The Cleveland Guardians already lead MLB in stolen bases in 2023.
The Cleveland Guardians play an unusual style of baseball compared to today's standards. Whether you think it's disgusting or beautiful, their brand brought them success last season and that's carried over into 2023.
Part of this Guardians brand of baseball is running the bases and stealing bags, which they're already doing this at a high rate this season. Cleveland's aggressiveness on the base path is nothing new. In 2022 they stole the third most bases in the league with 119.
There's a new level to this though. The new rules implemented by MLB in the offseason encourage teams to steal more bags.
Now pitchers can only disengage from the rubber three times which encourages larger leads. The physical bases are also bigger which technically means the distance between bases is shorter too. This has caused the average steals per game to jump along with the success rate.
The Guardians are exposing this to a whole new level!
Cleveland currently leads MLB with the most stolen bases in the league with 19. They're ahead of the Arizona Diamondbacks who have stolen 17 and the Baltimore Orioles who have stolen 16.
The Guardians have also only been caught stealing twice which is even more impressive considering how often they do it.
Myles Straw sits alone at the top of MLB's stolen base leaders with six so far this season. Jose Ramirez has stolen four bases and right behind him are Andres Gimenez and Steven Kwan who have each swiped three.
If the Guardians keep up their aggressiveness when they get on base and continue to steal bases at a high success rate then there's no reason to think they won't lead the league by the end of the season.
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Photo Credit © Kelley L Cox-USA TODAY Sports
