The Cubs' Baserunning Has Joined the Offense's Cliff Dive

Toward the end of April, I examined the early results on the Cubs’ baserunning. Looking at advanced baserunning statistics that early in a season can be a weird exercise. 

Baserunning stats like BsR at FanGraphs and Baserunning Runs at Baseball Savant can fluctuate wildly based on the opportunities afforded to a team. Both of those stats measure how many runs a team's, or player’s, baserunning has been worth. This can certainly lead to wild variations by month. At the time I wrote that article, the Cubs were off to a great start on the base paths. They were, hands down, the best baserunning team in baseball, and I noted that this was something to track going forward. 

So here I am, checking in now, almost four months later. Unfortunately, I am here to tell you that the Cubs have most certainly not been the best baserunning team in baseball since that article was published. All stats courtesy of FanGraphs:

All statistics need context. To some degree, a decline in baserunning value makes sense. I’m not sure if you’ve heard or not, but the Cubs offense has been struggling. Their team batting average in August is .218 and their on-base percentage is .288. Those are both 28th in baseball, per FanGraphs. 

If a team is getting less hits and on base less, that’s less opportunities for guys to take an extra base, and less opportunity for guys to steal a base. To take that a step further, Pete Crow-Armstrong, who was responsible for a lot of the value early on, has an August on base percentage so minuscule that I won’t even list it here. Still, should it have plummeted this badly?

With the more recent struggles, the Cubs are down to third in BsR at FanGraphs with 9.1 runs of value. They are looking up at, of course, the Milwaukee Brewers, who have accumulated 13.6 runs of value on the bases. 

So, we can chalk some of this up to the general struggles of the offense. But is that really all? Let’s take a look at stolen bases, and caught stealings, by month:

Again, to a point, the drop in stolen bases makes sense. They’re getting on base less. Their best and fastest baserunner is getting on base a lot less. What’s more concerning to me is the five times they have been caught stealing. This was a team that was successful in over 80 percent of their steal attempts in every month this season. In August, they’ve been successful just 70 percent of the time. Generally, you want to be successful in stealing a base at least 75 percent of the time to accrue positive value. 

Everything considered, there’s still no doubt that they have been less aggressive. Offensive struggles or not, this team attempted 36 steals in May (note: I am excluding the 50 attempts in March and April since they played more games in that stretch than any other month). They very well might not even attempt 25 in August. 

There’s a couple schools of thought here. What it feels like the Cubs are thinking is that baserunners have been such a rare sight! You don’t want to waste them and make an out on the bases. Or, one could argue, that the Cubs need to be pushing the envelope here. You have a struggling offense that hasn’t been hitting for power and they need as many runners in scoring position as possible, even if it means you make a few extra outs on the bases. 

Regardless, baserunning was something that the Cubs were doing really well during their best stretches of the campaign. It has since become something that they are simply average at. It could be sample size issues. It could be fatigue. It could be an adjustment of their strategy. It could be circumstance. But, regardless of whether or not the offense continues to struggle, it’s something I’d like to see them resume asserting some authority with.