Being a strict Jamesian, there is an obligation to poo-poo stolen bases. I find it much more interesting that Shohei legged out seven triples to go with his 51 home runs than that he stole 51 bases. Both are demonstrating the same thing, that it’s unusual for sluggers to be fast.

The bottom line in the Jamesian view of steals is that they do very little to increase offense. For example, using Bill James’ mid 1980s runs created formula I figured Ohtani’s runs create (RC) three ways; first with no alterations, second with no stolen base attempts, and third, turning all his home runs into doubles.

Season	RC	RC no SB attempts	RC HR as Doubles
2018	69	69	53
2019	68	67	56
2020	18	17	14
2021	122	123	90
2022	109	112	87
2023	138	137	104
2024	153	146	116

I didn’t want to eliminate HR It might be more accurate to divide those hits into some combination of singles, doubles, triples, and inside the park homers. Valuing the dingers as doubles is close enough for demonstration purposes. What is obvious here is that Ohtani would be a fantastic offensive player if he never attempted a steal. Reducing the value of his home run hits takes away much more offense that his steals.

What we should be celebrating with his steals is his extremely high SB percentage. He’s only been caught four times! Ohtani’s 92.7 stolen base percentage is the third best of the expansion era for anyone with 50 attempts. Jimmy Rollins went 47 for 50 in 2008, and Jacoby Ellsbury went 52 for 56 in 2013. Note that fourth on the list is Davey Lopes 47 for 51 in 1985 (tied by CJ Abrams in 2023), so high SB% are not unusual to the Dodgers. Because of the great SB rate, taking the steals away from Ohtani knocks him down seven runs instead of one or two. If a slugger is going to run, that’s the way to do it.

I know lots of fans love stolen bases, and major league baseball went out of it’s way to make this type of season possible. The top two power speed numbers happened with the change of the pick-off rule and the enlarged bases, so the league got their wish.

Looking at the chart brought up another thought, however. When Ohtani underwent his first Tommy John surgery, I wrote:

Ohtani should give up the two-way player option. He’s a fine hitter, and worth the money on that side of the ball. Let him and just hit and have a longer career.

BaseballMusings.com

Look at the fantastic season he posted while not having to worry about pitching. He’s worth one WAR less this season than in either of previous two seasons, and very close to his 8.0 combined WAR in 2021. Is it really worth an extra WAR a season to have him keep pitching? What if the next pitching injury takes his bat out of the lineup as well?

Personally, I’d like to see how many 50 home runs seasons he can post, how many triples he can hit, and if can keep stealing bases at an extremely high rate. I’m willing to trade a his pitching ability to make that possible.