June In First-And-Third Basestealing

Examining the defensive paranoia that's taking over the sport.

I can’t help my obsession with first-and-third basestealing game theory. It continues to be fascinating to me that teams are in complete disarray about how to defend a play that we thought only Little Leaguers were vulnerable to.

To quickly recap: Basestealing in first-and-third situations went way up in 2023, then more up in April 2024, and now to update it, even more up in May and June:

• 2000s: attempts in 5.1 percent of opportunities

• 2010s: 6.6 percent

• 2020s: 8.3 percent

• 2023: 10.1 percent

• April 2024: 11.7 percent

• May/June 2024: ~ 14 percent

Part of the reason it’s going up is that teams aren’t bothering to defend it. Most of these steals of second come with no throw, which means no risk. The league’s success rate on first-and-third steals this year is 90 percent.

But those are broad statements. What makes first/third such an interesting study is that it’s a complicated situation, with several strategic options for both the baserunners and the fielders, with possibilities for trickery on both sides, and with no clear answer to whether the defense should throw or not throw in any individual case.

So the obvious next step was to just watch every defensive response. That’s what I did for all 99 stolen bases attempts between June 1 and June 27.

Option 1: Defense Does Nothing. Chosen 35 times.
That is to say, the catcher caught the ball and ignored the runner going to second base entirely. Didn’t even look up. The runner gets a stolen base at whatever speed he wants: 

This option has two benefits: 

1. It caps the defense’s losses. The runner gets to take second base, sure. But the runner on third has to hold at third. There’s no chance of an errant throw to second, a double steal, or shenanigans.

2. The catcher gets to frame the pitch. That’s what happens in the clip above: An opposing runner gets into scoring position in the first inning—an undesirable development—but the Cardinals figure they might steal the strike that ends the inning and gets them back under the misting fan.

But if you watch baseball these days, you’ll notice that most catchers frame…everything, even pitches that will never, ever be called a strike. So this impulse to frame instead of throwing, if that’s the motivation—can be overly applied:

Did this work? It’s surrendering to a no-win situation; the defense has concluded nothing will work. So in the sense that the defense gets exactly what it planned for, sure, it didn’t work less than everything else would have not worked. The pitcher didn’t have to be distracted by holding the runner on; the infielders didn’t have to leave their positions to cover the base. But it’s also not great. Defenses that tried this one allowed 35 stolen bases in 35 attempts¹ and got zero outs, with maaaaaaaybe an extra strike or two as a balm.

Option 2: Defense Does Nothing That Looks Like Something. Chosen 15 times
These are the fake throws. The catcher receives the pitch, pops up and goes through with the full check-this-out, athlete-making-a-play throwing motion. But there is no throw. 

The hope is that the runner on third, anticipating the throw to second, will take off and try to score. And you could imagine it working! These fake throws really do like almost like throws. The downsides are: 

1. There’s obviously no chance of getting the runner out at second, since there’s no throw. 

2. There’s no chance to frame the pitch. (If the batter is swinging, as in the clip above, that doesn’t matter.)

3. If the runner on third does bite, and starts to go, the catcher who makes the full fakey can’t quickly throw down to third. In the clip above, the fake-throwing catcher doesn’t even have the ball in his hand, I assume because fake throwing with a ball is more stressful on the arm and more likely to lead to him accidentally flinging it somewhere hilarious. The fake-throwing catcher also has that long fake-throw follow through. So even if the runner on third is fooled for a step or two, the catcher isn’t actually in a good position to quickly throw behind him and get the out.

Of course, if the runner on third is fooled by a lot, and breaks for home, and gets well and truly hung up, that’s great for the defense. Way better than doing nothing.

Did this work? This was tried 15 times; it led to one runner who sorta bit, but he got back to third quite easily.

So 15 steals, no outs recorded, no extra strikes framed.

Option 3: Defense Does Almost Nothing. Chosen 21 times
In this one, the catcher pumps to second base, but the pump is pretty minimal. It is neither ignoring the runner entirely to frame the pitch, nor is it making a convincingly tricky full fake to second base:  

This takes away the catcher’s opportunity to frame the pitch, but it still has two benefits: 

1. It could trick the runner on third into taking.a step or two home, and if so then the catcher—arm already cocked—is able to quickly gun a throw behind him. 

2. It gives the catcher a chance to assess the runner who is going to second base. That is to say, the pump fake might actually be a catcher popping up, ready to throw if he thinks he has a chance at that runner, but without committing to the throw. 

Did this work? This actually did work, once. A runner on third bit on the pump, got hung up, got in a rundown, and—as the trail runner came around to third base—got tagged out.

So that’s 20 stolen bases, but one out.

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So we have 69 of our 99 base stealing events that include no throw to second, but different tiers of deception. Collectively, those led to 68 stolen bases and one out recorded.²

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That leaves us 30 events with throws.