This article is part of our Collette Calls series.
We're all waiting for the winter Hot Stove to heat up, because these boring signings by the Angels and Rockies are barely creating a spark. I am selfishly wanting to see some action so I can start writing up my 2025 bold predictions. I hesitate to do them too early because moves at the Winter Meetings can alter a hitter or pitcher's conditions. For example, I am not terribly excited about Yusei Kikuchi going to the Angels because while I do have him as a keeper in my XFL league, I was hoping for the free agent to land in a better situation than what he will have in Anaheim. He will also be moving into another situation which is the focus of this column: the impact of controlling the running game on pitchers.
Kikuchi pitched for both Toronto and Houston in 2024, and those two clubs were fourth and sixth, respectively, in catchers' caught stealing above average. Here is how those two clubs, as well as the Angels, performed against the league averages in 2024:
Team | SB Attempted | CS | CS% |
Blue Jays | 124 | 29 | 23% |
Astros | 140 | 31 | 22% |
Angels | 107 | 21 | 20% |
MLB | 3411 | 655 | 19% |
The Angels were slightly above the league average in throwing runners out, but had a lower volume of steals attempted against their pitcher and catcher batteries than the Jays and Astros. A look at Kikuchi's splits shows he threw 27 of his 32 starts to Danny Jansen (17) and Victor Caratini (10)
We're all waiting for the winter Hot Stove to heat up, because these boring signings by the Angels and Rockies are barely creating a spark. I am selfishly wanting to see some action so I can start writing up my 2025 bold predictions. I hesitate to do them too early because moves at the Winter Meetings can alter a hitter or pitcher's conditions. For example, I am not terribly excited about Yusei Kikuchi going to the Angels because while I do have him as a keeper in my XFL league, I was hoping for the free agent to land in a better situation than what he will have in Anaheim. He will also be moving into another situation which is the focus of this column: the impact of controlling the running game on pitchers.
Kikuchi pitched for both Toronto and Houston in 2024, and those two clubs were fourth and sixth, respectively, in catchers' caught stealing above average. Here is how those two clubs, as well as the Angels, performed against the league averages in 2024:
Team | SB Attempted | CS | CS% |
Blue Jays | 124 | 29 | 23% |
Astros | 140 | 31 | 22% |
Angels | 107 | 21 | 20% |
MLB | 3411 | 655 | 19% |
The Angels were slightly above the league average in throwing runners out, but had a lower volume of steals attempted against their pitcher and catcher batteries than the Jays and Astros. A look at Kikuchi's splits shows he threw 27 of his 32 starts to Danny Jansen (17) and Victor Caratini (10) last season. Kikuchi has the benefit of being a lefty to help control the running game, which is one way he was able to have just one base stolen off him in three attempts in 17 games with Jansen behind the plate. Meanwhile, he struggled to adjust in Houston as opposing runners were 6-of-7 off him when he threw to Caratini:
Team | SB Attempted | CS | CS% |
|---|---|---|---|
Jansen | 55 | 4 | 7% |
Caratini | 50 | 10 | 20% |
The Angels, to their credit, addressed this issue this offseason by upgrading their second catcher from Matt Thaiss to Travis d'Arnaud:
Team | SB Attempted | CS | CS% |
|---|---|---|---|
d'Arnaud | 49 | 9 | 18% |
Thaiss | 22 | 3 | 14% |
This led me to wonder if there was anything we should be looking at regarding how teams control the running game. Let's start with the percentage of stolen bases prevented.
No team in baseball is better at preventing steals than the Kansas City Royals. The duo of Salvador Perez and Freddy Fermin behind the dish and the pitchers on the mound led all of baseball catching 37 percent of would-be basestealers in 2024. Next up were the surprising Detroit Tigers, as Carson Kelly, Jake Rogers and Dillon Dingler combined to throw out 28 percent of basestealers. Conversely, the Cardinals and Rangers were the worst teams in the league, as 87 percent of steals were successfully converted against those teams.
I had assumed there would be a decent correlation between stolen base prevention and team ERA, but I was wrong. The correlation between ERA and CS% came out to -0.162, which is a weak relationship. Kansas City had the eighth-best ERA in the league and Detroit had the fourth-best, but the Cardinals were only just below league average and the Rangers finished 24th in team ERA.
That got me thinking that perhaps volume was where the relationship was, rather than focusing on the percentage of steals prevented. The disparity in the league in this area is led again by Kansas City, as there was only 63 steals attempted by opposing teams all season while the league attempted 140 steals against Houston. The correlation here was only slightly stronger at 0.203, and ironically, the Astros had a marginally better team ERA (3.75) than the Royals (3.76) despite all the extra stolen bases attempted against their batteries.
The two teams with the most steals attempted against them — the Astros and Mets — both had team ERA's below 4.00 on the season. Miami, who prevented the same percentage of steals as Philadelphia and Seattle, had a team ERA nearly a run higher than both teams.
In short, maybe I am overthinking my concerns about Kikuchi, because while he pitched for two teams that were excellent in reducing stolen bases, it turns out that neither the percentage deterred nor the volume of steals truly matters that much in the end. Even my favorite team was the third-worst team in baseball preventing steals, yet had a top-10 team ERA at season's end.
