Elly De La Cruz steals all the time, a breakdown

If you go to his baseball reference page,

you'll find out that he has 40 stolen bases on the season,

which leads baseball.

He's got seven caught stealings,

and three of those were actually pickoffs,

but I won't dive into that because it's a whole web.

Unfortunately, I got into the weeds.

I've spent two days digging into Elie De La Cruz stolen base numbers

because I want to find out,

does he steal every time he has an opportunity?

He has to steal just every time he has the opportunity to steal.

He has to steal.

Why wouldn't he?

Why wouldn't he?

So, at first, I thought, this is easy.

I'll take all of his hits, his walks,

every time he reached on an error or fielder's choice,

and then divide that by every time

he,

he stole or got caught stealing.

But,

that's not real because

in that hits category,

they're home runs,

and you can't steal a base

after hitting a home run.

You're punished.

You go right back to the dugout.

You don't get to have fun as a base runner

if you hit a home run.

Or there are triples,

and if you hit a triple,

sure,

it's an opportunity to steal home,

but that's not expected,

and sometimes it's not even encouraged.

Oftentimes,

I like it.

I'd like you to do it,

but I'm not counting that against him.

If he doesn't steal when he hits a triple.

There are also times

where he gets walked,

and there's a runner already on base,

so there's someone ahead of him.

He's on first base,

but there's a slow guy on second,

or he's on second base,

and there's another runner on third.

That's not a stolen base opportunity

for Elie De La Cruz,

so I gotta weed those out.

Then,

there's also all the times

he does try to steal,

but

the pitcher hits a triple,

and he doesn't steal.

He hits the batter with the ball,

so it gets nullified,

or the batter fouls the ball back,

so those are times that he

did attempt to steal,

but they're not

going down in the caught stealing

or the stolen base category,

so I went

deep

diving,

okay?

I got charts.

I got graphs.

I got tables,

and I have all the footage you need.

I got every time

he reached first base,

and there was not a runner

ahead of him on second base.

A true story,

stolen base opportunity

for Elie De La Cruz.

I've got every time

he got walked

or hit,

and there was no one on base,

so he gets to first,

and no one's ahead of him.

I also went,

and I got every time

he hit a double

or a single with an error,

and got to second base,

and there was no one on third,

so that's what I'm counting

as a stolen base opportunity.

How many times did he get on base,

and he was standing on first,

and there was no one on third,

and there was no one on second,

or he was standing on second,

and there was no one on third.

That's the first number I sought out,

and his stolen base opportunities

on the season,

80.

Okay, but then I thought,

well, what if the first pitch

of the at-bat

when he's on first base

or second base,

the batter puts in play,

or the pitcher hits the batter?

Is that really an opportunity?

He only had one pitch,

and it was the very first pitch.

I don't think he had one pitch.

I don't think he had one pitch.

don't think i can hold that against him he should have time to watch the pitcher once and see the

rhythm and the mechanics of it if he wants so i found out all the times that he got on base and

then the very first pitch of the next at bat got put in play that happened six times okay one time

we had the batter get hit by a pitch we had another where the batter hit a double another

where the batter hit a single so we had six times where the very first pitch as soon as you reach

the base the next pitch canceled out the opportunity i'm not holding them against him

so that lowers my number to 74 stolen base opportunities 74 times he was on the base paths

with a stolen base opportunity okay so now we need to go find all the stolen base attempts

he was standing there

you

as the pitcher released the ball he takes off either it results in a stolen base it results

in a caught stealing it could be a hit it could be the batter gets hit by a pitch it could be ball

four of the at bat it could be strike three to end the inning could be anything but all i care

about is he started running when the pitcher delivered the pitch that's what i'm calling

a stolen base attempt and i already told you he had

74 stolen base opportunities up until this point july 3rd he has had 74 stolen base opportunities

he has had

71 stolen base attempts so damn near on average yeah he runs almost every time he's on base

but that doesn't mean he's literally ran every time he's on base it means

close to on average

71 74 there have been 30 times he didn't run he had the chance to he didn't so that means there's

been multiple times where he took off the ball was fouled back or something happened had to go

back to the base took off again had to go back to the base i wanted to see how many times has

that happened what's the most amount of times he's gone didn't count there have been 16 times

where he had two times he's gone and he's gone and he's gone and he's gone and he's gone and he's gone

so this is a perfect example of those two stolen base attempts on one opportunity so on this one

you can see there's two outs he steals second base he's safe and then it's the same inning

same opportunity he steals third successful again that's two stolen base attempts in one

stolen base opportunity one turn around the base paths he has a lot of those he did that again here

two outs he's on first steals second safe and then the next day he's on third and then he's on

that bat he's gonna steal third and guess what they throw it away so he scores two outs runner

on first all of a sudden he just scores that's elie de la cruz this time he stole second base

in there just barely and then he attempted to steal third but batter fouled it back and then

he didn't get another chance but that's still right there two stolen base attempts in one

opportunity here's another time he steals second don't even get a throw off and then right

afterwards three pitches later he's off and he steals third base safe this is your more traditional

two attempts first time got fouled back he runs the second has to redo it waits says i still feel

like stealing though the next pitch is in the dirt he steals again he's in there so there have been

16 opportunities

with two attempts 16 times he's tried to steal had to try again or successfully stole twice in

one opportunity how many times has he had to do it three times three and i was like i was hoping

there would be more but you could see right here on this oh one pitch he's off and it's fouled

back are they gonna catch it no then two pitches later two two count he's off he's running

but it's fouled back again he doesn't give up three two now running again but that's ball four

so that's not a stolen base but that's three pitches in that one opportunity that he attempted

to run on so that time it was three and he came up empty just gassed he did get to second though

there's this one where one two pitch he's running has to go back foul ball then one two pitch again

he's running he grabs the bag

but they rule batter interference so he has to go back because steers bat hit adley's back right

there the replay showed him making contact so he has to go back that's two attempts one opportunity

the very next pitch he's like all right i don't care about that steals on the first pitch gets it

so that's another time there was one opportunity three attempts and the third time he did three

in a row the first pitch the 1-0

is put in play to center so he's got to run back he can't tag up on that even if uh if he wasn't

stealing maybe he tries to tag up on that one attempt next batter comes up 1-0 pitch he's

running there has to go back slides does the whole thing then the 1-1 he's off again it's in the air

and that is going to be the third out ends the inning so three times he sprinted off first base

for the attempt comes up empty uh doesn't get a steal

then said wait i want to look at all the times he didn't run is there a factor here is there

something going on sometimes only a few it was the score is like nine to one they're winning by too

much uh that doesn't matter how many times has it hurt him of the 30 times he had the opportunity to

run and he didn't run how many times did it hurt him a couple a couple didn't matter like the first

time i saw it he ends up going first to third on a ground ball to the shortstop

next time he does get stranded eight pitches lefty pitcher a lot of them were lefty pitchers

but some righty pitchers uh another time he goes first to third on a single a bunch of times he did

that sometimes the catchers back picked at first base and that kept him at bay that actually worked

of the 30 times he had the opportunity to go he didn't go five of them resulted in double plays

if he's running they probably don't so just go man sometimes he saw a catcher more than one

or they back picked and stuff like that but for the most part he's running a lot so there's some

numbers the last thing i looked at was what was his longest stretch of having the opportunity to

steal and taking it attempting and i found this stretch from may 4th to may 21st he started 15

games he played in 16 games over the course of those games he had 11 stolen base opportunities

18 stolen base attempts and had an attempt on every opportunity for 16 game stretch for most of may

if he got the opportunity he was on base there was no one ahead of him boom he was off so

does this matter and is this info useful no was it brought to you by seek geek where you can use

code john boy 15 to get 15 off any tickets whether you're a new customer or not

yes did i enjoy being in these weeds sorting it out yes did the 71 attempts off of 74 opportunities

blow my mind yes did it kind of get dulled a little bit when i found 41 of the 71 he actually

attempted just some had multiples and 30 he didn't yes did you enjoy the video well then

subscribe and comment and like it

and i do i do breakdowns like this that are more in the weeds statistical

on jimmy's three things which is on the talking baseball channel

or any podcast all right thanks guys see ya