The Konerko: The Stat You Didn’t Know You Didn’t Need

I’m going to show you a short video compilation I made. Can you figure out what these seven baserunning plays from the 2024 season have in common?

Admittedly, there’s a red herring among those video clips. One of them focuses on Bobby Witt Jr. stealing third base, but what I really wanted to highlight was Vinnie Pasquantino stealing second behind him. Here’s a better angle than what’s available on MLB Film Room:

Does that help you figure out the common thread? Don’t feel bad if you still can’t put your finger on it. That’s kind of what I’m banking on. Let me spell it out a little more clearly. Excluding Witt, these are the seven players you just watched steal (or attempt to steal) a base:

There were 129 players who qualified for the batting title in 2024. In other words, we can say 129 position players played a “full season” (or close enough) this past year. Of that group, 126 made an effort to steal at least one base. The seven players you’re looking at are the members of that group who only attempted one stolen base in a full season of opportunities.

I had some reservations about using plate appearances as the playing time threshold for a baserunning statistic, so I also came up with a quick alternative using Baseball Reference’s stolen base opportunities (SBO). I calculated the ratio of stolen base opportunities to plate appearances in 2024. The league averaged one SBO every 2.78 PA. So if 502 PA count as “a full season of opportunities” at the plate, let’s say that 181 SBO make for a full season of opportunities on the bases. Ultimately, however, I got the same seven players using SBO to set the threshold for qualification. That also means this group had the seven lowest (non-zero) stolen base attempt rates in the league:

I find it fascinating to imagine the mental process that would lead a major league player to steal just once in a 162-game season. What changed in that one moment to convince him to attempt something he hadn’t attempted before? And if he thought he was fast enough to try stealing once, what stopped him from trying again? Of course, there are going to be times when psychology has nothing to do with it. Sometimes the stars align perfectly to create an ideal stolen base opportunity for even the Yasmani Grandals of the game. But that’s pretty interesting too. Whether the motivation is intrinsic or extrinsic, it’s fun to think about how people come to decisions they so rarely make.

To that end, I was quite satisfied with the variability of the seven stolen base attempts in the video above. It’s not just a repetitive sequence of double steals, or plays that really should have been classified as wild pitches/passed balls, or baserunners taking advantage of the weakest-armed catchers, or steals that essentially boil down to defensive indifference. Some of them are very conventional looking stolen bases. Without any context, could you have guessed you were watching every one of those players try something they wouldn’t try again all year?

Brendan Rodgers, for example, might have been out by several feet if Marcus Semien hadn’t flubbed this catch. Even so, it’s hard to believe Rodgers just attempted his first ever stolen base six seasons and 352 games into his big league career. It looks so… ordinary:

With that said, it’s not as if this collection of plays is without its entertaining moments. Far from it. It’s impossible not to share in Tyler Stephenson’s joy as he grins at his teammates and subtly pumps his fist after stealing second without a throw:

Fittingly, he also held up his index finger and seemed to say, “That’s one!”

Similarly charming was Witt pointing over at Pasquantino to acknowledge his partner in crime after a successful double steal. It’s even more adorable with a little bit of backstory. Pasquantino’s only other career stolen base also has a fun connection to Witt; the bag itself is now in the Hall of Fame. Not long before Pasquantino earned his first steal (back in 2022), Witt stole the same bag for his 30th, becoming the second player in major league history with 30-plus steals, 30-plus doubles, and 20-plus home runs in his rookie season. Presumably, Pasquantino is more than happy to run on Witt’s coattails – and maybe he even got to keep the bag this time around. Here are both of his career stolen bases:

My favorite part of Adley Rutschman’s stolen base was how long it took Nationals catcher Keibert Ruiz to realize Rutschman was stealing. His reaction was so delayed that I feel the need to clarify this wasn’t a delayed steal. In Ruiz’s defense, he was the only catcher who had to handle a stolen base attempt from Rutschman all season. Unfortunately, the numbers don’t care about the element of surprise. According to Baseball Savant’s Caught Stealing Above Average metric, this was Ruiz’s biggest failure of the year (-0.76 CSAA).

I did my best to line up two different angles of the play so you can really see how long Ruiz took to respond to the unexpected threat on the bases. You can also see Rutschman watching his fellow backstop for the exact same reason:

Jorge Soler’s stolen base is a great example of everything coming together perfectly to give the slugger an opportunity to run. Austin Barnes was catching for the Dodgers that day instead of Will Smith. Smith was the best throwing catcher in the league this past year; Barnes was one of the worst. One batter earlier, Blake Treinen had replaced Alex Vesia on the mound. Treinen has been significantly worse than Vesia at controlling the running game over the past several years. Moreover, Treinen’s pitches were coming in a little slower than usual that day. His average sweeper in 2024 clocked in at 83.9 mph; the sweeper Soler ran on was a tick and a half slower.

It was also a great moment in the game for Soler to take a risk. There were two outs in the eighth inning of a tied ballgame. The next hitter due up, Heliot Ramos, was mired in a post-All-Star Game slump and had poor platoon splits against right-handed pitching. Soler’s stolen base put him in scoring position for a red-hot Tyler Fitzgerald. He increased San Francisco’s win probability by +0.27. His awkward slide into second base tells you everything you need to know about how rarely he does this, but he certainly picked a good moment to give it a go:

As for Marcell Ozuna, I just keep wondering what on earth compelled him to steal a base for the first time in 385 games. He went 12-for-14 on stolen base attempts in 2019 with the Cardinals. Then, from 2020-23 with the Braves, he swiped just two bags in three attempts – all of which came during the same two-week span in mid-May 2022. He didn’t steal another base (or even try) until the final week of the 2024 season.

What was it about this particular situation that convinced him he was ready to try again? He was already in scoring position, and the Braves were already up by two in the bottom of the eighth. The hard-throwing Carlos Hernández gave him the stink eye right before tossing his pitch. Salvador Perez, while not the best at catching would-be baserunners, is certainly no slouch in that department. He easily could have nabbed Ozuna if his throw hadn’t come in about 10 feet higher than where it needed to be. Perhaps the only thing working in Ozuna’s favor was Perez’s pure shock, but it turns out that was all he needed:

I’ve mostly gone through these plays in chronological order, but you might notice I skipped over the only failed attempt of the bunch. That’s because I simply had to save the most entertaining example for last. Josh Bell’s TOOTBLAN between first and second base is the only one of these attempts you can watch and say with confidence, “Yeah, that looks like a guy who hasn’t stolen a base in almost six years.”

One of two things happened here. Either Bell was planning to get in a rundown in the hopes that Joc Pederson would have time to sneak home from third base, or he initially thought he could successfully steal second, then realized the Marlins had him dead to rights, and tried to salvage the play by giving Pederson a chance to scramble home. Regardless, it was a poor decision. If Bell ever thought he’d be safe, it was a dreadful miscalculation. And if he thought he could bring the run home, it was a dreadful miscalculation.

For one thing, why would the Diamondbacks want to sacrifice an out for a run so early in the game, especially when they’re already in the lead? And if they’re ever going to try such a play, why try it with Bell (ninth percentile sprint speed) on first and Pederson (12th percentile sprint speed) on third? Pederson was still several steps away from crossing home when Xavier Edwards tagged out Bell to end the inning:

Bell’s baserunning was so poor that he didn’t even give himself the chance to get into a pickle. Instead, it was a rundown in the most literal sense: Edwards ran him down. Bell was so slow on the pivot that he looked like Wile E. Coyote after he’s already run off a cliff but before gravity sets in:

Bell couldn’t even gain an inch of ground in the time between his decision to change course and the moment Edwards caught the ball and began chasing him down:

Once he started running back, however, Bell looked more like the sloth from Zootopia. He was so slow getting back to first that Edwards never had to consider throwing the ball. Instead, he held onto it, kept an eye on Pederson at third base, and caught up to Bell in less than three seconds. All Bell could do was a last-ditch death drop to buy himself some time before Edwards applied the tag. “Stop, drop, and roll” might keep you safe in a fire, but not on the basepaths.

Inspired by Davy Andrews and the Kutina Club, I decided to name this post after the player who best exemplified the values of “only attempting one stolen base per qualified season” throughout his career. Using the standard threshold for qualification, I found eight players who accomplished the feat at least four times. One of them, Bell, is still active and still has time to climb up the leaderboard; I might need to dedicate a future post to his baserunning antics alone. For now, though, one man sits at the top with eight such seasons, three more than anyone else. It’s Paul Konerko:

While Konerko retired the year before Statcast began measuring sprint speed, he was widely recognized as one of the slowest runners in the game. Still, he made an effort to steal at least once (and never more than twice) in 11 of his 18 major league seasons. He retired with nine stolen bases in 13 attempts. So I hereby dub a qualified season in which a player only attempts one stolen base a “Konerko.” Congratulations to all who accomplished the feat in 2024. May you all continue to run once a year!

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