Last week Ryan Heffernon wrote an excellent piece detailing how the Royals’ offensive success so far this year is more appropriately attributed to their newfound desire to take walks and hit for power than their speed. He’s more right than I think even he realized.
The Royals are leading all of baseball in stolen bases. That seems pretty good, right? It’s not bad in a vacuum, at least. But the problem is that the Royals lead the league in another baserunning category: caught stealing.
Shaun Newkirk showed some numbers on Twitter that were also cited by Ryan indicating that it takes approximately 10 stolen bases to be worth as much to a team as a single home run.