For real peace of mind, call Realmuto
Growing up, I would see these little signs on lawns and stickers on windows reading “This Home is Protected by Such-and-Such Home Security” or similar. I always wondered if would-be burglars really steered clear of those signs, if they would really turn and run in the other direction at the sight of a little octagonal lawn ornament. It didn’t really seem to make sense that they would, but those signs had to be put up for a reason, right? Maybe you’d hurt the security people’s feelings if you took their sign down. Eventually, though, I started thinking about normal kid things like Pokémon and Dragon Ball Z instead of home security solutions.
But everything is cyclical, and now I’m thinking about home security solutions again, although it’s a different type of home. We’ve just finished up the second season with MLB’s new rules designed to increase stolen bases, and the commissioner’s scheme seems to have worked: we’re seeing enough thefts to make Robin Hood jealous (or insert your favorite fictional thief; mine’s Lupin III). But some homes are better protected than others. The batter’s box doesn’t come with a little sign, but a great backstop is an even more visible warning. J.T. Realmuto has his well-deserved reputation for general excellence, and for having a superlative arm in particular. Does his presence serve as a warning against theft? And has he helped to stave off the effects of the rising larcenous tide for the Fightins?
I started with three hypotheses:
- Realmuto is excellent at throwing out base stealers.
- Because of said excellence, opponents would have been relatively reluctant to run on him prior to the new rules.
- Steal attempts against the Phillies would rise after the implementation of the new rules , but Realmuto’s presence would blunt the effect.
The first assumption was easily shown to be true. Between 2016 (the first year for which Statcast data is available) and 2022, no catcher threw out more attempted base-stealers than Realmuto. He was the only backstop to hit triple digits in this regard, and his 116 caught stealings over the period were 19 more than second-place Tucker Barnhart had. By percentage, he was tied for 4th best with 36% of attempts against him ending in an out; only a trio of Ps (Roberto Pérez, Salvador Pérez, and Manny Piña) were better. But by the metric of CS Above Average (“the number of extra caught stealings compared to the expectation of an average catcher”, per Statcast), none were better. His CS AA was 40, with a double-digit gap between him and second-place Salvy. In other words, some catchers threw out a higher proportion of base stealers than Realmuto, but when you account for the difficulty of the attempts, Realmuto was on top.
But if you read that closely, there’s something in there that throws the assumptions we’re working with into turmoil. If Realmuto lead the league in caught stealings—raw numbers, not percentage of stealers thrown out—between 2016 and 2022, he must have faced a large number of steal attempts. And he did. Realmuto was one of only 3 catchers over that timeframe to break 300 steal attempts faced. So teams didn’t seem reluctant to run on Realmuto. That’s a bit surprising given his arm, though it’s worth noting that the catcher’s ability is only part of the decision of whether or not to steal. If you’ve got a pitcher giving you a juicy opportunity and/or a baserunner with excellent speed, you’re going to run. It’s also worth noting that there was a bit of a downward trend. In 2019, Realmuto faced 75 stolen base attempts, second most in baseball. But in 2021 that plummeted to 25, before rebounding partially to 51 in 2022. So perhaps teams began to hesitate to run on him over time as his reputation rose, although variance is probably more explanatory.
But that was all in the past, before the bases got bigger, the not-exactly-beloved pickoff attempts got curtailed, and base stealing roared back into fashion like Zubaz pants did a couple of years ago. Has Realmuto’s reputation helped the Phillies tamp down the increase in base burglary?
(If you’re reading this on a phone and the labels aren’t appearing, the 1st number is steal attempts against the Phillies and the 2nd is attempts against Realmuto)
It’s safe to say that steal attempts against both the Phillies and Realmuto rose in conjunction with the new rules (and recall that Realmuto presumably would have faced more steal attempts in 2024 had he not missed a month with an injury). But with the context of what some other backstops have faced, the security Realmuto offers looks, if not airtight, then certainly enviable. Between 2022 and 2023, the number of attempted steals against Realmuto rose by 26. By comparison, Keibert Ruiz, who faced the 3rd most steals in 2022 with 56, saw the attempted steals against him almost double in 2023. Yasmani Grandal went from 43 attempts to 94, year-over-year.
And while the data at the team level is a bit messier due to the fact that it incorporates steals against all Phillies catchers, not just Realmuto, it can tell a similar story. The White Sox saw attempted steals against them leap from 99 to 164 between 2022 and 2023, and the Guardians saw an increase from 104 to 157; both large increases compared to the 31-steal jump the Phillies faced over the same time period. So perhaps the Phillies have been protected from the worst of the crime wave’s effects by Realmuto.
But is that really so? The data points above are, it must be said, the result of some cherry picking (for instance, the impact of the new rules on Realmuto looks a lot bigger if we compare 2023/2024 to his 2021 season, when he faced just 25 steals, instead of his 2022). Furthermore, while nobody has been better than Realmuto at throwing out base stealers, some other backstops, many with less impressive arms than Realmuto, have provided their teams with similarly muted impacts from the new rules. And a quick look at the Statcast data shows that if there is a relationship between skill at putting out base stealers and stolen base attempts faced, it’s a fuzzy one: take the fact that in 2024, 3 of the 5 teams who faced the least stolen base attempts were below average in their performance against said attempts, and the 2 teams who faced the most were above average (per CS AA).
All of which is to say that, all these years later, I’m still not entirely certain what having that lawn sign does. But I’d rather have it than not.