The second and third greatest base stealers of all time?

[Aquarian Sports Cards]

Originally Posted by Balticfox

It should also be mentioned that Ty Cobb led the American League in stolen bases a whopping six times - 1907(49), 1909(76), 1911(83), 1915(96), 1916(68) and 1917955). Cobb was unquestionably a phenomenal base stealer.

(Not my card.)

I would argue we don't have enough data to state he was phenomenal. He was FREQUENT, but we don't know how effective he was.

[Balticfox]

Hmmmm. Admittedly from the statistics we have he was indeed Caught Stealing much of the time. For example in 1915 when he stole 96 bases he was caught 38 times. Therefore I guess I should have said "fabled" rather than "phenomenal".

Given that he led the American League in Stolen Bases six times, his record of 96 Stolen Bases in 1915 remained unbroken for 47 years and his lifetime record of 897 Stolen Bases wasn't exceeded until 1977 which was a whopping 49 years after his retirement, I'd still argue that Ty Cobb belongs right up there with the most legendary base stealers of all time.

[D. Bergin]

Based on the records we do have, Ty Cobb was a wildly inefficient base stealer by today's standards. Must have been fun to watch though.

Kind of like watching Russell Westbrook play basketball.

When it doesn't work, it's ugly and chaotic and messy and problematic from an analytics standpoint. When it does work, it's beautiful and violent and effective and scary for their opponents.

Rickey has some fun early years where he got picked off and got caught a lot...because everybody in the ballpark knew he was going. He seemed to get more efficient as he got older and the teams he played on got better.

Ty Cobb, not so much. He ran less as he got older, but he was pretty much just "chaos" for his whole career.

[John1941]

Originally Posted by D. Bergin

Based on the records we do have, Ty Cobb was a wildly inefficient base stealer by today's standards. Must have been fun to watch though.

Kind of like watching Russell Westbrook play basketball.

When it doesn't work, it's ugly and chaotic and messy and problematic from an analytics standpoint. When it does work, it's beautiful and violent and effective and scary for their opponents.

Rickey has some fun early years where he got picked off and got caught a lot...because everybody in the ballpark knew he was going. He seemed to get more efficient as he got older and the teams he played on got better.

Ty Cobb, not so much. He ran less as he got older, but he was pretty much just "chaos" for his whole career.

My impression is that teams attempted the hit-and-run a lot in those days - it's possible that Cobb was often counted caught stealing on failed hit-and-runs.

[Balticfox]

Originally Posted by John1941

My impression is that teams attempted the hit-and-run a lot in those days - it's possible that Cobb was often counted caught stealing on failed hit-and-runs.

The "hit and run" term/expression has annoyed me ever since I learned what it was meant to describe. Quite simply it's a misnomer since hitting and running is standard baseball. The expression actually refers to run and then (hopefully) hit.

[Aquarian Sports Cards]

Originally Posted by D. Bergin

Rickey has some fun early years where he got picked off and got caught a lot...because everybody in the ballpark knew he was going. He seemed to get more efficient as he got older and the teams he played on got better.

Rickey credits Davey Lopes (an all time great from an efficiency standpoint) from changing him from being a runner to being a base stealer. You can literally see in the stats the years they spent together. If he had been as efficient in 1982 as he was in 1983 he'd have stolen 150 bases.