal stats will face the Cards on Friday. Winn has a 28.7 Ft/Sec sprint speed. He gets caught a little too much at only a 71.4% success rate, but hopefully, he gets the green light against Corbin and the worst throwing catcher in MLB Keibert Ruiz.
Mariners vs Blue Jays – Saturday
Dylan Moore – Moore has been solid on the basepaths converting at 80% the last two seasons and tallying 20 SBs overall including 13 already this season. He has slightly above average speed at 27.9 Ft/second. He will face a guy with a small sample size in Yariel Rodriguez who has allowed all three runners to advance this year and has a .180 SB/IP ratio. Alejandro Kirk for the Blue Jays is 17th on the catcher leaderboard for cutting down runners.
As always, if you’re looking for anything further out for next week where we don’t have exact pitching match-ups hit me up here or on Twitter @TheGreatKnoche
