Old Man Acuña

I don't know if this has gotten any attention yet, but Acuna has 33 leadoff HR and won't turn 26 till December. He's almost cracked the Top 10 already, and he's almost halfway to Henderson's 81.

damn certain snitker gave him the greenlight on the 40/70 club for the rest of the year

I'm sure there will be no end to Acuna-related milestones in the next few days...As far as I can tell, only two post-war players have scored 150 runs: Williams in 1949 (150) and Bagwell in 2000 (152). Acuna's at 143 with eight games to play.

(Henderson's most were in his two great years with the Yankees: 146 in '85 and 130 in '86.)

https://www.mlb.com/news/best-mlb-leadoff-seasons-ever

Tough call for #1. Henderson only played 132 games, but he beat out Cecil Fielder--first guy to hit 50 HR since '77--for MVP, and even with the missed games he compiled a 9.9 bWAR.

Actually he played 136; the stats they use are only for games leading off.

From some Twitter page:

Ronald Acuna Jr. (this season) and Ty Cobb (in 1911) are the only players in MLB history to have 75+ extra-base hits and 60+ stolen bases in the same season.

Both Acuna Jr. and Cobb were born on December 18, 111 years apart (1886 and 1997).

There's yr 40-70 man right there

May be just me, but it feels rather hollow to be glorifying any SB records the year that they made it easier than ever to steal a base (last I checked 2023 was tracking at 81-82%+ SB success rate vs. traditionally tracking at 55-70%). Get out your asterisks!

Ignoring this fact makes baseball more fun and what better justification do you need?

Making the game "more fun" via stat-padding comes off as cheap and tacky. May as well bring in the fences and switch to aluminum bats.

a real Mookie stan here

The total number of SB across MLB isn't much higher than it was in the 90's and 00's. There has been a drop over the last decade, presumably because everyone is a power hitter now.

The last decade was the anomaly, more so than this year. Same with the pace of play rules. Nine inning games were never supposed to last 3.5 hours.

I do think SS's point is legit, but still very happy for RA Jr. My impression, no data, is that pitchers haven't fully used the step-offs and throw-overs they're entitled to, including using soft throw-overs as a way to refocus and get a few more breaths before the next big effort. Runners have made the first big change, but I think pitchers will adjust a little.

it'll be interesting to see how things play out next season. it's all true about the SB, even Mike Trout stole 2 bases this season.

Mike Trout maybe not the best example, guy has always been far faster than he looks. He’s got 206 career steals! Even this season he’s in the 96th percentile for sprint speed.

The slowest player I can find on the leaderboard to have stolen a base this year is the Cubs’ Tucker Barnhart. I’m all the way up to Giancarlo Stanton and have yet to find someone in the list who’s stolen multiple.

Matt Thaiss (Angels) has 2! Also, Nelson Cruz is the oldest guy to steal a base this year.

that was more a deep cut joke about Mike's extreme decline in SB over the years, one of these seasons i would like to see him pile up at least as many SBs as Schwarber did in 2022!

i always like when the old guys run. Carlos Santana stole 6 this season.

xp fair, he’s been injured a lot of the time though hasn’t he?

Justin Turner (39 in November!) has 4!

i wondered if he was cautious on the basepaths to avoid injury, iirc he missed a chunk in an earlier season due to an injury incurred while stealing second.

if he's trying to avoid injury, he's having a tough time of it obv

On the fence about this till Alejandro Kirk starts getting the green light.