The stolen base seems to have become a weapon again in 2023.
So that got us thinking about the best bag swipers in Rockies history. As you might have guessed, Eric Young Sr, after all these years, still holds the record for most stolen bases with 180 (42 ahead of Charlie Blackmon in second place) but it was short-tenured Willy Tavares who just as comfortably holds a lead in stolen base percentage.
At 86.33 percent, Willy Tavares has a six-percentage point lead on Carlos Gonzalez, the only two players in team history to steal at a clip of 80 percent or better.
Modern metric-driven analysis suggests that you actually need a 75 percent rate at least in order to be helpful to your team since a caught stealing holds more negative value than a stolen base holds positive value.
The Rockies only have six players who have bettered that mark with Juan Pierre and OG EY falling just short.
Larry Walker, Trevor Story, Eric Young Jr., surprisingly enough Matt Holliday, and CarGo round out the top six.
In terms of total steals though, neither EY Jr. or Matt Holliday crack the Top 10 with 70 and 66 apiece. Story is tied with Pierre in 7th place with exactly 100.
Despite spending far less time in a Rockies uniform though, just 230 games to be exact, Willy Tavares is ahead of them at 101, in sixth place, four behind Dante Bichette.
He was only caught 16 times to those 101 successful attempts and while his 33-to-9 ratio in 2007 was arguably more valuable because it helped a team get all the way to the World Series, his 68-to-7 rate in 2008 is remarkably impressive. It’s even more eye-popping when you see that he only had an on-base percentage of .308 that year. If he had gotten on base more, he could have wreaked that much more havoc on the basepaths.
In 2023, Brenton Doyle is off to a great start in this regard, taking 19 bags so far and only being thrown out four times. That’s good for an 82.6 percent success rate which would put him in second place all time if he can maintain it.
He’s already 36th on the Rockies stolen base leaderboard despite still being in the midst of his rookie season and posting a very low on-base percentage at .242.
Fellow rookie, Nolan Jones, is hot on his heels.
With 16 swipes, only caught two times, he’s at a remarkable 88.8 percent success rate which would, indeed, be the new mark to beat if he can maintain it.
There aren’t a lot of franchise records that are still held by original Rockies. But this is one that Eric Young has held onto comfortably for a long time. Tavares’ percentage mark has held up for over a decade.
But now both stand in the crosshairs as a pair of insanely athletic prospects are set to make their mark. If they can get on base often enough to have long-lasting careers, they may well leave all the stolen base records in the dust.
Make sure to keep up with the latest in the world of Colorado Rockies baseball, as well as deep dives on Rockies history with the 20th and Blake Podcast on the Mile High Sports podcast network.
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