Pizza Boxes — Baseball Bench Coach

The 2023 MLB rule changes have been a huge success. The headliner is that the new pitch clock has reduced the average time of games in a big way, about 30 minutes from last year. What is often overlooked is that other changes, including the restrictions on pickoff attempts and the larger bases (affectionately labeled “pizza boxes”), have increased the running game. We’ve finally gotten away from station-to-station baseball and saved the stolen base from being a lost art. Let’s steal away for a bit and explore stolen bases.

In the early days of baseball “stealing the base” was used when runners took an extra base on a hit by another teammate. Baseball historians give Philadelphia Keystone’s Ned Cuthbert the nod for the first stealing of a base on a pitch when the ball was not hit. It wasn’t until 1898 when “stolen base” as we know it became popular. Ty Cobb (1905-1928) is the best known of the early base stealers, totaling 897 in his 24-year career. In 1915 he set a single season record of stolen bases with 96. Babe Ruth began a lengthy era where the long ball dominated baseball. Indeed, in 1955, Joe DiMaggio’s brother Dom led the Major Leagues with just 15 stolen bases.

This past week though did mark the 93rd anniversary of the “double triple steal”. On July 25, 1930, the Philadelphia Athletics loaded the bases in the first inning of a game against the Cleveland Indians. On a pitch the runner on third broke for the plate and slid in successfully while the other runners stole third and second. The Athletics pulled the same trick in the fourth inning. The kicker is that, as a team, the Athletics stole only 48 bases the entire year, second last in the American League.

Maury Wills, who played primarily for the Dodgers over his 14-year career (1959-1972), is known for reviving the stolen base as part of baseball strategy. In winning the NL MVP award in 1962, he broke Ty Cobb’s single season stolen base record with 104 stolen bases. Lou Brock, a Hall of Fame St. Louis Cardinal, broke Wills’ single season record with 118 stolen bases of his own in 1974, while also breaking Cobb’s career record by snatching 938 total stolen bases during his 18-year career. Then there’s Rickey Henderson who obliterated both records. The Oakland A’s great was nicknamed the “Man of Steal”. In 1982 he set the current single season record of 130. When Henderson retired in 2003, he had amassed 1,406 career steals, setting a standard that looks to be in the record books for a very long time.

In an article written in 2009 for the “Bleacher Report”, Cliff Eastham offered some objective data comparisons in career stolen base percentage. Without looking at the numbers, my immediate thoughts turned to Cobb, Wills, Brock, or Henderson. However, Richie Ashburn, the Phillies’ Hall of Famer with a 15-year career spanning from 1948 through 1962, is the all-time leader according to Eastham’s work. Ashburn is one of the most beloved sports figures in Philadelphia and has the career numbers to support it -- .308 batting average, 2,574 hits, and an all-time best stolen base percentage of 86%.

During the last 25 years of the game, beginning with the Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa home run race in 1998, baseball slowed to a halt. The game developed into power pitching, home runs, strikeouts, and walks. Barry Bonds broke season (73) and career (762) home run records long admired by baseball traditionalists. While it took too long to recognize the problem, MLB began to address the running game the last few years by experimenting with rule changes at the Minor League level. Pitchers in AAA, AA, and Single A were limited to two pickoff attempts per batter with runners on base. Stolen base attempts went up from 2.23 per game in 2019 to 2.81 last year with an improved success rate of 78% from 68%.

Enter the 2023 MLB rule changes designed to revive the running game in the Major Leagues. Pitchers can check baserunners by throwing over to the bag twice but the third time becomes an alarm. If the third pickoff attempt is not successful, the runner is awarded the next base. Since runners now know how many pickoff attempts are allowed, they are emboldened to take the risk of stealing a base. First, second, and third bases are now 18 square inches in size, up from 15 square inches which was the dimension for over 100 years. It reduces the distance between the bases by 4 ½ inches. Think of all those close plays where those inches matter.

Baseball in 2023 has been deemed the “Year of the Stolen Base”. Stealing attempts per game are up to a level not seen for over thirty years, and the current success rate is around 80%. Three teams in baseball this year are averaging more than one successful stolen base per game, Cincinnati (1.14), Tampa (1.11), and Arizona (1.01), all three of whom have seen the importance of the running game to the win-loss column. Earlier in July the Reds rookie sensation, Elly De La Cruz, became the first player in the past 50 years to steal three bases in a single plate appearance. Even more incredibly, he did so on just two pitches. Now that’s excitement!

I love the new speed of the game, not just the shorter game times but the way baseball is now being played. The next time you get a large, thin crust, half cheese, and half bacon, delivered to your home, take a moment to reflect on how important that pizza box is to today’s game.

Until next Monday,

your Baseball Bench Coach