Hey everyone, your friendly, neighborhood dynasty dad here. I’m excited to announce our first guest writer of the season, Drew Klein (@aok-fan)! Drew helped us out on the latest episode of Join The Ranks and wrote a follow-up article for the site to check in on all the future Jon Berti’s in the minor leagues.

As always, thanks for reading. – T.C.

On Jon Berti, Base-Stealing Extraordinaire

While preparing to be a guest on a recent Dynasty Guru – Join the Ranks podcast, I was researching a listener question about the current trade value of Jon Berti. At this point in time (July 3, 2022) Berti was leading the major leagues in stolen bases with 25. After looking at this a few different ways, I asked myself, and later asked the podcast audience, shouldn’t we be looking at him the same way we look at top-tier closers?- After all, in a roto format, it’s very risky to ignore a category. You would either need a lot of confidence that you’re going to dominate all the other categories or be resigned to the risk of being destined to that purgatory of a 5th place finish at best. If you can have a single player who will guarantee at the least a middle-of-the-pack finish in the category, and likely much higher if you have decent supporting players, does it matter if we’re talking about a closer or a base stealer? And if that’s true, then is Berti the base-stealing equivalent of someone like Josh Hader?

To start, this perspective makes the most sense when considering value in standard roto scoring. Saves and stolen bases are, in a manner of speaking, stand-alone categories. You hope someone getting you saves isn’t hurting your ratios, and you’re not counting on a significant number of wins or strikeouts from him either. Likewise with stolen bases, unless you’re lucky enough to roster an elite speed/power player, you often sacrifice power and hope that there’s a decent average and likely a few runs from the guys getting you stolen bases. I will note that there’s one big difference here: we know that there are select speed/power players who will get you a significant number of steals without having to be specialists. Not too many closers are going to pile up significant wins or strikeouts.  Even with that difference, there are some parallels to be drawn.

As I write this (July 10, 2022), there are 8  players with 16 or more stolen bases. Similarly, there are 11 closers with 16 or more saves. Having the top player in either category on your roster is going to give you a significant edge, and it’s noteworthy that there are fewer base stealers at this level.

At the next level, there are a few more steals available. 20 players have between 10 – 15 steals, as compared to 13 with 10 – 15 saves. In this tier, the closer is more rare, and therefore more valuable than the base stealer.   

The biggest break is the next level, 5 – 9 saves or steals. There are 56 players who have stolen between 5 and 9 stolen bases, and only 16 pitchers with between 5 and 9 saves. At this point, the comparative value of saves becomes very apparent, and one of the closers with 9 saves would be much more valuable than a base stealer with 9 steals.

The last argument against the Berti vs. Hader comparison is roster size.  Let’s assume your target is the 80th percentile from last year’s TGFBI (stats posted by @batflipcrazy every year).  That means you want 116 stolen bases and 73 saves.  On your roster, you likely have four slots reserved for relievers, so you’d need to average just over 18 saves per slot to achieve that goal. Likewise, if you have 13 hitters you need to average 9 steals per player to make 116. Currently, about 80 hitters are on pace to have 10 or more stolen bases, and 23 pitchers are on pace to have 20 or more saves. It’s clear that it’s going to be easier to meet your stolen base goals with the contributions you get from all your hitters than it will be to meet your saves goal with 4 relievers unless you have one or two of the top relievers.

So does one Jon Berti equal one Josh Hader? In short, no, but I will still say that in most of our leagues, the base stealer who “only” brings speed is still undervalued. Let’s say Berti is more akin to Jorge Lopez – solid, reliable production when opportunity is there. As you build your roster and draft power hitters who won’t steal a lot of bases, a Berti type of player will keep you competitive in that category. As you enter drafts or are watching the waiver wire and trade blocks in dynasty leagues, don’t overlook the Berti’s, Straw’s, Mateo’s,and Eli White’s. You’ll need to make up their batting averages somewhere else in your lineup, but for what you’ll have to pay for them in draft capital or trade value, my guess is that you’re getting more value than you’ll be giving up. 

In my opinion,  it is somewhat easier to identify these potential one-dimension speed demons than it is to identify potential closers based on minor league statistics. Currently, there are 35 minor league players who have 20 or more stolen bases, fewer than 10 home runs, and an on-base percentage over .333.  These are the future Jon Berti’s: players who hit well enough to get on base, won’t provide power but can contribute to your stolen base totals. Jordan Lawlar, Ji-hwan Bae, and Masyn Winn are familiar names on this list, but the others are less likely to be on your radar yet. Don’t treat minor league stolen base numbers as straight one-to-one projections of major league steals since there are more steals in the minors for a number of reasons, but I think it’s safe to predict that these players will continue to steal at a higher than average rate as they progress through their systems. When the power/speed combo players are gone, these players can serve a useful purpose on your roster.

Here are a few players who are likely to be available in most of your leagues and are worth keeping an eye on in deeper leagues:

Caleb Durbin, ATL, A: 27 SB/3 CS, a .353 OBP and 41BB/33K, and the only player on the list with more walks than strikeouts;

Maikel Garcia KC, AA: 27 SB/ 3 CS, and a .364 OBP.

Alejandro Osuna Tex, A: 29 SB/14 CS and a .399 OBP.  If he doesn’t cut down on CS, he may get the red light, I’ll be keeping an eye on him but not rostering him yet;

Braiden Ward, COL, A+: 38 SB/3 CS, a.349 OBP, and lowest average plate appearances per SB (6.4). I’ll be rostering him before this gets posted anywhere.

Here’s the full list, ordered by Walks – Strikeouts (BB-SO):