The Padres are stealing bases but not getting much out of it:
The Padres rank second in the major leagues with 28 steals this season.
But only seven of those steals have resulted in runs – largely because the Padres have struggled with runners in scoring position.
Back when the The Hidden Game of Baseball
came out, steals were worth about 0.3 runs. So getting seven runs out of 28 steals isn’t really that far off. It does make the point, however, that your success turning a steal into a run has more to do with the hitters behind you. A number of pitchers (Jim Palmer and Doc Gooden come to mind) didn’t care about stolen bases, because if they got the batter, the runner would be stranded. This is just another example of that.
But what else are the Padres supposed to do? They lost by far their best hitter over the offseason and play in a stifling pitcher’s park that more or less recreates 1968.
In fact, so far this year PETCO is even worse than 1968, a 6.3 runs-per-game average compared to 6.8 in the execrable Year of the Pitcher. If nobody can score at all, the deadball stolen-base strategy is about all you’ve got left.
Yeah, of course all this is true, but what about THE offense killer…”Double Play Ground Ball”. Stolen bases prevent those!