20th century poets, (well aware of it), and true American masters of verse, N.W.A., released the 1990 EP, A 100 Miles and Runnin’, without the assistance of longtime collaborator and coveted member O’Shea Jackson Senior.
Once held in the highest regard, Mr. Jackson had a falling out with the group over royalty disputes from the Straight Outta Compton album. The artist more commonly known as Ice Cube, went from a beloved part of the group to a man loathed by members of the band and some of the rap community.
The analogy is a stretch, but bear with me, please. I’d like to think that if these guys were in search of some SAGNOF help, MC Ren and Dr. Dre might have penned something like this for the Cleveland Guardians’ prince of pilfering, outfielder Myles Straw.
A 100 Myles Straws runnin’
(Tristan) MC Ken’s injury stunnin’
You want me to take that second base? Already done in.
Since I’m stereotyped for speed, but my O.B.P. sucks,
It’s one of the main reasons I don’t give a — um … uh … er …
“…Care for how highly I was drafted last season but pretty much forgotten this spring…(?)”
I think that’s how it would go. I mean, if we had to include the radio edit at the end.
Running the parallel here, like N.W.A. with Ice Cube in the late 80’s, the fantasy community absolutely welcomed Myles Straw with open arms and nothing but love in the spring of 2022. He was a ‘wide awake sleeper’ for many and was going to be the next SAGNOF king. At a top 150 ADP, Straw was definitely being drafted as such.
But we in the fantasy community are a fickle group of stat-hounds. Last year, Straw managed to steal 21 bases in 152 games (caught just once), but provided little to nothing else (0 HR, .221 AVG). Like “The World’s Most Dangerous Group” and Ice Cube, there was a falling out between the fantasy community and Myles Straw to the point where there was probably more than one diss track written about the Cleveland OF this off-season. That 2023 504 ADP is like the fantasy managers’ version of “No Vaseline” for Myles Straw.
Does Myles Straw appear on the ‘still-way-too-early-to-tell” list for steals this year? Are his numbers seriously that good that you’re writing him up here? Did you just type out a whole verse of a 1990 rap parody to introduce the steals leaderboard after 10 stinking games?
Why, yes, he does. And, yes, they are. And, yes, I did.
| NAME | TEAM | STOLEN BASES | CAUGHT STEALING | ON-BASE PERCENTAGE |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Myles Straw | Cleveland | 6 | 0 | .488 |
| Gleyber Torres | NY Yankees | 5 | 2 | .514 |
| Jorge Mateo | Baltimore | 5 | 0 | .400 |
| Tim Anderson | Ch. White Sox | 5 | 0 | .348 |
| Ronald Acuna Jr. | Atlanta | 5 | 1 | .396 |
| Corbin Carroll | Arizona | 5 | 0 | .268 |
After these six … (as of Monday night) – Starling Marte (4), Julio Rodriguez (4), Cedric Mullins (4), six players at (3).
In the true SAGNOF spirit, is this the Straw that stirs the drink OR the Straw that breaks the Roto-camel’s back? Well, Myles went hitless in Cleveland’s first game (at Seattle), which probably didn’t surprise anyone. The shocking piece of data after that, though, is that Straw has at least one hit in each of the 10 games that followed.
Again, I know it’s extremely small sample size season, but a robust .353 AVG and a cool .500 OBP has to make people notice a bit, no?
Let’s check in with Cube. Can we expect this schmohawk to keep up the lofty contact and walk rates?
Uh…Ya, I didn’t think so. BUT! If you can catch Straw on the waiver wire or throw a dollar or two at him in FAAB, you might be able to ride a hot streak and pad that stolen base category before he regresses to his regular expectations.
I promised last week that I would include a new chart for you to have a look at as we try to make some sense out of predicting steals or even just have some sense of where to look. As I said before, it seems like everyone is running. From Ty France stealing third base last week to George Springer nabbing back-to-back bags last Tuesday night, everyone is looking to take that extra 90 feet.
Without further ado, here are some of the worst catchers listed by caught stealing rate from 2022 (sorted by lowest CS%) from Baseball Reference.
WORST CS% FOR STARTING CATCHERS (2022)
| PLAYER | TEAM | STOLEN BASES | CAUGHT STEALING | CS% |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Austin Nola | San Diego | 56 | 8 | 13% |
| William Contreras | Milwaukee | 36 | 6 | 14% |
| Yasmani Grandal | White Sox | 46 | 8 | 15% |
| Shea Langeliers | Oakland | 16 | 3 | 16% |
| Will Smith | Dodgers | 46 | 10 | 18% |
| Jacob Stallings | Miami | 61 | 14 | 19% |
| Jonah Heim | Texas | 57 | 13 | 19% |
| Keibert Ruiz | Washington | 51 | 20 | 28% |
| Christian Vazquez | Minnesota | 51 | 19 | 27% |
Here are some of the names that came up, after I filtered out those that had too small of a sample size to focus on. One exception to that filter was Shea Langeliers. I figured we’d better look there, even though there were only 19 attempts in the data from 2022, strictly because of his everyday catching duties in Oakland in 2023.
Since our sample size is so small for 2023, looking at last year’s numbers helps us predict who might have a “less than successful” time of holding runners in check this spring.
Needless to say, if this data keeps up, and these guys get the lion’s share of starting backstop duties, we can look to stream SAGNOF guys against San Diego, Milwaukee, Chicago (Seby Zavala was 24%), Los Angeles, and Miami.
Our Myles Straw profile above fits for the speed, but maybe doesn’t fit as aggressively as some others this week. Cleveland has 3 games at Washington, (hence the Ruiz inclusion above), followed by 3 games at Detroit, where Eric Haase threw out 13 of 40 runners last year – good for a 33% rate.
I have two other profiles for us this week that made the steals leaderboard. One in the chart above and one that just missed it! Each player has the team they’re facing from today through next Wednesday with the games in parentheses.
Gleyber Torres – NYY – vs Minnesota (4), vs LAA (3)
For all of the fantasy buzz this spring about the Yankees infield prospects, you would think that Gleyber Torres was the forgotten man. Anthony Volpe, this. Oswald Peraza, that. Throw in a pinch of Oswaldo Cabrera for seasoning. Well, a funny thing happened on the way to opening day. Gleyber Torres was looking like he might be squeezed for playing time and was being drafted outside the top 100 (ADP 112). Over his first 9 games, though, Torres is off to a … torrid start. 2 HR, 5 SB, and a .357/.514/.607 triple slash line makes for some happy fantasy managers and some ecstatic Yankee fans, especially now that there’s one less guy to find playing time for with the Josh Donaldson hamstring injury.
Torres could run against Christian Vazquez in those Minnesota games, and Anaheim’s rookie Logan O’Hoppe is 1-for-6 in caught stealing vs attempts in 2023.
Chas McCormick – HOU – vs Texas (3), vs Toronto (3)
I didn’t really think of it until the edit, but this guy connects back to Myles Straw too. Houston’s 2021 trade of Straw to Cleveland for Phil Maton, (and the Astros newest catcher, Yanier Diaz), opened the door for McCormick to get increased playing time.
McCormick’s tools grade out similarly to Torres’s. He has mostly 50-55 grade hit/speed/field numbers for everything, albeit his game power is lower than the previously mentioned Yankee.
So far, McCormick has managed to put together a similar start, though.
He has 2 HR and 3 SB in his first 7 games. His triple slash line is a bit less exciting at a .259/.355/.519, but his opponents this week look a lot more promising than our other two players profiled here.
Jonah Heim stands out as one of the better backstops to run on, (19% above), and if Toronto starts Alejandro Kirk (26%) over Danny Jansen (27%), McCormick should get more than a few chances to add to his modest SB total. They may look close, but Kirk is already 0-for-5 in CS attempts so far in 2023.
That’s it for this week! Next week, I’ll try to keep things in a similar format with some names to look at from our leaderboards, new opportunities or call-ups, or just some potential good plays from chatter around the league.
Until then, if you have any ideas of players that you want a deeper look at, drop them in the comments. As always, if you have any questions or thoughts, you can always catch me @MarmosDad on Twitter. Good luck with your SAGNOF plays this week!
