Welcome Razzballeroos, back to some more Pre-season baseball draft content from me here at Razzball. Hard to believe it, but this is my 100th article published with this crew. Can’t believe they took a chance on a guy who just liked to come into the comments and argue with J-FOH and Tehol. You longtime Razzball readers will understand what that means (Dominic Brown forever). It’s been a good run, and I am happy to keep it rolling here in 2026.
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Now back to your regularly scheduled Fantasy Baseball Thoughts…
Alas, shortly after I wrote the first Whiteyball article in 2024, the great Mister Herzog passed away. I felt compelled to continue this tradition and make Whiteyball baserunning coaching change analysis a permanent part of the Razzball Pre-season. With that, here we go…
The year was 1975. Jack Mckeon was fired in late July by the Kansas City Royals for his inability to relate to his players, and Whitey Herzog was brought in to replace him. Whitey was quiet and mild-mannered. Whitey also had an agenda, he was a forerunner to the movie classic Iron Eagle 2 with the philosophy that “Speed Kills Peaches”.
Whitey’s teams over the next 15 seasons between Kansas City and St. Louis led the league in stolen bases eight different times, and only didn’t finish in the top five in steals twice. Now, he certainly had the horses to do it with the speedsters he had. Freddie Patek led the AL in steals as did Willie Wilson for the Royals during Whitey’s tenure. Vince Coleman was the stolen base champ five straight seasons in St. Louis for Whitey. In 1985, the Cardinals stole 314 bases. The fourth highest total in major league history. Five different Cardinals stole 30+ bases that season. It wasn’t just having these top tier stolen base threats though, it was his willingness to run with the entire lineup that made his style a baseball moniker.
Herzog’s style of play was thus born and named Whiteyball. It relied on attrition and focused on speed and defense to win rather than power. He would load the top and bottom of his lineups with speed and just let them go crazy on the basepaths. They kept the fences deep and the Astroturf fast and watched the runs pile up using this philosophy.
So how does this relate to MLB some 40 years later? Well, the Home Run has certainly become the run generator of choice in the last 40 years, but with the rule changes in 2023, teams got back into the swing of swiping bases. Even back in 1985, when Whitey’s Cardinals were making history, there were ten MLB teams that did not steal 100 bases on the season. So you have to believe in the steal as a coach, and seemingly some do, and some don’t
Today, we are going to take a look at current MLB managers and their willingness to run. We will highlight the new crop of managers coming in, discuss their aptness for the stolen bases, and see which players the new coaches could affect the most. Next week, we will focus on players who have moved into better coaching situations.
Here’s a look at the rankings in stolen base attempts per game for 2025 by team, along with their managers. New Skippers are in bold.
So the gap in 2025 went from Kevin Cash in Tampa at 1.49 stolen base attempts per game down to A.J. Hinch in Detroit at only .47 a contest. Some of the biggest shifts in 2025 came in situations where new managers came in, although Terry Francona slowing down the Reds wasn’t in my Magic 8-Ball. We’ve got almost 1/3 of the teams with new skippers in 2026, with most of them being young first time managers. Let’s see which new managers are like Kevin Cash and which ones are like A.J. Hinch in 2026.
Nationals – Blake Butera – Steals Change Neutral
Dave Martinez liked to run. Blake Butera likes to get the runs in his diapers cause he’s a baby. Seriously, Dude is 33 years old. He got his first manager job in the minors at age 25, and has spent the last three seasons in the Rays development department. He has a good track record in the minors, but a lot of that depends on the players you are dealt. With the Rays and them always trading off key major league pieces, the lower levels of the minors are typically stacked. His teams liked to run in the minors, but he also had Chandler Simpson so take with it what you will. I think a manager coming from the Rays organization will continue running wherever he goes if he has some speed on the roster which the young Nationals do.
Rangers – Skip Schumaker – Steals Change Negative
Skip’s Miami team ran more in his second season at the helm of the Marlins, but that had more to do with Xavier Edwards call up than anything. He didn’t even get Jon Berti to 20 stolen bases in 2023. I think the Rangers take a step back on the base paths in 2026.
Orioles – Craig Albernaz – Steals Change Neutral
I feel like a lot of these new managers are below the radar. Like “Who Are These F’ing Guys”. For Albernaz, maybe if you can find his nose you’ll discover the key to all of life’s questions. Adam Jones says he brings energy. He also brings one of the highest Triple A success rates as a catcher at cutting down base-runners at 44%. Will that make him less apt to try and steal bases? We will see, but Stephen Vogt didn’t slow his runners down as a catcher in Cleveland when he took over, and that’s where Albernaz has been hiding his nose the last few seasons on his bench.
Pirates – Don Kelly – Steals Change Neutral
If you could win the Home Run Derby on MLB The Show with Don Kelly back in the day, you could do anything. He was around as manager most of last year, so not much to note here with the “Official change.”
Twins – Derek Shelton – Steals Change Positive
Let’s be honest. Derek Shelton isn’t why the Pirates lost a whole lot. He did decent with what he was dealt. He takes over for Rocco Baldelli, who ran more in 2025, but was near the bottom in attempts in previous seasons. With the young cast getting their feet wet for the Twins, I think Shelton cranks up the pressure on the bases in Minneapolis. WhiteyBall Alert!
Padres – Craig Stammen – Steals Change Neutral
Stammen is the only Major League manager who was a pitcher. Why? Well, quite honestly cause most pitchers are specialists (Brain Dead) who have coaches and catchers call the game for them. Greg Maddux would be a great manager, but that’s about it. Yes, I know about John Farrell, Tommy Lasorda, Dallas Green – there have been a few successful ones, but for the most part they’ve been not so successful. I am putting the Padres as Neutral because there is no background on Stammen at all. Nice hire, Padres. Morons.
Rockies – Warren Schaeffer – Steals Change Positive
What defines improvement over Bud Black? Pretty much anything. The Rockies will still be stinkier than Limburger cheese on a dog turd bun, but will their young players play? If they do, will they steal more? I say yes. They have to in order to generate runs, and I think Jake McCarthy and Brenton Doyle will have a permanent green light this year. Why not? What do they have to lose? That being said, he was the manager for 3/4th of the season and didn’t really turn them loose. Also, he wasn’t super aggressive when at the helm in Albuquerque. If he wants to last more than a year, though, I think he’s gotta do something, so I am saying the Rockies are runners in 2026.
Angels – Kurt Suzuki – Steals Change Negative
It seems like only yesterday I was drafting him as my second catcher in every league. Now the question is how aggressive will he be with his team upon the basepaths. Up until last year, Ron Washington had been very aggressive throughout his career, but the Angels really slowed down as a whole, especially after he left for medical leave. Outside of Neto and Lowe on this roster there isn’t much speed unless Bryce Teodosio finds his way into some at-bats. I think Suzuki will take what this roster gives him and not want to make outs on the bases.
Braves – Walt Weiss- Steals Change Neutral
So what is worse than the Rockies hiring a new manager from within the system? How about the Braves hiring an ex-Rockies manager? I thought my complaints about Rockies roster decisions were bad with Bud Black, and then I reached back in my memory banks and remembered how messed up they were with Walt Weiss at the helm. “Hey, we’ve got Corey Dickerson over here totally raking should we put him in the lineup Walt?” – “Nah, I wanna see more of Brandon Barnes. I bet if we give him enough at-bats he could hit five homers this year!” Weiss was top ten his first two seasons in stolen base attempts and then thought power was the key going forward even with Chaz Noir and Trevor Story available. I doubt he improves an already sad Braves stolen base attempt outlook, but he probably also doesn’t make it worse.
Giants – Tony Vitello – Steals Change Positive, but only cause it can’t get worse.
Ok…I have no idea what Vitello will do, but Bob Melvin didn’t run at all with this very slow lineup. Harrison Bader gives him one guy to try and make some things happen with. Willy Adames, Jung Hoo Lee, and Matt Chapman all have above average sprint speeds, so maybe he activates them a little more, but I’m not sure what his outlook is. Tennessee, where he was the last eight years, was 14th out of 16th in the SEC in stolen base attempts.
More to come next week. You can also hit me up on Twitter or “X” or whatever it’s now called @TheGreatKnoche
The Good Old Days!! Love the running and deep fences that made home runs mean more. Sad to see the Cards in the bottom 10 of attempts.