Stolen bases have long been a stressor in Rotisserie.
It's why, even as sluggers were putting up Hall of Fame-caliber numbers like it was nothing 10-to-15 years ago, a comparatively ordinary player like Juan Pierre was routinely drafted in the early rounds. Folks had a need ... a need for speed.
(Like you didn't know that was coming.)
But circumstances changed in more recent years. It's not that stolen bases were any more plentiful -- to a degree, yes, but not dramatically so. It's just that they no longer seemed so scarce relative to home runs. The need for both was more or less equal, so you didn't see any dramatic overpays for either.
A funny thing happened a few weeks ago, though, when we began mock drafting in earnest. By about Round 6 or 7, I came to realize that I needed more stolen bases only to discover there was nothing I could do about it.
It wasn't immediately evident, but maybe it should have been: Stolen bases are in dreadfully short supply. On the whole, they were way, way down last year. Only seven players had 30 or more compared to 15 in 2014, 16 in 2013, 23 in 2012 and 11 in 2003 (i.e., the height of Pierre mania). And using a different threshold like 25 or 20 doesn't make it any better. The number of stolen bases across the sport was the lowest for any season without a work stoppage in 42 years.
We're talking 1974. Alex Rodriguez wasn't born yet. Heck, the Mariners weren't even born yet. The league had six fewer teams back then, so on a per-team basis, 2015 was still far, far worse.
Maybe it was just a fluke. Believe it or not, sudden and dramatic shifts aren't so uncommon for this sort of thing. We arrived at last year's total through a drop of more than 700 stolen bases in just three years' time, and we can all think of individual players with room to improve in that area: George Springer, Carlos Gomez, Francisco Lindor, Jacoby Ellsbury, Alcides Escobar and so on. These are players we draft for their stolen base prowess, but it doesn't change the fact that they didn't deliver on it last year. And so we're taking a leap of faith with them, in part because, well, what else are we going to do?
What else, huh? Well, you could start by making stolen bases a top priority in the early rounds so you're not one of the many owners scrambling later. Given the increased depth at second base and shortstop, this year isn't the best for playing the position scarcity game anyway, and of the top eight finishers in stolen bases last year, the six worth drafting early are spaced out nicely.
It's not like the elite crop of first baseman, where unless you happen to draft in the right spot, you'll have to go without. A.J. Pollock and Jose Altuve are borderline first-rounders, sure, but anyone who picks in the back half of Round 2 will have a shot at Dee Gordon. Charlie Blackmon and/or Starling Marte will often slip into Round 4, with Lorenzo Cain lasting a round longer. All it takes is a little discipline to come away with one of those guys.
And one may be all you need, particularly if it's a 40-steals type like Pollock, Altuve, Gordon or Blackmon. It's not like you'll be getting zero steals from the rest of your lineup, after all. A dozen here and a dozen there adds up and, combined with the one guy doing the heavy lifting, should keep you competitive in the most uninviting category. You still may want to draft one specialist later just to be safe, but at least you won't have to double down on them.
Because the thing about drafting specialists is they're one-trick ponies. You're sacrificing in every category where you built up a lead to play catch-up in the one where you didn't, which is a kind of roster construction born out of desperation. Ben Revere and Billy Burns at least provide something in the way of batting average, but Delino DeShields, Elvis Andrus, Jean Segura and, yes, even Billy Hamilton, will require great discipline to keep in your lineup all year.
It's telling that the most extreme example of that group -- Hamilton, who could be the reason you win stolen bases but is also such a bad hitter that the Reds may not even keep him in their lineup -- went in Round 14 of our latest Rotisserie mock draft, about five rounds later than usual. Most every other proven base stealer gets drafted earlier with every mock.
Slowly, we're catching on, so by the time the peak draft weekend arrives at the end of March, maybe it'll be a foregone conclusion that you pay up for steals, making the competition too great for them. For now, though, unless you plan to resort to one-trick ponies or happen into every Adam Eaton, Brett Gardner and Dexter Fowler type in the middle rounds, just draft one of the speedy six early and move on to bigger and better things.
