How To Steal A Base

Baseball stuff that you’ll find way more interesting than you probably think…

Semi-recently I wrote an essay about spring training and explained how teams might mislead the opposition with spring training base-running plays they never intend to use during the regular season. That spring training essay prompted a reader to leave this comment:

Regardless of sport, I always wonder who has the mental capacity to keep track of all this stuff, the feints and deceptions and setups and how to remember to get this stuff in there while still actually, you know, trying to win the games? Lee, can you elaborate any on how this process works through the coaching staff and day to day game management?

Asking me if I can elaborate on any subject (including the ones I know absolutely nothing about) is like asking Donald Trump if he has anything to say about the terrible things that will happen to America if people don’t vote for him and, if at all possible, could his predictions be wildly inaccurate?

There are tons of examples I could use to elaborate on the process of collecting information and how coaches use that information and pass it along to players and use it in games, but since we can’t talk about all of them because none of us are going to live that long – and I specifically mean me – let’s take a look at:

How To Steal A Base.

First, Buy A Stopwatch

Since the Dawn of Time (which happened two hours earlier in Kansas City than it did in Phoenix and explains why I’m up writing again at 4:48 AM) first base coaches have carried stop watches and to understand why they need one, we have to do some arithmetic.

Let’s start with three numbers:

1. With a 12-foot lead the average Big League baserunner takes about 3.4 seconds to steal second base, which means (on average) they travel a little over two feet every tenth of a second.

2. The average Big League catcher takes 2.0 seconds to receive a pitch and throw it to second base.

3. Those two numbers will remain fairly constant (some baserunners and catchers are faster, some slower, but they tend to be consistent) so the thing that varies and varies a lot is how long it takes a pitcher to deliver a pitch once he starts his motion.

Some pitchers are quick to home plate and some are slow and generally speaking it depends on how high the pitcher lifts his front foot. The higher he lifts it, the longer it takes to get his foot back on the ground which he has to do before releasing the pitch.

If you don’t have an earlier indication (and boy are we going to get into that) watch the pitcher’s front foot and the higher it goes, the easier he is to steal on.

Teams watch opposition pitchers and time their pitch deliveries and first base coaches carry stopwatches to recheck the times they have on each pitcher. If the pitcher changed his delivery and got faster or slower, the first base coach needs to know that.

Now here’s how they use that information:

If the runner takes 3.4 seconds to steal second base and the catcher takes 2.0 seconds to catch a pitch and throw it to second base, everything depends on the pitcher (the one guy that varies).

If the pitcher delivers the pitch in 1.3 seconds the runner will be out by about two feet. That’s because 2.0 (the catcher’s time) plus 1.3 (the pitch delivery time) is 3.3, which is a tenth of a second faster than the running time of 3.4 seconds. But if the pitcher takes 1.5 seconds to deliver the pitch, the runner will be safe by about two feet.

According to former Kansas City Royals base running coach, Rusty Kuntz, back when base stealers were swiping a hundred bases a season, pitchers with high leg kicks (the above picture is Juan Marichal) were taking as much as 1.8 seconds to deliver a pitch which means catchers had pretty much zero chance of throwing anybody out.

Ballplayers don’t steal bases because they have a good feeling or drank too much coffee that morning; they steal bases because a stopwatch says they can.

So when a runner arrives at first base, the first base coach will lean in and say something like: “1.4, shoulder.” The “1.4” is a reminder of the pitcher’s delivery time and “shoulder” is a reminder of the body part the runner should focus on to figure out when he can take off for second base.

So there’s the basic math and make sure you understand it before you go on because now things are going to get a bit more complicated.

The Part Where Things Gets A Bit More Complicated

No idea if they still do it the same way, but back in 2015 Rusty Kuntz would look at two videos side-by-side; a video of the pitcher delivering a pitch to home plate and a second video of the same pitcher attempting a pickoff at first base.

Rusty would advance each video frame-by-frame and look for the first thing that was different. And if Rusty could spot some difference that came early in a pitcher’s motion, the pitcher’s delivery time might go from 1.2 to 1.5.

Information like this is why good coaches are invaluable and show up early in the morning to get ready for a game that won’t take place until 7:15 that night.

Somebody steals an important base and we focus on the runner and forget the coach who made it possible by spending hours looking at video. I distinctly remember Eric Hosmer swiping second base and then pointing back at Rusty to let everyone who understood what they were seeing, who should get credit for the steal.

But Pitching Coaches Have Stopwatches, Too

Let’s go back to the part about how high pitchers lift their front foot and how that changes pitch delivery time.

A tricky pitcher might deliver pitches in 1.4…1.4…1.4…and then (when he thinks he’s got the runner convinced he can steal a base) suddenly use a “slide step” – barely lift his front foot off the ground and slide toward home plate – and now his pitch delivery time is 1.1. Coaches need to keep track of the pitchers that like to use this trick and what counts and situations they like to use it in.

And even if the runner doesn’t run on that slide-step pitch, that 1.1 delivery time might shut down the opposition running game anyway because the pitcher has let everybody know: “Hey, I can do it faster anytime I want to.”

We see a pitcher deliver a pitch on which nothing seems to happen, but don’t realize how he delivered it changed the game.

Now let’s go back to the “shoulder” part of what first base coaches say to runners, because “shoulder” refers to the “key” meaning the body part runners should focus on because it will reveal the pitcher’s intentions.

Here’s what Rusty (or some other coach I’m not as friendly with) figured out: if the pitcher intends to deliver the pitch to home plate without using a slide step (the slower high-leg delivery), his front shoulder will go back because he has to shift his weight back to stay balanced once he lifts his front foot high off the ground.

But if the pitcher intended to use a slide step (the faster low-leg delivery) his shoulder will go forward because he’s not gathering himself to deliver the pitch, he’s speeding things up by immediately moving toward home plate.

Rusty advised his runners: “If he’s quick you stick, if he’s slow you go.” Which is a bit of baseball poetry that reminded runners what the hell they’re supposed to do and if Rusty ever wants to replace Dr. Seuss and do a children’s book on baseball, I’m in.

How Misinformation Helped Win a Playoff Series

In 2014 the Kansas City Royals led the Milky Way Galaxy and All of Baseball in stolen bases with 153, but were last in home runs with 95. The Baltimore Orioles were the exact opposite; first in home runs with 211, last in stolen bases with 44.

So when they were about to face the Orioles in the playoffs, the Royals talked up stealing bases and how important it was to their offense and I was told Baltimore manager Buck Showalter reacted to that information by demanding all his pitchers speed up their deliveries.  

Now here’s the problem with that: when a pitcher’s front foot hits the ground it’s time to release the ball and if he gets his front foot down faster than he’s used to, his arm might be late because it’s still operating on the old high-leg kick time schedule. That can result in the correct release point being missed and the ball goes high.

Hitters tend to crush high pitches (as long as they’re not too high) and if you pay attention you’re going to see a lot of big hits given up when the pitcher used a slide step delivery. Just like we fail to give credit to the coach who made a stolen base possible, we fail to give credit to the base-running threat that made a home run possible.

In the 2014 playoff series against the Orioles, the Royals only stole one base in three attempts (during the regular season, three attempts in one inning wouldn’t shock you), but hit four home runs in the first two games and went on to sweep the series.

So there’s an example of misinformation – the Royals insistence that they were going to keep stealing bases – leading the opposition to defend against something that didn’t happen and by doing that, make themselves vulnerable in another area.

See?

This is why it’s dumb for people who never played baseball to assume they’re smarter than the people who do. A Wall Street Journal article about managers Ned Yost and Buck Showalter was called “The Dunce and the Chessmaster” and in this case the Dunce used misinformation to beat the Chessmaster in four straight games.  

OK, gotta say I feel like I’ve “elaborated” the hell out of this subject and now it’s time for me to figure out which spring training game I’m going to attend today.

Talk to you soon.