Tom Tango looks forward to seeing if Antoan Richardson can improve the Braves base stealing as much as he did for the Mets. Click through to the Jerry Weinstein thread as well:

Certainly he had good info, but more importantly IMO Richardson created a “no fear” environment. He coached caution out of Soto & not caution in to him. He unlocked Soto’s great feel for timing which he utilized to the max with his “momentum steal” approach. Too often we place barriers in front of our base runners in the form of base running rules & restrictions which takes away their aggressiveness.

X.com

The Mets stole 89% of the bases they attempted, first in the majors by a wide margin, with the Cubs second at 82%. Note that the Mets made 165 attempts while the league average came in at 148 attempts. So they didn’t run a lot more than normal, they picked their spots very well, and found a way to get an extra step through momentum.

Note that Weinstein also brings up Josh Naylor, another player not thought of as a great runner who used this approach to great success in 2025.

As for the natural experiment, we’ll see. Twenty years ago there was a natural experiment in the other direction, as pitching coach Leo Mazzone moved from the Braves to Orioles, and wound up fired before his contract ran out. Maybe the Braves just landed talented pitchers who would thrive with most coaches. Maybe the Braves acquired pitchers who were willing to listen to coaches. Maybe hitters figured out Mazzone’s patterns and were able to exploit those patterns with less talented pitchers.

Something like that might happen with Richardson. If you watch the video of Naylor stealing in the Weinstein thread, it seems to me that Naylor should be an easy pick-off target. He moves before the pitcher starts his delivery, and that should be exploitable. Strategy adjusts. Before 2025, there was no reason to worry about Soto or Naylor stealing. Teams now know to be aware of that threat, and how that threat works. I suspect, due to an adjustment to the strategy, momentum stealing works less well in 2026.