Yet, here I am to tell you that maybe we should take something from spring training.  This spring, the Brewers rank 17th in stolen bases, with 18.  In the three years since Craig Counsell became manager (he took over at the beginning of May in 2015), however, the club is tied for first in all of baseball.  They, Cincinnati, and Arizona are essentially in their own tier; the Brewers and Reds have stolen 393 bases since 2015, the Diamondbacks have stolen 372, and the fourth-place Astros are all the way back at 321.

We already knew the Brewers had a tendency to run a lot.  In 2016, Jonathan Villar famously led MLB in steals despite getting thrown out five more times than anyone else.  Under Counsell, they have been aggressive on the basepaths, and there was no particular reason to think this would stop this season.  Both Lorenzo Cain and Christian Yelich can run, and they would have been likely to rack up steals in 2018 given the apparent organizational mandate that stolen bases were a positive.

The tendency towards running did also manifest in past spring trainings.  Because Counsell took over after Opening Day in 2015, we only have two springs of data to analyze.  In 2016, though, the Brewers ranked eighth in steals, and in 2017 they were seventh.  Seventh and eighth are not first, but they are at least in the top third of the league; it reflects the club’s desire to be among the more aggressive on the basepaths.  The fact that they rank 17th thus far in 2018, though, does not indicate a similar goal.

One might think that the difference between this spring and the last two is just success rate, and perhaps the Brewers are running just as much but are less successful.  There is a kernel of truth to that; this spring, the Brewers rank 11th in attempts (instead of 17th in steals).  But in previous years, they also ran more indiscriminately.  In 2017, they were tied for third in spring training stolen base attempts, and in 2016, they were sixth.  There is a clear decline this year, both in efficiency and overall attempts.

It is obviously too early to know what to make of this change.  Because of the small sample size of spring training in general, the difference here could be as simple as who gets on base when.  Perhaps speedsters have been getting on base behind other players, or perhaps the game situation hasn’t dictated a steal.

Perhaps, though, the organization has decided to shift its approach to stealing bases.  Yelich and Cain have just one attempt each, and Villar has only three.  Only Keon Broxton has been running with any regularity.  The sample size difficulties make drawing any performance-based conclusions difficult, but this could be indicative of a philosophical change.  Teams generally spend spring training getting into shape for the regular season, so it would seem unusual that a team known for stealing a lot of bases would suddenly spend the spring not doing just that.  At the very least, this gives us something to watch for in 2018.

Photo Credit: Joe Camporeale, USAToday Sports Images

Glancing through The Bill James Handbook 2017, the number really stands out: Craig Counsell called for a pinch runner four times. Four. Over the course of a 162-game season, one would think that there are at least four instances of a player pulling a hamstring or twisting an ankle trying to beat out a grounder at first.

You might think that it’s a mistake, so you consult the Baseball Prospectus Manager Data Statistic Report, but there it is. Four times!

To put that number in context, Craig Counsell himself ran as a pinch runner five times for the Brewers in 2011! So if you had all the pinch running appearances by Brewers from 2011 and 2016 in a hat, you’d be more likely to pull out Craig Counsell himself than a pinch runner called by Craig Counsell.

The pinch running statistic is partly surprising for the number itself, and in fact it’s the second-lowest pinch running total since play-by-play data has been available. Also, I think we tend to think of the Brewers as pretty aggressive on the basepaths. The team attempted 236 steals, which led the league by a significant margin.

National League Stolen Base Attempts and Pinch Runners Used by Team, 2016

The point in the upper left corner of the above graph is the Brewers. Milwaukee was a pretty decent outlier during the season. And in fact, historically there has never been a team with more than 200 stolen base attempts that used fewer than ten pinch runners in a season until now.

So when did the Brewers pinch run, and is there anything we can learn from those appearances? I used Baseball Reference’s Play Index to find those pinch running situations, and the Game Log to determine the specifics of each:

All of the pinch running appearances seem reasonable, with two catchers removed for speedier runners, and Counsell using outfield depth and positional flexibility to keep his bench. So how to explain this historical anomaly?

First, one has to consider the team that Counsell was working with. They were fast, and almost everyone could (or at least was willing to) run, as evidenced from their league-leading stolen base attempts. The Bill James Handbook this year also includes stolen base attempt times to second base, and the Brewers had two players (Broxton and Jonathan Villar) place in the top ten in all of baseball (p. 370).

The league also certainly played a part in the relatively sparse pinch running appearances. The National League averaged 18 pinch runners this past season, while American League teams averaged 33, owing to their more flexible benches. One might also expect that pinch running appearances in the senior circuit come from pitchers who happen to find themselves on base, but the Brewers had fewer opportunities than any other team in the league (save the Reds, who were tied with the Brewers) to pinch run for their hurlers. The Crew had 15 fewer opportunities than the league average for their pitchers to jog back to the dugout and high-five their teammates. Brewer pitchers reached base just 35 times, excluding home runs.

In fairness to the hitting capabilities of the Brewers’ pitching staff, they did also see the fewest plate appearances of any team in the National League in 2016. That could also explain some of the pinch running opportunities. Craig Counsell was more aggressive in pinch hitting with his pitchers, as the Brewers were fourth overall in those appearances last year.

Still, even with those considerations we’re looking at a historically low number. Out of the 23 times a team has pinch run less than 10 times in a season, only the 2016 Brewers attempted 200 steals or more.

Interestingly, the ten fewest pinch running appearances by a team in history actually includes two other Brewer teams- in 2008 and 2009 Brewers pinch ran just seven times, respectively. Whether it be due to luck in health, more aggressive pinch hitting, the makeup of the team, or just something in Lake Michigan’s water, the Brewers have not been a pinch running team.

Whether that remains a conscientious tactical decision for the club moving forward, or just something to keep our minds occupied in January as a weird historical footnote, remains to be seen.

James, Bill. The Bill James Handbook 2017. Chicago: ACTA Sports, 2016.

Related Reading:
Villar’s Baserunning
Villar’s Baserunning and History
Villar’s Baserunning as a Model for Fringe Players

On June 1st, Gary D’Amato of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinal observed, “Villar knows only one speed, and has made some baserunning blunders to go along with his 19 steals. But he unnerves pitchers with his aggressiveness and gives players hitting behind him a chance to see more fastballs.”

When manger Craig Counsell was asked about Villar’s approach, he answered with what became the theme of the season. “There are base runners who just stand there and go station to station and we don’t talk about them ever,” he said. “But you’ve got to remember they’re not adding anything, either, right?” An MLB leading 181 team stolen bases later, and even though the Brewers finished 73-89, at least they were fun to watch.

Well, it turns out that aggressiveness allowed Villar to enter the record books in 2016, but much like the rest of 2016, it wasn’t quite the record he wanted. Using the Baseball Prospectus baserunning statistics, I noticed Villar mainly suffered in the area of Ground Advancement, GAR. Basically, his ability to read and react to situations involving an in-play ground ball is similar to that of a tee-baller that longs for his post game juice box while daydreaming about the fishing trip him and his Dad are planning next weekend.

Here were the bottom five in GAR in 2016

A few things that stand out with that bunch. It’s amazing that Navarro managed to be that bad in only 24 opportunities, it’s clear that Dustin Pedroia has embraced being on the wrong side of 30, and only one of them, Villar, is currently coveted for his baserunning ability.

In fact, Villar’s 1.53 SBR, which is the statistic that measures the theoretical value a baserunner brings by his base stealing ability, is incredibly high for the crowd that he’s in.

Of the 59 total players that posted positive 0.50 SBR or higher, 18 posted a negative GAR. Further, 3 had a GAR between -1.0 and -1.99, and 4 posted a GAR between -2.0 and -2.99, Brian Dozier, Joc Pederson, Ichiro, and Elvis Andrus. Villar was the only one that surpassed -3.0, and his was a horrifically low -3.57.

It seemed like I’d found a statistically historical outlier. How many players in baseball history could have possibly had a GAR of -3.50 or worse and a SBR of 1.50 or better? It turns out, 12. Gotta love baseball’s super large sample size.

Considering the positions of the players on this list, most being corner infielders and outfielders with some youth in their legs, or past their prime former base stealers still trying to push the envelope,Villar remains a statistical outlier. It almost seems implausible that a 25 year old, base stealing shortstop could produce such a horrific GAR season. The only thing left for him to accomplish is to repeat on list like Mr. October, or come for Pete Roses’ top spot.

“Craig Counsell come to me and say, ‘If you play like that every day, you play [in the lead-off spot] for a lot of years,’” said Villar later in the aforementioned Journal-Sentinel article.

Pair that with Counsell’s previous comment, and it’s clear that he is fully on board with the baserunning season that Villar produced in 2016. Based on the stats above, and plenty more, reigning in Villar’s aggressiveness might be the better move.

Using Baseball Reference’s play index, I sorted the top 20 in stolen base attempts. Of those, Villar was one of three to score in the negative of baseball reference’s baserunning runs added stat, which is more or less baserunning runs.

To understand this better, I created my own semi-statistic called Out on Base percentage, OOB% in the table above. Baseball Reference has a stat called Outs on Base which measures how many times a player records an out making a baserunning gaff, such as, being thrown out advancing on a fly ball, trying to reach an extra base on a hit, or being doubled off on a line drive. However, it doesn’t include pickoffs, so I added those to outs on base and divided it by the total amount of times reached base. The other two, Harper and Hernandez, were horrifically ineffective base stealers. What that really tells me is Villar is so poor in non-stealing situations that even his ability to steal 62 bases can’t make up for it.

In total, that gives me the percentage of how often a player makes a bad baserunning decision, which Villar made almost 1 of out every 10 times he reached base. Aggressiveness is one thing, but when it starts to be a direct detriment to the ball club, then it needs to be reigned in.

“That’s my game,” Villar went on to say in the Journal-Sentinel piece. “I play like that in the minor leagues. We come here and it’s the same game.”

It sounds like Villar isn’t going to change, and as long as he can hit .285/.369/.457 with a positive FRAA, then his poor baserunning can be tossed by the wayside and labeled as aggressive havoc that troubles the more easily frazzled hurlers.