The Chicago Cubs are against theft.
Of bases:
The Chicago Cubs this year have stolen just three bases, the fewest in all of baseball. Dansby Swanson has stolen two bases, Nick Madrigal has stolen one. That’s it. I don’t really have a problem with it at the moment, as the Cubs are generally doing well scoring runs, but it’s definitely an outlier.
If you’re thinking it’s a Craig Counsell thing, though, it’s not necessarily. During Counsell’s near decade in Milwaukee, the Brewers had the THIRD MOST stolen bases in MLB. So clearly, he’s not opposed to the practice.
If you’re thinking it’s a personnel thing, sure, that’s obviously gotta be part of it. Outside of Nico Hoerner and Cody Bellinger, the Cubs don’t necessarily have much in the way of stolen base threats in their core lineup. Then again, the group isn’t THAT much different from last year, when the Cubs stole the 8th most bases in baseball!
So what’s going on here? I tend to think it’s maybe a little bit personnel, a little bit philosophical (maybe the Cubs’ data folks saw that the pendulum swung too far last year after the rules changes?), and a lotta bit coincidental to the schedule and the guys who’ve reached base and the situations and the opposing batteries and etc., etc. That is to say, it’s probably a little flukey. The difference between the Cubs and the middle-of-the-pack is just 8 stolen bases as a team, so that definitely could simply be the product of a sample size issue and the specifics of the Cubs’ situational stuff.
Oh, and also? The Cubs have been caught stealing five times already, the 7th most in baseball. So that’ll hold your stolen base numbers down, too! When you look at just the attempts, then, the Cubs’ 8 stolen base attempts are right in the range of several other teams. Near the bottom absolutely, but not nearly as much of an outlier. So, I really don’t think there’s much going on here except for a small sample and the particularities of how things have happened to play out.
It’ll be interesting to keep an eye on, nevertheless. As we discussed previously, even without the stolen bases, the Cubs have been solid baserunners this year. You’d like to see more steals – gotta do it at a 75% success rate or better for it to be worth it, though – but in the meantime, at least do a good job taking the extra base, not getting TOOTBLAN’d, and so forth.