Oh, Michael Brantley, how I wish you would run more often, not just for your sake but the team’s as well.
Brantley turns 25-years-old next week – May 15, to be exact – and has more than 1050 career plate appearances under his belt. It’s probably safe to say that the player he is now – a career .262/.314/.356 hitter – is a close proximity of what he’ll be during his peak years, ages 26 to 30 (give or take a year).
Photo Courtesy of Keith Allison via Flickr.com
His skill set as a hitter is rather limited: heavy on the groundballs, little power, and slightly below-average walk rates. Defensively, he grades out far better in left – +3.3 UZR/150 in 684.2 career innings – than he does in center, where he’s been fairly abysmal (-18.8 UZR/150 in 1361.1).
This isn’t to say that he’s not valuable because, well, he is. In fact, all league average starters – a player that’s worth about two wins above replacement – have some value. I just think the Indians could be doing more to add to his value, both in terms of on-field production and market price.
When the Indians originally acquired Brantley – he was considered at that time a key piece to the C.C. Sabathia deal – the organization thought they were getting their leadoff hitter of the future, the type of player that would walk around nine- or ten-percent of the time with a solid line drive swing and the potential to swipe 30+ bags in a year. He hasn’t developed into any of those; two of them – the walk rate and line drive power – aren’t really the organization’s fault but the third, however, is. Or so I think.
Coming up through the minors, Brantley was always a pretty deft base stealer, swiping 162 bags in 201 attempts. It’s not a tremendously successful rate, 81%, but it was solid, reliable skill and one that I’m sure was marketed by the Brewers to increase the interest in their young outfielder.
So, I guess, my question is: why has he attempted to steal only 44 times in 238 career big league games?
In order for a player to add value to his team via the stolen base, he must successfully steal second base two out of every three attempts, which was kindly confirmed via email by Tom Tango. The success rate increases for third and home and the general “breakeven point” is right around 71% for all situations.
Over the past two years, 2010 and 2011, Brantley successfully stole 23 bases in 30 attempts, a success rate of 77%. It’s also the rate you would expect given his minor league numbers; one would assume some type of regression would take place between the major and minor leagues.
Yes, I know he went four for eight in his 28-game, brief 2009 audition and currently is two for six in 2012. But with that being said – and this is me just thinking out loud – I do wonder if base-stealing, like any of skill, becomes lax if not regularly practiced. He’s shown both in the minors and the two previous seasons that he’s capable. Why not given him 30- or 40-attempts at stealing second base this season?
I also understand that the value added by a 75%-rate base stealer is not much, theoretically one run or so. But it is additional value the team hasn’t taken advantage of. Plus, it only makes him more marketable to potential trade partners. Hell, the Giants traded for outfielder Angel Pagan, who swiped 32 bags last season but posted eerily similar offensive production to Brantley (.313wOBA vs. .309 wOBA), in an offseason trade.
My point: counting stats still count to a certain degree.
Did Pagan fetch a huge bounty? No. But the Mets did get two serviceable big leaguers in return, reliever Ramon Ramirez and outfielder Andres Torres.
To me it just makes sense to turn Brantley loose, for both his sake and the team’s.
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In response to your Brantley comment about stolen bases I think there are more statistics you need to bring into account before passing judgment. How many times has he been the leadoff hitter? How often was he on base with a runner in front of him? How many times were there two outs? How many times was there one out? Who was the catcher / pitcher matchup when he could attempt and didn’t? Without taking this into affect you can’t rationalize sending a base runner as much as you want to send him.
If he attempted 44 times in 238 career big league games. Looking at the numbers for the time he was with the Indians he had 255 hits, 45 of those were doubles, 8 more for triples, subtract 10 for HR’s. That leaves you with 192 times he landed on 1 st base, and let’s face it that’s where you’re most likely to steal from right? Add in 72 walks which will bring us back up to 264 times he was on base at 1 st in his career withI the Indians. He only took the leadoff spot recently due to Sizemore’s inability to maintain his health, so we can assume there have been many times he has had runners planted in front of him that would have hampered his ability to advance. Or that he would be walked intentionally to get to an even weaker hitter in the lineup. This is probably at least 30% of the time given my theories which would now leave him at 185 times he is on first base with a chance. Take another 20% of the time for two outs from the equation and this brings you to 143 times he’s on first with a chance. I think 20% would be low considering batters ahead of him tended to swing for the fence and strike out often. By the way these numbers are made up feel free to look them up if you still think he should attempt 40 base steals a year. Now take out situations
with one out and hot batters are coming to bat. We will say 10% again all due to his position in the lineup most of the time this will bring you to 129 chances. Take out the quick delivery or strong catcher/pitcher matchup’s and I would give Major league Pitcher/Catcher combo’s a 35% reduction factor just because majority of pitchers at this level change their delivery to reduce chances for base runners to get the jump. This brings you down to 84 chances. With this number I could see 30 attempts possible but we still haven’t factored the manager called hit and run plays, field conditions (i.e. rain/traction), Brantley’s health that day (LOL he may have sniffles), How much attention they are placing on his steal attempt. The throw outs or pickoff attempts.
All this factored in he could be stealing to his fullest potential already. Yes I agree to your point, “Counting Stats still count to a certain degree.” But you just can’t count only the stats you want. If you are going to approach something statistically you better have all your numbers and factors involved. I am not an avid stats watcher of the game, I am just merely a watcher of the game for enjoyment. Again, I state the percentages given above are fictitious just to make a point. If you wish to research the entire details feel free too, I wouldn’t even know where to begin to find the information.
P.S. I do enjoy reading your views on players; let me see your take on D. Smyly.