Milwaukee Brewers Bringing Stolen Bases Back in Style?

The Milwaukee Brewers are on track to swipe more bags than most teams over the past decade. Could they jump-start a new trend in baseball?

Many will argue that the stolen base has become somewhat of a lost art in the game of baseball today. They have some compelling evidence to back up that assertion, too. The modern single-season record for steals belong to Rickey Henderson with 130 swipes in 1982. Henderson was, of course, one of the all-time great speedsters, but it’s rare these days to see a player finish a season with even half that total.

Vince Coleman was the last player to rack up triple-digit steals in a single season, nabbing 109 in 1987. Since then it’s been a slow decline as players have become far less adventurous on the base paths. According to ESPN, the 2,505 bases stolen by MLB players in 2015 were the fewest since 1974, when major leaguers accumulated 2,488. With just over two weeks to go, this year’s league-wide total currently stands at 2,257.

This season’s Milwaukee Brewers may not have any individual player that will challenge the lofty totals of Henderson and Coleman in their heyday, but as a group they are doing their best to buck recent stolen base trends. The Brewers lead the major leagues with 161 stolen bases. They hold that spot by a significant margin over the Arizona Diamondbacks, who come in second with 123.

According to CBSSports.com’s Jonah Keri, at their present pace the 2016 Brew Crew would amass more steals than any team in seven years (2009 Rays – 194 SB), and more than any NL club in nine years (2007 Mets – 200 SB).

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Leading the way for Milwaukee on the base paths is shortstop Jonathan Villar, whose 54 swipes place him second behind the Reds’ Billy Hamilton for the most in MLB (58). As Keri points out, Villar was a shrewd buy-low pickup for Brewers general manager David Stearns, who acquired him from the Astros last November for minor league pitcher Cy Sneed. At age 25, there’s little reason to believe Villar will be slowing down anytime soon.

Utility man Hernan Perez has also contributed to the cause with a healthy 30 steals, and outfielder Keon Broxton has 22. Heck, even slugger Ryan Braun has added 15, although that’s down from some of the earlier totals in his career. The uptick in stolen bases doesn’t seem to be a conscious effort on the part of those calling the shots, though. As Stearns tells Keri,

"“More than anything it’s probably a reflection that we view good baserunners as adding to the value proposition of a team. I can’t say we set out to acquire players who might lead the league in stolen bases. We also try to expand beyond stolen bases, to get good baserunners who have the ability to impact the game in other ways as well. We’ve seen that from those three guys [Villar, Perez and Broxton].”"

Some believe that the general decline in base stealing prowess was due to the rise of the “Moneyball” way of thinking in the early 2000s, although that point is debated. There is a notion that all 27 outs are sacred, and attempting to steal needlessly jeopardizes them more often than not. That’s probably not a philosophy that any big league club explicitly adheres to (except for, maybe, the homer-happy Orioles, who have ventured just 17 steals on the year), but it’s worth chewing on.

Could the Brewers’ addition of more players who are legitimate threats to steal bases change the way other franchises build their squads? It’s hard to say it will be a big trend. Milwaukee’s exploits on the base paths haven’t exactly translated to more runs; they rank 24th in MLB with 610. They also own a 66-81 record. There are plenty of other factors that play into their mediocre performance, of course, but the increase in steals hasn’t been an instant recipe for success or anything like that.

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With expanded rosters in September, teams often carry a speedy player exclusively for pinch-running purposes. That wouldn’t fly during the majority of the season, but we could see teams in the future paying closer attention to players who bring base stealing ability to the table. In the case of someone like Villar, it enhances an already productive contributor (.289/.369/.453, 3.5 bWAR).