Baseball Savant’s new baserunning stats are revealing for Royals

Bobby Witt Jr.’s baserunning in 2024 was a bit controversial among Royals fans, what does Baseball Savant tell us?

One of the most fun things about being a modern baseball fan is all the new data we get access to all the time. One of the most fun sources of that data comes from Baseball Savant, a free website provided by MLB that allows fans to find all kinds of granular data and trends within the sport and for certain players. The summary pages they offer are a quick reference for baseball fans and writers everywhere, including yours truly.

But the people who operate the site aren’t content to rest on their laurels. They are constantly adding new datasets and features to the site, changing how curious fans understand the game. (I highlight that it’s mostly fans because the teams absolutely have access to this data long before we do and because it's unclear how much is available to at least some members of the media.) During the regular season, Baseball Savant released information about swing speeds which told us a lot, especially about outliers like Luis Arraez (who has a low swing speed, but seems to always get singles because of his bat control) and Giancarlo Stanton (who has a very high swing speed which means when he connects solidly the ball is hit as hard or harder than anyone else.)

In their final update of the year, they released new information about baserunning and basestealing statistics. There’s a lot of cool stuff in there, including an article on MLB that goes into detail about some of the best baserun to do it since they started recording this information and this Bluesky thread about how two very different players could be worth exactly zero stealing runs.

With all that, it seemed like it might be interesting to look at the data and see what it says about the Royals. First, let’s take a look at Bobby Witt Jr.

First of all, ignore that rank column. I filtered the list with Bobby Witt only so I could grab a screenshot that included the column headers. When viewing his rankings, realize there were 432 players on the list and consider that accordingly.

He was 39th in baseball for net bases gained. That’s very, very good. But considering his league-best sprint speed, you’d wish it were better. The MLB leader is Elly De La Cruz with 40, so Bobby is well off that pace. Of course, Elly was also six bases-gained above Shohei Ohtani in second place, so it’s kind of Elly and then everyone else.

Bobby tied for 28th in bases gained above average, but also tied for 19th-worst in outs created above average. So the stats say he was something of a feast-or-famine runner, which matches up with the eye test pretty well. The 2.7% SB attempt percentage is tied for 66th-most, but that checks out considering how often he was on base, how infrequently the leadoff man was on base, and factoring in how little he ran in the final two months of the season.

Overall, this paints a picture of Bobby as a player who contributes value with his legs but not as much as you might imagine given his speed and position. Especially concerning is the fact that Baseball Savant calculated he only added one extra run to the Royals’ offense with his running. Rumor has it that Bobby is working on his baserunning skills this offseason. That’s good because the odds are against him hitting quite as well next year as this year and if he can add more value through his baserunning, that can contribute to maintaining or even improving his overall value to the team.

The next person I wanted to look at was, I think, the funniest Royal on the list.

Despite having a fraction of Witt’s stolen base opportunities (on first or second base with no runners on the base in front of you,) Dairon Blanco finished the season tied for the seventh-most net bases gained. Not bad for a guy with only 132 plate appearances the entire season. That 8.7% stolen base attempt percentage is tied with De La Cruz for the highest rate in baseball, too.

You might think this makes sense considering Blanco was used primarily as a pinch runner, but he’s far from the only player to be used in such a way, he’s merely the most successful at it. Of course, we might have guessed this considering he was tied for 17th - with Witt among others - in MLB for stolen bases despite his lack of playing time.

His baserunning contributed four additional runs to the Royals, also tied for seventh, and that is a heck of a weapon to have on your bench. It really makes me wish we could look at the number for Jarrod Dyson from 2013 to 2015, but it only goes back to 2016. (Dyson was still active that year and had similar numbers and placements to Blanco here, but I think he was even more valuable on the bases in the previous years.)

Finally, there’s one more player I want to take a look at.

We all knew Garcia led the team in stolen bases, but he was excellent at all times. As good as Blanco was, Garcia was even better. If you read the article I linked above you’d see that just stealing bases doesn’t guarantee you have good Net Bases Gained or Runner Stealing Runs number. Jose Caballero led the AL in stolen bases, but made so many outs on the basepaths that he was net-neutral to his team’s offense. Garcia, meanwhile, tied for fourth in NBG and fifth in RSR. And he did it while being significantly slower than his two teammates.

A lot of fans criticized Garcia throughout the season for not trying hard enough, but when he was on-base he was frequently a pest. Drawing pitchers’ attention and focus away from his teammates at the plate, stealing tons of bases, and almost never running into dumb outs. It’s really hard to square the evidence here of a player who worked hard to eke everything out of the talent he had without making mistakes from the guy people claimed he was. Sometimes it’s about working smarter, not harder.

Of course, this is not a call for Garcia to remain a starter next year. That’s a position he’d have to earn back. But I do think he could be a very exciting pinch-runner and defensive complement on the bench. Also, that baserunning value should increase any return the Royals might expect if they trade him - but I hope they don’t. I still haven’t forgotten the other stuff Baseball Savant tells us about him, that he’s a guy who doesn’t chase much and hits the ball hard when he does, even if he didn’t have a lot of success last year. That’s someone I still want to give some chances to, for sure.