Navigating Some Ian Happ Baserunning Concerns

[RandallPnkFloyd]

Image courtesy of © Matt Marton-Imagn Images

If you've followed this space at any point within the last year, you know I have struggled to balance my opinion of Ian Happ. I've made a habit of questioning the overall offensive toolbox and, occasionally, bringing passive opposition to his defensive reputation. While I've come to understand his value to the lineup at large—and developed a rather complimentary stance on his defense—I've returned to a familiar headspace for much of 2025 in pondering another facet of Happ's game: baserunning.

Happ, quite obviously, is not a burner out of the leadoff spot, but he works atop the lineup because of his approach. His 12.8% walk rate sits in the top 20 among qualifying hitters, and he's enough of a fixture on the bases as a result that he ranks in the top 25 in the league in runs scored (53). At the same time, there are some signs that he's no longer able to run the bases at the level you hope for from a catalyst atop the lineup card.

This isn't about steals. Happ has turned in 27 combined steals over the last two seasons, but hadn't reached double-digit swipes in any season before. Instead, our focus is on the concept of baserunning as a skill. Speed is a helpful component within the larger context of the skill, but it's not the sole one. It is worth noting, however, that Happ is showing up a little bit slower in 2025.

While never returning to the 28.8 feet-per-second speed of his first big-league appearance back in 2017,  Happ has generally remained respectable in that department. In the years since, he's undergone the typical, slow loss of a step or two, down to 27.9 ft/sec in 2024. This year, however, Happ is at 27.2 ft/sec. It's not a dramatic dip in terms of the raw number, but it does represent a decrease all the same. So if your eyes are telling you what mine are (that Ian Happ looks slower), it's because he technically is. 

But then there's the more value-centered side of things. The age of analytics has wrought a number of different ways in which we can evaluate the ability of a baserunner. Unfortunately for Happ, none of them are ringing too positive thus far in 2025. 

We can start with FanGraphs's Base Running tool, BsR. BsR considers factors like extra bases taken or outs made on the bases and spins them into the metric indicating runs above or below average. Happ started out rough in this area (-1.8 in 2017) but has fallen above average in every other season in the big leagues (2020 notwithstanding). Last year's number came in at 1.2, which matched his 2023 output. This year, however, Happ sits at -3.0 BsR. 

Among 157 qualifying position players, that figure checks in as one of the 10 worst in that area. For additional context, Michael Busch and Kyle Tucker each feature slower sprint speeds than Happ. However, Busch is at -1.6 (17 spots higher than Happ as a first baseman) and Tucker's 4.5 has him in the top five. The context with each player differs, of course; Tucker is notable for being an upper-tier baserunner with sensational instincts. But BsR alone is indicative of exactly the issue we're discussing with Happ. 

Statcast employs multiple ways in which to evaluate baserunners. For our purposes, there's the more specific Extra Bases Taken (measured in run value via Runner Runs) and Baserunning Run Value (which does incorporate steals to soak up more context and is measured in Baserunning Runs). The purpose of including both is a desire to evaluate Happ's value in navigating the basepaths while also exploring the more comprehensive angle through Baserunning Run Value.

Extra Bases Taken includes 298 baserunners in its Runner Runs leaderboard. At -3, Happ ranks 292nd and features the second-worst value listed. In fact, If you wanted to isolate such a list to just the Cubs over the last three seasons, Happ's -3 in 2025 ranks 27th out of 27 names listed. He was at 1 and sitting 12th and 14th in each of 2023 and 2024, for some context as to how steep the drop has been.

Factoring in the steals via the Baserunning Run Value doesn't particularly help matters, either. He's still at -3, ranking 219 out of 224, and presents -4 stolen bases versus the average. So whether the steals are factored in or not, Ian Happ is very visibly not ranking favorably among his peers in the baserunning aspect of the sport. 

Statcast does break down the value a player creates or destroys on the bases into their propensity to advance and their skill at avoiding extra outs, which can tell us where Happ is succeeding and failing. He's 4-for-5 on steal attempts, for instance, so why is the framework down on his base-stealing? Simple: he's on base so much that the system is faulting him for not running more. At 0.6%, his Attempt Rate when on base in a steal opportunity situation is very low. He's been 2 (non-)outs better than average in terms of outs created, which is to say, not running much has spared the Cubs him running into a few outs. However, he's been 6 bases shy of an average runner's expected number of thefts. On balance, then, he's missing four bases he ought to have taken.

When it comes to the running aspect on balls in play, there seem to be two problems. Yes, he's a bit slower than he used to be, but he's done well at getting secondary leads. The second problem he's encountering is not reading balls off the bats of his teammates and breaking aggressively enough, at times. This is a ball on which you just have to score, and the Statcast framework docks Happ himself about 0.8 runs for not having done so. The way the ball was hit, it was sure to drop, and Happ got a clean break. He was just insufficiently confident and didn't get up to speed the way he still can and should have.

Now, this system also has some blind spots, and you can make a fine case that Happ has been better than it would paint him. Here's a play on which he was docked 0.2 runs for not advancing to third, but on which any runner needs to go just halfway from first to second until it drops. Then, assuming the fielders scoop it cleanly, there's really no time to advance. Whatever the system looks at to estimate the expectations that a runner would advance, it's being too harsh on Happ here.

Like many technological solutions we come up with for measurement problems, this one can be a bit overconfident. That can push numbers to the ends of a spectrum where you actually want most values to cluster in the middle. Maybe it's best to consult Baseball Prospectus's Deserved Runs on the Bases (DRB), which has Happ at... -0.2 runs for the season. That, perhaps, is a fairer evaluation. Is he adding value? No. But he probably isn't removing it, either. After all, Happ has scored 36.3% of the time after reaching base this year. The league average is 30.9%. Some of the reasons why he's not advancing on hits or stealing bases is that he's often along for the ride on homers. He's scoring at the 32nd-highest rate of 155 qualifying hitters, so even if he's not creating value by pushing the envelope, he's doing a baserunner's most important job: getting home safely.

Ultimately, though, the aim here was to look at whether the data supports the eye test. The eyes are telling us that Ian Happ looks slow. The numbers say the same thing. At this point, it's more of a hindrance on a situational level (runners on and a ground ball in play from Happ, as an example). But considering that the power comes in waves and the on-base is supported by his approach, one does wonder how much such a trend could lead to the diminution of Happ as a viable leadoff candidate. We're probably not close to that yet, but these trends are, at least, worth monitoring.

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