Fantasy Baseball Steals Report: José Ramírez surges, Drake Baldwin struggles defensively

Fantasy Baseball Steals Report: José Ramírez surges, Drake Baldwin struggles defensively

Welcome to the second season of the steals report! I will be here every Wednesday to go over important stolen base trends so you can find more speed for your fantasy teams.

Stealing a base is as much about the opposing pitcher and catcher as it is the actual base runner themself. So, being able to spot which teams and pitchers specifically are being run on most frequently will help you to figure out who can swipe some bags over the next week.

Before we get to this week’s important trends, here is the stolen base leaderboard over the past seven days.

MLB: Washington Nationals at Pittsburgh Pirates

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Eric Samulski breaks down the recent news and top performers from across Major League Baseball.

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   Eric Samulski

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Have yourself a week José Ramírez. Six stolen bases without being caught has vaulted him to the top spot in the league. In total, he has not been caught since July 24th of last season and has successfully stolen 21 consecutive bags.

Oneil Cruz ran wild as well and could finally be pairing last season's stolen base acumen with – fingers crossed – a breakout at the plate.

Angel Martínez looks like a potential early-season breakout and maintaining his speed only adds to his value.

Now, here is the overall stolen base leaderboard on the season.

Plenty of the usual suspects remain.

Jakob Marsee’s speed has done well to buoy his value despite a sluggish start at the plate.

If Brice Turang can marry his batted ball quality from last year with his stolen base aggressiveness from two years ago – like he’s doing right now – there’s a real chance he returns first round value.

Next, here are some players that we’d hoped would be more aggressive or efficient on the base paths so far.

This is the first time a player has appeared on all three tables in the year-plus this column has existed. That honor goes to Geraldo Perdomo off a five-steal week after he was inefficient to start the year. His aggression is welcomed since he’s not hitting a lick at the moment.

Austin Martin’s .489 OBP trails only Ben Rice among players with at least 40 plate appearances. It’s nice that he’s at least trying to get himself to second base given how often he’s reached first.

Weekly reminder that Shohei Ohtani no longer has an intention to steal bases.

Now, let’s go over the most important stolen base trends over the past week.

Fantasy Baseball Stolen Base Targets

I’ve focused on the Marlins in this section ad nauseum for the past two weeks, so it’s time to give them a break despite still being the number one team to target when seeking stolen bases.

Rather, let’s focus on the Braves.

Opposing base stealers were 12-for-13 against them over the past week. 13 stolen base attempts in just six games! Something is happening here.

Six of the attempts came in their three games against the Guardians and seven in two games against the Marlins. So, two different teams turned their green light on and had it flashing.

The relative constant was Drake Baldwin behind the plate. He caught four of these six games and nine of the stolen base attempts came on his watch.

The Marlins especially picked on him and Reynaldo López last night, attempting four stolen bases over the first two innings and using that chaos to push themselves to a 4-0 lead at that point. They also used a strange throwing error from Baldwin which allowed Jakob Marsee to advance to third base with one out and pushed him across with a sacrifice fly for the first run of the game.

The Braves eventually came back to win the game, but a weakness has been exposed here.

Dating back to last season, Baldwin has been poor in the running game despite being a solid defensive catcher overall and one of the league’s breakout stars (at any position). He’s been below average in caught stealing rate over average per Baseball Savant since debuting and has seen one of the highest rates of total stolen base attempts against him as well.

Target him, the Braves, and López – who is slow to the plate and poor at holding runners on – to stream stolen bases. His next start is against the Phillies this Sunday and they have a series with the Nationals as well. Nasim Nuñez, Justin Crawford, Brandon Marsh, and Curtis Mead could be good options that may be available on your waiver wire.