Why fantasy owners should stream base-stealers -- and which teams to target
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In category leagues with weekly add limits, steal-streaming is a strategy with dividends to pay in both head-to-head and season-long rotisserie formats. Here are the basic principles of steal-streaming:
- Steals are sometimes an afterthought in a fantasy manager's overall strategy. If you or another owner utilizes a category punting strategy, it's often steals falling by the wayside.
- The difference in steal totals in a head-to-head matchup is usually quite small -- slim enough you can swing the category in your favor with minimal concerted effort.
- As the season rolls along, the stealing tendencies of real-life managers and individual players become even clearer. We know who is more likely to attempt to steal when the opportunity arises.
- Similarly, you can track the effectiveness of catchers when it comes to throwing out base-runners. And while it's harder to separate the catcher's ability from the pitcher's ability to hold runners, pitchers who have long windups, slow offerings or pitches with significant movement are typically easier to steal against.
- Any unused player acquisitions at the end of a week or season are missed opportunities to deploy a modest steal-streaming strategy -- and improve your production in a volatile category.
The perfect catcher to stream steals against will have a track record of giving up both a large quantity of successful steal attempts (SB) while being largely ineffective at throwing runners out (CS%). Here is a list of catchers who allowed at least 50 stolen bases while throwing out less than 25% of base-runners:
| PLAYER | SB | CS | CS% | 2017 TEAM |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tyler Flowers (ATL) | 60 | 3 | 4.8% | ATL |
| Miguel Montero (CHC) | 59 | 7 | 10.6% | CHC |
| Nick Hundley (COL) | 57 | 9 | 13.6% | SF |
| Russell Martin (TOR) | 61 | 11 | 15.3% | TOR |
| Kurt Suzuki (MIN) | 52 | 12 | 18.8% | ATL |
| Francisco Cervelli (PIT) | 67 | 16 | 19.3% | PIT |
| Derek Norris (SD) | 76 | 20 | 20.8% | FA* |
| Yadier Molina (STL) | 67 | 18 | 21.2% | STL |
| Travis d'Arnaud (NYM) | 61 | 17 | 21.8% | NYM |
Also of note, the Texas Rangers C Jonathan Lucroy allowed the second-most stolen bases in 2016 -- 69 -- but would-be stealers were successful on only 61.1 percent of their attempts begging the question: why did managers keep testing Lucroy's arm? This is why it isn't enough to look only at total SBs allowed to determine a catcher's ability to prevent steals.
The Perfect Storm: the Atlanta Braves
The Braves trotted out a catcher platoon of now-retired A.J. Pierzynski and Tyler Flowers last season, the latter of which allowed an almost unfathomably poor 95.2 percent SB success rate to runners. They've already tabbed Flowers as the starting catcher heading into 2017, so who will they have backing him up?
Former Minnesota Twins C Kurt Suzuki, the fifth-least effective steal-preventer among high-volume catchers. Together, Flowers and Suzuki allowed 112 SBs while throwing out just 15 runners -- a CS% of just 11.8%. Whether it's a 75-25 playing time split in favor of Flowers or closer to 50-50, this tandem is going to struggle mightily.
The Flowers-Suzuki pairing could be passably mediocre if the team completed their battery with pitchers who could effectively pitch from the stretch and keep runners off-balance with a good, hard fastball. Given the team's offseason moves, I regret to inform you, Atlanta fans, this will not be the case.
Not only did the Braves add 43-year-old RHP Bartolo Colon, whose fastball averages just 88 mph, and LHP Jaime Garcia, who has never averaged higher than 90.6 mph on his fastball, they also secured the services of knuckleballer R.A. Dickey, whose signature pitch will produce its fair share of balls in the dirt, the sort of disruption rendering a throw to second pointless.
The Braves are a speedster's dream. By virtue of being in the same division, any batter with a modicum of speed playing for the New York Mets, Washington Nationals, Philadelphia Phillies and Miami Marlins can be staked some extra SBs. With 19 games against Atlanta on the schedule, an otherwise ineffective base runner such as Phillies 2B/OF Cesar Hernandez, who went 17-for-30 in steals last season, is likely to be more efficient.
This is why it would be wise to save one of your weekly player adds for the weekend series; even a bottom-of-the-order player with modest speed could swipe a bag over the weekend, and in turn, tilt a head-to-head steals matchup in your favor.
(Photos courtesy: Action Images)