College Baseball Stolen Bases

[Smitty]

http://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/2015/2/12/8002565/ncaa-college-baseball-run-environment-stolen-base-rate-database

So coaches are attempting to steal too often it seems. You need to be 73-74% successful to justify it, and last year in SEC play we had a 59% rate (19-32). We gave up the SB at a 85% rate (28-33). That has to change this year. I think it will as we have better base stealers, but the pitchers need to REALLY work on holding runners, quick to the plate because 85% is absurd. Again, with no Holder and Randolph this should improve drastically.

Just another gain that should translate to more success for this club. I can easily see Collins in the lineup somewhere other than catcher in some games this year. Lovelady has been pretty damn good.

[Todd4State]

It depends in who the runner is, the pitcher and catcher, and the game situation. That'so pretty much what it comes down to if you are a manager or a coach. Robson is a weapon because with his speed more often than not he's going to make it. Rea? Not so much. I think you also see with Robson how bunting can be used as a weapon as well and what I have been talking about for awhile. Base running is very important to me because if you are good at it and if you are good at the small ball things like bunting for a hit, you put pressure on the other team and you can create runs. Personally, I think the problem is most teams aren't good at it and don't spend enough time working on it and then they get into a game and they screw it up and that contributes to that data that you are referencing.

I think that when you have that small ball/speed element with the power element like we have, it makes the game a lot more fun. I've seen a few posts from people this season talking about how fun we are to watch on offense and so I think at least a few agree with me there.

As far as catching, you have to give our new coach- Zach Dillon- a lot of credit for that I think. Cody Walker has been a lot better thus far. Lovelady has been almost impossible to run against. Our catching was pretty bad as a group last year until Collins stabilized it for the most part unless Lindgren was pitching.

[messageboardsuperhero]

Taking Randolph out of the equation and adding Lovelady makes us much better against teams running on us.

And I agree with Todd- Zach Dillon is very good with catchers.

[MetEdDawg]

As of today we are 16-20 in stolen bases, for an 80% clip. Opponets are 4-16 for a 25% SB percentage. That is called kicking ass.

I know it's early and the competition hasn't been amazing but that's still pretty good. Last year we were 68-95 for a 71.5% SB rate. That's still not that terribly bad. Opponents were 52-70 for a 74% SB rate. That's terrible and I think it's pretty clear that we have improved on that. We threw out 18 baserunners all last year. We've already thrown out 12 this year.

[bulldogcountry1]

This is one area where there is plenty of room to improve. It seemed last year that our ability to hold runners really declined. Having little experience behind the plate made it worse. I am very impressed with what we have shown so far, and I haven't even seen Collins yet. The young pitchers seem to hold runners really well, especially McCord.

I think this will be a stength of our team and help offset the additional walks we can expect from the younger pitching staff.