The new metric that Mookie absolutely dominates

The story of the 2020 World Series was … OK, fine, it was when Kevin Cash pulled Blake Snell with a lead in Game 6. The other story of the 2020 World Series was Mookie Betts running absolutely wild on the Rays, stealing four bases and scoring twice from third on infield singles.

All told, his postseason was tied for the most valuable October on the bases since tracking began in 2016. Afterwards, Betts' baserunning prowess was one of the bigger talking points of the Series.

“We made that decision when Corey [Seager] came up, just understanding that Mookie would get a great jump on the swing,” manager Dave Roberts said. “I trust him.”

Betts himself said that “I think I'm the most proud of the contact play at third,” notable given that he’d earlier hit a home run in the game.

Betts, who turned 32 in October, is no longer the reliable 20-to-30-steal player he was when he was younger. He’s no longer got elite or even average wheels, as the sprint speed that once ranked among the game’s best has declined to just the 31st percentile, continuing a years-long slide.

But as Statcast rolls out more new baserunning metrics for base stealers, we’re happy to report that in this particular case, the data and the eye test match exquisitely: No one takes leads like Mookie Betts does. Repeatedly, and consistently, for years. He is the best.

This is of nearly 1,800 player-seasons since 2018 where a player has had at least 500 steal opportunities – meaning pitches, not plate appearances. Of all those hundreds and hundreds of seasons, Betts ranks first, second, tied-third, fifth, sixth, and seventh in gaining distance while the pitcher is in motion. (He is also, for what it’s worth, tied for 11th [2016] and 23rd [2019].) That’s not a fluke. It’s a purpose.

What this is saying is that Betts gains the most distance on steal opportunities – 6.1 feet in 2024 – between the pitcher’s first move and the pitch being released. In other words: He gets something like the best jumps in baseball, because the Major League average is 3.7 feet, and so he’s about 60% better than that. The weakest runners are south of two feet, or a third of what Betts gets. If stolen bases are a game of inches, then Betts is ahead by all of the inches.

It's at least in part why, if you go back through all of baseball history, Betts is the 25th-best baserunner on record (through age-31), via FanGraphs metrics. It's not all about steals, is it?

You can see it in action on plays like this, when he got such a good jump off Arizona’s Joe Mantiply – moving 16 feet between the pitcher’s first move and pitch release – that Freddie Freeman just took the bat off his shoulder, knowing that he might be ruining a guaranteed steal. Given how far Betts was down the line by the time the pitch reached home, Arizona catcher Jose Herrera was given just a 5% chance of throwing him out, which, of course, he did not.

You can’t really see Betts in the broadcast video until the very end, of course, but that’s not where the base was stolen. If you look at Statcast 3D’s side view, watch carefully how perfectly Betts’ reaction is timed to Mantiply’s front foot coming up. As soon as that foot moves, Betts is gone, and while Mantiply’s high leg lift certainly aided Betts in gaining more distance during the delivery, it was his elite reaction that got it all started.

What this is really saying is that it's not that Betts just gets the largest primary leads – he doesn’t. It’s what happens after that.

In 2024, Betts was 12.7 feet off of first base at the pitcher’s first move, which is a little above the Major League average of 11.6 feet, but still only good for 49th. (As you might guess, the shortest leads, around 9 feet, are by non-runners like Nolan Arenado, Juan Soto, and Marcell Ozuna; the largest, around 14 feet, are by speedier players like Pete Crow-Armstrong, Johan Rojas, and Jon Berti.)

But by the time the pitch is released, Betts is further off first base than anyone – 18.8 feet in 2024 – ahead of seasons from elite runners like Rajai Davis and Trea Turner. It’s not 90 feet from first to second, at least not the way Betts does it. It’s only about 71 feet, by the time the pitch is thrown. Good luck, catchers.

Sometimes, Betts gets so much of a jump -- and yes, this one is partially about the notoriously-slow-to-the-plate Edwin Díaz -- that he's so far ahead of the throw that he doesn't even need to slide.

It’s why, despite the below-average speed, Betts was caught stealing only two times all season long – and one of those was when he was trying to scramble back to third base in a first-and-third situation, hardly a traditional opportunity. Congrats, then, to Miami’s Nick Fortes and Andrew Nardi, the only battery to throw Betts out on a straight steal all year.

And yet: Betts stole only 16 bases in 2024, his sixth consecutive season stealing between 10 and 16. The 2023 rules changes that increased stolen base attempts haven’t really done much for Betts. After stealing eight bases in April, when he openly spoke of trying to steal more this year, he stole only eight for the remainder of the regular season, and added only two in the playoffs off a pair of disinterested Mets relievers in NLCS Game 6.

It’s worth noting that with Shohei Ohtani often on base ahead of him, and Freddie Freeman coming up behind him, the stolen base was rarely the right strategic play, since trying to gain an extra base is not at all worth the risk of losing a runner in front of an elite hitter. As Betts had noted in a 2023 interview, “'I will get over there to first [base] and ... I really don't get that many opportunities because Freddie usually swings in the first two pitches, so it's hard for me.”

It’s further worth noting that six of his 18 steals, including the playoffs, came with a batter other than Ohtani or Freeman up. It’s further worth noting that after missing two months with a broken hand, he came back to play almost exclusively right field, which he’d previously indicated had taken more of a physical toll on him than the infield. A presumed move back to shortstop in 2025 might turn that tide.

“Stolen bases are a thing for me,” Betts told the Los Angeles Times in 2020. “That’s how I create runs. That’s how I cause a little havoc on the bases. So I take pride in stealing bases. And once I get on the basepaths, I’m just trying to touch home, and however I get there is how I get there.”

That was nearly five years ago. Betts doesn’t steal bases like he once did, because he’s not as fast as he once was. But he doesn’t get thrown out much, either. He barely gets thrown out at all. Don’t look to the speed. Look to the jumps.