It's not that Lopes is the first base coach. It's that he was hired with the specific goal of making the team better on the basepaths. It's almost as if the first base position was an afterthought.

He's been the first base coach in all his other jobs (except when he was manager of the Brewers), and I presume his other teams hired him for that purpose as well. His bio says he's the "outfield/baserunning instructor" as well as first base coach, and that he held those jobs last year with the Nationals as well.

Seems like having the baserunning instructor as the first base coach is a much better use of resources than the common pattern of hiring the manager's crony as first base coach and having his duties consist of "patting the hitter on the butt" plus some signals.

111 team stolen bases this season at an 87% success clip. That's incredible.

Wes Helms, Rod Barajas and Gavin Eaton may have proved useless, but Lopes was an astute free agent signing.

111 team stolen bases this season at an 87% success clip. That's incredible.

No kidding.

I thought the Mets were good with an 82.3% success rate and 173 SB. No team in baseball has been caught fewer times than the Phillies; only the Mets (173), Angels (119) and O's (116) have more stolen bases.

It's a good piece, and a good observation. The data on the Bourn/Victorino increase is misleading. Bourn didn't have many Major League stolen bases last year for the good reason that he was in the minors for most of the year, where he stole 45 bases and was caught 5 times for a slick 90% success rate. In 2005 he wasn't as good 38 SBs with a 76% rate, but in 2004 he was 57 SB and 6 CS. He's a great runner. I'm glad Lopes is helping him, but Lopes didn't create him.

Victorino, though, is a completely different story. Had stolen 11 bases in about 200 Major League games, and had a percentage a little over 60% in the minors. Everybody thought he was fast, but there was no reason pre-Lopes to think he'd be a great base stealer.

It's a good piece, and a good observation.

Right on.

Stealing bases obviously requires a minimal amount of speed, but the huge variation of volume and success rates between players with essentially the same wheels makes it obvious that it's a task in which the learned skill of reading pitchers/getting jumps is at least as important, probably far moreso, than speed. An organization that hires the right coaches and instills the right training methodologies throughout the system can gain a non-trivial offensive advantage.

According to his MLB.com bio, Lopes stole 557 bases in his career and ranks 9th in MLB history in SB% (83.0).

I forget how young some of you folks are -- that Davey Lopes was one of the best percentage base stealers in MLB is (I assume) widely known by us elderly folks. :-)

It's really a shame he didn't make the majors until 28(!). At 33-34, he went 89 for 97. From 38 to 40, he went 84 for 92. If memory serves, in those 38-40 seasons, he set the record for consecutive steals (since broken I believe). I wouldn't be too surprised if most of those times he was thrown out were when he was ordered to run by his manager -- if anything, Lopes played it too safe.

But I doubt there has ever been anyone in baseball who was significantly better than Davey Lopes at reading and timing pitchers and catchers and identifying the safest times to steal. If he can pass that on to young speedsters, good for him. He was always talking to the younger players during his playing days with the Cubs.

Unfortunately, there have been a countless number of people in baseball who were better managers than Davey Lopes. :-)

But I doubt there has ever been anyone in baseball who was significantly better than Davey Lopes at reading and timing pitchers and catchers and identifying the safest times to steal.

Roger that. And the degree to which Lopes's success rate increased over the course of his career stands as strong evidence for how much stealing is a function of technique rather than footspeed.

Lopes was just a terrific all-around player. Not only was he a stupendous stealer, he hit with good power, drew lots of walks, and was very versatile defensively. He was a vastly better player than his ho-hum .263 lifetime batting average would suggest; he is, in fact, right up there in the Darrell Evans neighborhood of all-time underrated, overlooked players.

Victorino has been amazing. How often do you see a guy who's fast but a terrible basestealer turn into a great basestealer?

Roger that. And the degree to which Lopes's success rate increased over the course of his career stands as strong evidence for how much stealing is a function of technique rather than footspeed.

Didn't Billy North say that young horses have to be fast but old horses know the way?

Best Regards

John

Lopes had the same job on last year's Nationals, but the results were not so good. The results were awful, even. 123 steals in 185 attempts. Zimmerman was 11 for 19. Soriano was 41 for 58. Several of the guys who attempted steals rarely were caught more often than they were successful. Maybe he was devoting his time to the "outfield instructor" rather than "baserunning instructor" part of his job description.

Now the Nationals' 1st base coach is Jerry Morales, who had a whopping 37 steals in his 1441-game, 15-season career. More recently he was seen as the Oompa Loompas in 2005's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

A follow-up -- this year's Nationals are not stealing hardly any bases at all. Soriano's gone and Zimmerman only has 4 attempts (all successful). Nook Logan is 19 for 23 and Felipe Lopez is 22 for 30 (similar to last year). That's about it.

I remember Lopes hitting an inside-the park HR in his late Oakland days so he hadn't lost his top-end speed even if his acceleration from a stop wasn't as great (I may be wrong about this but I think he also took a sun-backed flyball off his forehead playing OF there, so we hope he learned some tricks about coaching outfielders to teach).
Some raw data for those other teams:
Texas 1988-91
130/187, 101/150,115/163,102/152. Before: 120/191. After: 81/125. This might be as much a factor of the people arriving with him (Cecil Espy) and leaving when he did (Garry Pettis, also half a year of Julio Franco, who combined for 65/87 in '91).
Baltimore 1992-94
89/137,73/127 (maybe the worst of this sample), 69/82 (Brady Anderson 31/32). Before: 50/83. After: 92/137. Bad year in the middle, otherwise O's seem to have been more effective. Brady Anderson became a full-time player at the same time as Lopes' arrival and may have benefited from his presence, going 53/69 his first year.
Padres 95-99
124/170,109/164,140/200,79/116,174/241 (Quartet of 30-steal men with Quilvio Veras, Damian Jackson, Reggie Sanders, Eric Owen an aggregate 133/180) Before:79/116. After: 131/184. Steve Finley was a newcomer in 95 and went 36/48, as well as Brad Ausmus sneaking a 16/21. '96 and '97 also had Rickey Henderson, and his departure led to a drop in total but not percentage.
Padres 03-05
76/115,52/77,99/143. Before:71/115. After:123/154. Not much effect when he came back, but what a jump when he left, primarily with the additions of Mike Cameron and Josh Barfield.