2023 Was the Year of Stolen Bases in MLB. Here’s What That Means for the Playoffs.

Baseball's new rules encouraged more running, and that's exactly what happened — even if the effect of steals on winning was mixed at best.

When MLB introduced sweeping rule changes prior to the 2023 season — including larger bases and restrictions on pickoff throws — one of the goals was creating a faster, more dynamic game with more stolen bases. MLB special consultant Theo Epstein explained the changes when laying out his vision for the sport: “Fans told us that stolen bases are among their favorite plays in the game… If these rules help encourage base stealers and we see game-changing baserunning back in the game like that, it's a win for the fans."

By that measure, the results from Year 1 have represented a major victory indeed. Across the majors, stolen bases per game are at their highest level (0.72) since 1997, and the share of steals that were successful (80%) is the highest since at least 1920, when times caught stealing were first consistently recorded.

As we look ahead to the postseason, it seems fair to assume base stealers will be even more active there as well. Last season, steals per game rose from 0.51 during the regular season to 0.85 during the playoffs — and that was before all the rule changes to encourage the running game. But does that mean the steal will be more of a factor in winning games? And if so, who is best poised to take advantage?

One of the reasons why stolen bases began to fall out of favor over the past three decades was the growing influence of analytics in the game. After quantifying the value of a steal (and the cost of getting caught stealing), researchers realized that runners needed to be successful nearly 70% of the time for stealing to have a positive effect on a team’s scoring potential. With the league average floating around or even below that mark for most of the late 1990s and into the 2000s, teams gradually began to pull back on their steals — culminating with 2015 seeing a league steals leader dropping below 40 for the first time in a full season since 1962.

But with an MLB-wide success rate of 80% under the new rules, steals have become a much more valuable proposition this season. And some teams took advantage more aggressively than others. Among teams with at least a 50% chance of making the playoffs (as of Tuesday night’s games), here are the leaders in total stolen base value added — i.e., net value between successful steals and times caught stealing — along with the team’s most valuable individual base-stealers:

1. Arizona Diamondbacks, +10.3 runs (Corbin Carroll, +6.8; Jake McCarthy, +3.3)

2. Philadelphia Phillies, +5.7 runs (Trea Turner, +4.6; Bryson Stott, +3.7)

3. Atlanta Braves, +3.3 runs (Ronald Acuña Jr., +6.5; Ozzie Albies, +1.5)

4. Tampa Bay Rays, +3.1 runs (Josh Lowe, +4.3; Taylor Walls, +3.3)

5. Milwaukee Brewers, +2.7 runs (Christian Yelich, +2.9; Brice Turang, +2.7)

6. Baltimore Orioles, +1.2 runs (Jorge Mateo, +3.2; Cedric Mullins, +1.8)

7. Los Angeles Dodgers, -0.6 runs (Freddie Freeman, +2.5; Chris Taylor, +1.7)

8. Minnesota Twins, -1.5 runs (Willi Castro, +3.6; Michael A. Taylor, +1.7)

9. Miami Marlins, -2.2 runs (Jazz Chisholm Jr., +2.5; Joey Wendle, +1.0)

10. Houston Astros, -3.6 runs (Kyle Tucker, +2.4; Corey Julks, +1.1)

11. Texas Rangers, -3.6 runs (Travis Jankowski, +2.7; Evan Carter, +0.5)

12. Toronto Blue Jays, -6.3 runs (Kevin Kiermaier, +1.5; George Springer, +0.6)

Let’s also talk about catchers, who are having to take on more responsibility to stop the running game than pretty much ever before in their careers. We can use Baseball Savant’s estimates of catcher throwing value to run the same exercise as above, but this time from the perspective of the guys behind the plate trying to slow down 2023’s hyper-efficient base stealers. Here’s our list of probable playoff teams, ranked by total catcher value against stolen bases (along with the team leader):

1. Arizona Diamondbacks, +6.8 runs (Gabriel Moreno, +6.1)

2. Houston Astros, +3.2 runs (Yainer Diaz, +2.3)

3. Tampa Bay Rays, +3.0 runs (Christian Bethancourt, +3.4)

4. Baltimore Orioles, +2.1 runs (James McCann, +1.9)

5. Texas Rangers, +2.0 runs (Jonah Heim, +2.9)

6. Philadelphia Phillies, +0.9 runs (J.T. Realmuto, +0.8)

7. Atlanta Braves, +0.3 runs (Sean Murphy, +2.8)

8. Toronto Blue Jays, -2.1 runs (Tyler Heineman, -0.2)

9. Miami Marlins, -2.1 runs (Jacob Stallings, -1.0)

10. Minnesota Twins, -2.7 runs (Christian Vázquez, +0.0)

11. Milwaukee Brewers, -3.3 runs (William Contreras, -1.1)

12. Los Angeles Dodgers, -3.3 runs (Will Smith, -0.4)

Now, you might have noticed that only half of the entrants on our list of valuable base-stealing playoff teams actually got above-average production out of the tactic. That’s not a coincidence. Even after the overall uptick in stolen base success rate, there was almost no correlation between a team’s SB value added and its record this season:

In other words, a strong stealing team was just as likely to be a bad ballclub (such as the Mets, A’s, Guardians and Royals) as it was to be a contender like the D-backs and Phillies. Or conversely, weak base-stealing teams could be bad overall like the Rockies or Angels, or they could be solid teams like the Blue Jays, Rangers and Astros. So in that sense, steals may have become more prolific in the sport this year, but not necessarily more integral to a team’s overall success.

That’s not to say stolen bases won’t matter in October, however. For instance, Arizona’s ability to steal on offense and shut down the running game on the other side of the ball was worth nearly one-fifth of their overall net wins this season. And we know that the strategic benefit of a single, well-timed steal can be massive — particularly if you have confidence that your runner can make it with a high probability of success. 

Historically, the team with more stolen bases in the World Series wins it about 63% of the time, not too dissimilar from the historical rates for the team with more home runs (67%) or even the higher OPS (73%). Those differences get a little more spread out when we look at all playoff series since the Division Series era began in 1995 — the team with the edge in SB wins 60% of the time, versus 70% for teams who led in HR and 79% for teams with superior OPS — but this still suggests there’s some significance to out-running a postseason opponent in addition to out-hitting them.

And again, that was without the new rules to push stealing success rates to the highest they’ve ever been. We don’t know what kind of effect we’ll see this year, but we’re guessing Taco Bell — with its “Steal a Base, Steal a Taco” promo — had better get those free tacos ready early on. Because although steals were not an essential aspect of every team’s playoff path, they were as prolific a part of the game during the regular season as they’d been in a generation, and that could be a prelude to what will transpire in the postseason.

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Original story: MLB 2023 Was the Year of Stolen Bases. Here’s What That Means for the Playoffs