Ronald Acuña’s stolen bases and his place in Atlanta Braves history
While everybody is taking note of Acuña’s newest base-stealing prowess, it’s worth taking a look at how the era of the stolen base is a distinct memory.
We’ve been looking a lot today at some Braves baseball history, but there’s a different kind of Atlanta Braves history worthy of a look as well.
Ronald Acuña is leading the Braves in stolen bases here in 2019. He’s got 21 of them and no one else even has double digits (Ozzie Albies has 8; Dansby Swanson 7).
Going into play on Sunday, that put Acuña in a tie for 4th place in baseball: Adalberto Mondesi (now injured) has 31; old friend Mallex Smith 27, and Christian Yelich 23.
That’s actually the best a Braves player has done against the field in quite a while. It’s just not a big thing any more while players are pounded baseballs out of the yard at an unprecedented rate.
If you go back into Braves stolen base history, there’s probably a “modern era” split point that needs to be separated from the rest.
The Beaneaters clubs between 1886 and 1903 pretty much ran at will. If you rank all prior Braves franchise teams in total steals for a season, those teams occupy 17 of the top 21 slots, led by the 1887 group that stole a whopping 373 bases.
The only other Braves teams breaking into that top 21 chart were the 1911 and 1913 Braves, plus one modern team: the 1991 World Series runners-up with a relatively paltry 165 steals.
No Contests
Those Beaneater teams had two thieves putting up big steal numbers: King Kelly and Billy Hamilton (no, not him – I mean the original Billy Hamilton). Their single-season marks of 84 and 83 – respectively – are still the most that any Brave/Beaneater/Dove/Rustler has ever recorded.
3rd all-time? That’s Otis Nixon with 72, set during that 1991 season. After that? The numbers drop off very sharply for those playing since 1900.
In fact, Nixon’s 1993 total of 47 bags ranks 3rd all time of those playing in this modern era.
The only players to recently challenge even that number were Rafael Furcal (46 in 2005) and both Gerald Perry and Michael Bourn (42; Perry in 1987 and Bourne in 2012).
Going further down the list, there’s Nixon again with 41 in 1992 and Furcal posting 40 in 2000.
Hap Myers stole 57 bases in 1913, but in saying that, no other Braves player has burst the 40 bag barrier since 1900.
That’s been a while.
Other than these players, the last Brave to break 30 was Ron Gant way back in 1991 when he had 34 swipes.
On top of that, the last Braves team to reach even 100 steals was the 2012 group with 101.
The ‘art of the stolen base’ is just not the weapon that it used to be.
The Voice of Experience
So now Ronald Acuña has a goal of being a 30/30 player. Can he get there?
In raw terms, he’s on pace for 33 steals and well ahead of that in terms of home runs, so… yes, he clearly can. But it’s far from commonplace.
In recent years – now talking about 1960 and later – the typical age of the prolific Braves’ base stealer has been between 25 and 28. While Nixon did his best thievery deeds in his 30+ years, that’s highly unusual.
Ronald Acuña may soon join a fairly rare group of Braves with 25+ steals since 1960.
If he reaches 28 steals, he’d be the first 21-year-old Brave to get that many steals (passing Rabbit Maranville [25] and Andruw Jones [27] along the way).
If he would happen to reach 40 steals this season, he’d also move aside Furcal as the youngest to reach that mark as a Brave (Furcal did that as a 22-year-old in 2000). That’s a lot less likely.
But the interesting part here is not just that Acuña is making inroads by using his speed like few Braves have, but also that he’s doing this at such a young age.
The data seems to make it clear that speed isn’t the only component needed for steals: it’s also experience.
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Given Acuña’s size, on-base ability, and youth… he’s got a good chance to continue stealing bases at a strong rate for the next several years – especially as he adds that experience.