Fantasy Baseball Steals Report: Chandler Simpson shows speed, Blue Jays pitchers struggle

Welcome to the steals report! I will be here every Wednesday to go over important stolen base trends so you can find more speed for your fantasy teams.

Stealing a base is as much about the opposing pitcher and catcher as it is the actual base runner themself. So, being able to spot which teams and pitchers specifically are being run on most frequently will help you to figure out who can swipe some bags over the next week.

Before we get to this week’s important trends, here is the stolen base leaderboard on the season so far.

Full Season Stolen Base Leaders

Nasim Nuñez keeps chugging right along.

Chandler Simpson has finally hit his groove as a base stealer.

He had a stretch from May 13th to June 19th where he was caught four times without successfully swiping a bag. Since then, he has 12 in his last 30 games and stolen seven in a row without being caught. It’s a good lesson that blazing speed alone doesn’t make a good base stealer and we hope that Simpson has finally figured out this skill.

Last Seven Days Stolen Base Leaders

Four more stolen bases over the past week gives Royce Lewis seven in 42 games since his short stint at Triple-A earlier this season. He hasn’t been caught yet either and is very sneakily playing at a near 30-30 pace over that span with a .248 batting average.

Esteury Ruiz only starts a few games a week, but often comes in late for defense or a pinch-running opportunity and steals as many bases as he can in the process.

Stolen Base Disappointments

Zach Neto just keeps on getting caught stealing. He’s reaching shocking levels of inefficiency.

Francisco Lindor has only attempted one stolen base since returning from the injured list a bit over a month ago and was caught. Whether it’s trying to still manage the calf issue or just father time catching up to him, don’t expect many steals for the rest of the season from Lindor.

Fantasy Baseball Stolen Base Targets

The Blue Jays have jumped the Marlins to have now allowed the most stolen bases as a team so far this season after 10 were stolen against them in the last week. They also caught four, so there were a whopping 14 attempts on them in just seven games.

Nearly half of those successful steals came on Monday in Max Scherzer’s return from the injured list when the Nationals swiped four bags on him without being caught. They lead the league in stolen bases as a team and showed why in that game. Plus, Scherzer has not held on runners well over the last two seasons.

Three of the other successful steals came last Wednesday when Spencer Miles made a bulk appearance out of the pen. He entered the game with a runner on first base and only let three runners reach base across 3 2/3 scoreless innings, but still had those three bags stolen on him. Funny enough, the Rays attempted two steals off relievers in that contest and were caught both times.

While Miles has been a pleasant surprise with a 3.26 ERA, 1.10 WHIP, 66 strikeouts, and just 19 walks over 69 innings, he’s struggled to hold runners on. He should get an extended chance in the second half to build up as a starter and try to work on this shortcoming.

A huge part of the Blue Jays’ woes in the run game can be traced back to their pitchers. Kevin Gausman, Dylan Cease, and Patrick Corbin are some of the worst starting pitchers at controlling the run game according to Baseball Savant’s Net Bases Prevented metric. Jeff Hoffman is also the worst qualified reliever. Those four pitchers plus Miles have combined for 430 innings this season and have not done their catchers any favors.

At the same time, all 10 of last week’s steals came with Alejandro Kirk behind the plate.

Kirk always grades out as a quality defensive catcher overall, that value just mostly comes from framing and blocking. His pop time is slow and arm is not strong enough to overcome his staff’s trouble with holding runners. He’s only caught nine of 55 would-be base stealers this season. That 16% caught stealing rate is 10th-lowest among all catchers who’ve caught at least 200 innings.

On the flip side, Brandon Valenzuela has proven to be one of the league’s best defensive catchers in a breakout rookie season and has a 27% caught stealing rate, which is better than league average despite this troublesome rotation.

Regardless, this is a team we should be targeting for stolen bases down the stretch. They’re scheduled to face the Cardinals and Astros over the next week. Neither team steals many bases, but looks to Taylor Trammel, Lars Nootbaar, or Masyn Winn for cheap speed.