Let’s forget about eye tests and advanced metrics for a minute and focus on back-of-the-baseball-card stats only. Billy Hamilton appeared in more games in 2018 than he had in any previous season. He didn’t max out in plate appearances, because he had a few handfuls of games where he was a late-inning replacement, but he batted a healthy amount nonetheless. He drew more walks in 2018 than ever before. He hit fewer doubles than average.
That’s a weird accumulation of numbers, meant to lead up to the fact that Billy Hamilton, after stealing between 55 and 60 bases each of the last four years, only stole 34 in 2018.