Multi-Tasking

Gary Sheffield at 40 years old has had a couple of stolen bases this season  for the Mets in addition to his solid hitting, and the steals seem to have caught some people by surprise.  But Sheffield, though better known for his hitting  (and his sometimes bizarre comments), has long been a guy who steals a substantial number of bases.   Indeed, he now has 252 stolen bases in his career to go along with the 500+ homers.

Bill James years ago invented a fun stat, which he called “Power-Speed Number”, to identify guys who both hit a lot of homers and stole a lot of bases.  For his new stat, James used the formula (2*HR*SB)/(HR+SB), which is an application of the ”harmonic mean of two numbers” in mathematics.  The idea is that to look for a guy who is good at both homers and steals, you want a formula that gives some credit for getting a lot of homers or a lot of steals but much more credit for getting a lot of both.  The harmonic mean of two numbers formula  gives some credit for every increase in either homers or steals but always limits the result to double the lower of the two numbers.  So a guy who hits 200 homers but only steals one base gets a Power-Speed Number of 1.99o, a guy who hits 500 homers but only steals one base gets a Power-Speeed Number of 1.996,  a tiny increase.  But a guy who hits ten homers and ten stolen bases gets a much higher Power-Speed Number of  10.000. You need to score high with both homers and steals to get a high  Power-Speed Number.

Sheffield now has the 11th highest Power-Speed Number in major league hstory, and with just two more career steals, or one more steal and two more homers, or six more homers, he will pass Sammy Sosa and move into the top ten all-time.  Here are the top 11 career Power-Speed Numbers of all-time, thanks to the miraculous baseball-reference.com (which provides the source database for most of  my research here at MetStats):

1. Barry Bonds 613.9
2. Rickey Henderson 490.4
3. Willie Mays 447.1
4. Bobby Bonds 386.0
5. Joe Morgan 385.9
6. Alex Rodriguez 376.0
7. Andre Dawson 365.8
8. Hank Aaron 364.2
9. Craig Biggio 341.8
10. Sammy Sosa 338.1
11. Gary Sheffield 336.9

–Notice that a son, and both his father and his godfather take three of the top four spots all-time in this stat.
–Carlos Beltran currently has the 33rd highest Power-Speed Number of all-time, and is moving up the list swiftly.

The top 5 Power-Speed Numbers in a Mets career:
1. Darryl Strawberry 217.3
2. Howard Johnson 196.9
3. David Wright 116.7
4. Jose Reyes 104.2
5. Carlos Beltran 103.9

Beltran passed Mookie Wilson earlier this season to join this top 5 list.

Big Steal Days

BP posted here earlier on the Mets’ big day for steals  — 7  in one game against the Giants this past Thursday night, breaking a franchise record for team steals in a game.    Oddly, that game was the third time already this season that a team has stolen at least seven bases in a game.   Before this season, which is of course less than a quarter complete, the last time any team had stolen seven or more bases in a game was Houston back in May 2006.  There have not been three such games in a single full season since 2000.  Going back to the 1950s, the only full seasons that have seen more than three such games in the majors have been 1999 (five games), 1996 (four games), 1987 (four games), 1978 (four games) and 1976 (six games).  To already have three such games this early in the season is strange indeed. 

It is true that, overall, the stolen base rate  across the majors is up a bit this season.   MLB teams have averaged 0.66 SBs per game so far in 2009,  up from 0.58 last season.  The SB rate over a full season hasn’t been as high as 0.66 since 1999.  The SB rate dropped below 0.66 for the first time in the 20th century in 1921, and stayed below 0.66 every season for over 50 years, until 1976, when it hit 0.79.  Thereafter the SB rate stayed above 0.66 every season until 2000.  From 2000 on, the SB rate has stayed below the 0.66 level throughout the current decade.  We’ll see whether 2009 represents another turn in direction, or if the bounce upward in SB rates is just an early season phenomenon.

The Wright steal?

David Wright just got 4 stolen bases last night which is a new career high. How often does he have multiple stolen bases in a game?

On May 13^th, 2007, Wright had 3 stolen bases against the Brewers (the old career high for Wright). It’s the only time he’s done it. He’s had 7 multiple stolen base games including last night against the Giants:

April 22, 2006
August 10, 2006
May 13, 2007
August 23, 2007
September 22, 2007
April 10, 2008
May 14, 2009 (game log is still not up)

Despite being known for his bat and fielding, David Wright actually is a decent base stealer. He has101 SB in 129 attempts for a 78.3% success rate meanwhile Jose Reyes has 301 SB in 376 attempts (80.1%).

On a side note, last night the Mets stole 7 bases which is a franchise record. Wright was responsible for 4 of those 7 stolen bases. Amazingly enough, Reyes was not a part of that game because of a calf problem. I guess the team is trying to make up for his absence. They have stolen 6 bases on 4 different occasions.

Reyes 300

Jose Reyes just stole the 300th base of his career, and is still early in his age 26 season (that is, the season in which he is 26 on June 30).  How unusual is that in baseball history?

Reyes is only the 10th player since 1900 to reach 300 SBs before the end of his age 26 year.

Most MLB Career SBs Accumuated by the End of Age 26 Season (since 1900):
1. Rickey Henderson 573
2. Tim Raines 461
3. Ty Cobb 449
4. Vince Coleman 407
5. Cesar Cedeno 374
6/7. Eddie Collins/Clyde Milan 312
8. Sherry Magee 309
9. Carl Crawford 302
10. Jose Reyes 300

At his normal pace, Reyes should end 2009 sixth on this list.  The only other infielder on this list is Eddie Collins.