Stealing Third

[jon abbey]

An Orioles fan friend of mine posted today about Brian Roberts' retirement, and one thing he wrote was that Roberts was "Probably the best at stealing third base I've ever seen, Rickey Henderson included." I was curious about this and wanted to research it more, but I don't know of any site that breaks down steals by base and I couldn't find any articles that talked about the best players historically at stealing third. Anyone know where I can get more info on this?

 

[kieckeredinthehead]

Baseball reference does split it by base under "More Batting Stats" (here's Roberts, he was 83/93 in his career, 89%). FWIW, Henderson was 322/391, 82%. 
 
edit: Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be a clear way to compare a lot of players based on that stat.

 

[kieckeredinthehead]

They also don't distinguish between SB2 and SB3 until well into the modern era, but looking at the top 20 in career stolen bases, here are the ones that are available:
 
Brock: 79/121 (65%)
Raines: 71/81 (88%)
Coleman: 189/221 (86%)
Morgan: 41/49 (84%)
Campaneris: 130/147 (88%)
Lofton: 115:150 (77%)
Nixon: 123/146 (84%)
Pierre: 133/148 (89.8%)
Wills: 88/106 (83%)

 

[jon abbey]

Ooh, I was just about to thank you for your first post, but your second one is even more helpful, thanks very much!!

 

[kieckeredinthehead]

One more since I'm stuck here... there's an interesting discrepancy in the % of their total SBs that were steals of 3rd, with Roberts being the clear leader:
 
Henderson: 22.9%
Roberts: 29.1%
Brock: 8.4%
Raines: 8.7%
Coleman: 25.1%
Morgan: 5.9%
Campaneris: 20.0%
Lofton: 18.4%
Nixon: 19.8%
Pierre: 21.6%
Wills: 15.0%
 
Incidentally, if Rickey Henderson had only ever stolen 3rd, he'd still be 135th on the all-time list. 

 

[jon abbey]

Yeah, I was sure my friend was being biased as an Orioles fan, but it looks like he was pretty much right, with the possible exception of Pierre. 

 

[RG33]

Wow, I had no idea that Chase Utley was the career leader in Stolen Base % at 88.5%. I would never have guessed he had been so prolific and efficient. The career leaders have some interesting names in there as well.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/leaders/stolen_base_perc_career.shtml

 

[WayBackVazquez]

This is interesting. But I'd like to see even more of a breakdown, in terms of number of outs when the bases were stolen/attempted. "Rickey's gonna steal when Rickey's gonna steal," he might say, without regard to situation. But breaking even in terms of expected value requires a higher success rate than second base, especially with zero or two outs. With two outs, you actually have to succeed about 90% of the time to make it a positive play.

 

[canyoubelieveit]

Speaking of noteworthy basestealers named Roberts, I was curious how successful Dave Roberts was at stealing 3rd base in his career:
 
Stole 3B 15 times, caught 6 times:  success rate 71%
 
For overall SB success rate, D. Roberts is #43 all time at 80.731%, just behind Rickey Henderson at 80.758%.

 

[Harry Hooper]

I seem to recall a Gammons piece extolling Roberto Alomar's prowess in stealing 3B.

 

[kieckeredinthehead]

I seem to recall a Gammons piece extolling Roberto Alomar's prowess in stealing 3B.

 
112/132, 84.8%; 23.6% of his total steals.

 

[Savin Hillbilly]

Interesting to see that Tim Raines is near the bottom in SB3/SB, but near the top in SB3%. What a smart, efficient ballplayer he was. In my dreams, Mookie Betts turns out to be a very similar kind of player (though it's probably too much to ask that he be as good).

 

[Harry Hooper]

 
112/132, 84.8%; 23.6% of his total steals.

 
Thanks