Can The Braves Steal 100 Bases This Year?

In my entire life as a fan of the Atlanta Braves, I’ve seen my favorite team win ball games consistently in just about every way. We know about the Hall of Fame rotations during the fourteen-year division title stretch. I’ve seen the bullpen carry the team the previous five seasons. Atlanta has won with the long ball twice (2003 and 2013) and with defense on many occasions. But I can’t say I’ve ever seen a Braves team in the last 25 years win games with foot speed on the base path.

Yes, the Braves have had players on their teams that had some serious wheels (Deion Sanders, Rafael Furcal, Michael Bourn, etc.). With the conservative managerial style of Bobby Cox and Fredi Gonzalez, I can understand why the Braves never are major threat on the bases. After the Lonnie Smith fiasco in the 1991 World Series, perhaps I understand why.

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Once again, the 2015 Atlanta Braves are not a team that others fear when their players on base. But their not cowards either, afraid to swipe a bag or take the extra base on a ball to the outfield (38 steals on 55 attempts). However, 21 of those 38 stolen bags come from two players not nurtured in the Atlanta Braves farm system. I’m talking about CF Cameron Maybin and 2B Jace Peterson, both with the San Diego Padres last season. Can these two best friends help the Braves reach 100 steals this season?

As it stands now Maybin has 13 steals on 16 attempts. He is having a career rebirth in Atlanta, working with hitting coach Kevin Seitzer to shorten his swing. This has helped Maybin increase his batting average and his on base percentage to superb levels (.288 AVG, .366 OBP). At the rate which Maybin is taking second base, we’re looking at about 32 steals on the year for Cameron, assuming he plays in 150 games. Breaking the 30 steal threshold usually signifies a player as a great base stealing threat.

Peterson has been aggressive on the bases for the Braves. He’s still a young player so you have to take the good with the bad. At this point, the only hole I find in his game is that he makes too many outs on the base path (8 steals on 16 attempts). I applaud his enthusiasm to take the extra base, but when your team is trying to play small ball, you can’t afford to make the first out of the inning while attempting to steal third base.

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If we take Peterson’s ratio and draw it out to 150 games, he will likely steal 19 bases for the Atlanta Braves this season. However, if Jace were to cut his caught stealing attempts in half, we’re looking at something closer to 28 SB’s from the Braves 2B. It could happen as Jace gets on base often enough (.363 OBP) to have many opportunities to steal bags.

So let’s just say for simplicity’s sake that Maybin and Peterson account for 60 SB’s this season. Does Atlanta have enough foot speed from the rest of their roster to get the other 40 bags? It will be dangerously close. At the rate in which the rest of the Braves roster steals bags, we can expect close 39 steals coming from the rest of the team outside of Maybin and Peterson this season. That would give the Braves 99 steals on the season. I have to believe that with that team benchmark on the horizon in the last weeks of September, the Braves do just enough on the base paths to reach 100 stolen bags as a team this year.

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