The Royals must stop trying to steal bases in 2026

For years now, decades even, the sacrifice bunt has been declining as a tool employed by Major League Baseball teams. The reasoning is pretty simple: when statisticians dug into the numbers, they discovered that outs are far more valuable, in general, than extra bases. FanGraphs has an excellent run expectancy chart that we can use to visualize this. And, sure enough, a runner on second with one out has a lower run expectancy than a runner at first with no outs. A runner at third with one out has a lower run expectancy than a runner at second with no outs. On and on. There are no exceptions to this rule.

You can also use this run expectancy chart to determine how often you have to successfully steal a base in order to “break even”. For example, a runner at first with no outs has a run expectancy of 0.87, a runner at second base with no outs has a run expectancy of 1.12, and no runners on with one out has a run expectancy of 0.25. A successful steal adds .35 expected runs, but a failure subtracts .62 runs. You need to succeed roughly two-thirds of the time in that scenario to gain as many runs as you lose in the attempts. You have to steal at an even higher rate in order to make it actually beneficial to your team. Of course, none of that takes into account the individual prowess of a given hitter. You can fudge the numbers a bit based on how likely the batter is to hit for extra bases or, indeed, hit at all. But it gives us a good starting point.

However, even those numbers can be somewhat misleading as far as how much they can impact a baseball game.

My podcast cohost, Jacob Milham, recently shared with me this article from 2021 that attempts to find what numbers best correlate with winning games. Run differential is the king, and it’s not close, but if you look toward the bottom of that chart, you find the stats that have absolutely no correlation with winning a baseball game. Eighth-worst on that list? Stolen bases.

That’s right, increasing your stolen bases has almost no impact on how many games you will win.

We can actually take this even a step further. Look a few steps higher and you see Speed listed. Now this is the FanGraphs Speed stat, which is perhaps a misnomer and indeed appears to have confused the writer of that paper because it doesn’t actually correlate to a team or player’s literal speed, but “an average of Stolen Base Percentage, Frequency of Stolen Base Attempts, Percentage of Triples, and Runs Scored Percentage.” (link). It also has almost no correlation to winning.

And we can take this one further step. We can use FanGraphs ‘Baserunning stat. It’s set so that 0 is average and measures how many additional runs a team gets from their baserunning prowess. Ten runs is generally correlated to a team victory, but the difference – entering play Sunday – between the best baserunning team and the worst is only about 24 runs. Meaning the best baserunning team in the sport only wins about 2.5 games more than the worst, with their baserunning. The difference between the best FanGraphs Offense team (which does include BsR) and the worst is about 292 runs, or 29 wins.

Trying to steal more bases is simply a waste of time. If we go back to that 2021 paper, we see the biggest correlations to winning are almost all pitching stats, which explains how the Royals stuck in this season as well as they did despite their truly horrendous offense. But if you look at the offensive side, it’s all about hard hit%, HRs, and OPS. Interestingly enough, unlike what we have known since Moneyball, OBP would not appear to be the most valuable rate stat; instead, that would be SLG – though ISO is even more valuable.

That’s right, if you’re looking for an offensive piece to add to your team, you don’t want a guy who gets on base anymore, you want one who hits it over the wall. And that explains why Jonathan India has been such a huge disappointment despite getting on base at the fourth-best rate on the team. Without any ISO to his name, he just isn’t actually contributing to wins in a meaningful way.

It also calls into question how valuable Maikel Garcia actually is. Despite being fourth-best on the team, his .165 ISO is roughly average in the AL. However, it does make Salvador Perez look better. Not only does his .217 ISO lead the team, it’s 18th best in the AL. Mike Yastrzemski has been a huge boon to the team. Why? Well, his season ISO is .160, which is league average but significantly better than what most of the team has put together. Despite a .216 batting average and a .297 OBP for the Royals, his .246 ISO has really helped out.

That doesn’t mean stolen bases have to go away entirely. The headline was a bit of hyperbole to get you here. They should be relegated to situational moments, much like the rare occasion when a sacrifice bunt makes sense. If you only need one more run to tie or win the game, then it makes sense to risk grabbing that extra base, so long as you have a high expectation of success. But to win more games in general, the Royals need more power, not more stolen bases.

The good news is that the sport is absolutely teeming with power these days. It’s something that should be widely available in the free agent market and via trade this offseason. Kyle Schwarber and Eugenio Suárez are both scheduled to become free agents and are fourth- and fifth-best in the sport. Cody Bellinger and Brandon Lowe are a bit lower on the list but still well above-average, though each has options that may see them return to their current teams. If the Royals decide they can move one or more of their young starting pitchers, the sky is basically the limit as to who they could acquire.

The Royals are on the right track, having acquired all of this talented pitching. But the next step to get them to where they want to go in 2026 probably involves adding a lot more power to the lineup. They’ll have the options; we’ll have to wait to see if they’ll exercise any of them.