Happy Wednesday, Razzballeroos. It’s your favorite part-time writer over here at Razzball, back with a little more SAGNOF knowledge as I look to find you some players that may be under the radar when it comes to boosting your stolen base numbers. Last article didn’t quite go as planned, as they sent Khalil Watson down the same day it came out. Oh well, can’t win them all.
This week we look at recently promoted Giants Second Baseman Nate Furman. Always a feel good story when a player to be named later makes it all the way to the show and that’s exactly what happened with Furman here as he was that player in the Alex Cobb trade to Cleveland.
With the departure of Luis Arraez via trade a seemingly everyday role or at minimum a strong side platoon shared with Osleivis Basabe will be available to Furman. I am focusing on Furman here, but Basabe will swipe some bases also.
Furman’s strength is in his plate discipline and contact skills. Those contact skills are elite, with a swinging strike rate at just 4.1%, good for third best in all of AAA. Plus, he has a K rate at AAA at only 12.4%. That pairs up with a solid walk rate at 11.1%. His career OBP in the minors is exactly .400, and those kind of numbers should translate well to the majors. There isn’t much power there, but he does pull some fly balls, so maybe 15 Homers over a full season would be his ceiling
Across parts of four seasons in the minors, he has stolen 68 bases over 1,256 plate appearances and only been caught 13 times. Watching some tape he gets a great jump and while speed isn’t top level elite it is certainly above major league average.
Bottom line here with Furman is if he’s in the lineup he is worth a Speed Dial anytime and may be rosterable if he hits well enough to play everyday out of the gate.
Here’s this week’s Stolen Bases Leaderboard
The Speed Dials
Well, we had a DNP to go along with a CS and a HR from James Outman from the last write-up. All in all, not awful 3 for 15 on Speed Dials this season.
Wednesday, August 5th – Braves vs Marlins
Jim Jarvis – How do you have a guy called up who stole 32 bases in the minors in the first half not have a stolen base after 89 plate appearances in the majors with a .314 OBP. No idea. But, Jim Jarvis will get his first one against Eury Perez and the Marlins today. Perez allows .157 SB/IP, but that has improved since Joe Mack has taken over behind the dish, cutting down 30% of the runners attempting against him.
Thursday, August 6th – Diamondbacks vs Padres
Ryan Waldschmidt – Here’s a long term disaster waiting to happen as Waldschmidt has a .291 BA with a .434 BABIP and a 32.1% K-Rate. On the bright side though, he is fast! Sprint speed checks in at 28.9 Ft/Sec and he’s 6 for 7 stealing bases so far in the bigs. He’ll face Walker Buehler of the Padres, who allows .154 SB/IP. Freddy Fermin is top 10 at throwing out base runners, but Luis Campusano is in the bottom third.
As always, if you’re looking for anything further out for next week, where we don’t have exact pitching match-ups, hit me up here or on Twitter @TheGreatKnoche
