Article: Where Do the Red Sox Rank According to Statcast’s New Basestealing Metric?

[Davy Andrews]

Two Boston speedsters graded out among the best baserunners in the game, but they did so in very different fashion.

On Monday, Major League Baseball released an update at Baseball Savant, the website that houses and breaks down the copious data collected by Statcast. The update broke down baserunning value into two categories: stealing bases and taking extra bases on balls in play. Two Red Sox appear in the top 10. Jarren Duran and David Hamilton have both been worth six total runs on the bases, which ties them for sixth in baseball (Duran was slightly ahead with, 6.3 to 6.2). Given Duran’s predilection for stretching doubles into triples, his appearance on the leaderboard comes as no shock. In fact, nearly all of his value comes from taking extra bases on balls in play, and only Corbin Carroll was better at that particular skill during the 2024 season.

Despite his elite foot speed of 29.4 feet per second, Hamilton’s inclusion might come as a surprise, as he got into just 98 games and had only 317 plate appearances (though if the Red Sox don’t add at second base, he could be in line for more playing time next season thanks to the recent trade of Enmanuel Valdez). On a per-game basis, Hamilton was actually significantly more valuable on the bases than Duran. In fact, if you prorate the run values based on opportunities to advance, Hamilton moves up to third place in the entire league with 0.11 runs per opportunity, while Duran drops to 22nd with 0.06. Duran is at the top of the list because of volume. He’s an excellent hitter who hits lots of singles and doubles, then takes advantage of the chances to stretch them into doubles and triples.

 

Hamilton doesn’t have that luxury. He ran a wRC+ of just 92 during the 2024 season, and just 1.7 of his baserunning runs came from advancing on balls in play. However, he stole 33 bases out of 37 attempts, an elite 89% success rate. Statcast credited him with 24 net bases gained and four runs, just from basestealing. That was enough to rank seventh among all basestealers, According to Baseball Prospectus, he had just 320 opportunities to advance on non-contact plays (opportunities to steal a base), which made him the most successful basestealer in all of baseball on a per-opportunity basis, just ahead of Elly De La Cruz!

Now contrast that to Duran, who had 888 opportunities – the most in baseball. He stole 34 bases in 41 attempts. According to Baseball Prospectus, given all those opportunities and the lower 82.9% success rate, Duran’s basestealing graded out at just about average.

As a team, Statcast ranked the Red Sox 11th with two basestealing runs. In terms of taking the extra base, they ranked seven with five runs. Together, they graded out as the eighth-best team in baseball on the basepaths. Not surprisingly, when they were on defense, the Red Sox were worth -3 runs, which put them in 23rd place. Wilyer Abreu, one of the game’s grittiest players, was worth two runs, both of them thanks to taking the extra base. Ceddanne Rafaela was worth the same amount, but his poor 19-for-29 stolen base performance cost the team one run. Both Abreu and Rafaela were rookies in 2024, so we should expect them to be more successful stealing bases next season – especially Rafaela, whose sprint speed of 28.8 feet per second makes him one of the game’s fastest players. The chart below comes straight from Baseball Savant and breaks down the baserunning totals for all of the team’s regulars.

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[moonslav59]

I'm not sure DHam gets as many PAs in 2025, so we may not be as good. Anthony and Mayer may be better than EValdez/Romy/Grissom and Refsnyder/Yoshida, so maybe we get a slight boos there.

(I do think DHam should get a long look as our platoon 2Bman. He was good on D, there, too.)

[mvp 78]

21 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

I'm not sure DHam gets as many PAs in 2025, so we may not be as good. Anthony and Mayer may be better than EValdez/Romy/Grissom and Refsnyder/Yoshida, so maybe we get a slight boos there.

(I do think DHam should get a long look as our platoon 2Bman. He was good on D, there, too.)

Story is a decent runner. The hit they take going from Story fulltime to DHam part time won't be very dramatic. I think DHam will still get a lot of playing time. 

[moonslav59]

8 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

Story is a decent runner. The hit they take going from Story fulltime to DHam part time won't be very dramatic. I think DHam will still get a lot of playing time. 

Yes, I forgot about Story getting more time. He should be a better runner than Rafaela.

I do think DHam deserves a long look as our 2B platoon. The other half of the platoon could be Grissom or Romy. We won't add Campbell to the 40 and 26 to platoon, but I guess we could end up having Campbell play 2B vs LHPs and OF vs RHPs, if we trade an OF'er, and Anthony is still in AAA.

DHam was good on D at 2B, too. He could also get some PR chances.

[mvp 78]

Devers is a better baserunner than Bregman. Some people may not want to hear this. 

[5GoldGlovesOF,75]

26 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

Devers is a better baserunner than Bregman. Some people may not want to hear this. 

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