AL Steals Leaders, First and Second

[Bahama O's Fan]

Mateo ends the season in 1st, with 35 steals and Mullins comes in 2nd with 34. Have the O's ever done this before, finish 1st and 2nd?

[tntoriole]

11 minutes ago, Bahama O's Fan said:

Mateo ends the season in 1st, with 35 steals and Mullins comes in 2nd with 34. Have the O's ever done this before, finish 1st and 2nd?

No 

[tntoriole]

Aparicio led twice, Brian Roberts tied with Carl Crawford in 2007 

[Jim'sKid26]

Mateo had a .267 OBP. He struckout 145 times and walked only 26 times. That means he made an out 73+% of his at bats. Just imagine how many more SBs he would have had had he been even what he was in 2021. 

To lead the league in SBs while essentially being one of the worst hitters in the league is rather amazing.

[oriole]

Mateo as a utility infielder and pinch runner would be fantastic but I’m also not totally against him as the 9 hitter going forward, assuming there’s no other black holes in the lineup. Mateo/Mullins tandem at the top and bottom fits really nicely.
Not that this is any kind of metric anyone actually uses but Mateo almost has the same amount of TB as Hays but in less PA when you account for SB/CS. Hays would be a pretty good 9 hitter to have so why not Mateo?

[SteveA]

And in theory, steals should become a bigger part of the game next year with the rules changes.   Bigger bases, limitations on pickoff throws.   Having two of the top base stealers in MLB means the Orioles could benefit from this more than any other team.

[LA2]

On 10/5/2022 at 8:21 PM, Bahama O's Fan said:

Mateo ends the season in 1st, with 35 steals and Mullins comes in 2nd with 34. Have the O's ever done this before, finish 1st and 2nd?

The 1973 team only placed a 7th and 9th (Baylor 32, Bumbry 23--Tommy Harper led with 54), but I love the fact that they had threats pretty much throughout the lineup; eight Orioles notched double-digit steal totals. Aside from Baylor and Bumbry, there were: Blair (18); Coggins and Grich (17); Belanger (13); Rettenmund and Tommy Davis (11). The team's overall success rate was 69.5% (146/210) as opposed to this season's 75.3% (95/126).

As OFFNY had a habit of pointing out when he was still posting here, the 1973 team's aggressiveness on the basepaths belies Earl Weaver's reputation as hating the running game and relying on the 3-run homer.

Edited October 7, 2022 by LA2

[Big Al]

I don’t think Earl hated the running game. He hated giving away outs to sacrifice. 

[Frobby]

22 hours ago, Jim'sKid26 said:

Mateo had a .267 OBP. He struckout 145 times and walked only 26 times. That means he made an out 73+% of his at bats. Just imagine how many more SBs he would have had had he been even what he was in 2021. 

To lead the league in SBs while essentially being one of the worst hitters in the league is rather amazing.

As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, Mullins had many more stolen base opportunities, not only because he got on base a lot more, but because as the leadoff hitter, he was often on base with nobody on in front of him and nobody out.  Consequently, Mullins had 269 stolen base opportunities, while Mateo had 134.   Mateo attempted a steal in 33% of his opportunities, Mullins in only 16%.   

[InsideCoroner]

15 hours ago, LA2 said:

As OFFNY had a habit of pointing out when he was still posting here, the 1973 team's aggressiveness on the basepaths complicates Earl Weaver's reputation as hating the running game and relying on the 3-run homer.

Any idea what ever happened to OFFNY?