Baseball Musings
Baseball Musings
September 29, 2003
Stealing Matters?

I was just reading Buster Olney's Crucial Confrontations column on ESPN.com, and this struck me:

Florida speed vs. San Francisco pitchers

Giants catcher Benito Santiago has a good arm, but that's mostly irrelevant. The Marlins' success in stealing bases will depend entirely on how the Giants' hurlers keep them close, or keep them off bases. Jason Schmidt might have the most dominant stuff of any pitcher in this postseason, but you can run on him -- there were 17 stolen base attempts against him this year, and nobody was thrown out.

Yes, you can run on him, but you can't get on enough against him to make the running meaningful. Those 17 stolen bases didn't make a lot of difference:

Schmidt, 2003Opposition StealsNo Steals
Record9-38-2
ERA2.891.87
Baserunners Per 910.07.8

So in games where Schmidt allowed more baserunners, there were more steals. It wasn't the steals that raises his ERA, it was his higher runners allowed numbers.

Some of the great pitchers of my lifetime (Palmer, Gooden, Maddux) never cared about baserunners, because they feel that if they get the batter out, the runner won't score. Schmidt may have that philosophy, and if he does, it's a strength, not a weakness.

Update: The Marlins this year stole four bases in seven attempts vs. the Giants. They did not make an attempt against Schmidt this year, possibly because they only had three his and one walk against him.


Posted by David Pinto at 01:54 PM | League Division Series | TrackBack (0)