The Braves Are The Worst Baserunning Team in the League

It's a frustrating development for a team that's already de-emphasized home runs

When people talk about the different components of a successful baseball team, it’s typically focused on pitching, offense, and defense. Which makes sense, right? You’re either trying to prevent runs (pitching, defense) or score runs (offense).

But baserunning matters, too.

It doesn’t matter as much as those others; no, similar to special teams in the NFL, it’s a fraction of the contribution of the other facets of the game.

But it does matter, which makes it all the more frustrating when you consider Atlanta is the worst team in baseball at doing it.

Let’s talk about it.

There are multiple facets here, but Atlanta’s bad at all of them

When you look at the Statcast leaderboard for baserunning, it’s divided into two components: Runs via Extra Bases Taken and Runs via Stolen Bases.

Atlanta’s combined score of -4 Baserunning Runs is tied with the Pittsburgh Pirates for 25th in baseball, ahead of three teams at -5 (Kansas City Royals, San Francisco Giants, and Seattle Mariners) and one team dead last at -6 (the Colorado Rockies).

But let me explain why I called them the worst baserunning team in the league - all of that -4 score comes from Runs via Extra Bases Taken.

That’s right, Atlanta is exactly at 0 Runs when it comes to stealing. That sounds good - it’s 15th out of 30 teams - but here’s the complicating factor there: They know they’re bad, so they just don’t do it.

Atlanta has the second-fewest stolen bases in the league entering play on Monday at just 73. That is the same total that Ronald Acuña Jr. put up by himself in his 2023 MVP season, a total that led all of MLB. They’ve also been caught 22 times, more than Ronald’s NL-leading 14 caught stealing in that 2023 season.

Some of that can be attributed to not having Acuña and the new leadoff man, Jurickson Profar, for a combined 149 games. They’ve together contributed only 14 steals in 16 attempts this year.

But it’s also due to a lack of team speed. There’s a strong correlation between sprint speed and stolen bases, with Atlanta’s team average of just 27.0 ft/sec being tied for 28th and ahead of only the New York Mets at 26.9.

You can run the bases well if you’re slow

But just being a slow team on the whole doesn’t automatically mean you will be a bad baserunning team. That same Mets squad, one that has the slowest average sprint speed in the entire league?

They’re second in Baserunning Runs at +11, behind only the Milwaukee Brewers (who coincidentally are the 2nd-fastest team, on average, in the league at 27.9 ft/sec.)¹

It’s because the Mets lead the league in runs via stolen bases at +15; the next closest teams are the Tampa Bay Rays and Chicago Cubs at +5. Five different Mets have double-digit steals, including some of the usual suspects like Francisco Lindor (28), Luisangel Acuña (14) and Brandon Nimmo (12).

But number one for the Mets? That’d be one Juan Jose Soto, he of the 481st-ranked 25.9 ft/sec sprint speed, with 29 steals.

The Braves, conversely, have just two double-digit stolen base guys in Michael Harris II (15) and Ozzie Albies (14), who collectively are just as productive on the basepaths as Juan Soto by himself (and have been caught nine times to Soto’s three).

I’m saying it can be done, almost no matter how fast or slow you are. Braves hitters that are faster than Juan Soto include Drake Baldwin (26 ft/sec), Nacho Alvarez Jr. (26.8 ft/sec), and Austin Riley (28.2 ft/sec)

But wait, there’s more.

New research has been done into baserunning

…and it’s not kind to Atlanta.

Michael Rosen of FanGraphs just dropped a meticulously researched piece on trailing runners and each team’s skill at getting the extra base.

First, the raw numbers on how many times each team was able to advance that trailing runner:

Yes, Atlanta has done it just five times all season, nearly half of the next closest teams, Seattle and Minnesota.²

Just advancing the trail runner five times in an entire season equals an additional win, on average, using basic run expectancy calculations.³ With the caveat here that the total impact of baserunning is still minuscule as compared to hitting, defense, or pitching in general, this is similar to bunting: situationally, it can be a big deal.

Picking up two or three well-timed runs across the course of a season can turn a few losses into wins, especially for a team that’s just 19-33 in one-run games on the season.

Anecdotally, I feel like Braves teams under first base coach Eric Young Sr. were better baserunning teams than the last few rosters. And some of the stats bear that out. From 2021 through 2023, the Braves finished +18 in Baserunning Runs, a top-four mark in the league during that span.

Since he left, Atlanta’s two-season mark is -12, 26th in baseball.

If Brian Snitker retires this winter - Alex Anthopoulos said that he and Snit have not discussed it when he spoke to the media on Monday - there will be a lot of decisions to make about the current coaching staff. Pitching coach Rick Kranitz absolutely deserves to be retained, but hitting coach Tim Hyers and the rest are currently up in the air.

And with all due respect to current first base coach Tom Goodwin, who has always been nice to me when we’ve spoken, the Braves need to get back to their exceptional baserunning ways and if it’s necessary to bring in another first base coach to accomplish that, then that’s what Atlanta needs to do.

Every little bit helps.

1. And conversely, the team that’s tied with Milwaukee for average sprint speed, the Colorado Rockies, is also THE worst in total Baserunning Runs at -9. It’s more than just raw speed.)

2. Coincidentally, the article was inspired by a Saberseminar presentation from Josh Kalk, an assistant general manager with the Minnesota Twins, about this exact topic. You’d think they would be better there, right? And yes, I plan to do my best to attend next summer’s Saberseminar. Thanks in advance for your premium subs, which will be funding that trip.

3. Specifically, looking at the delta between the run expectancy before the play, after the play if the runner advanced and after the play if the runner didn’t advance. I promise we won’t do math here, but what I did checks out with what Michael did.