Finding the biggest ‘sprint speed’ outliers

Speed plays a major role in every baseball game. Perhaps not as much as other sports, but it’s surely a difference maker in the game. Speed is the difference between a hit or an out, a double or a single, or moving from first-to-third, or first-to-home, and the difference between a catch and a drop. Speed gives an added advantage on the base paths, whether it be the extra-base, the extra-run, or the prevented out.

All of this pertains to why tracking a player’s speed is important. With today’s tools, where everything is tracked, we are now able to judge a player’s speed through a variety of different metrics.

Recently, one of the more popular tools to look at a player’s speed has been the Statcast-tracked Sprint Speed. But as useful as the stat is, it’s hard to understand context with as new as it is. One thing that is universally known in the baseball world is speed relative to position. The faster players may play outfield or shortstop, while the slower ones may stick at catcher or first base. To assist in building up a better idea of Sprint Speed, here are the median Sprint Speeds (ft/sec) at each position, ranked in order.

1. CF: 28.6
2. SS: 28.0
3. RF: 27.9
4. LF: 27.8
5. 2B: 27.5
6. 3B: 26.7
7. 1B: 26.2
8. DH: 26.0
9. C: 25.6

Now under general assumption, one would think that the higher Sprint Speed a player has, the more stolen bases they’ll have. And while that does ring true to a large extent, as the correlation between successful stolen base per stolen base opportunity and Sprint Speed is high (r=0.6), there are still plenty of outliers.

Using a simple regression formula, I found some of the biggest outliers on both sides (outperforming, underperforming stolen base rate relative to Sprint Speed).

To start off, here were the 20 biggest out-performers.

• I wouldn’t look deeply into some of the annual stolen base leaders (Billy Hamilton, Whit Merrifield, Jonathan Villar, Starling Marte). Their outlandish attempt rates are what bring them here.
• The biggest surprise to me here was Jose Ramirez. First, he had a lower Sprint Speed than I would have thought. Second, he ran, and ran at a successful rate, despite his lower Sprint Speed. Probably a combination of good baserunning instincts and the Indians usual aggressive habits on the base-paths.
• Ryan Braun posted a below-average Sprint Speed of 26.8 ft/sec. To the contrary, like his usual self, he racked up 11 bags in 16 attempts.

And now for the 20 biggest under-performers.

• Lewis Brinson is the biggest outlier by a decent margin. After stealing bases at a fairly high-rate throughout his minor league career, he went on to only steal two in three attempts during his first full big league season. This probably mostly coincides with the Marlins being dead last in all of baseball in stolen base attempt rate.
• Matt Chapman too seems to be an under-performer, going along with the A’s lack of aggression on the bases, as they posted the third-lowest stolen base attempt rate in the majors.
• Robbie Grossman attempted one stolen base all year, despite owning an above-average Sprint Speed.

Outside of using the eye test, getting an idea of a player’s true speed before Sprint Speed came out was an almost impossible task. But now with these figures, we can truly know how much instincts actually go into a player’s base stealing abilities.

Patrick Brennan loves to research pitchers and minor leaguers with data. You can find additional work of his at Royals Review and Royals Farm Report. You can also find him on Twitter @paintingcorner.